Giving vital opportunities to artists within the CV postcode, Shoot Festival returns this year with a mix of commissioned pieces and showcases of the best of Coventry’s arts scene. The festival’s ‘In Bloom’ strand features artists from past editions of Shoot Festival who have been commissioned to create new work across a range of disciplines including performance, sound and visual art.
As well as this, there will be a programme introducing local artists to celebrate the richly diverse arts scene of Coventry City of Culture. Shoot Festival has also awarded placements to local young producers who will work across the festival in a variety of roles.
The Performance: In Bloom strand of the festival will feature Gamble by Hannah Walker and Rosa Postlethwaite, an urgent multimedia theatre/live art show about online gambling addiction, as well as Protests, Hymns and Caskets by lanaire aderemi, which recounts the Nigerian feminist movement’s successful overthrow of colonial taxation in 1947 and its important, fearless legacy.
This strand is presented in partnership with China Plate’s Bite Size Festival, Warwick Arts Centre and Belgrade Theatre Coventry. The Sound: In Bloom strand which is presented in partnership with The Tin Music & Arts highlights Koyesax, a local saxophonist who is releasing a new EP inspired by Afrobeats and Jazz fusion, folk music duo Rosso who have recently supported The Libertines in Coventry, and Mahendra Patel, who works to rewrite classic Bollywood pieces using hand drums from across the world, with his band Elephant in the Room, who have been assembled especially for Shoot Festival 2022.
Michael Snodgrass (AKA Snod) is the first artist to be announced in the Visual Art strand, presented in partnership with Coventry Artspace with his new exhibition Moments of Broken Promises, utilising line and texture to explore isolation and vulnerability. As well as supporting emerging artists, Shoot Festival has given seven opportunities to local emerging producers, who will each work with the senior team to produce a specific strand of the festival.
These roles have been funded by Coventry City of Culture Trust, and cover Access and Inclusion, Outdoor Arts and Activities, the Performance: In Bloom strand, the Sound: In Bloom strand, the Visual Arts strand, the Sound Stage and the Performance Programme. As well as this, the seven producers will be placed on China Plate’s renowned ‘The Optimists’ training course, which offers insight into making, funding, touring and promoting work. The producers all have a connection to Coventry and Warwickshire (with the majority hailing from Coventry), and Shoot Festival’s training programme’s intention is to offer a pathway for local early career producers to train on the job whilst developing their own ideas which will in turn benefit the cultural capacity of the area long after the festival has taken place.
Paul O’Donnell, Coventry artist and Co-Founder & Artistic Director of the Festival said: “We are very excited to be supporting these six new commissioned artworks and seven up and coming producers as part of Shoot Festival 2022. It is an example of the exceptional ideas that are bursting out of Coventry and Warwickshire, and the creative potential that this region has in abundance”.
Shoot Festival seeks to give opportunities to emerging artists exclusively from the Coventry area, in three separate disciplines: music, performance and visual arts. Since 2014, the Shoot Festival team have sought to champion artists from the CV postcode in order to provide opportunities and develop a pipeline of talent in a wide range of artistic disciplines, in the form of free and commissioned opportunities.
The festival has received national recognition, through partnerships with Sky Arts and through their work to prioritise accessibility both in their artistic programme and production teams.
