One Day Comic & Feature: Architecture

Works by Henrik Schrat (with guests) & Shezad Dawood form an installation at ESP that feels very different from the opening exhibition there.  It may be a happy accident that the artists were scheduled together, but the works complement each other well.  Although many dismiss comics and cowboy films as sidelined genres, here they are stretched and mutated into exciting new forms.

For One Day Comic, Schrat worked with others (including myself) to create each comic in just a day.  It was daunting, and seemed impossible at first, but with plenty of coffee and Henrik's enthusiasm, somehow it all came together.  The final results might not make much sense, but it is the process that's fascinating - it showed you how much you could achieve when you put your mind to it and when you had a tight deadline.

In Feature: Architecture, Dawood has made a film with participants including a Christian historical re-enactment society, Gay Leather bartenders, opera singers and an avant-garde art band (The Lonesome Cowboys from Hell) - I'm not sure I followed what was going on but there was something to do with a massive bar fight, a cross between Billy the Kid and Krishna, and zombie flesh-eaters. My kind of night out.

There's also some extracts from the comics on Henrik Schrat's website

----

Feature: Architecture by Shezad Dawood
&
One-Day-Comic by Henrik Schrat
With special guests a.a.s, Access Local, Asia Alfasi, Simon & Tom Bloor, Celine Condorelli, Hans Christian Dany, Shezad Dawood, Stefan Heidenreich, Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry, Plastique Fantastique, Olav Westphalen

open 6 December 2008 to 31 January 2009, Thursday - Saturday 12-5pm 

Eastside Projects
86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR, UK
eastsideprojects.org