Asian Arts Agency appoints Bullet PR for PunjabTronix Project

Bullet PR have been appointed by the Asian Arts Agency to work on a campaign for PunjabTronix, a new international collaboration between Mercury nominated British-Indian music producer DJ Swami and traditional Punjabi folk musicians. PunjabTronix will tour the UK this July.

The project has been produced and commissioned by Asian Arts Agency as part of Reimagine India 2017, a cultural exchange programme celebrating the 70^th anniversary of the Independence of India in 2017.

PunjabTronix features an exciting new creative collaboration between technology and tradition, as cutting edge live electronica and digital technologies combine with the traditional sounds of the Punjab.

Mixing live electronic dance music with Punjabi dhol drums, vocals, stringed instruments and the hypnotic sounding double flute algoza, the live show will feature the powerful distinct rhythms and traditional melodies of the Punjab interacting creatively with live electronic drum machines, synthesiser arpeggios and basslines.

Visual projections of original digital animations and cinematic Punjabi imagery, produced by Bristol based filmmaker John Minton, will complete a unique musical and visual event.

 

Watch this video to get a flavour of the upcoming tour.
https://youtu.be/fWvuPZW9j_8

Tour dates can be found here:  www.punjabtronix.co.uk

 

Brighton’s Artists Open Houses Festival

  Bullet PR has been the retained PR agency for the Artists Open Houses Festival for the past 3 years.

The largest event of its kind in the UK, the May festival will take place in Brighton, Hove and beyond over four weekends of May, starting this Saturday 6^th May.

Australian born artist Penelope Kenny has been announced as the 2017 Brochure Cover artist, beating more than 180 other artists to the coveted title, Penelope draws inspiration from Darwinism, dioramas, natural history illustration and taxidermy.

©Penelope Kenny

Over 200 houses and studio spaces across the city will be opening their doors to exhibit the work of over 1,500 artists and makers. Last year over 200,000 people visited the festival, one of the jewels in Brighton’s cultural calendar.

©Stephanie Smart

Artist Open Houses (AOH) helps artists connect with audiences in self-curated, non-traditional art spaces. This usually means visiting artists’ own homes, offering festival-goers an exclusive snapshot of how creatives live in this vibrant and creative city. From beautiful Regency-style properties to quirky and colourful cottages, many of the houses boast stunning gardens creatively landscaped by their owners.

©Carolyn Genders

AOH also offers the chance to buy artworks directly from the artists and makers themselves. There is a hugely diverse selection of artworks on show, from original paintings, prints, graffiti arts, ceramics and textiles to photography, sculpture, crafts, jewellery and many other media.

Judy Stevens, Festival Director, Artist Open Houses says: “Bullet PR has delivered great results for the Artists Open Houses. Pandora George’s proactive initiatives and creative thinking have made a real impact, bringing fresh ideas and a new media focus to the festival. Above all, Pandora is a real pleasure to work with.”

©Constable’s Studio

Museums at Night May Festival 2017

 

Museums at Night, the UK’s after-hours festival of arts, culture and heritage, produced by arts charity Culture24 is back for 2017. Now in its ninth year, the festival will take place in May and in October. Dates for the 2017 festivals are 17 – 20 May and 26 – 28 October respectively.  Bullet PR is proud to have worked with the festival as their retained PR agency for the past 7 years.

During the festival, hundreds of museums, galleries and historic spaces all over the UK will open their doors after dark to put on an impressive and diverse array of special night-time events – gallery gigs, art happenings, twilight screenings, all-night sleepovers, nature walks, star gazing or simply to offer the chance to experience some of the UK’s cultural venues, historic houses and museums in a new light.

There are some fantastic highlights from the upcoming festival – including Fashion and Scandal: 1960’s Archive Night London. From the Profumo affair, to mods and rockers and the cultural, sexual and social revolutions, the National Archive will be showcasing records including those charting the rise of The Beatles, the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Love and the arrest and trial of the Krays. Expect expert talks, performances, music and dancing reflecting some of the biggest events of the decade.

 

Full listings of all events can be found at  www.museumsatnight.org.uk

Lace in Fashion – new exhibition at The Fashion Museum

Bullet PR were appointed by The Fashion Museum to work on their special exhibition for 2017, Lace in Fashion, which opened at the museum on February 4th and will run until January 2018.

Drawing on the riches of the museum’s collection, as well as generous loans from contemporary fashion designers, the exhibition showcases over 60 exquisite pieces, showing how lace has been used in fashion from the time of Shakespeare to the present day and features designs from Burberry, Karl Lagerfeld, Norman Hartnell, Alexander McQueen, Erdem, Valentino and Christopher Kane amongst others.

Erdem Autumn Winter 2009 London Fashion Week Copyright Catwalking.com ‘One Time Only’ publication

Highlights of the exhibition include a dress from 1805 dress is believed to have belonged to Queen Charlotte, a navy blue lace dress worn by Lea Seydoux in the James Bond film Spectre and 1991 Karl Lagerfeld dress worn by 1990s supermodel Linda Evangelista in Vogue magazine.

The exhibition has garnered some great coverage including an interview with curator Elly Summers on Radio 4’s Today programme, features in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph and coverage in Vogue, The Mail on Sunday and The Week amongst others. The PR campaign had a total value of £175,000 and a reach of 11,169,174 million.

 

Bullet PR have been appointed by  The Arts Foundation to work on the PR for the Arts Foundation Awards 2017.

The Arts Foundation supports emerging artists across a range of artforms. Six awards, totalling £78,000 were given for 2017. The winners were Joanna Walsh for Creative Non-Fiction, Sam Stevens for Essay Filmmaking , Max Frommeld for Furniture Design, Lauren Kinsella for Jazz Composition, Ivan Ifekoya for Live Art and Julian Melchiorri for Materials Innovation.

Lauren Kinsella: Winner Jazz Composition

The winners were presented with their awards by guest of honour Will Self at ceremony that took place at Conway Hall, London.

Joanna Walsh: Winner Creative Non-Fiction & Will Self.

Previous winners have included film director Carol Morley (2003) and BAFTA award-winning director Asif Kapadia (2001), writers Ali Smith and Michel Faber and Artistic Director of the National Theatre Rufus Norris (Theatre Directing 2002).

Since the inception of its Fellowship Scheme, over £1,700,000 has been awarded by The Arts Foundation, supporting numerous artists from the fields of Performing and Visual Arts, Crafts, Literature, New Media, Film and Design.

 

 

 

The Roman Baths, Bath

Bath’s Roman Baths are one of the most visited heritage attractions in the UK. Bullet PR has been working with Roman Baths to promote it to new audiences and extend the existing audience through a campaign for the Torchlit Summer Tours.

We organised a group press trip, in partnership with the Gainsborough Hotel and the Bath Spa, attended by Metro, The Sun, Good Housekeeping, Forbes Magazine and the Oxford Times. In addition, coverage ran in The Guardian, The Sunday Express, Waitrose Weekend and  Discover Britain amongst many other titles.

Dum Dum Doughnuts come to Brighton!

We are really excited to be working with Dum Dum Doughnuts – the world’s first artisan baked doughnut brand and the fastest growing doughnut brand in the UK. An independent British company with a celebrity following, which includes Olympian Tom Daley, Dum Dum Donutterie will open their first UK store outside London in the heart of Brighton on Friday November 18th.

This is how good they look!

Dum Dum Doughnuts look amazing, taste great and are lots of fun – it’s not uncommon to witness queues round the block outside a Dum Dum Donutterie! Plans for the Brighton outlet include the exclusive ‘Brighton seaside doughnut’.

The high quality, natural artisan doughnuts are uniquely baked fresh every day (not fried) and each outlet remains open until all the doughnuts have sold out.  Dum Dum Doughnuts use only natural ingredients and are significantly lower in fat, half the fat in some instances, than competitor brands. This is because they are not cooked in oil, but instead baked using a unique patisserie-based patented baking process. Dum Dum’s are not claiming to be a healthy doughnut, but by using good ingredients and modern techniques they are making an indulgent treat even tastier, without the junk.

We can’t wait until they open!

Graphics of Punk Exhibition at The Museum of Brands

MuseumOfBrands Graphics of Punk Exhibition

This month we were asked to create a PR campaign for a new pop-up exhibition focussing on the rich variety of graphic art that emanated from the punk era, The Graphics of Punk, which recently opened at the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in London and will run until the January 29, 2017.

MuseumOfBrands Graphics of Punk Exhibition

Museum Of Brands Graphics of Punk Exhibition

The exhibition forms part of a year-long celebration of the 40^th anniversary of the punk movement. It will feature record sleeves and posters from the seminal bands of the time, including The Sex Pistols God Save The Queen, designed by Jamie Reid (1977) and the Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle poster designed by M. Hirsh (1979). The exhibition also includes the graphics of The Clash, The Buzzcocks and The Damned.

A number of key underground alternative magazines forms a part of the exhibition, giving an authentic insight into other ways which the graphics of punk were used at the time. The 1970s was a decade full of outrage and agitation.  Both Oz magazine and IT (International Times) were prosecuted for obscenity in 1970, and were found guilty.  Spare Rib took up the cause of women’s liberation and drew widespread criticism from the establishment. The underground press supported causes such as immigration, abortion, squatters and the miners’ struggle. These radical campaigns draw a visual parallel between the political climate of the time and its punk graphics aesthetics.

The Museum will also be hosting various events themed around typography and fashion, to coincide with the exhibition, including a talk by Sarah Hyndman, author of Why Fonts Matter.

You can read Sarah’s interview with Design Week here. 

http://www.museumofbrands.com

Ditch the Label publish new report into cyberbullying and hate speech online

International anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label announces findings of a major study of cyberbullying and hate speech online to coincide with anti-bullying week on Monday November 14, 2016.

Ditch the Label has partnered with leading social intelligence company Brandwatch, evaluating 19 million tweets from the US and the UK over the span of four years in order to better understand the current climate of cyberbullying and hate speech online.

The report looks at who is most likely to send abuse, who is most likely to receive it, when people are most likely to experience cyberbullying, topics most likely to precede it and how best to respond to it.

Key findings:

• Politics is the topic most likely to receive bullying remarks, followed by topics relating to sport and food. 

• You are most likely to experience cyberbullying on Twitter between 5pm-8pm on a Sunday.

• Racist language was the most common form of hate speech on Twitter. Of the 19 million tweets analysed according to specific search terms, over 7.7m tweets featured racially insensitive language. Men sent 59% of these.

• Misogynist tweets were the second most common form of hate speech with 3m of analysed tweets featuring misogynistic comments. 52% of these were sent by women. Tweets about what it means to be a man, homophobia and transphobia also featured largely.

• Sports fans are over-represented in bullying tweets, as are executives. By contrast, teachers and scientists, as well as those interested in politics and environmental issues, are less likely to participate in online hate speech.

• Female trolls tended to use insults relating to intelligence (dumb, stupid), appearance (fat, ugly), and derogatory animal terms (bitch, chicken), while males were more likely to use homophobic insults.

• Responding to people who troll escalates the conflict. Research found that responding to bullying tweets escalated the conflict in 44% of cases, compared with only 3% of positive outcomes.

A full version of the report can be found here. 

 

 

Bullet to work with VisitBrighton

As festival month gets under way in Brighton, we are really pleased to announce we will be partnering with travel PR specialist Oliver Relations to deliver PR for VisitBrighton.

It’s an incredibly exciting time for the city, with the imminent launch of the British Airways i360 and the redevelopment of Brighton seafront to name just a few of the exciting things to come. Bullet PR is looking forward to working with Oliver Relations to promote the city of Brighton and Hove and develop the travel PR side of our business.

We are also thrilled to be appointed by the Roman Baths in Bath to promote their season of Torchlit Summer Evenings. The Roman Baths are one of the most visited heritage attractions in the UK, with more than 1 million visitors every year. They house a magnificent ancient temple and bathing complex on the site of Britain’s only hot spring.

It’s been a busy couple of months here at Bullet PR. We have been working on launches for Brighton Museum and Art Gallery’s fantastic new exhibition Fashion Cities Africa, Brighton and Hove’s Artist Open Houses festival – the largest of its kind in the UK -and this week sees the launch of Museums at Night’s May festival, when museums and galleries across the UK will be opening up at night-time with a whole host of exciting events.

Too Many Siblings