I’ve known Andy for 10 years now, we met at Art College and have been good friends ever since; an illustrator and script writer, he has always been brilliantly creative and to his credit, very very modest. Over the last two years that he has flourished creatively and is making a big impression in the small press scene with a strong portfolio of work for the likes of NARC and Dodgem Logic. He is also a member of Paper Jam Comics Collective who have created a special ‘Art’ edition of their ‘…and that’ antholo.

As many of you may know from past blog posts we’ve been looking for some help for a little while. The search was initially only for one role; a company administrator. However, after a series of eclectic interviews, where we met a whole bunch of interesting individuals, we decided to bring in not one but three people to help Empty Shop. The new faces are Faye Mulligan, Jonny Atkinson and Linda Mutunga. Faye Faye Mulligan is going to be doing our general admin. She will offer vital support making sure everything runs like clockwork. Faye wi.

Ok this is going to be a long one so for those of you who can’t be bothered to read the breakdown here it is in a nutshell – Friday 23rd July Massive night of art Set over two venues 4 exhibitions Paper Jam comic book launch Salford Zine Library in the North East for the fist time Poetry & performance Loads of fun Times Durham Art Gallery: 6pm – 8pm – then onto Empty Shop HQ: 8:30pm – 10:30pm ***We will gather at Empty Shop HQ at 5:45 to lead people up to the Durham Art Gallery, so join us there first and w.

Have you recently thought this?… “I wish there was a sizzling cast of contemporary, pioneering musical and digital motion graphic artists to evoke, provoke and delight in Durham very soon” …well if you have then your in luck! This July ex-FreeBird Ste Walker is bringing exactly that with aBrassive, part of the Brass Festival that is currently going down in Durham. It should be dead good and that – we are going so see you there. What? aBrassive When? Sat 17th July | 7pm – 11pm Where? Durham Live (formerly Wal.

Empty Shop is filled simultaneously with sadness and joy in announcing the availability of a studio space in our fabulous FreeBird towers, Empty Shop HQ. Steven Walker aka 50ftfootlonghorse is flying the nest due to a change in circumstances and direction. We’d like to thank Ste for his contribution to Empty Shop in the last year, starting with Shock of the Used he’s consistently supported both the organisation and us as friends. We wish Steven great luck all future endeavours and look forward to developing collaborati.

We have installed a plugin to make our website work as a mobile site when accessed through a mobile device. It’s apparently touch optomised too soo should work nicely on iphones and other touch phones,  I’ve tested on a few phones but would be keen to hear if it works ok on yours and if you encounter any problems. Feel free to let us know either way by leaving a comment here, preferably using your mobile so we can see if mobile comments work too. The next stage is making the site back compatible with the ancient Internet Explorer .

Something exciting is brewing y’all; FreeBird Ged Robinson is kick starting his new project Kymeera: Cultural Remixes in less than two weeks at the Star & Shadow in Newcastle. Kymeera:Cultural Remixes is a newly established organisation that aims primarily to curate unorthodox events and collaborations which fuse live music, performance, visual art and literature. This first outing sees Ged collaborate with Andrew Cleaver – awesome stuff. The official breakdown is this: An eclectic night featuring visual art and performances .

Hello! Just a quick post to elaborate on the earlier mention of live art performance this Friday, which will happen as part of the after show event for Hannah Marsden’s new exhibition preview. The event will take place as a private after show party at Empty Shop HQ (to find out more please email us) and details are as follows… RICH FISHER (FISHING ALL THE TIME) & HIS SPLENDIFIDUS TRUFFLE BAND (an art performance) a collective, a collaboration, a band of artists unwearyingly fusing improvisation, music, the written word, the spok.

This Friday at The DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery sees the opening of a new exhibition by friend of Empty Shop Hannah Marsden. She has been using The Workspace at Empty Shop HQ in the build up to the show to try out ideas and have a City centre base. It’s been great having her around and watching her do her thing. We’ll be heading up to the DLI this Friday to check out the work so come and join us – there will also be an after show event at Empty Shop HQ to keep the art based japes going featuring some more work by Hannah,.

Empty Shop is seeking voluntary administrative support for our Durham City based headquarters. Likely to be around one day’s work a week duties would include handling exhibition submissions, liaising with artists and partner organisations, basic website maintenance (training provided) and a variety of other day to day tasks. Knowing your way around MS Office would be preferable. Being friendly and flexible is a must. Would suit a graduate or artist looking to get into arts admin. All enquiries to thefolks@emptyshop.org You can keep.