We are happy to announce that we now can make available our premium bamboo iPhone cases (produced for us by Portsmouth based company Etch) with our Strong Island x Portsmouth FC design. The cases are handcrafted and felt lined bamboo and a step above the rest. With pin point precision laser etching and a high quality finish that is sure to impress they are more than just a hard wearing protective case. Available in natural and charred bamboo they are light, strong, very tough and no two cases will ever be the same due to the grain of the bamboo meaning each case is unique and has it’s own sense of individuality.
The detail on the design is incredible if we do say so ourselves, check the seams on the ball and the FA cup winning dates in the photos to see for yourself.
This special collaboration design is with Portsmouth FC and the Pompey Supporters Trust and thanks to Etch we can make £5 from each case sold a donation to the club.
You can order either the natural or the charred/black cases, for iPhone 4 or 5s for £45 each including p&p from our store:
Southsea Fest’s second stage announcement dropped on Friday (sorry we’re late, we were away) and it is for the Southsea Fest & Idle Hands Club stage at The Kings Theatre. This year’s line up is as amazing as always with the Kings set to be a very popular spot for the day with the following:
Veronica Falls
Foy Vance
Marika Hackman
MMX
Sons and Lovers
Kimberly Anne
Joe Black
The Retrospective Soundtrack Players
Going to be GOOD, Veronica Falls are particularly awesome. You can get tickets HERE and we’ll be keeping track with all the other stage announcements in the coming days and weeks…
Strong Island Media and Jack Daly recently filmed a behind the scenes film for Duncan Hamilton (specialises in classic cars) shot at Goodwood capturing Portsmouth photographer Matt Sills hard at work with some incredible classic sports cars. The film has been used as part of the Duncan Hamilton website redesign launch with the photography from the shoot.
Check Matt Sills’ website to see the photos from the day:
Next from our favourite artists and photographers from this year’s University of Portsmouth Summer Show (read our full review of the show HERE) is illustrator Ben Saunders.
Ben’s key work is ‘Go Explore’ which is a series of posters and a guide book that promotes the Forestry Commission England to young people. All work was produced on FSC paper. Loving both the posters and the book with the clean lines, striking iconography, photographic textures and the attention to detail. Would buy some of these if they were for sale.
To see more of Ben Saunders’ work, including some of his cool Southsea pieces, visit:
As a pre-event to a brand new international film festival in Portsmouth planned for September this year and as part of Portsmouth Festivities, New Wave with Directors Q&A on Friday 28th June is a special film event at the Kings Theatre dedicated to showcasing some of the most exciting new filmmaking talent around. New shorts to be screened, including the horror/comedy The Marrowing and the documentary Losing Sight of the Glory – nominated for the Royal Television Society’s (RTS) Student Television Awards.
Kate O’Driscoll, Artistic Director of Making Waves Film Festival said,” This will be a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in film to find out where new filmmakers are getting their inspiration and who their influences are”.
The shorts to be featured during New Wave also include The Honey Pot, a short animation, drama “Dancing in the Ashes” and the News Guide short film winner, A Hero’s Journey. The screenings will be followed by a short Q&A with some of the directors.
The New Wave event will be hosted by filmmaker John Rogers. His own film “Make Your Own Damn Art: The World of Bob and Roberta Smith” (2012) was one of Sight and Sound magazine’s ‘Films of 2012’. His first feature documentary, The London Perambulator, premiered at the East End Film Festival in 2009 with a sold-out screening at the Whitechapel Gallery.
New Wave tickets start at £1.50 and are available from the box office at the Kings Theatre. For more information visit www.kings-southsea.com or call 023 92828282.
Photographer Simon Rutter hung out all day on Saturday documenting Head Jam with his camera. Have a look below for a small selection of photos and visit our Facebook page to see loads more from the day:
Over the next couple of weeks we will be highlighting some of our favourite artists and photographers from this year’s University of Portsmouth Summer Show (read our full review of the show HERE), starting with photographer Elaine de Vries.
Elaine is a final year graduate and part of her work was a striking, colourful triptych entitled 7591 Miles. These abstract images depict a dreamlike, flashback of memory of woodland and childhood, a clash of movement, colour and nature. In the photographer’s own words:
“This project is about Abstract Expressionism – using abstract art to portray an emotion. It looks at movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion, which relates to aspects of my life”.
The Creating Balance project (a project partnership of Anglepoise, Strong Island and the University of Portsmouth) is progressing well with with only a couple of the artist/photographer partnerships left to complete. The London exhibition, which is part of the London Design Festival, plus the Portsmouth exhibition planning in full flow too.
Recently My Dog Sighs worked on his Anglepoise lamp in a particularly unique way by using it as his palette. The lamp built up layers and layers of different coloured paint and became a tool in his particular artistic process and as a result works almost as a reflected piece of art, related in a small way to many of his recently painted pieces.
To keep updated with progress on the project, watch the films and to also see photos from behind the scenes of the filming of artist/photographer partnerships visit:
Saturday saw the Strong Island and My Dog Sighs Head Jam street art event at Head Hairdressing at 53 Albert Road. Rick at Head has a courtyard out back (next to the Strong Island headquarters too) and asked Strong Island and My Dog Sighs to organise a mural painting session to paint the white walls. My Dog Sighs curated the event and hand chose a variety of street art talent from all over the UK including: Wah Graff, Id-iom, Korporate Kaine, Process Smith and of course My Dog Sighs.
The event went on from 10am through to about 7-30pm with loads of people coming through, checking out the art and hanging out. Rick, My Dog Sighs and ourselves at Strong Island want to say a huge thank you to the artists and everyone who visited making the day a huge success. Below are some photos from Matt Maber and a short film too. Check out Instagram and Twitter too with the hashtag #HeadJam.
Head Jam happens at Head/Strong Island HQ in Albert Road tomorrow from 11 to 7ish and for the duration of the day Strong Island Clothing Co are having a pick up sale where all tees are £15 when bought in person.
We are stoked, as always, to be working once again with local artist My Dog Sighs on what is set to be one of the largest mural paintings in the city.
Rick from Head Hairdressing on Albert Road conceived the idea of having the courtyard to the rear of the local barbers transformed in to a permanent giant art piece. From precision multilayered stencils, through bubble gum cutsie to surreal illustrative mayhem, My Dog Sighs has hand picked his favourite artists from across the country to produce the ultimate street art dreamscape courtyard.
Head Jam will run all day so feel free to pop along, take a look, have a chat, hang out, meet the artists and enjoy the atmosphere. There will be music on all day, a BBQ turning over in the background if you want to stick a burger on (not supplied), and please feel free to bring along a beer too. Everyone is welcome, so bring the kids so they can see some of the countries finest street artists working together in this unique environment.
This year we have changed the way we are compiling our 2014 calendar. Instead we are inviting entries of all themes all year round.
We will dedicate at least two of the months for images taken on Instagram. If you’ve taken a photo that you’d like to submit for consideration you just need add the hashtag #SIC2014.
We will still primarily be accepting submissions via email calendar@strong-island.co.uk.
This year the calendars will be available from mid November from the Strong Island online store and Southsea Gallery. I’d also ask that you keep 14th November free from 7pm, we’ll announce why in late July.
This year we will again be supporting the Alzheimer’s Society as well as another local charity which we will be announcing very very soon!
Strong Island & Strong Island Recordings are very proud to present our 2nd year at one of the premier new music festivals, Southsea Fest and we are also very proud to be the first stage announcing this year too. We follow up from last year’s ‘Drunken Sailor’ event where queues of one in one out were formed within the opening 15 minutes of the stage starting and where our infamous stage was known for sweat dripping from the walls and ceiling while rabid mosh pits brewed…all in the early afternoon.
This year we have upgraded venues to just across the road with the upstairs of the Southsea Social Club where we have a few new ideas planned for the day while ensuring the same chaos and vibe from our label parties resume. To celebrate what will be Strong Island Recordings’ 1st birthday we like to think we have pushed the boat out this year with a heavy line up ranging from grunge, surf punk, noise pop to space math rock.
So we are really stoked to present the following who will be playing our 1st drunken, messy birthday bash:
Arrows of Love
The Black Tambourines
Slowcoaches
The Physics House Band
PLaylounge
Yoofs
Tyrannosaurus Dead
Battery Hens
Cycle Schmeichel
Ricky Fitts
Perch
You’re All Smiling But We’ll All Turn Into Demons
A Spotify playlist of some of the acts can be listened to HERE.
We are stoked, as always, to be working once again with local artist My Dog Sighs on what is set to be one of the largest mural paintings in the city.
Rick from Head Hairdressing on Albert Road conceived the idea of having the courtyard to the rear of the local barbers transformed in to a permanent giant art piece. From precision multilayered stencils, through bubble gum cutsie to surreal illustrative mayhem, My Dog Sighs has hand picked his favourite artists from across the country to produce the ultimate street art dreamscape courtyard.
Head Jam will run all day so feel free to pop along, take a look, have a chat, hang out, meet the artists and enjoy the atmosphere. There will be music on all day, a BBQ turning over in the background if you want to stick a burger on (not supplied), and please feel free to bring along a beer too. Everyone is welcome, so bring the kids so they can see some of the countries finest street artists working together in this unique environment.
As you are probably well aware from reading the news recently, the Portsmouth Supporters Trust succeeded in their bid to take control of Portsmouth FC making it the biggest community owned club in the UK. It is a long and hard fought victory by the fans that have endured years of bad fortune, bad news and bad performances and a couple of the SI crew have seen most of them! PST’s aim is to bring about responsible, democratic representation at Portsmouth Football Club and so help promote the highest standards of transparent governance, accountability and embed Portsmouth FC deeper into its community through greater communication and co-operation with its fans.
We contacted the PST back in November last year to put forward our idea of doing a Strong Island PFC edition T-shirt to raise money towards buying a share in the club. The PST warmly welcomed the idea and we are pleased to say we are now putting our plan into action.
Strong Island is keen to get behind the trust as are many others. We’re going to pledge £5 of every limited edition SI X PFC tee sold towards Strong Island buying a share of the football club, therefore financially helping PFC in it’s aim to become stable again and continue to be a hugely important aspect of the city.
The design itself is a re-imagining of the common elements from the iconic Portsmouth FC logo from the 1980s and the Strong Island logo, with two swords in place, each dated with the club’s FA Cup wins. The Strong Island Clothing Co. items are normally hand screened in East London but for this particular tee they are produced literally just down the road from Fratton Park and will be at a special price of £15 (plus P&P).
No matter if you are passionate about football or not, we hope this tee is a way of showing support for a club that is now a beacon to the rest of the country for a city and a community that strives to work together for the better.
To pre-order the t-shirt click on the link below. Tees will be back from the printers soon and we hope to have orders in the post by the end of the month, if not sooner.
We are very proud to announce The Creating Balance Project, a new, collaborative project between Anglepoise, Strong Island & the University of Portsmouth to celebrate a design classic and local creativity in Portsmouth. The project aims to showcase the working studios and disciplines of artists and designers across the island and connect them to local photographers to capture, document and collaborate.
Anglepoise lamps have been given to each of the 10 participating artists/designers and the 10 photographers involved have used the lamps to light the photographs, give a sense of place and document the artist, where they work & how they create. During the collaboration sessions University of Portsmouth BSc TV and Broadcast students Massimo Marzullo and Jonas Jakunas have been documenting the project, producing short films for each collaboration.
Later this summer key images from each photographer will be printed and displayed with the films, lamps, photos and more in an exhibition in Portsmouth and one in London (TBA).
The collaborations are:
Andrew Whyte & Peter Clutterbuck
Matt Sills & Lorna Apps-Woodland
Paul Gonella & Tristan Savage
Russell Squires & Farkfk
Josh Knill & I Love Dust
Thor Haley & William Pounds
Rob Luckins & Roo + Barry Abrook
Cotton Candy & Neal Layton + Sadie Tierney
Matt Saxey & Deer Park Alpha
My Dog Sighs & Jack Daly
The project is progressing over the next couple of months and already two films are finished and many collaborations complete. Below are the completed collaboration films and we will be posting updates on The Creating Balance Project regularly here on Strong Island. To keep up to date with the project also please check the Creating Balance website where you can see loads of photos from behind the scenes of the collaborations.
It’s been a while (apologies) but the Strong Island Clothing Co. spring 2013 capsule drop is now available and online in the Strong Island Shop Ahoy store! The drop includes some brand new Branded tee colourways, a new grey crew (highest quality, carefully selected and sourced) and a collection of accessories including new beanies, our seriously high quality Branded iPhone cases (4 & 5) from Etch and our hand crafted, leather coin pouch collaboration with Raw & Auburn.
To kick this capsule drop off right we visited the home of Portsmouth’s Eberhardt signwriters and neon sign specialists. Eberhardt are a true creative business gem of the city with a very long history and still produce hand crafted, carefully designed neon signs, a rare and special craft these days. Check the photos below and the behind the scenes edit too to see more. Photography principally by Jack Daly.
Follow Us