ICA Offsite: Digbeth, Birmingham

The ICA, in association with Selfridges, presents ICA Offsite: Digbeth, Birmingham. The off-site programme coincides with Selfridges’ Live + Loud Festival and is the ICA’s first project in the city.

ICA Offsite: Digbeth, Birmingham, aims to reference recent trends in contemporary urban sub-cultures and features a temporary exhibition and music programme that draw on Birmingham’s mix of industrial and post-war brutalist architecture, celebrating the city of Birmingham as a centre for creativity and a source of inspiration. Participants include Fergadelic, Tyrone Lebon, Ben Sansbury, Tim & Barry / Just Jam and Ashley Williams.

ICA Offsite: Digbeth, Birmingham will be located in a disused industrial space on Floodgate Street, and will feature commissions by artists Fergadelic and Ben Sansbury. They will directly reflect on Birmingham’s rich music heritage and architecture to inspire their illustrations and physical interventions within the building and the project in its entirety. Photographer and filmmaker Tyrone Lebon will present a new work on slide projectors featuring photographs of local people from Birmingham interspersed with photographs of both his own family as well as the family of late 90’s fashion designer Christopher Nemeth who live in the city.

Contemporary fashion designer Ashley Williams will present a site-specific installation featuring a unique print from her forthcoming AW16 collection that will be applied to a series of fabrics draped around the walls of the space. Situated within the space will be a collection of related objects that will be accompanied by a new video work made in collaboration with Lev Tanju.

On Friday night film and photography duo Tim & Barry, of celebrated online TV channel Don’t Watch That will present a video programme of rare and unseen archived footage of past Just Jam broadcasts alongside the full-length footwork documentary, I’m Tryna Tell Ya. The film presents an oral history of the ground-breaking Chicago based dance and music genre, delivered by its pioneers and brightest stars. Tom of England will head-line the opening live music event with support from Tim & Barry and their signature psychedelic visuals.

On the Saturday night Just Jam will present and broadcast a programme of live performances by Midlands and UK based contemporary electronic musicians including Barely Legal, Crack Stevens, Scratcher and Tsunga. To accompany the exhibition and events programme Voodoo Rays will provide New York style pizzas and drinks inspired by local Birmingham flavours.