Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange wished to do something special for the Coventry City Of Culture year. We formed partnerships with Coventry Association for International Friendship, the German Circle, Photo Miners and Twin Studio Projects with Dresden City Council, German British Association in Dresden, ‘galerie drei’, Eclectic Theatre Dresden and many other individuals and organisations, to deliver this Festival. Enabling events on art, film, photography, architecture, theatre, music, spoken word and lectures/forums with live video connections with Dresden.
LTB Showrooms (a pop up community cultural venue above the Litten Tree Pub) was the venue for the Coventry Dresden Friendship Festival during which we had our 9th collaborative exhibition ‘Small Works’ with 14 artists from Coventry and Dresden, with Alex Müller representing the Dresden artists.
The Friendship Festival and Small Works exhibition coincided with Coventry Peace Festival and City of Culture International month, so we were able to engage new audiences many of whom rarely go to exhibitions or art galleries but came to our exhibition, engaging in discussion motivated by an interest in Peace and Reconciliation, international friendship, Europe, Dresden and twinning.
Covid still created difficulties and some Dresden bands and theatre groups could not travel to Coventry, however through live links and video performances we more than made up for this short coming.
Lead Dresden artist Kerstin Franke-Gneuss is a founder member of the women’s group “Dresdner Sezession 89”. Dresden ‘galerie drei’ an all female gallery created out of “Dresdner Sezession 89” had an exhibition ‘Female Artists in Dresden’ during the Friendship Festival and selected Coventry artist Natalie Seymour to exhibit with them in Dresden. There was a live link at LTB to ‘galerie drei’ during the festival.
The Dresden band ‘Bands Comunale’ did come to the festival also performing at Sidney Stringer Academy and working with the students. The band is a collective with musicians from Syria, Palestine, Iran and Iraq with a repertoire including music from crisis regions in North Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.
André Uhlig born in Dresden now liveing in Radebeul was Coventry Dresden Arts Exchange’s residence from Dresden, working at the Meter Rooms studios. Essentially a printmaker Andrè has been drawing and investigating the back streets of Coventry during his months residency. He was able to exhibit in the Small Works exhibition.
Andrè plays the guitar and he is a big Beatles enthusiast with a massive vinyl record collection of British 1960s music. He enjoyed his visit to the Coventry Music Museum.
