Terry Grimley reports on an international art project in inner-city Birmingham.

Something out of the ordinary is happening on the Ladypool Road in Birmingham's balti belt.

A long-disused shop unit, once home to bhangra label Nachural Records, has been invaded by an international group of artists. The ground floor has been turned into the "Baghdad Cafe" by Swiss-based Iraqi artist Al Fadhil and will be open three days a week until April 21.

Visitors are invited to exchange views about Iraq and to view Al Fadhil's installation, which includes the video Home Sweet Home. This film about the artist's family home in Baghdad was produced in collaboration with his younger brother Ahmed, who was killed in a bombing a year ago today.

Baghdad Cafe is part of a project called Under a New Sky, which has brought together eight artists well-known on the international art circuit to propose a number of community-based projects, linked to the idea of regeneration, for Sparkbrook.

The Ladypool Road building acts as a kind of exhibition and information centre for the project. Participating artists include the American minimalist artist (and rock critic) Dan Graham, who is showing a video of a glass pavilion installed in the grounds of a museum in Portugal. Graham hopes to do something similar in Birmingham.

Others taking part are Reza Aramesh (Iran/UK), Paul Eachus (UK), Nooshin Farhid (Iran/UK), Runa Islam (Bangladesh/UK) and Goshka Macuga (Poland/UK). But perhaps the biggest name is Yona Friedman, the 83-year-old architect and theorist of flexible and sustainable urban forms who was born in Hungary and lives in France.

He's already done some rough sketches for a graffiti museum at Spaghetti Junction.

Under a New Sky has been curated by Peter Lewis, research fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University, with Milan-based Maurizio Bortolotti.

Lewis was chief curator of the 6th International Sharjah Biennial, in the United Arab Emirates, in 2003 – an event which featured 180 artists and strengthened links between the international art world and the Middle East.

Wandering into Friday's chaotic launch event was a bewildering experience. This isn't an art exhibition in the old-fashioned sense or even in the contemporary sense of a white cube containing expensive consumer trophies.

The mix of hand-written text on the walls and TV monitors running inexplicable (and unexplained) images was like a flashback to 1970s agitprop.

"It's an exhibition but it's also an information centre that shows where it may go," says Peter Lewis. And, to be fair, I did eventually focus on a list of specific proposals.

For example, Reza Aramesh is hoping to work with volunteers to stage Morris dancing. A first for Sparkbrook, surely. But perhaps the local population will be up for it. Maurizio Bortolotti has been impressed by how friendly and hospitable they have been.

"We did not want to do a piece in a museum but to make an initiative in an urban environment and work with people living in the area," he told me.

"Normally when you do something in a museum the people coming there area specialised audience who already know art. In this case it's different. We would like to go direct to the people."

Under a New Sky came out of an initiative called Generator, conceived by John Butler and Gavin Wade of the University of Central England and backed by the Arts Council and Birmingham city council. Gavin Wade is an artist and curator who is originally from Birmingham and has returned to his home town after 13 years in London because he is convinced it is beginning to buzz.

Peter Lewis told me: "Birmingham is a bit slow in getting anything going. I think we've got it going now, but the engine was cold." Watch this space.

Under a New Sky and The Baghdad Cafe are at 394 Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook, until April 21 (Thur-Sat 12 noon-6pm).