Join us for the opening of the exhibition “Birmingham Media Archive Project: The First Decade 1982-1992” at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s Pixel Studio, exploring Birmingham’s rich media heritage through the legacy of organisations TURC Video , Wide Angle, Weave and the Midlands Video Consortium and the Birmingham Centre for Media Arts. 

Centring on the provocation “Who are we?”, the event will consist of a series of immersive live interventions by musician, artist and researcher Gary Stewart, interspersed with presentations and conversations with creative practitioners who since December have been researching with the archive and developing new approaches to screen heritage over the winter and spring months.

Throughout the afternoon, Stewart will lead a series of short activations beginning at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and concluding at 4pm. These short performances will transform the Pixel Studio into a live open studio and will remix the core installation using a blend of obsolete media and modern audiovisual montage techniques, creating a dialogue between past (the archive) and the present day. 

The programme extends into BMAG’s Engagement Studio, where members of the BMAP professional development programme will be showcasing their own research and creative outputs. These practitioners will present diverse responses to the media archive, offering the public a firsthand look at how historical records can be engaged through contemporary art. Visitors are encouraged to drop in, view the works in progress, and engage in conversation with the artists about their creative process and the evolving landscape of the city.