The Night Kitchen

Story

Created in the shell of one of the Steel City’s infamous cutlery factories and born from the ashes of the beloved Dirty Little Secret nightclub project, the Creative Arts Development Space (CADS) team and Party For The People have combined forces to bring a re-designed, refreshed and all together reimagined club space to Sheffield for 2014.

Taking ideas from the building’s cutlery tinged past and the enchanting labyrinth-esque corridors that make the space so unique a central theme began to emerge. In addition to drawing inspiration from a lesser known book from ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ writer/illustrator Maurice Sendak in which a young boy by the name of Mickey falls into a dreamland in which he must avoid being cooked alive by giant bakers, swim in a 1000 gallon milk jug and fly a plane made of batter amongst other ludicrous antics. It is this spirit of adventure and journey has been carried into a venue space where the creation & consumption of aural, visual and indeed emotional pleasures are paramount. Come on. Step into… The Night Kitchen. (https://www.facebook.com/TheNightKitchen)

Here at Party For The People we are unbelievably excited to begin our Lottery funded project in which The Night Kitchen venue space will be the central feature. We plan on working with a multitude of highly talented and artistic people to help us transform the current CADS warehouse and former Dirty Little Secret club space into our own small, imaginary world in which all manner of people will be able to come lose themselves as well as be able to showcase some of the most inspired art around. For more information on this project and how to apply, please click here: http://partyforthepeople.org.uk/2014/01/participants-wanted-for-our-new-creative-project/

The project gives us a chance to look more closely at our social aims for the venue.

With this in mind, we are working alongside a number of charitable organisations and enlisting the help of volunteers. The projects main aim is to engage socially excluded young people through an innovative program of creative workshops, aiming to increase access to therapeutic sessions and build an active & mutually supportive community. The 12 month program of workshops will offer opportunities relating to Party for the People’s popular community fundraising events, including creative set design, artistic event production, digital arts, decor, set design and installations.

The Project so far..

So far on the project we have been working alongside Silent Cities, a fantastic social enterprise which works with isolated and disadvantaged individuals aiming to build creative environments where silent voices can flourish. Together we are looking at recruiting a few participants who will benefit from a wide range of opportunities. Please check them out here: (http://www.silentcities.org.uk/)

We are also working with Silents Cities’ recent ‘Generation Journalists’ digital skills project – to help document the project. ‘Generation Journalists’ is a project aimed at equipping a new generation of digital journalists with the skills required to be a journalist in the digital age including, audio editing, film making and digital photography. To find out more about the generation Journalist Project: http://www.silentcities.org.uk/projects/community-journalist-programme/

We have selected our first artist Joseph Adams, part of the IOCollective who are responsible for some of our favourite sculptures and probably most memorably the giant owl sculptures at Gottwood Festival. Joe will soon begin leading our workshops and kick starting the redecoration of the venue areas. The aim is to, “create an isolated world for revelers and party people” and he will be working with a variety of different volunteer groups to achieve this. The use of volunteers will be utilised throughout the whole process (for which applications are still be taken. click here) including the initial ideas/brainstorm and design sessions, safety management, timber acquisition and the final build of the structure itself.

Using mainly reclaimed timber, the project will focus around one central sculpture drawing on a variety of themes both mystical and real in origin such as giant forks and spatulas fashioned in the manner of the Hindu god Kali or Kannon – The thousand armed God of Tea from East Asia. In addition to this central sculpture a multitude of volunteer led smaller sculptures and pieces will be place around the venue to ensure that the theme is all encompassing and that full immersion in the concept is possible.

Over the coming months our Kitchen City will come to life piece by piece through the hard work of our participants and much appreciated volunteers plus the unbelievably important financial support we have received from the good folks over at The National Lottery. This will ultimately converge into one multi level sensory art experience which alongside custom lighting installations, commissioned film making, photography and all manner of indefinable art we plan on showcasing in a two week long exhibition. Watch this space. Its warming up down in The Night Kitchen.