100 disposable cameras, 100 people, 1 exhibition

Culture Flash was the idea of Rich McEachran, who after graduating in Theology last summer, was empowered to change the social attitude towards young people, through the power of art. He believed that through forming a collective of young people, who share in common a passion to be creative and to express themselves, it was possible to achieve the goal of social enlightenment, that fought back against the mass media and negative stereotypes, that constantly cloud the public’s perceptions.

He applied for funding with the idea not yet formulated properly, in a competition run by a social enterprise, UnLtd, in late 2009. He ending up being on the shortlist of 31, from an initial 150 or so entries, and then went on to be one of the 15 winners in the public vote, being granted £3000.

The project itself wants to get as many young people involved as possible, through a variety of ways, and the team is currently growing and growing. It sets no restrictions and so is open to new ideas you may have and want to share with them. It does not charge you to get involved, and the idea is to take the project to the young people, rather than sitting around waiting for the young people to come to it.

Starting from early February we will be handing out 100 disposable cameras to 100 young people, and then exhibiting the results. The idea is to focus on an element of your life that is individual, or important, to you. So if you’re 16-25 and want to get your hands on one of the cameras, (or have some photos to submit for our online gallery), then drop us an email at info@thecultureflashgallery.com, and whilst you’re at it visit the website www.thecultureflashgallery.com

Cheers, Rich

This project is funded by the Big Challenge. The Big Challenge, a competition for young people who want to change the world, is a partnership between UnLtd and Changemakers, and is funded by Vodafone and v-inspired.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage