LONDON
MUSIC
Alex Proud
Ed Carter
Owner & Managing Director, The Horse Hospital
Art producer and musician
Straight-talking Alex Proud founded Proud Group in 1994. He set up the publishing company, Vision On, in 1999, with renowned photographer Rankin. It was critically acclaimed and ran as an affiliate publishing company to Proud Galleries, printing over a million books. Proud Galleries was built on a concept of bringing accessible photography to everyone, comprising three exhibition spaces in Central London, England London, with locations in Embankment, Camden and Chelsea. A natural born impresario, Alex expanded the company to include live-music and photography with the opening of Proud Camden Bar and Gallery in Camden’s Stables market, in 2000. Alex moved the bar and live music venue into the 700-capacity Grade II Listed Horse Hospital also in the Stables in 2008. Proud Cabaret was the next edition to Proud Group; opening in 2009 and modelled on a 1920s speakeasy, this decadent venue harks back to the illicit glamour of the Jazz age. Proud Cabaret has now firmly established itself as one of the most luxurious and extravagant burlesque and cabaret restaurants in the country. Returning to his hometown of Brighton, Alex’s next project sought to rescue the historic Hanbury Ballroom from closure by re-opening the venue as Proud Brighton Ballroom. Alex has transformed the ballroom into the ‘retro supper club of the South’; from its last reincarnation as a mausoleum, following time as a boxing club, high-class private members’ bar and even an air-raid shelter in WW2.
Ed Carter is a musician and art producer. He creates music as ‘Winter North Atlantic’ (described as ‘packed with duvet-snug melodies’ – The Wire), and is founding Director of Modular, which specialises in devising and producing largescale, inter-disciplinary artistic projects. For 2012, Ed is the project lead for Flow, a collaboration with the Owl Project arts collective. Flow is part of ‘Artists taking the lead’, one of twelve extraordinary public art commissions funded by the UK Arts Councils for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
NewcastleGateshead, England
Flow is a tidemill – a floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal water wheel. The building houses electro acoustic musical machinery and instruments that respond to the constantly changing environment of the river, generating sound and data. The instruments can also be manipulated by those who board the mill house, making each visitor’s experience unique. Flow launched in March 2012.
The success of Proud Group has earned Alex his reputation as a prominent commentator on photographic and media issues. He has been invited to sit on various judging panels including the Nikon Press Awards, Observer Hodge Awards and the CoolBrands Council and has also presented Channel 4’s ‘Picture This’ and BBC 2’s ‘House Proud’.
Contact: Alex Proud Telephone: 020 7482 3867 Email: alex@proud.co.uk Website: www.proud.co.uk
Index
Contact: Kathryn Goodfellow Telephone: 0191 2558580 / 07939 636429 Email: Kathryn.goodfellow@artscouncil.org.uk Website: www.modular.org.uk / www.flowmill.org / www.winternorthatlantic.com 167