mac blog

mac finally reopened last week after a two year wait – and people seemed as excited to get in as we were to let them. So, here’s a quick round-up of some of the posts we spotted over those three days:

The Arty-tecture blog gave a fairly in depth review of the building itself, which is well worth a read. Overall they thought it is:

… a remarkable successful building realising a 13-year, £15 million vision, which succeeds in linking the previously disparate buildings into a large harmonious whole, but one that responds to the rich cultural mix of Birmingham.

James Yarker came back to see Stan’s Cafe’s former home, and seemed pleased to see a lot of familiar faces from the arts scene here.

In this way today was a great reunion, people with each other and people with a building/institution. There was even a sense that this was a reunion between people and the park, for many people said they had missed coming to the park, because without mac there as a base the park was that much less attractive.

Jo Green posted a bundle of photos on Facebook of the building, the park and some of the drawing and jewellery making workshops in progress.

And if you’re wondering what jewellery making sounds like, fortunately for you Michael Grimes was around and about and posted this intriguing recording on audioboo:

Katharine Robb, on her Postcards from K blog, thought that the new mac was definitely worth waiting for:

Smarter, brighter, and bang up to date – the building feels revitalised.  It’s largely the same layout (a labyrinth), but the atmosphere of grim has been dispelled.

Beth Gunnell came down on Saturday to have a look around with her Dad. She reckon’s mac’s now:

bigger and better than before with lots to offer, inc theatre, exhibitions, gigs, arts courses etc etc. Certainly worth a look if you’re in the area.

Rachel Gillies posted this video of Notorious performing a lovely rendition of ’Return of the Mac’ in the Cannon Hill Park on the Monday…

Notorious – Return of the mac from Rachel Gillies on Vimeo.

The Real Point blog was impressed with the new mac:

It’s a great place, you can drop in for a coffee, watch a film or play, see the latest collection in the gallery or try your hand at DJing and pottery making.

And of course there are loads of pictures from the weekend on our flickr group- please feel free to add your own:

I’m sure there’s a lot more great stuff out there – let us know if there’s anything more we should have mentioned!