MoD Shed - Review

A hidden place of Falmouth, the MoD Shed, otherwise also serving as the garage/workshop of Falmouth-based artist Brendan Byrne, and its surroundings, hosted the first art event organised under the parasol of Art in Hidden Places of Falmouth.

The MoD Shed event, which lasted for one hour, kicked off with Soviet animations from the 60s and 70s by the internationally-renowned animator Fiodor Khitruk. Films shown during the event were: Story of a Crime, which was awarded the Golden Gate Prize in San Francisco in 1962, Grand Prize in Oberhausen, Germany in 1963, and was part of special Selection at festival in Acapulco, Mexico in 1965; also The Island which also received Grand Prize in Cannes in 1973 and was part of official selection at Krakow Film Festival in Poland in 1974.
The films are interesting not only because they are unique examples of Soviet animation, presenting the skills and ability of the author in combining the timely messages with techniques of collage, illustration and animation used in the film. They are also interesting as creations of the time during which the propaganda and censorship were to be incorporated within any artistic form. This part of Art in Hidden Places of Falmouth was curated by Magda Tyzlik with special thanks to Sojuzfilm in Moscow and Warsaw based MomaFilm Foundation for letting us use the films during the event.

Brendan Byrne showed three of his multimedia works. One of them, nicknamed The Box, is part of a bigger piece of modular reactive pieces (the AEIOUs) used to play a local aural history collected by Angie Munro and Jude Carrol, which was originally shown in Trebah Gardens as part of the D-Day landings commemorations; Stars is a computer based reactive work which allows the viewer to draw in space by moving their body in front of the screen. Spoke is a ventriloquist dummy which sings the theme tune of Stingray and a hardware based real time reactive circuit makes the dummy sing. Curated by the artist.

Ana Carvalho and Ben Carver presented a half-hour performance of music and live drawings and transformed pictures, which were projected onto a screen. The process of creating music inspired drawings or drawings inspiring choice of music was made public by this VJ/DJ duo. The music was a mixed selection of down-tempo jazz and electronica from the dusty corners of the DJ’s music collection. Curated by Ana Carvalho and Ben Carver.



Art in Hidden Places of Falmouth attempts to create a network for artists to communicate, collaborate and show works in public spaces in the town of Falmouth. It also aims to engage anyone interested in keeping in touch with art which is being produced in the area.

Art in Hidden Places of Falmouth, came about through a collaboration of 4 people involved in art: Ana Carvalho, Brendan Byrne, Magda Tyzlik, Ben Carver. If you have ideas about events which you would like to show as part of Art in Hidden Places of Falmouth, please contact us on our email address: art_in_hidden_places@yahoo.co.uk We will then contact you directly, and post the proposal as a new thread on the blog: http://art-in-hidden-places.blogspot.com, and it will then be open to comment from other users.