Charnwood Arts's Big Knitting Group invites you to contribute to Every Pocket Tells A Story a new exhibition at Loughborough's Charnwood Museum, which will explore the history and the future of the pocket. The pocket has always been a personal and a private place to store precious items. It is the subject of nursery rhymes and common expressions. Traditionally pockets were tied to clothing and made from linen or- if you were wealthy - silk. They hid precious things and personal items and were the targets of pickpockets. Today pockets are usually integral to clothing. What do you keep in your pocket? Gentlemen, does your loose change slip out of your trouser pocket and down the side of the sofa? We carry around phones, i-pods and other precious personal items but what do the Pockets look like that contain these modern day items? We invite you to make your own pockets and send them to us to be included in the exhibition. Your pockets should be inventive, humorous and individual and must include a piece of writing inside. This story will be reproduced as the label for your pocket. Please note that the pocket should not include any other contents. Pockets must be no larger than A6 size (150mm x 105mm), although we will allow you some leeway with this if, for example, your pocket has detail attached to it. Please be inventive and use recycled or reused materials where possible. We encourage you to knit, stitch or use felt for your Pockets but any medium is welcomed. All Pockets we receive will be displayed in the exhibition alongside their Stories. The exhibition will also contain interactive displays in which the public will be able to divulge the contents of their Pockets, together with items from Leicestershire County Council museums artefacts collection. Displays are also being developed around references to Pockets found in nursery rhymes and traditional expressions and slang. If you have any stories or other material to contribute to this part of the exhibition we will also be glad to hear from you. Please send your Pockets to Jemma Bagley at Charnwood Arts 31 Granby Street Loughborough Leics LE11 3DU by Wednesday 14th April for exhibition in May and June. If you would like more information, please contact Jemma on 01509-821035 or by e-mail to jemmab@charnwood-arts.org.uk We are looking to sell all the pockets during the exhibition to raise money for further Big Knitting Group projects. If you do not want your pocket to be sold, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your entry. Further 'Pocket' inspiration can be found on the Victoria And Albert Museum web-site www.vam.ac.uk

The winners of Vision 09 are now online! This world-wide online photography competition was launched by photography students from Hind Leys Community College in Shepshed in collaboration with Charnwood Arts. The competition was open to anyone, anywhere in the world aged between 16 and 25 years of age. Entries were made in three categories: Urban, Portraits and Photo-Poetry. All the prizewinners are now online. To see them, just click on the link below.

Kala Kahani and Leicester Libraries are delighted to welcome Arvind Mehrotra , the first Indian poet to be nominated for a professorship by Oxford University to Leicester on Thursday 4th March. In his own words he will be 'entertaining us with 2000 years of Indian poetry in 90 minutes! From early Prakrik love poems to Kabir (15th Century) to Arun Kolatkar (1931 - 2004)' As the author of four books including the Absent Traveller (Penguin Classics) he is also an essayist, editor and translator of numerous works. During his visit to the UK he will be speaking at the Goldsmith's (University of London), and the English Faculty of Oxford University on Kabir and Kipling, reading poetry with Tom Paulin, Bernard O'Donoghue and others at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and at the Avril Bruton Creative Writing Prize event, also at St Hugh's. We are pleased to welcome Arvind to the prestigious City Rooms on Hotel Street from 7pm. Places are limited but tickets are free and will need to be booked in advance via email bookdoctor@leicester.gov.uk or by calling 0116 299 5426 For more details please contact Rebecca Abrahams on 01509 821035 or rebecca.abrahams@charnwood-arts-org.uk This event would not be possible without the support of the University of Northampton School of Arts and CCFN (Centre for Contemporary Fiction and Narrative)

Happy World Community Arts day 2010 from everyone at Charnwood Arts.

Three new ARTZONE workshops have just been announced:

An interview with Kajal Patel on BBC Radio Leicester - it is around 45 minutes into the programme and can be accessed until Friday 12th February. Charnwood Arts has supported Kajal's exhibition work from the slums of Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat.

There's only 5 days to go until the Official GB10 Launch Party! Glastonbudget 2010 plans a massive kick off this year; if you want to be part of the celebrations, you need to be there!

In November and December of 2009, the Royal Geographical Society loaned Kala Kahani a stunning travelling exhibition called 'Punjab: Moving Journey's.' the exhibition consists of 21 panels that can be mounted on exhibition boards and reveals the 'Punjab', a region that spans both India and Pakistan. Developed in partnership with the UK Punjab Heritage Association, the Muslim Women's Welfare Association (Ilford), the Cartwright Hall Young Ambassadors (Bradford) and the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, the exhibition links London and Bradford to the borders of India and Pakistan. Through the Society's 19th century photographs, maps and texts the Punjab's history has been rediscovered and retold by community members, focusing on migrations, within and across borders, from the earliest history of the region, through Partition and into the 21st Century. Combining contemporary commentary from British Punjabi's with Victorian photography with accounts from British visitors and colonial administrators, the exhibition uncovers this region's complex history and the challenges facing Punjabi's in 21st century Britain, including how they relate to their British adoptive home and an Indian / Pakistani homeland. We placed the exhibition at three venues across the Midlands, Leicester College (Painter Street Campus) as part of their Inter Faith week where it was in the Atrium main reception and viewed by passing students, it also went to 'Coping with Cancer' and was used to inspire a group of ladies to write about their personal journeys as part of a creative writing workshop based on the Exhibition. And finally it went to the Niskam Centre in Birmingham which receives in excess of 30.000 visitors a week. It was extremely well recieved and we are very grateful to the Royal Geographical Society in loaning it to Kala Kahani.

Come and join Charnwood Arts in our annual Picnic in the Park in Queen's Park, Loughborough - the date is set for our 30th anniversary celebration and the call is now out for artists and entertainers in all art forms interested in performing on Bank Holiday Monday May 31st 2010

Writing Industries Conference 2010 Saturday 6th March 2010, Loughborough University A Literature Network, Writing East Midlands and Loughborough University project.

This selection of black and white images from three series of Sarah's work focuses on woodland but addresses opposite experiences - in the night time and in the daylight - and one series combines geology and photography by offering an in depth and close up view of the rock outcrops of Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, depicting how different and violent our landscape once was. At the Pixel and Grain Gallery, Loughborough Town Hall, until 12th March.

Rebecca Abrahams, our Kala Kahani co-ordinator has been working with Leicester based Atmospheres to create a new film made to celebrate the successes of the Pacesetters Programme for the NHS

Kev Ryan of Charnwood Arts attended the State of the Arts conference in London recently. Over 500 leading artists, entrepreneurs, cultural leaders and policy makers met to discuss the future of the arts in England. Click on the link to share some of the speeches and debate that took place there. What are the two main parties thinking....?

Don't forget the 17th February is World Community Arts Day! Artists and organisations around the world will be celebrating creativity en masse! Join in...sign up.....put some fun and community into the arts!

Charnwood Arts's popular world-wide writing competition - miniWORDS - has come to a close for another year with the announcement of the winner of miniWORDS 2009. There was just one category in this year's competition: miniSTORIES, a narrative in prose or verse in 50 words or fewer. This year's competition has spread wider than any other, attracting almost 1,700 entries from all over the world. The three judges pored over the entries for weeks in a very closely fought contest. But now all the work is behind them and Charnwood Arts is pleased to announce that the winner of miniWORDS 2009 is Elizabeth Harris from Bath. Elizabeth's untitled piece brings her a cash prize of £250, made possible by this year's sponsor, Anstey based print and promotions company, Ask Sue Witts. The three judges also selected second, third, fourth place as well as commended places to writers who entered the ever-popular miniSTORIES category online. Competition manager, Catherine Gillam, said: "This year's competition was more popular than ever and we're thrilled by the continued support we've received from regular entrants as well as new writers". Elizabeth's winning entry: In the 'canned goods' aisle I saw a man with a shark's head. I watched him fill his basket with tinned sardines. Naturally. He sighed, the air whistling through his gills. "Tins ain't the same. Nothing beats 'em fresh." Nodding, I turned my eyes back to the baked beans. You can read all of the winning and commended entries in the world's biggest little writing competition on the miniWORDS website, which can be found at http://miniwords2009.sharedspace.org

We were delighted to welcome the director of 501 Artspace in Chongqing to discuss final arrangements for an exhibition curated by Ming Turner which will tour to China in April 2010

Charnwood Arts invites you to attend the open evening of Vision 09 - an exhibition of photographs from a joint international photography competition organised in partnership with students at Hind Leys Specialist Arts College. The open evening takes place from 5.30 - 8.30pm on 28th January at Hind Leys Specialist Arts College, Shepshed. The exhibition runs from 11th January until 19th February. Click here for more information.

Best Wishes for a great 2010 from everyone at Charnwood Arts! Get ready for a packed year...

This exhibition embodies Lucia's chapters of thought: "If you were able to paint sudden burst of thought and emotion, the images in "Headscapes" are what mine might look like." Many of the images are blurred and layered with multiple textures blended in with the original photograph, hinting at the inspiration of the often dream-like reflective thought processes behind them. "What you are actually seeing when you look at these images, are still clips of the film in my mind." Pixel & Grain Gallery, Loughborough Town Hall until January 29th, 2010.

The new ArtZone programme for Nov 2009 - May 2010 is now available to download.