Digbeth Art Space: #artforhunger

Over the last 18 months, we have been developing Digbeth Art Space in the Zellig Building, Custard Factory, bringing Digbeth a quirky and collective art shop and market as well as a diverse gallery supporting local artists! We have grown a community of over 200 artists and brought Digbeth over 15 art exhibitions. Digbeth Art Space has one mission, to provide accessible art that welcomes all communities to enjoy and engage with.

Having closed in March and postponed 5 exhibitions due to COVID-19, we have taken the past 4 weeks in lockdown to reflect on how we bring life back to the walls of our gallery. We have realised that we are not just a gallery, shop and market; we have grown into a community hub where people can pop in, mooch, chat, share creative ideas and practice. It's simple, we are missing the everyday face to face exchanges with our community.

We have a number of homeless people in our community that come in, chat and respectfully access Digbeth Art Space and it's been heartbreaking to close the doors and lock the gallery down over the past couple of months. This time of reflection has allowed us to step back and look at things that are really important to us and after much reflection, we have decided to launch a new project #artforhunger. After witnessing empty shelves in packed supermarkets and seeing the increasing need for local food banks, it is clear that access to food is unequal.

We feel that the time is right to reach out to our community and beyond, to show support for the amazing things being achieved by Co-operation Birmingham Mutual Aid Kitchen.. We want to support Cooperation Birmingham Mutual Aid Kitchen who are now running a Solidarity Kitchen, a food support service which takes food directly to people. This will make more people able to self-isolate without the worry of lack of food or provisions.

Our first exhibition post lockdown will be #artforhunger at Digbeth Art Space which will portray the ongoing need for a society where food is equal. Inspired by the iconic Andy Warhol Campbell Soup, we want to see your lockdown food tin art, which will create our first exhibition of the year #artforhunger. It is super simple to get involved, download the food tin template and design a cover for the food tin. This can represent your time during lockdown or anything that might get your taste buds tingling. We would love to see a mixture of different styles of art from digital to printed and painted, hand drawn or anything creative. You don’t have to feel that you are an artist to get involved!

So we can help make a difference, on submission of your food tin we ask that you kindly donate to our JustGiving page to help us raise funds for Cooperation Birmingham Mutual Aid Kitchen.

For details of how you can get involved in #artforhunger and submit your masterpiece, please check out our Digbeth Art Space Project Page. We look forward to receiving your masterpiece! Stay safe everyone and see you soon!