So one or two bits & bobs this week, mostly relating to the October Laboratory.  Partly, in fact, to agree that it will be called a 'Lab' (LabOne, in fact) after much deliberation on this.  On Wednesday, in a discussion over budgets and exactly what would be exhibited at the lab, Julia mentioned the need for something interactive.  Quite often at galleries/exhibitions etc. people do a post-it-note exercise, where they share their thoughts/feelings/reflections about what they've experienced.  This got me thinking about ways we could do this.  One nice thing to do would be to take the contemporary map of the area which we're going to produce and give people different coloured pushpins and luggage labels.  You write your feelings about a location in the area on a luggage label and tie it to a pushpin (green for an area/building you like, red for one you don't like etc.) to mark the spot on the map.  I spent part of yesterday morning doing an electronic version of this for the website, which is basically a Google Map you can edit.  So anyone can drop a virtual pushpin onto a location and post text, pictures or even video about that area.

Yesterday I was at MADE again, but this time for a meeting with Jonathan Banks, the chief exec of Ixia, which describes itself as a 'public art think tank'.  Jonathan has some really strong views about the role of public art in urban regeneration, lamenting that it is too often an afterthought in the development process - a lazy, bolt-on, tick-box exercise.  We had a really interesting discussion about what the artists' commissions should be if we get the Arts Council money to fund LabOne.  He was very keen on the idea of setting up an interdisciplinary panel, with three or four artists at its heart, that could get together to produce something like an alternative version of the Supplementary Planning Document which will eventually be produced for the Lower Eastside Area.  This is particularly relevant given that the Big Plan for the city is currently being finalised and will likely draw the city centre boundary at the River Rea, thus encompassing a large area of Lower Eastside.

Incidentally I should mention that Richard Clay, one of my colleagues over in the History of Art department, has just pulled in a big grant to work with archivists and curators in the city on the development of Birmingham's suburbs.  I'm going to sit on the steering group for this, in exchange for Richard sitting on the evaluation panel for the Lab.  This is going to be a really exciting project and hopefully will give me a window into good practice for closer collaboration with the museums and arts sector.