Art on Our Streets – Writing on the Wall

After being asked by Paul and Tristan to join the Strong Island team and document  the street art and graffiti across the Island, I thought I’d start my first post with a new piece that I spotted on the seafront on New Years day. I like to think it’s an apt piece as I take my first steps as contributor.

The artist is unknown but if I do find out, I promise to teach them the spelling of ‘journey’.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll be posting works from the ever growing community of artists and writers that paint in, on and around the island. If you spot any new work that you feel worthy of sharing on Strong Island please give me a shout!

As the sun sets…

More and more evenings are being spent out and about in Southsea as the Summer gradually shines in our direction. We’ve being making the most of what we get at any opportunity. I know ‘they‘ say it’s going to be an Indian Summer, but don’t they always say that?

Live at the Bandstand starts 31st May

When the Bandstand gets fired up you know it’s the official start of the Summer in Southsea. It’s always nice to pop along on a Sunday after the Carboot sale and relax for a bit.

With a fantastic line up for this summer the place to be on Sundays is the Bandstand. This is still one of the most popular events and enjoyed by all the family. So pack a picnic, blanket, chair and your sun cream and head down to Southsea. Not forgetting those all important dancing shoes for those of you who want to show off your best moves! Every Sunday from 1pm.

For the full line up of events at the Bandstand check visitportsmouth.co.uk

Photo courtesy of local art aficionado My Dog Sighs

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