RUNTcollective
RUNTcollective is currently a non-profit organisation. If you'd like to help us lose less money on our projects, we'll gladly accept donations!
We are a group of Bristol-based artists, writers, musicians and performers. Here's a bit more about each one of us individually and what we do within RUNTcollective:
Mark Ferbrache
Director of RUNTpress and Founder of RUNTcollective
Taz Burns
Performance Director
Izy Ellis
Musician, puppet maker and comic writer
Jonathan Firbank
Writer and Editor for RUNTpress
Natt Różańska
Writer, Artist and Marketing Manager
Jake Schmid
Treasurer and props inventor
Taz is the Performance Director at RUNTcollective, and is currently directing "Putnam and Joy", our first ever live performance. Her background includes a family of mixed heritage (Japanese and English) which has informed her interest in international performance, a 1st class dissertation about the differences between puppets and human actors, an extensive portfolio of performance work from the age of 13 both onstage and backstage, and professional experience in both the theatrical and entertainments industries. Outside of her RUNTlife, she works as a freelance artist, performer and entertainer. If you want to find out more about Taz go to www.tazburns.co.uk.
Mark Ferbrache has been described as having a "bipolar practice", swapping between very restricted colours and elements and a multi-coloured festival of bubblegum and glitter. He works mostly with performance, music and language. He wants "a life-affirming life where art is incidental" (quote from @Tuesdayboy)
Natt Różańska is a writer, artist and found poetry enthusiast. Her current creative obsessions include Braille, taking penknives and felt-tips to books, and exploring the myriad of unique human feeling as succinctly as she can. She studied Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, and currently resides in the Cultural Quarter of Bristol, England. More examples of her work and details about ongoing projects can be found at nattrozanska.com.
Jonathan is a poet, short story writer and complainer, in that order of importance, who tries to develop archaic rhyme, the theme of devolution and irreverent humour in his work. He's a decent editor and wrote the script for Putnam and Joy, which was a challenging, rewarding break from the comfort zone of horror stories and bleak poems. You may notice some bleak, horrible poems in Putnam and Joy but it's totally different when it's in a script. Honest. Some people like it too, which is nice.
Jake, genius Techno-Magi, robot-spider-crab-man, guards the dosh-safes and server vaults deep in the catacomb-tombs of RUNT's aborted ideas. He scuttles upside down on arched roofs, tinkering with impossibly-dimensioned gadgets crackling with multi-coloured electro-magics. It is said Jake can change the weather with an empty tube of pringles and a computer fan, but nobody knows for sure. Because he needs those fans to mine bitcoins.
A Love Obscene (Izy to his his friends) is a musician, an artist, and anything else he casually declares himself over breakfast. He has no manifesto, no aesthetic principles, no statement he's trying to convey or concepts he's trying to deconstruct. His artistic intent is little more than a child-like fascination with all that is beautiful and interesting, and it's central catalyst is a mantra of sheer arrogance and presumptuousness:
"I could do that."
He has no talent, no imagination, no idea what he's doing, he just chases mad ideas like:
"Hey, I could do a children's book" or
"Hey, I could do an album" or
"Hey, I could do a patchwork coat" or
"I SHALL BUILD A DEVICE THAT TURNS MY GUITAR INTO A BROKEN ROBOTIC BANSHEE!"
and through sheer love of the endeavour transcends the sum of his frankly meagre talents.
Essentially, he's a man child, and creative tools are his toys. He does stuff until it works. That is his lunatic art practice, and he stands by it without coyness or contrition.
To RUNTcollective he contributes illustrations, nifty ideas, comics for our press, and acts as a music composer/craftsman for our performance incarnation. He's not very good at any of this, but he's somewhat difficult to discourage.
To see more of Izy's work go to:
