tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24529977690946003102024-03-13T18:49:11.381+00:00The Shrieking VioletThe Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.comBlogger264125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-85542268866859732912023-12-18T19:47:00.003+00:002023-12-18T22:02:01.891+00:00Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway sloe gin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibr8g5dpEiTFxza8S7h5C8BqHR8FDXqHzcC2sV2if25fVzijb1JsIjwv39lW5eHK8zrKTl1NBtJwbI06QPotOozIf6Zb47pISHDQpkdDphwZT91tewdNKF27CMiskTzlpfa8igfe3fUNQDViae3NiZ6KN-Ns_aE885skLZqJ6jf8rrlHv-VkVhyphenhyphenF-3MnQ/s1440/368604354_10105069754668415_7006483730523339360_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibr8g5dpEiTFxza8S7h5C8BqHR8FDXqHzcC2sV2if25fVzijb1JsIjwv39lW5eHK8zrKTl1NBtJwbI06QPotOozIf6Zb47pISHDQpkdDphwZT91tewdNKF27CMiskTzlpfa8igfe3fUNQDViae3NiZ6KN-Ns_aE885skLZqJ6jf8rrlHv-VkVhyphenhyphenF-3MnQ/s320/368604354_10105069754668415_7006483730523339360_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway starts on the outskirts of the picturesque town of Hythe in Kent. Since the late-1920s, it has connected the historic Cinque Port with the smaller seaside towns of Dymchurch and New Romney and, eventually, the vast single split of Dungeness. <div><br /></div><div>Dubbed ‘the world’s smallest railway’, it leaves Hythe against a background of suburban back gardens belonging to flat-roofed terraced and semi-detached houses of the post-war prefabricated Orlit-type (pebbledashed cream and brown against the harsh seaside elements) and small-scale shops offering fishing tackle, traditional fish and chips and TV repairs. </div><div><br /></div><div>At first, the route roughly follows the A259, a long-distance coastal road that links Kent with Hampshire via Sussex. At Hythe, the Dymchurch Road section of the A259 snarls up with daytrippers on a sunny summer’s day, taking sun-lovers away from Hythe’s pebble beaches to the sandy vistas of Dymchurch and St Mary’s Bay. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALFawPlcogfl4jUR1WvFpFNKhdAY7FDa7H40utIZpoHgNICzu1v3JizaLr77e0qxmGsAji9VPSbD_-3qtHWeVuo-iox1ay2wx5xrXA70h5L9-XGh80AtQgyeq0ujGBsnrk3dIPiIXv1Jf5wnQszYVvZerhoObs_3WquKKEI7a-hS6AON5ilMPi9JwHoo/s1440/369454270_10105069754673405_1795464567535608855_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALFawPlcogfl4jUR1WvFpFNKhdAY7FDa7H40utIZpoHgNICzu1v3JizaLr77e0qxmGsAji9VPSbD_-3qtHWeVuo-iox1ay2wx5xrXA70h5L9-XGh80AtQgyeq0ujGBsnrk3dIPiIXv1Jf5wnQszYVvZerhoObs_3WquKKEI7a-hS6AON5ilMPi9JwHoo/s320/369454270_10105069754673405_1795464567535608855_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>A quieter, slower route out of town for walkers, horse-riders and cyclists – punctuated only by the distinctive whistle of the steam train – runs either side of the Napoleonic-era Royal Military Canal, which reaches 28 miles into East Sussex, and runs roughly trackside until it hits the housing estates and bungalows of Burmarsh. Here, the train splits, striking out through flat, sparsely populated Romney Marsh. The bushes that overhang the canal on one side of the path, and separate the walker from the smoke of the train on the other, offer an abundance of blackberries and sloes in the summer and autumn months. The observant walker might also catch a glimpse of an exotic, curious animal or two from nearby Port Lympne zoo or the crumbling Roman remains of the Portus Lemanis fort, which sit beneath medieval Lympne Castle. </div><div><br /></div><div>Climb up onto ‘the Roughs’, the low-lying hills that flank the canal – today forming part of the Ministry of Defence’s estate – and dense undergrowth reveals a crumbling sound mirror, a remnant of experimental early 20th century technology designed to defend this stretch of coast against invaders. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRb-62gh1V8f3U9O4nh52CVfrvNx60pEYss99YylzDbxv5fkft_IDK4TjeyTRjVm4P0Uc9t7p6AVaQzv2k6a2wG3Qex1fCHW7xbKBDsZvABK3NyY5_QVwUqAsQjKzYGNqc-TXIRI2EpCurufe_FZEne1c4_afCbzmAuxQDSwf7rQUDnFbWsQCD9kkbTg/s1440/369438849_10105069754678395_5391376321113196938_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRb-62gh1V8f3U9O4nh52CVfrvNx60pEYss99YylzDbxv5fkft_IDK4TjeyTRjVm4P0Uc9t7p6AVaQzv2k6a2wG3Qex1fCHW7xbKBDsZvABK3NyY5_QVwUqAsQjKzYGNqc-TXIRI2EpCurufe_FZEne1c4_afCbzmAuxQDSwf7rQUDnFbWsQCD9kkbTg/s320/369438849_10105069754678395_5391376321113196938_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div>Although today the light railway mainly carries pleasure seekers and the occasional commuter – plus the all-important festive figure of Santa paying a visit at Christmas-time – it too once played an unlikely part in the Kent coast’s frontline defences. </div><div><br /></div><div>A typically jaunty Pathé newsreel of 1944, entitled ‘Toy Train Goes to War’, shows tourists replaced with soldiers aboard a special armoured train: during the Second World War, the light railway was taken over by the war effort and placed into the services of Operation PLUTO (Pipeline Under the Ocean), which sent fuel under the English Channel from Romney Marsh to support the allied forces in Normandy. PLUTO infrastructure was cleverly disguised as coastal bungalows; the remaining structures which are in residential use are now known as ‘PLUTO houses’, and are another historical curio of the quirky British seaside.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqZyHl_OXQRN4ux58nrh_rPLGEgpsL9nlttiv6gE1CoWIuig0yQgss_fHszoWTe_HlLhOOwLb7GGxEVJO1Gai_IJ2ORg0RDzNz5s8vv92xVyaly3sWPrFlDS1Z1abQi2ikcM4qpGC8EYvnpGBStvtJ72ezKVKBoSlcYNp_kzFmnZd6Y9fPy3KoI_o2mU/s1440/410097796_10105157783602725_8208017789279478154_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqZyHl_OXQRN4ux58nrh_rPLGEgpsL9nlttiv6gE1CoWIuig0yQgss_fHszoWTe_HlLhOOwLb7GGxEVJO1Gai_IJ2ORg0RDzNz5s8vv92xVyaly3sWPrFlDS1Z1abQi2ikcM4qpGC8EYvnpGBStvtJ72ezKVKBoSlcYNp_kzFmnZd6Y9fPy3KoI_o2mU/s320/410097796_10105157783602725_8208017789279478154_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-64982022727458192022022-12-18T10:43:00.002+00:002022-12-18T10:43:36.646+00:00Pilgrims Way damson gin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbdeLehQHEux20TEEbJiOtTm55Y3J8kkxl61f6c2UWrpp_o1dOPm2Y67F6F8yYoNSJI_DzTr2TFuLp_SDAZ1YNT6k0DAsbFQP9yGOAyeA88UDhub6AciHJ9zPTxcoSmIYhu63JHofYv9m1tPZDjYEzOYhw_aeYWIB0s0ciHaINbz-I4EXdNPagkz9/s3024/IMG-8729%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbdeLehQHEux20TEEbJiOtTm55Y3J8kkxl61f6c2UWrpp_o1dOPm2Y67F6F8yYoNSJI_DzTr2TFuLp_SDAZ1YNT6k0DAsbFQP9yGOAyeA88UDhub6AciHJ9zPTxcoSmIYhu63JHofYv9m1tPZDjYEzOYhw_aeYWIB0s0ciHaINbz-I4EXdNPagkz9/s320/IMG-8729%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Thursday 15 September. The Queen is Dead and it’s day ten of national mourning. The weather is changing from summer into autumn and it feels like the mood – in fact the world – is changing, too, from an era of relative stability into an uncertain and unsettled future. There’s a chill to the wind and the sun is struggling to break through, only occasionally piercing the low, grey, moody Kentish skies to diffuse weakly outwards. I decide to set out from Hythe by bicycle to Wye crown, carved into the North Kent Downs high above Wye in 1902 to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII, by students from the town’s agricultural college. I first spotted the giant crown from the train earlier in the year, en route from London to Margate, and was intrigued, wondering what on earth had made them to go all that effort. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATyuHpUXIdZuSt6Pxj3DgBUbcu3nkH3hRWcN62a7IXuJoAU2ci_mJ7BGbR_3J_q3tG0358tdY1YC93cLvk09rRWKaXEajwrZR2oekebodrWGAcyOaRrNNrlmpGPt4kwGkk7EmzIHUNsrwj-bk2kFh1Ck0v3ajIBYBD7pX8GWI0Gc9VA2Ng2R-viTU/s1440/306926087_10104644008013125_985789987831930284_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATyuHpUXIdZuSt6Pxj3DgBUbcu3nkH3hRWcN62a7IXuJoAU2ci_mJ7BGbR_3J_q3tG0358tdY1YC93cLvk09rRWKaXEajwrZR2oekebodrWGAcyOaRrNNrlmpGPt4kwGkk7EmzIHUNsrwj-bk2kFh1Ck0v3ajIBYBD7pX8GWI0Gc9VA2Ng2R-viTU/s320/306926087_10104644008013125_985789987831930284_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZCNhfvYOUHQ9aFopvEL3DNYwMov0125ye1rAboL2CgzfvfAOXj_X77vv-trOHxjXIFde53BjJa0uzKke0sQC5RqNxmID26Sc7LBhFweoHT5fkoP4g7PL8LOvBjWLN7fyLvc3ZK9zLlaKlC1UW3kr0pX3UyRCVpQpIRfy7Cz-BnybD8zBu84W71V4k/s1440/306940895_10104644008023105_686140599736829103_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZCNhfvYOUHQ9aFopvEL3DNYwMov0125ye1rAboL2CgzfvfAOXj_X77vv-trOHxjXIFde53BjJa0uzKke0sQC5RqNxmID26Sc7LBhFweoHT5fkoP4g7PL8LOvBjWLN7fyLvc3ZK9zLlaKlC1UW3kr0pX3UyRCVpQpIRfy7Cz-BnybD8zBu84W71V4k/s320/306940895_10104644008023105_686140599736829103_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTEXb9aX6BaahofY3Hftvu0uYQ-x1QEZ3NCB7wMHOOTPjK2k-tzS0Yx4ilCYhTyW3dy3zXzXS-CV2MsHcRalBLR5R9QGHdYaB7JFh2OzodC_Be2pFGFcO60Ne40bgDzy10V3Jq5IlSI2NsflI0k6QUAYCDUB2mfwI1vNqDD_VzsZjIEYRfSNFJuxn/s1440/307071520_10104644014425275_7720816532161236245_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTEXb9aX6BaahofY3Hftvu0uYQ-x1QEZ3NCB7wMHOOTPjK2k-tzS0Yx4ilCYhTyW3dy3zXzXS-CV2MsHcRalBLR5R9QGHdYaB7JFh2OzodC_Be2pFGFcO60Ne40bgDzy10V3Jq5IlSI2NsflI0k6QUAYCDUB2mfwI1vNqDD_VzsZjIEYRfSNFJuxn/s320/307071520_10104644014425275_7720816532161236245_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>My route takes me uphill to Saltwood, where I get up close to a group of curious peacocks from the writer and broadcaster Kenneth Clark (and later, his right-wing politician son, Alan)’s castle, past the nursery where we used to go to pick out a Christmas tree every year from austere rows of pines, and over the M20 to Postling, a village that, while quite pretty, has no amenities except for a museum in a phone box. Joseph Conrad’s former home on the outskirts now has an airstrip outside, the fins of vintage planes peeking out of an old barn building. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjul4MHKAp-I_MietBIUC1zhELy6jvrmq3eOWfoK1z6N2C8n-zt4zZ3gmKAZrdRXPCxTnqEUmvw0x2WKDzJSNZlJWMTrD_u2lVeJFDnfyd8AGfQiEvqTgMaXqW0DKuQd7r3wt8XBbtHeDdmS_WWO-TZ31vEnlVSkDLFNXCBA7HTg-vlvViMIJb4mqoo/s1440/306958225_10104644008033085_8466393576416728787_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjul4MHKAp-I_MietBIUC1zhELy6jvrmq3eOWfoK1z6N2C8n-zt4zZ3gmKAZrdRXPCxTnqEUmvw0x2WKDzJSNZlJWMTrD_u2lVeJFDnfyd8AGfQiEvqTgMaXqW0DKuQd7r3wt8XBbtHeDdmS_WWO-TZ31vEnlVSkDLFNXCBA7HTg-vlvViMIJb4mqoo/s320/306958225_10104644008033085_8466393576416728787_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vGggI5EIKcVRYHBwaYgdVLkvlPpnFiOkZYcUm7Ex0bM9B69DC9ZH2D7TPGQ5BT5TNwXHxv7MEe31Re6_ptDQaEIwfh0pWVnEA1MqfUySXs_BWVCJ0WROSAxn96FkE_GVjkqvC6TeYTwiJrxrmbC9YdG2QMJlqDCLmpU1GaY0SfU2V6eOFO3VSM8g/s1440/306950804_10104644007988175_962319986725525499_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vGggI5EIKcVRYHBwaYgdVLkvlPpnFiOkZYcUm7Ex0bM9B69DC9ZH2D7TPGQ5BT5TNwXHxv7MEe31Re6_ptDQaEIwfh0pWVnEA1MqfUySXs_BWVCJ0WROSAxn96FkE_GVjkqvC6TeYTwiJrxrmbC9YdG2QMJlqDCLmpU1GaY0SfU2V6eOFO3VSM8g/s320/306950804_10104644007988175_962319986725525499_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgz9jSgZZgnXKf42UIQKkGl2jbgj56VSgAoOQyYR09qaNdzTxUnfmIVhuu2D4-TM_2lOzaeUb_F6sRPVv1vlU7iZGzTXja7zj9dGgAN-iu-39iScqfYeGTJ5Co5nFiIabw7KH5H-V-xxmx586ZIKEqVLmM-hYQu85hjCU5S3XhjIiEf2ANqu7mIAEJ/s1440/306949828_10104644008008135_4117412543396257861_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgz9jSgZZgnXKf42UIQKkGl2jbgj56VSgAoOQyYR09qaNdzTxUnfmIVhuu2D4-TM_2lOzaeUb_F6sRPVv1vlU7iZGzTXja7zj9dGgAN-iu-39iScqfYeGTJ5Co5nFiIabw7KH5H-V-xxmx586ZIKEqVLmM-hYQu85hjCU5S3XhjIiEf2ANqu7mIAEJ/s320/306949828_10104644008008135_4117412543396257861_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>Soon afterwards, I pick up the Pilgrims Way, the route once taken to Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury cathedral, which crosses Stone Street, the former Roman Road. The narrow road looks over the flat landscape below; marsh sheep and oast houses are now joined by vineyards and wind turbines. I pass homemade produce signs and honesty boxes closely monitored by CCTV and The Tiger Inn, advertising Mackeson’s Hythe Ales in large letters on its frontage. Damsons line the side of the road and apples rot in large back gardens; no-one’s picking them. As I struggle uphill, a couple overtake me on electric bikes. They have the right idea, I think to myself. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ptHJqqylx2aX9TyKbkDTPDarO8v6cw0lKIYcvdMGraMbJW87jAizTj__zK2kutLbwe1314NyrjOMhJEa3CiAnQwwitpsxSXkyPqOWlQ95i3E88GNiPL4-7Y8sDNMqm73fehKSQ7PbAbf1f8EcMj_WTVZ2g8vWqpZnOquCMVlC48Ow1T2y0bjHNdV/s1440/307067777_10104644008018115_4394143618421188235_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ptHJqqylx2aX9TyKbkDTPDarO8v6cw0lKIYcvdMGraMbJW87jAizTj__zK2kutLbwe1314NyrjOMhJEa3CiAnQwwitpsxSXkyPqOWlQ95i3E88GNiPL4-7Y8sDNMqm73fehKSQ7PbAbf1f8EcMj_WTVZ2g8vWqpZnOquCMVlC48Ow1T2y0bjHNdV/s320/307067777_10104644008018115_4394143618421188235_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzI7J_q_NblbsOuDkpai-WqrZNB_Hj1J_knd-zr0NXzdt7aVp4KAdLfbGfUN9Dnt-BbDFW-OuPA2EhOQTUZfqr2XFqRTK6eigwE_WyXFfPhRqWeU6WgUxpVu6_e3V7_EYv1bzpQ9C-9EM0PZ1WNsHAt14q-jIH-CmDOLs__6UWVkhBbepjwK2nT27/s1440/306951781_10104644011201735_9061522378795955568_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzI7J_q_NblbsOuDkpai-WqrZNB_Hj1J_knd-zr0NXzdt7aVp4KAdLfbGfUN9Dnt-BbDFW-OuPA2EhOQTUZfqr2XFqRTK6eigwE_WyXFfPhRqWeU6WgUxpVu6_e3V7_EYv1bzpQ9C-9EM0PZ1WNsHAt14q-jIH-CmDOLs__6UWVkhBbepjwK2nT27/s320/306951781_10104644011201735_9061522378795955568_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>As I reach Wye, I leave the road for an exposed, elevated footpath and the ground turns sandy and orange. The crown comes gradually into view, but the picture is partial and fragmented; close up it’s just a collection of white-painted rocks, enmeshed in wire. I follow a curve and try to picture the sections forming a crown in my head, then walk down the slope to see if I can get a better view. It’s impossible to see the whole from here – it’s best seen from the train line below, passing at speed, on the way to somewhere else.
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmRIp3eNe3rLwVNUwiOZmgTxmkcU9SVpN5ufG9h7X3RaNh0y1mzqMqbr-i-tMjqKIL50OrEvSkpDpoYFh_pBB6SkLT3HfjbUG0wUaIjA0K4WBmLO5i7vQRN1tKiKdN1-0TK5nNe5uRt8YBfgwHVXZ9BqmUwtGxOqUg9FpNvAXnP9UHF24bEW_M5xd/s1440/306994304_10104644013072985_4641918873533718968_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmRIp3eNe3rLwVNUwiOZmgTxmkcU9SVpN5ufG9h7X3RaNh0y1mzqMqbr-i-tMjqKIL50OrEvSkpDpoYFh_pBB6SkLT3HfjbUG0wUaIjA0K4WBmLO5i7vQRN1tKiKdN1-0TK5nNe5uRt8YBfgwHVXZ9BqmUwtGxOqUg9FpNvAXnP9UHF24bEW_M5xd/s320/306994304_10104644013072985_4641918873533718968_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL7XlJHg36JMEkvM_vqwvduXkzZAS6kwMl9V7JMMWcxtCftiXvZ-1UXe4WFVeYcSfC6g2bWJWMM_xXMTiOxhlk-cqhaDE45j73ekUdeqvHEvyp9ok0-aT5jZX6FCxvmiGn57Y8U16NgETEID4t57XgG6Kj84YttbLnhIJ0Zg51uSoIhU0EHy02t6dI/s1440/306999869_10104644013053025_7595523261826613634_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL7XlJHg36JMEkvM_vqwvduXkzZAS6kwMl9V7JMMWcxtCftiXvZ-1UXe4WFVeYcSfC6g2bWJWMM_xXMTiOxhlk-cqhaDE45j73ekUdeqvHEvyp9ok0-aT5jZX6FCxvmiGn57Y8U16NgETEID4t57XgG6Kj84YttbLnhIJ0Zg51uSoIhU0EHy02t6dI/s320/306999869_10104644013053025_7595523261826613634_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpvd_hSiXG2467ZRRtfBOigKHRfDcBd4xSdLVMjD5-MYPnaPqSpTv2NnB_0W9MTPbee1K28f8uVHsNgntwk8ffs79qqOFwqSwy67W14DRuy9g4iJraWtExB0zndWZkoEoMfwxXgwmRyuWhI1Rn8BWhimaHS2k7WwJK7ZpParFONH5Oa-viWnGlFw7/s1440/307174167_10104644013067995_5857892148335303602_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpvd_hSiXG2467ZRRtfBOigKHRfDcBd4xSdLVMjD5-MYPnaPqSpTv2NnB_0W9MTPbee1K28f8uVHsNgntwk8ffs79qqOFwqSwy67W14DRuy9g4iJraWtExB0zndWZkoEoMfwxXgwmRyuWhI1Rn8BWhimaHS2k7WwJK7ZpParFONH5Oa-viWnGlFw7/s320/307174167_10104644013067995_5857892148335303602_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIXeQ_yCGUorOpZjGZsTsRmqiQz9GHAKpcguEPqh0gsRJU-assSKn7ONbUlE71lY-hn_xJAuDqM65JtpZ01aGz0Nd9hH7hkCqGWls7of8zpOZ9Pm8dKRah8BlGeNaumdyyjp-VL6FrWH2krZNI3jbVGdNOqZPs84SFvESkcHTq6lnMo968-4Z2zGp/s1440/307211346_10104644013077975_8537565315781912439_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIXeQ_yCGUorOpZjGZsTsRmqiQz9GHAKpcguEPqh0gsRJU-assSKn7ONbUlE71lY-hn_xJAuDqM65JtpZ01aGz0Nd9hH7hkCqGWls7of8zpOZ9Pm8dKRah8BlGeNaumdyyjp-VL6FrWH2krZNI3jbVGdNOqZPs84SFvESkcHTq6lnMo968-4Z2zGp/s320/307211346_10104644013077975_8537565315781912439_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-69431550814737081832022-02-08T11:05:00.000+00:002022-02-08T11:05:46.398+00:00Gertrude Hermes’ Ordsall Peacock: a portal between Salford old and new<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEit0_aCDnmAAMT8C97aKmUMdIuaQ5fLJmGYzxs-W-x_82vzlZjE2PiDbOugZ_L1haBg1KplMCDMcn6qFQ6XH8Olu69QSL0MTz4MOSiB9LLvVrCX4uUTHbsDZ7bPY9_OyGt9XUJ1Q0j98bdyzC--NMT50QNOAg9Za-lhbFOw6ReGY--Nu7R1RdgAFRdF=s1328" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1306" data-original-width="1328" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEit0_aCDnmAAMT8C97aKmUMdIuaQ5fLJmGYzxs-W-x_82vzlZjE2PiDbOugZ_L1haBg1KplMCDMcn6qFQ6XH8Olu69QSL0MTz4MOSiB9LLvVrCX4uUTHbsDZ7bPY9_OyGt9XUJ1Q0j98bdyzC--NMT50QNOAg9Za-lhbFOw6ReGY--Nu7R1RdgAFRdF=w400-h394" width="400" /></a></div>This winter, a large bronze peacock appeared in the grounds of Ordsall Hall in Salford, on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal. <div><br /></div><div>Whilst a peacock might seem an unusual sight in inner-city Salford, the sculpture has a long history in Ordsall and plays an important part in the local community’s sense of identity. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The Ordsall peacock is the work of Gertrude Hermes, a major mid-twentieth century British artist who was elected to prestigious exhibiting society the Royal Academy. Although her name may not roll off the tongue as easily as that of her peers, such as Barbara Hepworth, Hermes’ work has attracted renewed art historical and public interest in recent years following an <a href="https://hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/wild-girl-gertrude-hermes/" target="_blank">exhibition at the Hepworth in Wakefield in 2015.</a> Working across industrial design, sculpture and finely detailed woodcuts and linocuts, Hermes drew animals and famous English landmarks such as Stonehenge. She also depicted elements of the natural world, such as rock formations and waterfalls, in stylised close-up. </div><div><br /></div><div>Like many artists of her generation, Hermes did not just create work for galleries but made pieces for public places. After the Second World War, her artworks were purchased for numerous schools and teacher training schemes around the country. She also helped select prints for the annual <i><a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Pictures for Schools</a></i> exhibitions, held in London between 1947 and 1969, which aimed to provide affordable artworks for educational buyers. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqM-Qb1HaR963Of77rHtU_QAjzUOP9gKz-grrlSn9imlOq0eBwRm0B-4R6GPNROfD5VlIVE9Jr3jnHv3vk18pYTmncsC1m8g2ZhV_t2V86RVgKW5OjSLAEObEyxPLaw1a_E8CBXNPlasuz9GqI-4xEQ4jX-UlWA22qFdVE2xPMO7ouI-xxnliCIbWo=s340" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="340" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqM-Qb1HaR963Of77rHtU_QAjzUOP9gKz-grrlSn9imlOq0eBwRm0B-4R6GPNROfD5VlIVE9Jr3jnHv3vk18pYTmncsC1m8g2ZhV_t2V86RVgKW5OjSLAEObEyxPLaw1a_E8CBXNPlasuz9GqI-4xEQ4jX-UlWA22qFdVE2xPMO7ouI-xxnliCIbWo=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div>Hermes’ peacock was installed at the new <a href="https://salfordandcheethaminfocus.co.uk/object/pomc05806/" target="_blank">Ordsall Girls School</a> in 1961, using money from the local authority and funds raised by pupils (another proposed facility, a swimming pool, was apparently too expensive). A frog was placed outside the boys’ school; its location is now unknown. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkIZkdyVg_mXOK3B8jAYnIdHNxc9x2a8Le58Y1n89mICv31AdGYMZWvMAN0_brpfIRaCTD5yyvjXjstgU5PC_5br6U4fEQEHzwKGr4EnGx5p87dCHbBD72eY4eZljIQ42fPyzvBT5aYaAcRFjvPCFE4tpuBayCzmUBB_oyDdP1qmSZ4WDk8wb39ljL=s640" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="640" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkIZkdyVg_mXOK3B8jAYnIdHNxc9x2a8Le58Y1n89mICv31AdGYMZWvMAN0_brpfIRaCTD5yyvjXjstgU5PC_5br6U4fEQEHzwKGr4EnGx5p87dCHbBD72eY4eZljIQ42fPyzvBT5aYaAcRFjvPCFE4tpuBayCzmUBB_oyDdP1qmSZ4WDk8wb39ljL=w400-h238" width="400" /></a></div><div>Ordsall High no longer exists, and the Ordsall of the early 1960s is unrecognisable from the Ordsall of today. Then, it was a densely populated area of Victorian housing, built for workers at the nearby docks. By the mid-1970s, the majority of the old housing stock had been knocked down as part of a slum clearance programme, and many of the residents had been moved to new housing in areas further out of the city. In the 1960s, film-maker <a href="https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/viewVideo.php?token=7897agw2091w7h43304aP5nxZYm2168b49Hq2dw" target="_blank">Mike Goodger</a> documented the run-down conditions in which many residents lived, lacking in basic facilities, whilst the bittersweet super-8 footage of local newsagent <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2010/11/mr-ralph-brookes-salford-newsagent-and.html" target="_blank">Ralph Brookes</a> captured the final days of life and established social relationships in the old streets. Medieval stately home <a href="https://ordsallhall.com/about/history-2/" target="_blank">Ordsall Hall</a>, whose long and interesting history included a stint as a working men’s club for a nearby mill, also fell into a state of disrepair. </div><div><br /></div><div>Since then, the area has comprehensively rebuilt, at a far lower population density. The majority of homes are still socially owned, an increasing rarity following the right-to-buy policies initiated by Thatcher in the 1980s. Whilst the area is still home to families who remember the ‘old Ordsall’, the docks down the road are long gone and the site has been rebranded ‘MediaCity UK’. Manual work has been replaced with media and creative industry jobs for those with qualifications and connections, alongside a university campus, apartments, shopping outlet, bars and the Lowry arts centre. A place of industry has become a leisure destination for those with disposable income. Ordsall Hall is now a council-owned museum with a tranquil garden and even the once polluted waters of the ship canal are clean enough for swimming and watersports. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6-ngZj9c1ZnHsctdel08te56WIoiE9zPoM01iYSQ55YVZkWoWiCQZGGTPAqRzpPP1v_frKH2RQovpPpUYfrRoKRdKlUEKNq7NWaN093KUAu5hnww9rb6z4Hizhu9IIeww8D4eRSfLTItyTFh9qJpXLSTGXPJ6wl6r_UAOTTi4_IWWjoYFuLzbyq-h=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6-ngZj9c1ZnHsctdel08te56WIoiE9zPoM01iYSQ55YVZkWoWiCQZGGTPAqRzpPP1v_frKH2RQovpPpUYfrRoKRdKlUEKNq7NWaN093KUAu5hnww9rb6z4Hizhu9IIeww8D4eRSfLTItyTFh9qJpXLSTGXPJ6wl6r_UAOTTi4_IWWjoYFuLzbyq-h=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div>Hermes’ peacock remained at Ordsall High until the school closed in 1988 and the site became part of Salford College. The peacock was subsequently moved to a Salford College site in another inner-city area, Charlestown, a couple of miles away. Here, it was unceremoniously sunk into concrete and languished in what Gail Skelly, a volunteer and director of <a href="https://www.ocarts.co.uk/" target="_blank">Ordsall Community Arts (OCA)</a>, describes as “an inauspicious place, full of weeds”. In 2012, the peacock was put into storage at the OCA’s headquarters whilst a new location was sought. Spearheaded by local man George Tapp, the community embarked on a campaign to bring the peacock home. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkQbrjAYPeOa1PxAsD3rorp-vIrJ4TBEAMt9bh1bkCFkA4Ol8NI8pEhfjw8dqT_LiBTfi33xM1sB_m_mLPugolvl-bv_HjM0NJC-q8p9kPHloSAPiPt5Vyo_dhmt3fvsCudGNJRnqzK9g1-95x3WYzcbGjdjwx9WoM7ufbHnK84NfK5R9Uxa21chHl=s986" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="986" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkQbrjAYPeOa1PxAsD3rorp-vIrJ4TBEAMt9bh1bkCFkA4Ol8NI8pEhfjw8dqT_LiBTfi33xM1sB_m_mLPugolvl-bv_HjM0NJC-q8p9kPHloSAPiPt5Vyo_dhmt3fvsCudGNJRnqzK9g1-95x3WYzcbGjdjwx9WoM7ufbHnK84NfK5R9Uxa21chHl=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div>Enabled by Heritage Lottery Funding, OCA spent several years working with Noah Rose, an artist with a long track-record of working in public art focused on communities and heritage, both in the UK and internationally, who led on the restoration of the sculpture. In collaboration with consulting structural engineer Peter Hewitt, Noah also designed a new plinth in red sandstone, sourced from St Bees in Cumbria, for the grounds of Ordsall Hall. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiL6wFoz9UgOzamhc4t-lrHzKMogD3VlCU8CZwDz_y5TTNxvMkfixNSGWzPQxbYGTSqNLrFBZzHLeu-3Rz8w-c6Np9XFbAxDKqg9f9e2HD6jRzE5UmLiUpzyBs-aml7M2ublLqZrRedkOLXViOcT5iSwBh1QdebL_tU7BuA-01IcfWZ2K1dIHnlEKDA=s3024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiL6wFoz9UgOzamhc4t-lrHzKMogD3VlCU8CZwDz_y5TTNxvMkfixNSGWzPQxbYGTSqNLrFBZzHLeu-3Rz8w-c6Np9XFbAxDKqg9f9e2HD6jRzE5UmLiUpzyBs-aml7M2ublLqZrRedkOLXViOcT5iSwBh1QdebL_tU7BuA-01IcfWZ2K1dIHnlEKDA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div>Shortly before the completion of the completion of the restoration process, I visited Noah at his studio in a former printing works in Salford, where he outlined some of the challenges of restoring the peacock and remedying the damage done when it was removed from public display. I watched as Noah carefully cleaned away residue left when the artwork was embedded in concrete and showed me a heavy-walled bronze tube designed to secure the sculpture in its new home. “It’s been a big honour and responsibility to restore an iconic bronze sculpture by such an important artist,” Noah told me. “I want to honour the work, and it’s daunting, but by using the right materials I’m hoping to give it the best possible resurrection.” </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB21kpj0BaW4UDszRaUi3Zku38VZ44ZTrvcBohaxEEjWOWc2AUG4VWTkOiVYOxCIZxm38cvAVAtetYJkt3OHrdS2CmnzElfiWYe511x6reHjmbx0ettOUislf8IWmktUUgvLRYK990TWJDRIkIqg9rfe_hoDRIWy6XQEu6WxNIHJtM_kTaG5uWTmWh=s3024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB21kpj0BaW4UDszRaUi3Zku38VZ44ZTrvcBohaxEEjWOWc2AUG4VWTkOiVYOxCIZxm38cvAVAtetYJkt3OHrdS2CmnzElfiWYe511x6reHjmbx0ettOUislf8IWmktUUgvLRYK990TWJDRIkIqg9rfe_hoDRIWy6XQEu6WxNIHJtM_kTaG5uWTmWh=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">G</span><span style="text-align: left;">ail emphasises that the project hasn’t just been about bringing the sculpture back physically, but has sought to explore its social significance and celebrate the area’s shared history. “We just have to tell people the story and they are interested,” she says. “The peacock is quite famous around here and everyone over the age of thirty who grew up here remembers it. It was originally situated on a pedestrian through-way, so even people who didn’t go to the school had seen it. People would meet there for a fight, a fag or a photo. It was their peacock.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYnQPqNxKq9s1LT47-RflQpvcTdEWR5nRm82UszYwyp6Vbwq09qKa08yOjmJffBEAX8Jes7bvml9-DDilK6q245b21flJgvi5VvrXJRLUaT5KSZZIl23yqVM3Ut6NYlOIMI794O9N54CNSd_1-qCmhisAsdHcAS-KGjrZiDowk1XowS7B52eLoJRvY=s2016" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYnQPqNxKq9s1LT47-RflQpvcTdEWR5nRm82UszYwyp6Vbwq09qKa08yOjmJffBEAX8Jes7bvml9-DDilK6q245b21flJgvi5VvrXJRLUaT5KSZZIl23yqVM3Ut6NYlOIMI794O9N54CNSd_1-qCmhisAsdHcAS-KGjrZiDowk1XowS7B52eLoJRvY=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div></div><div>Associated events have included school drama, a map, a film and a social history project to develop a personal timeline of Ordsall with long-term residents of the area. Gail has worked with young women from Salford Girls’ Club, using Hermes’ position as a woman artist – she notes that Ordsall is a community in which women are often the most active members – to reflect on their own lives and the challenges they face; in the 1960s, Hermes catalysed a rule change to allow women to attend Royal Academy dinners, following her exclusion solely on the basis of her gender. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy5IkR-Z1jWUC30XGBVG5COqDsVYGMkx2I-Gnv8ytqNApG4-kSwdhmKte0nHoZleSN6xfAXLQUtXDQD58FMRHwv3ZNeaF-DMxRBeCUynCQJmOPzB5pr0LRk2i_VirvFTcJEdLZl3ztYQlMXc85jLhVNmxPYcn3o-Elr8p3sBO7zURVBJhrK-2fYrQ0=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy5IkR-Z1jWUC30XGBVG5COqDsVYGMkx2I-Gnv8ytqNApG4-kSwdhmKte0nHoZleSN6xfAXLQUtXDQD58FMRHwv3ZNeaF-DMxRBeCUynCQJmOPzB5pr0LRk2i_VirvFTcJEdLZl3ztYQlMXc85jLhVNmxPYcn3o-Elr8p3sBO7zURVBJhrK-2fYrQ0=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div>In 2018, OCA marked its fortieth birthday with a peacock-themed lantern parade. A group of peahens were created for the peacock and hundreds of children were brought together in the dark to imagine what Gail calls a “daft love story”. In spring 2019, the peacock was celebrated with a light installation at the alternative arts festival Not Quite Light, which took place across Salford. </div><div><br /></div><div>Salford continues to develop rapidly, particularly those areas within walking distance of Manchester city centre. Geographically relocated by estate agents to be part of ‘Manchester’, these areas are being built up with apartment blocks promoting aspirational city living, often funded through foreign investment. In spite of this, there is a huge gulf between the old and new populations. Whilst higher earners have taken advantage of the ability to commute in to MediaCity from Manchester and its surrounding towns, or live in Ordsall and use it as a convenient base for working and socialising in Manchester, longstanding communities have been hit hard by austerity policies and the loss of services and amenities. Existing residents are often isolated and disenfranchised. </div><div><br /></div><div>Another peacock sculpture by Hermes was listed for £95,000 at auction in 2015. At a time when local authorities continue to sell off assets such as publicly owned artworks, this must seem a huge amount of money in Salford, a city which, despite its proximity to the cultural attractions of Manchester and Salford Quays, has one of the lowest levels of engagement with the arts in the country. Gail acknowledges the difficult balancing act between “money we desperately need to spend” and “the value of public art, whether that’s financial or cultural”. </div><div><br /></div><div>In spite of this, there is a recognition that the peacock means a great deal to Ordsall. “People really feel personally for it,” reflects Gail. “It’s a real focal point.” Above all, she says, “It’s a symbol of resilience and toughness, a reminder of the past when so much has been lost. It’s a portal between the old and new areas.” </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCeLx8_H8QVTHnr-4SWIcomUI6qkNoaPYS11qjQ900gX01fpekKBppFg06X7vTieX7ELZ4saoLPtNtzkeb6SE1bMt4W2sjjZXNqYBZaHEGNXOqpNVLTiwPjzkTVFP-wsuJoRsNgS8veysfctk3nrhoGBz8XDAU8NBd7cfR-nB3E-2m3-M6fwtJGRYK=s2016" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCeLx8_H8QVTHnr-4SWIcomUI6qkNoaPYS11qjQ900gX01fpekKBppFg06X7vTieX7ELZ4saoLPtNtzkeb6SE1bMt4W2sjjZXNqYBZaHEGNXOqpNVLTiwPjzkTVFP-wsuJoRsNgS8veysfctk3nrhoGBz8XDAU8NBd7cfR-nB3E-2m3-M6fwtJGRYK=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div></div><div><b>Visit the peacock in the grounds of Ordsall Hall now: <a href="https://ordsallhall.com/ " target="_blank">https://ordsallhall.com/ </a></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Watch a video about the peacock’s return to Salford online <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1tMr0diyV8&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">here.
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f1tMr0diyV8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></a></b></div><div><b>A launch event and celebration will be held from 4-5pm on Thursday 17 February. </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>An exhibition of material relating to the project will be held at St Clement’s Church, Ordsall. The exhibition launches from 1-3pm on Sunday 20 February and will be open to visit on Sundays from 1-3pm until Sunday 13 March. </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Archive photos courtesy Paul Blain/Ordsall High School.</b></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-25320564208276344732021-12-17T12:33:00.003+00:002021-12-17T12:33:56.740+00:00Winter Hill sloe gin (Is this the way to San Marino?)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1CshtKJcIX4/YbDFXnH6RzI/AAAAAAAAC6o/NgAqIZ9n3uQxSJeHrWjPMT6sjkD0Ll8XACNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241576317_10104385655044545_2109901103262097449_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1CshtKJcIX4/YbDFXnH6RzI/AAAAAAAAC6o/NgAqIZ9n3uQxSJeHrWjPMT6sjkD0Ll8XACNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/241576317_10104385655044545_2109901103262097449_n.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>I had never been to Winter Hill – an open expanse of moorland above the large industrial town of Bolton – before. As a committed urbanite, I hadn’t walked up many hills of any scale. It wasn’t until the summer of 2021 that I finally fulfilled a long-held ambition of climbing Kinder Scout in the Peak District. I was inspired by a longstanding interest in the famous Kinder trespass of 1932, which pitted the rights of working people against private landowners who sought to deny them the freedom to roam in the open countryside that surrounded polluted, overcrowded towns and cities. When I heard about ‘Winter Hill 125’, therefore – a march to commemorate another successful and significant, but lesser-known, mass trespass – it seemed like the perfect excuse to get on the train to Bolton and take another walk. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i3mR0dnFnqQ/YbDFgZ55dEI/AAAAAAAAC6s/1L6EGTi9em4eVBKNOy1tbzBkK-527s1GQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241539895_10104385654999635_5054124742977165142_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i3mR0dnFnqQ/YbDFgZ55dEI/AAAAAAAAC6s/1L6EGTi9em4eVBKNOy1tbzBkK-527s1GQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241539895_10104385654999635_5054124742977165142_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>I didn’t expect it to be so far – or for this sunny Sunday in early September to be one of the last blazing hot days of the year. From the station, I walked alongside busy arterial roads to the start point of the march, a nondescript health centre a mile and a half out of Bolton town centre. Mingling with the crowd, I followed a colourful array of banners bearing socialist slogans and campaigning imagery, as the beats of the PCS union’s samba band buoyed us uphill through residential streets. Most of my fellow walkers seemed to know each other – and commented that I appeared to be the youngest on the walk by some distance! Many shared memories of taking part in similar commemorative walks, on previous anniversaries (including the centenary of the Winter Hill trespass in 1996). </div><div><br /></div><div>As we passed through different neighbourhoods, people turned out to wave: everyone, young and old, seemed pleased to see us. Heading towards the outskirts of the town, the houses changed in character, from dense redbrick terraces to mellow stone. Eventually, the roads narrowed to a country lane. I ate handfuls of blackberries from the side of the road, and picked a few sloes – a woman of South Asian heritage, curious, asked me what I was doing. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WyOrSUU7c2c/YbDFo9oHifI/AAAAAAAAC60/tquEADApEJYlfyTzQHi91ssbIeoz5tK5ACNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241491536_10104385655034565_5418574779431289516_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WyOrSUU7c2c/YbDFo9oHifI/AAAAAAAAC60/tquEADApEJYlfyTzQHi91ssbIeoz5tK5ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241491536_10104385655034565_5418574779431289516_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>As we left the town behind, the air began to clear and the samba band dispersed. For the first time, I stopped to look behind me, and saw the mass of people in the distance. There were hundreds – you don’t appreciate how many there are when you’re in the middle of it. I realised how high we were now, the town far below us. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x4cp02_1QO8/YbDFu3iGy6I/AAAAAAAAC64/kuEUI7po06sDbhHcQr04sxOwc0VuVrDzQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241288043_10104385655039555_2050183224373302648_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x4cp02_1QO8/YbDFu3iGy6I/AAAAAAAAC64/kuEUI7po06sDbhHcQr04sxOwc0VuVrDzQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241288043_10104385655039555_2050183224373302648_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>I kept walking. As we picked our way across the moors, over rough stones and clumps of grass, my footing became less steady. What should have been panoramic views of the surrounding landscapes were obscured by haze, and sheep and moorland was all that could be seen. Climbing higher and higher, I began to wonder where we were actually aiming for – and if we would ever reach ‘the top’. Eventually, six miles out of town, we seemed to come to a natural pause at a TV transmitter, a giant aerial stretching into the deep blue skies above, almost too tall to comprehend. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DreMc8l3d18/YbDF0UDkFvI/AAAAAAAAC7A/Bkx0K7i-4ToxWxb-3W9r4xkH9OwDMsVOACNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241365054_10104385654984665_5057984635232217530_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DreMc8l3d18/YbDF0UDkFvI/AAAAAAAAC7A/Bkx0K7i-4ToxWxb-3W9r4xkH9OwDMsVOACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241365054_10104385654984665_5057984635232217530_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>Other walkers took out their sandwiches and made small talk with the Bolton Mountain Rescue team, parked up in a van. I wondered what going on. It turned out these were splinter groups, local rambling societies with plans to go in different directions and find their own routes across the moors. It appeared that I had, in my zeal, outpaced the rest of the organised march, and that we were now waiting for them to catch up. I felt truly as if I was in the middle of nowhere. It would be a long walk back down again and I began to panic, wondering how I would ever find my way back to the station. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Stop_2LdyoA/YbDGArfR3kI/AAAAAAAAC7I/gx20jPDWuyM8aPnfz3LzGo1C2rMt41eaQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241365007_10104385654974685_196704969940618973_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Stop_2LdyoA/YbDGArfR3kI/AAAAAAAAC7I/gx20jPDWuyM8aPnfz3LzGo1C2rMt41eaQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241365007_10104385654974685_196704969940618973_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>‘There’ll be buses from San Marino,’ I was repeatedly reassured. But what was San Marino? A little bit of southern Europe in windswept, post-industrial Lancashire? It seemed unlikely. Eventually, and gratefully, I was rescued by some friendly faces. Two former colleagues from my past working in the co-operative movement (which felt like a lifetime ago) appeared, who I hadn’t seen in years, and who lived nearby. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-57kLeYtbF1Y/YbDGGG85gfI/AAAAAAAAC7Q/8GHRx6qV-H4fVTWjvCysz84_f-G_Sdu5ACNcBGAsYHQ/s1440/241502236_10104385654969695_5552904600396673996_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-57kLeYtbF1Y/YbDGGG85gfI/AAAAAAAAC7Q/8GHRx6qV-H4fVTWjvCysz84_f-G_Sdu5ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/241502236_10104385654969695_5552904600396673996_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>We walked downhill together, a shorter and gentler route. San Marino was a Mediterranean restaurant in a picturesque spot overlooking a reservoir (one of many in the area, originally built in the Victorian era to service Bolton’s growing industries). There, we were met by local buses, which took us back to the town centre free of charge. The short journey back to town wasn’t just a welcome opportunity to rest my legs, but to catch up with others on the walk, find common ground and connections, and share stories. Winter Hill had brought us together.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi12r02afVPZDLJNzOKUaq56GN6Hhm8Ac8ts4_adHWCbRhzMH3ieF5gvJm0DZsfhjJB8QqnjyQeuUiVACgFhl0bvjrCoCm7eL76MtoP34ELW6_buNDMKVkSXD9HJ2b413U_VtbKupIvLva920OOtf2P9qSSdQD54HAc-1n5SaZbpuLGL--WDN6eCSja=s3024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi12r02afVPZDLJNzOKUaq56GN6Hhm8Ac8ts4_adHWCbRhzMH3ieF5gvJm0DZsfhjJB8QqnjyQeuUiVACgFhl0bvjrCoCm7eL76MtoP34ELW6_buNDMKVkSXD9HJ2b413U_VtbKupIvLva920OOtf2P9qSSdQD54HAc-1n5SaZbpuLGL--WDN6eCSja=s320" width="320" /></a></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-71090634561024276122021-11-18T11:24:00.007+00:002021-11-20T09:22:54.330+00:00The Shrieking Violet in the University of Salford Library <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-re81PyJcFt0/YZi9xwhYcRI/AAAAAAAAC5s/C3mtPvXRcH09qsQidx6DTDS3IULB8zU_QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20211117_154327.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-re81PyJcFt0/YZi9xwhYcRI/AAAAAAAAC5s/C3mtPvXRcH09qsQidx6DTDS3IULB8zU_QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20211117_154327.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A full set of back issues of The Shrieking Violet is now available to view in the University of Salford Library <a href="https://salford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/collectionDiscovery?vid=44SAL_INST:SAL_MAIN&collectionId=81197596210001611" target="_blank">zine collection</a>. <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItUByMcETW4/YZi93RuumaI/AAAAAAAAC5w/T7WPObAK4uwdtJQAwSbOdZrj0Bh_kkpygCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20211117_153347.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItUByMcETW4/YZi93RuumaI/AAAAAAAAC5w/T7WPObAK4uwdtJQAwSbOdZrj0Bh_kkpygCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20211117_153347.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><div>This has entailed returning to the cheap photocopier shop on Oxford Road where I copied issues of <i>The Shrieking Violet</i> between circa 2009 and 2014.
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gu6joiq3VOY/YZY2BKCJN6I/AAAAAAAAC44/ulougw4no4QCqdnZ95Vx7tkWnG295_pJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/257649740_10104437557117375_1833846712270145085_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gu6joiq3VOY/YZY2BKCJN6I/AAAAAAAAC44/ulougw4no4QCqdnZ95Vx7tkWnG295_pJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/257649740_10104437557117375_1833846712270145085_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div></div>It felt really strange stepping back into a spot where I had spent so many hours engaged in the repetitive and almost meditative motions of copying, folding, ordering and compiling. I always thought of <i>The Shrieking Violet</i> as a zine about the city, but I realised for the first time how personal and autobiographical they were at the same time, almost like a diary of discovery and learning at a formative time of my life. Reading back now, I was struck by how righteous my younger self was at times, but also by how long I’ve held the same interests and motivations (from a very early age), which have only deepened and expanded over time. <div><div><br /></div><div>Part of me wondered how I ever had the time, energy and motivation to do such things, how I managed to write so much, and if I was mad to do this. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ySfcUYZnHo4/YZY2oMoUQGI/AAAAAAAAC5Q/1KMtllDzXxQ6n0TlTsMWmdeFPWxU4ppWACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/257291129_10104437557122365_1796848100324433846_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ySfcUYZnHo4/YZY2oMoUQGI/AAAAAAAAC5Q/1KMtllDzXxQ6n0TlTsMWmdeFPWxU4ppWACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/257291129_10104437557122365_1796848100324433846_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>I thought about getting a set of back issues printed professionally for the library (which would have been a lot less onerous and time-consuming), but going back to the photocopier made me realise how intrinsic the material and act of photocopying and folding by hand was to <i>The Shrieking Violet</i>. While there are many things I would do differently now, not just from a design perspective, but to improve accessibility and legibility (for example I never realised how tiny the text was!), there’s something that really appeals to me not just about the instant, cheap format, but the unpredictability and randomness of the quality of the reproduction and the tone of the ink according to the individual machine. Perhaps it’s because no matter what my interests are, the spirit of punk is there somewhere in the background, underlying everything I do … </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dt4CmlonW-I/YZY20MchX0I/AAAAAAAAC5U/EB_uviVt2ykoLfYeL7l-atztL1qusy3bACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/257710321_10104437557132345_2990026151000553645_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dt4CmlonW-I/YZY20MchX0I/AAAAAAAAC5U/EB_uviVt2ykoLfYeL7l-atztL1qusy3bACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/257710321_10104437557132345_2990026151000553645_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>I also always enjoy becoming reacquainted with one of my favourite ever interviews, with the artist Maurice Carlin, in <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2011/01/shrieking-violet-issue-12-and-why-you.html" target="_blank">issue 12</a> of <i>The Shrieking Violet</i> (2011), about his project <i>The Self Publishers</i>, which collected and compiled discarded sheets found in photocopier shops around Manchester and Salford. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aeFrL1zIbCk/YZY2JSZYLPI/AAAAAAAAC48/SeT6rTg3fp0w47ilFC6ZlGz43dNF5CXrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/258300788_10104437557112385_5079682037817329670_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aeFrL1zIbCk/YZY2JSZYLPI/AAAAAAAAC48/SeT6rTg3fp0w47ilFC6ZlGz43dNF5CXrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/258300788_10104437557112385_5079682037817329670_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>Other issues particularly pertinent to Salford include issue 9 (a special <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2010/04/sounds-from-other-city-2010-programme.html" target="_blank">guide to Sounds from the Other City festival</a>), <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-shrieking-violet-issue-23-and-fifth.html" target="_blank">issue 23</a>, which features Claire Hignett on the story of the Basque children who were evacuated to Salford during the Spanish Civil War, and <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-shrieking-violet-guide-to-public.html" target="_blank">issue 24</a> (<i>The Shrieking Violet guide to the Public Art of Central Salford</i>). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wHTDRBHHvBM/YZY2RjFw2NI/AAAAAAAAC5E/Kapt4SFxbA0qX5JMVtY7zwuC8rNNzFutwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/257917218_10104437557127355_4036826986161204266_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wHTDRBHHvBM/YZY2RjFw2NI/AAAAAAAAC5E/Kapt4SFxbA0qX5JMVtY7zwuC8rNNzFutwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/257917218_10104437557127355_4036826986161204266_n.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div>The zine collection can be viewed during library opening hours (24-hours daily for students) and during staffed hours (until 9pm daily) for visitors, at the <a href="https://www.salford.ac.uk/library" target="_blank">Clifford Whitworth Library</a>, University of Salford, M5 4NT. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vUUEWmsEAdI/YZi-JgQqM4I/AAAAAAAAC6E/FD4YxCCRu6UuiVRrvNvK2SXr8U4QE0qlgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20211117_154304.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vUUEWmsEAdI/YZi-JgQqM4I/AAAAAAAAC6E/FD4YxCCRu6UuiVRrvNvK2SXr8U4QE0qlgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20211117_154304.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div>All back issues of the Shrieking Violet can also be viewed online at <a href="http://www.nataliebradbury.co.uk/publishing" target="_blank">www.nataliebradbury.co.uk/publishing</a>.</div></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-44747347327367135852021-09-04T12:25:00.003+01:002021-09-04T12:25:29.499+01:00Modernist Heroines article in Gender, Place & Culture by Morag Rose<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-idR60i5JT08/YTNW-G7EO2I/AAAAAAAAC4A/Bw0Q5G-vRWs58EGU2rVOV4l8XXO1ePY5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1191/Manchester%2527s%2BModernist%2BHeroines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="842" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-idR60i5JT08/YTNW-G7EO2I/AAAAAAAAC4A/Bw0Q5G-vRWs58EGU2rVOV4l8XXO1ePY5wCLcBGAsYHQ/w283-h400/Manchester%2527s%2BModernist%2BHeroines.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><br />Congratulations to Dr Morag Rose on the publication of her journal article in<i> Gender, Place & Culture</i>, ‘From an aviatrix to a eugenicist: walking with Manchester’s Modernist Heroines’, which documents Manchester’s Modernist Heroines, a joint local history project between the joint Loiterers Resistance Movement, Manchester Modernist Society and the Shrieking Violet in 2011. The article focuses on the alternative walking tour Morag developed, inspired by the ten twentieth-century women we highlighted through the project, and explores walking as feminist pedagogy; it's been great to see the project revisited, contextualised and reevaluated from a new perspective.<p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Read Morag's article online <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1956436?needAccess=true" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />Read the Manchester’s Modernist Heroines publication <a href="https://nataliebradbury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/The_Shrieking_Violet_Issue_13.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>, and find out more about the project and the heroines, <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2011/03/manchesters-modernist-heroines.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-30229795770484436282021-06-27T19:13:00.000+01:002021-06-27T19:13:01.805+01:00How it started: How it’s going: Darren Nixon and Laura Hopkinson, in dialogue with Natalie Bradbury, PAPER Gallery, 3 July-7 August <i><strike><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CxnIRn84xq0/YMSObsvqb3I/AAAAAAAAC2Y/id0mTDUYhl8z1bjZai3pRoF2_1FN7-mBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/PAPER%2BLaura%2B%2526%2BDarren.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1476" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CxnIRn84xq0/YMSObsvqb3I/AAAAAAAAC2Y/id0mTDUYhl8z1bjZai3pRoF2_1FN7-mBgCLcBGAsYHQ/w289-h400/PAPER%2BLaura%2B%2526%2BDarren.jpg" width="289" /></a></div><br />How it started</strike> How it’s going </i>brings together new work on paper by Darren Nixon and Laura Hopkinson, shown in dialogue with <i>The Fourdrinier</i> writer Natalie Bradbury. For Nixon and Hopkinson as artists, and Bradbury as a writer, the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic have also presented an opportunity to experiment with new media and explore different ways of working. In the past, Nixon and Hopkinson have worked primarily with video, incorporating elements of performance, painting, installation and sculptural intervention. Shown across PAPER and PAPER², the work on display in How it started How it’s going reflects a change of direction for both artists, both of whom are working with paper for the first time. This was prompted in part by the constraints imposed by lockdown, including a lack of access to studio space and a necessity to work with materials found close to hand. <div><br /></div><div> Nixon’s resulting work is drawn from a large mass of collages, numbering more than four hundred in total. In these collages, found images, alongside images newly created by the artist, are reworked, redrawn and reimagined in new combinations and pairings, creating absurd, surreal and playful juxtapositions. Hopkinson has developed a series of witty text-based drawings, incorporating elements of wordplay alongside found phrases sourced from Amazon product reviews. As a writer whose work usually entails in-depth research, a tightly controlled style and close attention to detail, Bradbury has sought to rediscover the freedom, looseness and spontaneity of writing freehand on paper, without a pre-determined outcome.
From their origins on paper, the bodies of work created by Nixon and Hopkinson have undergone a process of transformation. Scanned and transmitted digitally, the artworks have travelled backwards and forwards between Bradbury, Nixon and Hopkinson as large-scale file transfers. <div><br /></div><div>These electronic images have formed the basis of an ongoing, three-way collaboration: each has navigated through the work with a shared sense of humour, play and openness to multiple readings. </div><div><br /></div><div>The aim of <i><strike>How it started </strike>How it’s going</i> is not to present two artists’ work side-by-side; instead, the show offers a snapshot of a conversation in progress. Rather than seeking to interpret or explain, <i><strike>How it started </strike>How it’s going </i>sketches out creative connections between the artists’ work, which may act as starting points for further stories.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://paper-gallery.co.uk/darren-nixon-laura-hopkinson-how-its-going">https://paper-gallery.co.uk/darren-nixon-laura-hopkinson-how-its-going</a></div><div><br /></div><b>
PAPER #67: </b><b><i><strike>How it started</strike> How it’s going:</i> </b><b>Darren Nixon and Laura Hopkinson,
in dialogue with Natalie Bradbury </b><div><b>Exhibition dates: 3 July-7 August 2021 </b></div><div><b>Opening Times: 11am-5pm every Saturday </b></div><div><b>PAPER Gallery, Mirabel Studios, 14-20 Mirabel Street, Manchester, M3 1PJ </b></div><div><b>Website: www.paper-gallery.co.uk </b></div><div><b>Free
</b></div>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-71485961201572184822020-12-14T11:02:00.004+00:002020-12-14T11:04:22.310+00:00New website and Shrieking Violet online archive<p>Earlier this year I commissioned the designer <a href="https://deslloydbehari.co.uk/" target="_blank">Des Lloyd Behari</a> to make me a new website to bring together most of my writing, projects and other work in one place.</p><p>The website features an archive of back issues of <i>the Shrieking Violet,</i> which can be explored at <a href="https://nataliebradbury.co.uk/publishing/" target="_blank">https://nataliebradbury.co.uk/publishing/</a> in a more reader-friendly way than they had previously been available.</p><p>While I still have a lot more of my writing archive to add, the website is live and can be explored at <a href="http://www.nataliebradbury.com" target="_blank">www.nataliebradbury.com</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CCbRLqQB1MQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) 0px 0px 1px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15) 0px 1px 10px 0px; margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0px; width: calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding: 16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CCbRLqQB1MQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 0; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; width: 100%;" target="_blank"> <div style="align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: row;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div></div></div><div style="padding: 19% 0px;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0px auto 12px; width: 50px;"><svg height="50px" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 60 60" width="50px" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" stroke-width="1" stroke="none"><g fill="#000000" transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div><div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0px;"></div> <div style="align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px;"><div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px); width: 12.5px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12.5px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 14px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px); width: 12.5px;"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid rgb(244, 244, 244); border-top: 2px solid transparent; height: 0px; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg); width: 0px;"></div></div><div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="border-right: 8px solid transparent; border-top: 8px solid rgb(244, 244, 244); transform: translateY(16px); width: 0px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; transform: translateY(-4px); width: 16px;"></div> <div style="border-left: 8px solid transparent; border-top: 8px solid rgb(244, 244, 244); height: 0px; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px); width: 0px;"></div></div></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div></div></a><p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0px 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CCbRLqQB1MQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">A post shared by Des Lloyd Behari (@deslloydbehari)</a></p></div></blockquote> <script async="" src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-63582620934652969502020-12-07T09:58:00.001+00:002020-12-07T09:58:13.921+00:00Manchester: Something Rich and Strange <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ax4m87cMrAc/X837mAiUi_I/AAAAAAAACys/5IbKWmRHMnctNXwBuJjA9m2wDaMZB_tNwCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/EnGrI55XMAI9MTo.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="319" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ax4m87cMrAc/X837mAiUi_I/AAAAAAAACys/5IbKWmRHMnctNXwBuJjA9m2wDaMZB_tNwCLcBGAsYHQ/w255-h400/EnGrI55XMAI9MTo.jpeg" width="255" /></a></div>I'm pleased to be a contributor to a new book, <i>Manchester: Something Rich and Strange</i> (edited by Paul Dobraszczyk and Sarah Butler), published by Manchester University Press with a beautiful cover by Simon Buckley (Not Quite Light). Aiming to get under the skin of the city and offer alternative perspectives beyond the usual, tired narratives, writers, artists and academics have each taken a series of words as prompts for short essays. I have written about 'Newspaper', 'Loop', 'Co-operative', Sculpture' and 'Statue'. <div><br /></div><div><i>Manchester: Something Rich and Strange</i> is currently available for the bargain price of £7.79 (usual price £12.99). Buy <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526144140/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Listen to a short extract of me reading from my piece about the Loop lines, former railway lines converted to walking and cycling routes.</div>
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/934771267&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><div style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Interstate, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 100; line-break: anywhere; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-break: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/manchester-uni-press" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Manchester University Press">Manchester University Press</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/manchester-uni-press/loop" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Loop by Natalie Bradbury">Loop by Natalie Bradbury</a></div>
I also recorded a short video on the Fallowfield Loop talking about my contribution.<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pst7uxAoPNg" width="560"></iframe>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-38297852273526316762019-12-28T19:02:00.003+00:002020-02-07T18:39:58.671+00:00Best of 2019<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2019 has been characterised by a precarious balance of full-time work, freelance work, conferences and attempts at academic writing. My primary output has been through <i><a href="https://www.thefourdrinier.com/" target="_blank">the Fourdrinier</a></i>, a new art writing site focused on work on paper, for which I have interviewed and written about artists including <a href="https://www.thefourdrinier.com/art-on-the-underground" target="_blank">Jade Montserrat</a>, <a href="https://www.thefourdrinier.com/art-by-the-metre-jenny-steeles-wallpaper-for-crosby-library" target="_blank">Jenny Steele</a> and <a href="https://www.thefourdrinier.com/rings-of-saturn-hondartza-fragas-cassini-images" target="_blank">Hondartza Fraga</a>.</div>
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On Monday 15 April (it was made particularly memorable by the fact that later that day, in Paris, Notre Dame was to burn down), I was cycling to work in perfect conditions – sunny, windless and traffic-free due to the Easter holidays. Speeding along a straight section of the <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2015/04/doing-longsight-dash-manchester-left.html" target="_blank">A6</a> on the borders of Lonsight and Ardwick, I realised my feet were racing around the pedals and I was going far too fast for the gear I was in. I tried to change gear, misbalanced, fell off and hit the road hard on my shoulder, breaking my collarbone. This put a stop to cycling for an interminable three months and, whilst I’ve now made a full recovery (unfortunately the recovery of Notre Dame looks far less certain), it sent me a message to try to slow down and take life at a bit less of a frantic pace. In spite of this, this is what I did manage to see/enjoy in 2019:<br />
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<b>Travel</b><br />
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I spent two weeks in India this winter, which was an immersive sensory experience: there were so many sights, smells, sounds and colours to take in everywhere. I loved how colourful it was, particularly the clothing. In the UK I am used to standing out a lot with my colourful clothing. In India, it was the norm for people to wear bright yellows and greens and hot pinks. <br />
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One of the really big surprises was how green the cities were – there was such a variety of flowers and trees. In New Delhi, even the roundabouts were landscaped, and everywhere you looked were carefully tended pot plants. There was great variety in birds and animals: I was really excited by seeing ibises and eagles and bats, and colourful butterflies.<br />
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I really liked the street culture, and how alive the cities felt – the streets were used by people selling food, chai and clothes and offering services such as shoe shining and barbering. They felt like public spaces – families gathered in the parks and gardens, even after dark, picnicking or playing cricket. Everyone was really curious about visitors – people wanted to have selfies taken, to talk to you and find out where you were from and what you thought of India, and to shake your hand. <br />
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It was a vegetarian’s paradise: I loved eating idli, paratha, channa, uttapam, poha and bonda for breakfast every day, and trying regional dishes and variations on dosas and thalis and pani puri.<br />
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I enjoyed cosmopolitan New Delhi, especially the extraordinary eighteenth century Jantar Mantar observatory, and Mumbai, with its high concentration of luxurious art deco blocks, built on land reclaimed from the Arabian sea. However, visiting <a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/tag/chandigarh/" target="_blank">Chandigarh</a>, the new capital city planned and designed for the Punjab post-partition by Le Corbusier (reached by a spacious train, with a lavish at-seat breakfast service consisting of multiple food courses and rounds of tea), was undoubtedly the highlight.<br />
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I loved exploring road inspector's Nek Chand's fantastical, magical rock garden – busy with families, selfie-taking couples and smartly-dressed, excitable parties of schoolchildren – and the grid-planned city's housing districts for government workers (enviable cycling infrastructure was designed into the city, and the bicycle appeared to be the dominant mode of transport, unlike car-choked Delhi), designed by Le Corbusier's cousin Pierre Jeanneret and the British couple Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, just as much as Le Corbusier's grandiose, awe-inspiring Capitol complex.<br />
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Whilst Gujarati city Ahmedabad is a World Heritage Site due to its high concentration of historic mosques, most of the city appeared to be a construction site: everywhere buildings were being knocked down and replaced with hotels and high-rise apartment blocks, leaving clouds of building dust. In spite of this, Le Corbusier's Millowners' Association was a real highlight of India. Formerly a centre of calico production, known as the 'Manchester of East', the Millowners' Association once overlooked the river to a view of hundreds of factory chimneys. Built as a networking space, and to show off new innovations in manufacturing, with its dramatic interplays of light and shadow, and fluidity between inside and outside spaces, this felt the closest I have ever felt to being inside a sculpture. Two houses built by Le Corbusier for mill-owning families felt like green oases as the city expanded around them.<br />
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In the summer I spoke at a conference in Porto, a sprawling city split across a river like Manchester-Salford or Newcastle-Gateshead. Full of old, hilly, cobbled streets to get lost in, a surprising amount of dereliction and facades with nothing behind, as well as the famous tiles which act like a ‘raincoat’ for the city, it was also strikingly rich in art deco buildings and details, from housing and cinemas to garages. The Worst Tours, a three-hour tour delivered by an architect turned tourguide (who had been forced into tourism by the financial crash and ongoing austerity), was a great introduction. Our guide spoke about the way in which Porto has developed over time and the politics of space and regeneration. A highlight was the architecture of Álvaro Siza, including the co-operative SAAL Bouça Housing designed after the Portuguese revolution.<br />
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Closer to home, Doncaster was bustling and lively but had a tough edge.<br />
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Loughborough was a pleasant industrial market town dominated by a huge post-war university campus (since expanded) – and a 1923 carillon on the skyline, which also serves as a war memorial. A collection of <a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/visit-to-the-university-of-loughborough-art-collection/" target="_blank">campus artworks</a> contrasted with the sportiness of the students, and the high concentration of sports pitches. <br />
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Uppermill, on the edges of Oldham, with its swishly done-up Weavers Factory, had a spectacular landscape and views over Greater Manchester, but felt otherwise claustrophobically twee and bourgeois.<br />
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<b>Walks</b><br />
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Waterlogged fields made for a muddy walk from Marple Bridge, on the outskirts of Stockport, to Mellor, on the edge of the Peak District. Tall terraces backed onto a loudly rushing river at pretty hamlet Mill Brow, and the ancient hill-top church of St Thomas, next to the site of an archaeological dig and a reconstructed roundhouse, contrasted with the views over the tower blocks of Stockport and Manchester’s modern-day glass high-rises. <br />
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At Upnor in Kent, the River Medway left a muddy beach of oyster shells, pottery, bricks and glass, with chalet communities on the banks. An estuarine fort and rows of houseboats made for a picturesque walk towards Sheerness bridge in the distance. <br />
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<b>Swims</b><br />
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Sandford Park Lido, a long pool surrounded by lawns in the extremely posh Cotswolds town of Cheltenham, was heaving on one of the hottest days of the year. The pool has consistently well-used since the 1930s and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. It’s adapted well to the times, though, serving vegan burgers and ice cream. <br />
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Cirencester’s Victorian Open Air Swimming Pool, by contrast, was far less busy and more relaxed. Run by volunteers, and featuring a book and swimwear swap, it had a community feel and was heated to the perfect temperature. Down a lane alongside a half-dried up river, and overlooked by a castle surrounded by medieval streets, this has got to be one of the most scenic settings for a swim in Britain. <br />
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I was extremely disappointed to find Álvaro Siza’s Tidal pools of Leça da Palmeira, on the coast outside Porto, shut for refurbishment, as big waves crashed over the rocks of Porto’s cold, windy, misty beaches. Luckily, another sixties pool by Siza, the tranquil Piscina da Quinta da Conceição, provided a more sheltered spot, set in parkland with grassed sun terraces and polished wood changing rooms.<br />
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<b>Art</b><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3fbaRHWznx8/XgP1EooKZpI/AAAAAAAACmY/-yJ_Ia5W0gERljJP2yjoURJhgKHR404rACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Penny%2BWoolcock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3fbaRHWznx8/XgP1EooKZpI/AAAAAAAACmY/-yJ_Ia5W0gERljJP2yjoURJhgKHR404rACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Penny%2BWoolcock.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Penny Woolcock’s film-based exhibition ‘Fantastic Cities’ at Modern Art Oxford brought together a plurality of viewpoints exploring how our experiences of cities and how we behave in them are affected by identities such as gender, class and race.<br />
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Larry Achiampong and David Blandy’s ‘Genetic Automata’ at Arts Catalyst in London was an engaging film installation challenging our ideas of race, heritage and identity through a collage of popular cultural imagery (from videogames and emojis to Darwin’s taxidermy collection), with an alternative music soundtrack.<br />
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<a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/exhibition-visit-but-what-if-we-tried-touchstones-rochdale/" target="_blank">‘But what if we tried?’</a> at Touchstones in Rochdale was an illuminating experiment to display as much of the town’s 1,500-strong art collection at once as possible (there’s only space to show about 300 pieces), exploring the curatorial and logistical processes behind the scenes of programming a gallery, the legacies and ongoing acquisitions which shape collections, politics of funding and ownership, and the challenges and responsibilities of conservation and care.<br />
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‘Still I Rise (Act 2)’ at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill was an immersive and all-encompassing survey of feminism and culture which ranged across activism, representation, sexuality, urbanism, spirituality, new models for living, working and organising and much, much more. <br />
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The Festival of Making and ‘Art in Manufacturing’ programme brought together art, science and industry in Blackburn. Dan Edwards' series of street signs ‘We Can Do More’, displayed around the town, were reminders and prompts to act, subverting a workers’ instruction manual and street signage. Amy Pennington’s ‘Return to Sender’ project, working with an envelope factory, asked local people to send responses to questions about their working practices, and Daksha Patel’s ‘Connecting Yarn’, looked at the UK and worldwide destinations of yarn dyed in Blackburn. The highlight, though, was Liz Wilson’s repetitive, hypnotic video and sound installation ‘The Optical Mechanical’, which gradually built up an ensemble of found sounds and images resembling minimalist classical music.<br />
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Nika Neelova’s ‘EVER’ took place across the former brewery offices of the Tetley in Leeds, reimagining the building’s gallery spaces through a series of sculptural interventions exploring and subverting the materiality of its interiors.<br />
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Laurie Anderson’s virtual reality experience ‘To the Moon’, at the Royal Exchange in Manchester was a rare opportunity to fly and explore space in the body of an astronaut. Her dreamy yet subtly political installation suggested that stars are the one thing man can’t harvest or destroy.<br />
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Frances Disley’s participatory solo show ‘The Cucumber Fell in the Sand’ at Humber Street Gallery in Hull asked us to slow down and focus on our experience, whilst thinking about approaches to care and growing, and how we look after ourselves and others.<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MnPaWvllek4/XgP13ZPWCSI/AAAAAAAACnA/q45YoVSegywVrSrG3t52wyo_8N80uOWewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Fran%2BDisley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MnPaWvllek4/XgP13ZPWCSI/AAAAAAAACnA/q45YoVSegywVrSrG3t52wyo_8N80uOWewCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Fran%2BDisley.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
'Instituting Care', Jade Montserrat’s huge wall drawings and installation/reading room/library at the Bluecoat in Liverpool (which then toured to Humber Street) explored ideas of education and care, both through institutions and alternative models and ways of thinking.<br />
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There was lots to look at and think about in ‘Future Cities’ at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester, but the highlight was Laurence Lek’s time- and city-travelling video work <i>Pyramid Schemes</i>, which explored architecture as sign, symbol, fantasy and spectacle, and its cultural and physical meanings and impact.<br />
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I was excited to visit Radar at Loughborough University, whose research-led visual arts programme I have long admired. <a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/2019/10/05/exhibition-visit-this-is-just-what-i-saw-radar-loughborough-university/" target="_blank">'This Was Just What I Saw'</a> was the result of a collaboration between Human Geography lecturer Dr Sarah Mills and artist Katarina Hruskova, inspired by the art teaching methods of Marion Richardson, an interwar educationalist associated with child art, who worked to develop children’s powers of self-expression and ‘inner eye’ using the power of memory, description and observation. Mills and Hruskova worked with Richardson’s archive, and children in present-day Midlands schools, to reanimate and reimagine Richardson’s methods.<br />
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The British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke-on-Trent explored the legacy and heritage of clay in the area, and its international connections, pushing the boundaries of what ceramics are and the form they take, raising issues round authenticity, copies and their relation to the original. Highlights included Terms & Conditions at Airspace and Victoria Lindo and William Brookes’ pots at Spode Works, where a tragic story lurked beneath the beauty of ornately worked surfaces.<br />
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Elizabeth Price’s ‘A Long Memory’ at the Whitworth in Manchester was full of bizarre and bewildering juxtapositions and references to memory, culture, language, technology and change: in her films, it’s not always clear what’s real and what’s fiction. The highlight was<i> At the House of Mr X</i>, an increasingly surreal tour around a modernist house which offered an alternative perspective on value, lingering on seemingly banal details about the materials of the house, its decor and contents.<br />
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‘Banner Culture’ at Brierfield Mill, part of the British Textiles Biennial, brought together the most banners I’ve ever seen in one place: the variety of media and techniques used, and political causes and makers, from professionals to collaborative and community-based projects, was astonishing.<br />
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Amalia Pica’s solo show ‘Private & Confidential’ at the New Art Gallery in Walsall subverted bureaucratic motifs of officialdom and attempted to find joy in the paper trails of institutional correspondence she had to navigate when going through the process of obtaining British citizenship.<br />
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I found Katie Paterson’s transmissions across time, space and distance, and explorations of our planet and others, at Turner Contemporary in Margate, whimsical but quite engrossing.<br />
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Also at the Turner Contemporary, Lawrence Abu Hamdan's films were the highlight of this year's (extremely serious) Turner Prize. The standout was <i>After SFX</i>, an alternative dictionary of sounds with connotations of torture, compiled through interviews with former inmates of Syria's Sednyaya Prison, which showed how our sensory perceptions rely on our prior knowledge and experiences to explain and make sense of the indescribable.<br />
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<b>Film</b><br />
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‘The Favourite’ had absolutely fantastic performances from all three leads and made you wonder who was manipulating whom.<br />
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It was a great year for British film: Carol Morley’s ‘Out of Blue’ was a modern-day noir and detective story set in New Orleans. Featuring an astonishing performance from Patricia Clarkson, and playing with masks and appearances, you didn’t know what to believe and it made you question the extent to which you can ever really know someone.<br />
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Both humorous and sad, ‘Bait’ looked and sounded beautiful. Though sometimes straying close to parody and stereotype, the tension rose perfectly in this tale of conflict between locals of a Cornish fishing village and second home-owners. <br />
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‘Ray and Liz’ was a social realist drama with a surrealist, dreamy twinge, like Terence Davies meets Andrea Arnold. Flitting backwards and forwards in time between a terrace and tower block, it was a portrait of Richard Billingham’s childhood – and of neglect – as much as of his parents. <br />
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‘The Souvenir’, Joanna Hogg’s Jarmonesque story about the lives of Sloaney upper classes was her best film yet, and one whose characters – including fantastic mother-daughter performers by Tilda Swinton and Honor Byrne Swinton – and their stories stayed in your mind long afterwards.<br />
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Elsewhere, Claire Denis’ first English-language film, the melancholy ‘High Life’, featured a confusingly twisted and often disturbing sci-fi plot and a characteristically atmospheric score by Stuart A Staples.<br />
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‘Capernaum’ was a tender, heartbreaking Lebanese film exploring ideas of family, care, nurture, choice and responsibility, and based on the premise of a boy (who was old before his time) suing his family for being born and for child neglect.<br />
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‘The Chambermaid’ explored frustrated ambition, claustrophobia, class, exploitation and stoicism, all within the confines of a luxury hotel in Mexico City. <br />
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‘Book Smart’ was improbable but hilarious. ‘Woman At War’ was a subtly funny, surreal Icelandic comedy in which the landscape and the weather was ultimately the star.<br />
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‘Pain and Glory’ was muted by Almodóvar's standards, and surprisingly moving, telling a story of creative inspiration, ageing and loss.<br />
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‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ was beautifully shot with a lush score and contemplative voiceover. Combining the personal with the institutional, a love story was intertwined with the sound and colour of a sultry New York summer. <br />
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I enjoyed 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood' and 'The Irishman' for their soundtracks and period styling as much as for their plots (and Brad Pitt and Leonardo di Caprio's on screen chemistry in 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood').<br />
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‘Bridges of Time’ brought together new and historic documentary film showing everyday life in the Baltic states behind the Iron Curtain, from children dancing, singing and at school, to seal-hunting, fishing and forestry, to the uniformity of Soviet apartment blocks, surveyed from above. Dating from the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s, elderly film-makers and their subjects were brought together with extremely moving results. <br />
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‘Island of Hungry Ghosts’ had a strong sense of place, exploring the migration of crabs and humans on Australia's Christmas Island.<br />
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‘Being Frank’, the Frank Sidebottom documentary, was both hilarious and tragic. It told a very personal story – encompassing the dual personas of Frank Sidebottom and Chris Sievey – and presented a picture of thwarted ambition and unbridled creativity across music, comedy, art and even computer programming. <br />
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‘Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records’ was not just the story of Trojan records but an exploration of migration, identity, cultures, relationships and social change. <br />
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‘Stories from the She Punks’ discussed how and why women got into bands and learned to play, arguing that it gave often shy young women a voice, something to say and the means to say it. <br />
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<b>TV</b><br />
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‘Black Mirror’ continued its preoccupation with technology. The British-set episodes were the highlights: <i>Striking Vipers</i>, which explored the implications of pornography and the boundaries between the real and the virtual worlds and <i>Smithereens</i>, with its screen-mediated lives, couldn't have been more topical. <br />
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Jeremy’s Deller’s documentary ‘Everybody in the Place’ provided a social, material, political, cultural and musical history of rave culture – and the 1980s. Presented in the form of a sixth form history lesson, it mercifully avoided the usual staid talking heads.<br />
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Michael Apted’s ‘Up’ series made a welcome return to the TV. Now aged 63, the participants’ relationship with Apted had become as central as the initial themes of class and work. The programme was given an added poignancy through the participants’ experiences of ageing and loss, and a topicality through attitudes to Brexit. <br />
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<b>Theatre</b><br />
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‘Tao of Glass’ was an incredibly funny and moving one-man monologue from Phelim McDermott offering a deeply personal reflection on art, creativity and inspiration. McDermott took us on a journey from his teenage years in Blackley, north Manchester, listening to Philip Glass records and dreaming of being on stage at the Royal Exchange to moving to New York and producing Philip Glass operas. Visually and musically gorgeous, combining paper, music and puppetry, 'Tao of Glass' felt genuinely international and collaborative. When Philip Glass himself appeared on stage at the end, hugging McDermott and holding hands, I wasn’t the only audience member moved to tears. <br />
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<b>Books</b><br />
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‘From Rzycki, Michael Galeta, a 20th century life’ was an extremely moving tribute by Robert Galeta to his late father. It pieced together and tried to make sense of his life, firstly as a teenager taken from his family and village in Poland (now in the Ukraine) to a forced labour camp in Germany during the war, and passing through a series of camps in France and Italy, before settling and making a life in Bradford – from where Galeta and his father took journeys together and re-eencountered traces of the people and places his father had formerly known.<br />
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‘Present Tense’, published by Liverpool culture site <i>the Double Negative</i>, reflected on the legacy of the city as Capita of Culture, a decade on. One of the highlights was a Liverpool sculpture walk by Denise Courcoux, which made me want to go and hunt some of the sculptures down.<br />
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Finally, although Essex and its architecture and culture has been a place of renewed interest in recent years, thanks in large part to the efforts of Focal Point Gallery's <i>Radical Essex</i> programme, Gillian Darley's return to her home county for 'Excellent Essex' shed some light on some of the county's still lesser-known histories and figures.<br />
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<b>Music</b><br />
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The most beautiful record of the year was Jessica Pratt’s aptly named 'Quiet Signs'. At times Tropicalia-esque, her guitar and voice were augmented by piano and flute, bringing to mind Hope Sandoval, 'Pink Moon'-era Nick Drake and even Erik Satie. <br />
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Mark Stewart’s distinctive voice rang out like a timely warning call on Jah Wobble’s <i>A Very British Coup</i>, also featuring Andrew Weatherall, Keith Levene and Richard Dudanski.<br />
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Kate Tempest’s <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwMtfS0Tqr8" target="_blank">Firesmoke</a></i> was downbeat and vulnerable, but personal and ultimately affirmative electronica.<br />
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My discovery of the year was the Afrobeat/gospel/jazz of <a href="https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/stream-damon-locks-black-monument-ensemble-where-future-unfolds" target="_blank">'Where the Future Holds' by Chicago’s Black Monument Ensemble</a>, the highlight being the catchy and urgent <i>Sounds like Now</i>.<br />
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David Berman made a welcome return with Purple Mountains’ droll country, particularly on the contradictorily upbeat <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvUBbROsXBw&list=FLlULMn6jjrfdUHEiUPporvg&index=364" target="_blank">All My Happiness Has Gone</a></i>, before his untimely death.<br />
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Another welcome return was <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Z9p1OLZxY" target="_blank">No Rock: Save in Roll</a></i>, a new single in Cornershop’s classic style. <br />
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Elsewhere, Trash Kit went all jammy on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM8Mx4_YQ6s" target="_blank"><i>Horizon</i>,</a> Pozi’s <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS-PN4s648c" target="_blank">Engaged</a></i> was nursery rhyme-esque grunge with a raw, simple violin line and <i>Dogs </i>by All Girls Arson Club had the ramshackle charm of Tallulah Gosh and alt-folk, and I can't get <i><a href="https://permanentslump.bandcamp.com/track/liz-naylor" target="_blank">Liz Naylor</a></i> (named after the iconic <i>City Fun</i> writer and friend of the band) by Barry out of my head.<br />
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<b>Gigs</b><br />
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It was too busy to actually see Jessica Pratt during her gig at Manchester’s hippest new venue, Yes, but the minimal set up of her band – just her, a guitar and a Korg keyboardist, with an encore performed solo – allowed her voice and otherworldly melodies to shine through. The audience was rapt, appreciative and appeared to be intimately acquainted with her work. <br />
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Sauna Youth and Trash Kit played short but sweet 35-mintue sets at the White Hotel in Salford. At Yes, Trask Kit side project Sacred Paws expanded with a bassist and second guitarist, but it was best when it was just the two of them playing fast punk.<br />
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At the Bridgewater Hall, Mark Elder explained and contextualised the Hallé Orchestra’s performance of Shostakovich’s <i>Leningrad</i> Symphony with a knowledge and enthusiasm that made you want to learn more.<br />
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The richness and dour beauty of Bill Callahan’s songs shone through at the Albert Hall in Manchester, during a stripped down set featuring a bowed and plucked double bass, bowed and plucked. <br />
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Jazz trio GoGo Penguin performed a live, post-rock-style soundtrack to 'Koyaanisqatsi' at the Royal Northern College of Music, keeping pace with the intensity of the film and its frenetic visuals. <br />
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The most fun gig of the year was the Broadcast-esque weird-pop of Stealing Sheep at Yes. Their psychedelic a capella, three-piece vocal harmonies and co-ordinated dance moves culminated in an inflatable sheep in the crowd. Wearing matching body-tight, glittery dresses, and sparkling faces and hair, they appeared to be delighted to be there. Dancier and more bassy live, they even incorporated a cover of <i>Last Night A DJ Saved My Life</i>.<br />
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Finally, it was good to back on stage, performing with experimental poetry project Chelsea from Essex at Band on the Wall's free jazz showcase.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-60120215784103272762019-12-14T12:45:00.000+00:002019-12-14T12:45:35.225+00:00Hythe ranges sloe gin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The deep pink promenade stops abruptly at Fisherman’s Beach and doesn’t resume again until the redoubt fort at Dymchurch.<br />
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The stretch of beach between Hythe and Dymchurch is accessible only from Ministry of Defence land, via a muddy, stony path that skirts Hythe Ranges. It follows the curve of the fast-moving main road yet is separated from it by the thin facades of a fake village: shops and houses exist only as moving targets on tracks. Artificial hills of sand carry huge numbers, which look strange against the sky. Rabbits have burrowed into the slopes among bullet cases. The real town of Hythe rises on the real hills in the distance: peals ring out faintly from Tuesday night bell-ringing practice at St Leonard’s Church, half-way up.<br />
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Whilst the rest of the coastline has become built up – even the fishermen’s huts that give Hythe’s most picturesque and characterful beach its name are now outbulked by luxury apartment blocks – the only real buildings on Hythe ranges are abandoned and half-submerged Second World War pillboxes, their entrances silted up with shingle, and Napoleonic Martello towers, built to withstand a much earlier threat of invasion. Accessible only to pigeons, one has crumbled half into the sea, its brick innards exposed, spiralling out onto the beach in Lego-like chunks. More recently, defensive infrastructure has taken on the sea – wooden planks shore up the banks and waves crash against stacks of rock as cormorants stretch their wings on sewage pipelines.<br />
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The bay curls around the corner towards the blocky outline of Dungeness Power Station in the distance. The shingle expanse of Dungeness is apparently the UK’s only desert. It’s not unlike that here. What grows must be able to withstand the exposure of the wind, the salt and the sea: prickly gorse, rubbery sea kale, one wild pear tree. Small, hard blackberries ripen yet never quite lose their sourness and low-lying blackthorn bushes, fruited with sporadic sloes, cling to the ground.<br />
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Sand is only revealed at exceptionally low tide, when fishermen with buckets scour the muddy flats for lug worms to use for bait. For years you saw few people here other than fishermen, out in rain, shine and even on Christmas day, huddled in tents, their backs to the wind and only their headlamps shining through the gloom.<br />
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Now there are people out with matching gloves and buckets, foraging in a systematic way: samphire? This place doesn’t feel so wild any more.
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The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-82426435377387324362018-12-23T00:05:00.000+00:002019-12-27T19:43:10.229+00:00Best of 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2018 was the year in which I finally, at last, finished my <a href="http://www.picturesforschools.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">PhD</a>, after what felt like five years of stress and tears. I promised myself mentally throughout that if and when I finished I would reward myself by getting the train to Marseille and staying in Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation, a dream I finally fulfilled in August. I'd never been to the south of France before and had vague ideas of visiting based on the films and artworks of Jean Cocteau, and Hitchcock's film 'To Catch A Thief'. This proved to be the best possible way of celebrating the completion of my PhD.<br />
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After a remarkably encouraging, supportive and stress-free viva, which gave me a big confidence boost, I jumped straight into full-time temping admin work in February, leaping at the chance to gain some stability and normality. I've since found a slightly more secure full-time job, but it feels very much like a compromise whilst I try and figure out what to do next and how to get back to research and writing – and disseminating my PhD. I've been writing more this year, primarily art criticism, and finally regaining some enjoyment from it. These are some of my highlights of 2018, cultural and otherwise:<br />
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<b><u>Art </u></b><br />
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The first exhibition of the year I saw was the best I’ve seen yet at the Tetley in Leeds. Saelia Aparicio made the best use of the former brewery’s dark, wood-panelled rooms I’ve seen so far, including neon sculptures commenting on issues such as the housing crisis. The Tetley closed the year with the equally good <i>Bus2move</i> by Simeon Barclay, which explored the inspiring cultural and social history of the city's Phoenix Dance Company through archival film, as well as the significance of movement, music and dance in Barclay's own life.<br />
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I’d never heard of Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow before, but an illuminating retrospective at the Hepworth in Wakefield showed her development from a Soviet Realist sculptor to using polystyrene casts of her own body, decaying materials, photography and film to explore not just the body and the self but experiences such as cancer, femininity and the way in which women are seen. Often borrowing from the surreal and grotesque – for example disembodied female body parts repurposed as lamps, cushions cast from her stomach and bulges reminiscent of amniotic sacs or tumours – I felt that her work contained a lot of humour. <br />
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Later in the year, I also enjoyed Anthony McCall’s<i> Solid Light Works</i> at the Hepworth, where a bustling public explored his countercultural light beams and smoke in darkened rooms, displayed alongside his equally fascinating methodological workings out and diagrams. <br />
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Another early 2018 highlight was the collective Brass Art’s retrospective <i>that-which-is-not</i> at Bury Art Museum. Drawing on archives, and using techniques such as neon, glass, light and 3D printing, the work explored visibility and invisibility and the ways in which women can insert themselves into artworks and collections. <br />
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My favourite exhibition of the year was Andy Holden’s <i>Natural Selection</i> at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, a collaboration with his father, Peter, an ornithologist, which explored the natural and human activities of nest building and egg stealing, and the changing politics and ethics of acquiring, collecting and displaying archival and museum objects from the natural world, through sculpture, installation and film. <br />
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Runner up was Zoë Paul’s <i>La Perma-Perla Kraal Emporium</i> at Spike Island in Bristol, drawing on traditions of meeting spaces and public discussion fora from Paul’s native Greek culture. The exhibition brought visitors together for discussion around a four-headed fountain, and Penny Royal tea served from a grotesque ceramic head, inviting the public to make clay beads for use in future editions of her large-scale ceramic curtains. <br />
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Despite two visits, I didn’t feel I got a full grasp of Liverpool Biennial, in part due to the predominance of lengthy and often highly politicised video work. Of what I did see, I enjoyed Annie Pootoogook’s drawings of everyday Inuit life at Tate Liverpool and Ryan Gander’s large-scale play-inspired sculptures, drawing on elements of the architecture of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, and works on paper, developed collaboratively with local school children at the Bluecoat. Other strong work at the Bluecoat included Suki Seokyeong Kang’s interactive work combining sculpture and movement, and Abbas Akhavan’s commentary on the cultural destruction of Isis. Such large-scale programmes always provide opportunities to visit unusual buildings and venues, and out of these one of the highlights was Taus Makhacheva’s installation at the former girls’ school Blackburne House, where we watched visitors receiving a facial treatment whilst listening to a thoughtful narrative bringing our attention to the materiality and temporality of sculpture. The Biennial also drew me into Liverpool University’s fantastic Victoria Gallery for the first time, where Holly Hendry’s sculptures appeared among the eclectic collections like strata of rock embedded with strange objects. One of the best works I saw at the Biennial was here, too, Taus Makhcheva’s film ‘Tightrope’, which set ideas about art, culture collecting against the mountainous landscape of Dagestan. The other two standouts of the Biennial were Madiha Aijaz’s film ‘These Silences Are All the Words’ at Open Eye, which explored cultural and linguistic guardianship in Pakistan, and Mohamed Bourouissa’s films at FACT, including his short documentary ‘Horse Day’ about the staging of an equestrian themed neighbourhood event in Philadelphia. I’m looking forward to seeing some of these works again, and catching some of those I missed, as part of the Biennial’s northern touring programme in 2019. <br />
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I was surprised by how much I enjoyed William Kentridge’s <i>Thick Time</i> at the Whitworth Art Gallery. His mesmerising, dreamy installations and films, drawing on dance, music and movement, made the everyday magical and surreal, from the stovetop coffee pot shooting for the moon, to the ants tracing paths across the floor, to the man wandering through an animated dictionary, to a giant breathing machine imitating the stuff of life and time.<br />
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Towards in the end of the year, Hannah Leighton-Boyce’s solo exhibition <i>Dreaming of Dead Fish</i> was a brief intervention into Warrington Museum & Art Gallery. It provided a welcome opportunity to visit this extraordinary example of a municipal museum, with its in-tact 1930s collections and displays which categorise and explore the natural world in incredible detail, from trees to the titular dead fish. Leighton-Boyce presented us with archaic everyday objects, showing us how our understandings of objects are changed by the decisions made about what is collected and how it is classified and displayed. Here, these objects included uranium green vanity trays, removed from their usual function and displayed upside down and face-to-face. Projected on the museum’s walls, one pair of vanity cases revealed barely perceptible patterns and reflections in the shiny parquet floor. Others, covered in a layer of velvety soot and turned awkwardly away from the viewer towards the wall, asked us to look at them closely in order to figure out what they were. Antique terrarium covers labeled ‘trout’, meanwhile, sat face down, and a slide projector showed a burned surface which revealed its own pattern in its destruction, its original content disfigured yet still faintly discernible. <br />
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A late highlight of 2018 was Emma Talbot’s densely worked silk wall hangings and shiny textile sculptures resembling bodily forms at Caustic Coastal in Salford. Incorporating texts, they gave voice to inner thoughts and asked questions about our place in the world and how we come into it, navigating between myth and reality and highlighting issues around regeneration and city life in a gallery space overlooking the multiple cranes of a rapidly developing skyline. <br />
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Other highlights throughout the year included the Sonia Boyce retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery, exploring identity, culture, race, tradition and history, Phil Collins’ irreverent, pop cultural works at Home, where a concern for social issues lay under a sheen of superficiality, and Lubaina Himid’s narrative characters installed at the Harris in Preston. <br />
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The Turnpike Gallery in Leigh continued its strong programme: particular highlights were two exhibitions drawing on the material and cultural legacy of the area’s coal mining heritage, by Mary Griffiths (read my review for <i>Corridor8</i> <a href="http://www.corridor8.co.uk/article/9607/" target="_blank">here</a>) and Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson (read my review in <i>Art Monthly</i> issue 414).<br />
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I was finally tempted to the Grundy in Blackpool for 'Northern Lights', Chris Paul Daniels' irreverent, behind-the-scenes look at the Blackpool Illuminations (read my review for <i>Corridor8</i> <a href="http://www.corridor8.co.uk/article/northern-lights/?fbclid=IwAR0PQA0uupbMHuenFJZnNgfzG5dgaITV4h19iyIkK2MjTbAaolCDVCMtYlM" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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At arts centre Friche De Belle Mai in Marseille I enjoyed Jean-Luc Brisson’s watercolours and cross-hatched drawings combining natural, observed and imagined forms in fantastical combinations of clouds, frogs, angels’ wings and birds. <br />
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I braved the crowds at Tate Modern for the Anni Albers retrospective, to learn more about her time as a student at the Bauhaus and teaching at Black Mountain Collage, and see her functional, architecturally inspired and pictorial weavings, which incorporated and experimented with different textures, techniques and types of thread. I was fascinated to learn about how she drew on ancient weaving techniques and was inspired by the patterns of early Latin American civilisations, and also enjoyed her jewellery reinventing everyday objects such as hair pins, corks and eye screws.<br />
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Finally, the Encore Room, a wood burning sauna and discussion space hosted by artist Olivia Glasser, was a welcome temporary installation in the courtyard at Islington Mill in Salford.<br />
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<b><u>Film </u></b><br />
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‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’, managed to be both moving and funny, despite the gravity of its subject matter. <br />
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‘The Square’ was excruciatingly funny and cut close to the bone in its depiction of the pretensions of the artworld. <br />
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I found ‘A Fantastic Woman’, with its phenomenal performance by Daniela Vega, heartbreaking. <br />
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Afghanistan-set animated film ‘The Breadwinner’ demonstrated the power of storytelling, depicting a young girl’s courage in the face of repression and brutality. <br />
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‘Dark River’ explored family relationships across a long, dour Yorkshire summer that ended well for no-one. The latest in a run of films showing how grim and hard life can be in the countryside, it started and ended with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRxipTbLWo" target="_blank">‘An Acre of Land’</a>, an impossibly beautiful version of a traditional tune sung sparsely and plainly by PJ Harvey.<br />
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Yiddish-language film ‘Menashe’ gave a Jewish view of Brooklyn, depicting a tender father-son relationship striving for normality despite restrictive cultural conventions. <br />
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Taking place over a heady summer in claustrophobic New York City, ‘Skate Kitchen’ navigated female friendship, relationships and the city through the filter of youth culture and Instagram; the film was also perfectly matched to its soundtrack. Excitingly filmed, ‘Skate Kitchen’ showcased the skill, attitude and dedication of the real group of skaters on whom it was based. Though beset by gender wars, ultimately the film showed that the sexes aren’t so different after all, and that ‘girls’ can do anything ‘boys' can, particularly when it comes to skating. <br />
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Nineties-set film ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’ was a subtly shocking and moving drama about gay conversion therapy and friendship in beautiful setting. Exploring identity and rebellion, central character Cameron was notable for her vulnerable strength. <br />
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Japanese film ‘Shoplifters’ was a beautiful portrayal of child friendship and relationships across generations with a surprising twist, exposing how normality, family and belonging is constructed. There were excellent performances from all, but particularly the children and the grandmother. <br />
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‘Peterloo’ was ponderous but contrary to popular opinion I didn’t find it overlong. It succeeded in showing the build-up to the massacre of 1819 and giving a sense of how the protest came about in impressive detail, from extensive talk and debate to practise marching on the moors above Manchester, among the beauty of the English landscape, to introducing the arrogant yet naïve orator Henry Hunt with his insistence on non-violence. Set in a Manchester that’s now unrecognisable, and making simple but effective use of music and song, the film captured the poverty and hunger of the age and the class-riven inequalities that existed. Sometimes these class representatives came across as caricatured – the cackling rich and wide-eyed poor – yet this worked to comic effect in the grotesquely made up and debauched yet callous figure of the Prince Regent, adding some much-needed moments of levity to the film. <br />
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Two black and white films were both heavily hyped this year, 'Cold War' and 'Roma'. I vastly preferred the gorgeously filmed 'Roma', an enthralling and affecting portrait of the relationship between an upper-middle-class white family and their Mixteco maid, set against the political protests of 1970s Mexico City and replete with atmospheric details, to the overly stylised 'Cold War'.<br />
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I saw a couple of good urbanism documentaries. <a href="https://picturesforschools.wordpress.com/2018/07/04/new-town-utopia/" target="_blank">‘New Town Utopia’</a> was set in the Essex New Town of Basildon, evaluating whether contemporary life in the town matches up to its’ planners aspirations, and introducing us to a range of people who had made a home there. <br />
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Another large-scale experiment in planning was the subject of the documentary ‘Brasilia: Life After Design’. Far from portraying the Brazilian capital as a utopia, the filmed presented Brasilia as a sprawling, traffic-ridden dystopia, and highlighted the ways in which the city’s growth was anticipated through planned satellite cities which limited the number of people the city could accommodate. It suggested that the precarious existence of millions was characterised by faith, class divides and a daily grind of unreliable public transport, long journeys to work, protest and hundreds of people queueing for government exams in an attempt to create a better life for themselves. In spite of this, the film showed the diversity of the city and a spirit of resourcefulness and making do. Although the city’s famous architecture seemed strangely in the background, it was explained with enthusiasm by Willian, the softly-spoken and thoughtful souvenir seller by day, phoneline counsellor by night, who proved the star of the film. <br />
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‘Edgar Wood: A Painted Veil’ was a charmingly enthusiastic and eccentric documentary about the architect, originally from the former mill town of Middleton near Rochdale. The whistlestop tour of his domestic, church and school buildings in Middleton, Huddersfield, Cheshire and Stafford positioned him as an overlooked genius and at times overstepped the line towards hyperbolism. Placing him in the avant-garde of art nouveau and modernism, it explored his international influences, which led to him eventually settling in Italy. <br />
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Soundtracked by the distinctive guitar playing of Vinni Reilly, another documentary, ‘The Last Clarion House’, visited the last surviving clubhouse serving the socialist Clarion cycling movement, near Pendle in Pennine Lancashire. Situating its history in industrial Lancashire, the film considered landscape, land ownership and social change, from the building’s beginnings as a communal leisure facility for town-dwellers to escape from the smoke, to a volunteer-run tea stop serving those who continue to stop there, including an 87-year-old cyclist. <br />
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‘Matangi/Maya/MIA’ presented the pop star MIA as an articulate, confident young woman and artist in all senses, showing her work as a filmmaker alongside her career as a musician. Throughout the course of the film we saw her grow up and learn, and grapple with the best way to make a difference. <br />
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Documentary ‘Nae Pasaran!’ movingly brought together two sets of men – a group of former Chilean political prisoners and a group of principled engineers and trade unionists – separated across continents yet linked through a strike in a factory in 1980s East Kilbride which blocked the repair of fighter bomber engines destined for Pinochet’s Chile. Giving voice to these now elderly men’s experiences alongside solidarity campaigners and human rights organisations, the film highlighted the complicity of foreign governments and the number of unanswered questions that remain. <br />
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‘Strata’, a film by the artists Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright, placed Barnsley’s coal mining heritage in a historical and international context, telling stories of former miners – alongside their wives – and highlighting masculinity and labour, education and empowerment alongside the natural environment and biodiversity of former mining sites. Ultimately, the film drew our attention to the working conditions of today: zero hour contracts in call centres, and low-paid work in the care and service economy are often all that’s on offer in areas where the local industry has closed down. <br />
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Scottish artist Rachel Maclean’s film ‘Make Me Up’ was part of the nationwide 14-18 Now programme, commemorating the centenary of the First World War. Using her trademark pastel-lurid colours, Maclean transformed the derelict, modernist St Peter’s Seminary at Cardross into the fantastical setting for a grotesque nightmare; Maclean’s attention to detail extended as far as the use of breasts for doorknobs. Assuming the character of a stern, matronly figurehead, delivering lectures on civilisation taken directly from the work of late broadcaster and writer Kenneth Clark, Maclean presided over dressed up, dollish caricatures of women, each with their own Tatty Devine-style nametag yet stripped of their capacity for individual action and rendered mute. Intended as a comment on art criticism and the male historical canon, ‘Make Me Up’ made links between artistic representations of women and women’s voices and representation culturally and historically, most visibly in the sudden appearance of a Suffragette slashing a painting in an art gallery. Whilst exploring big issues such as feminism, femininity, solidarity and sisterhood, the film also remained very funny – something that was more important than ever as the sickening plot twist dropped like a bad punchline. Maclean’s real talent is for making work that chimes with the concerns of the now – ‘Make Me Up’ resonated not just in a culture of social media likes, vlogging and selfies, but with the post-#MeToo context.<br />
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<b><u>Trips </u></b><br />
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In January I went to see Bingley’s five rise locks, an amazing feat of industrial engineering, which inspired William Mitchell’s fibreglass mural for the Bradford and Bingley Building Society’s now demolished HQ in the town.<br />
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I also made my first ever visit to the north Kent seaside town of Herne Bay, with its lively pier where the traditional fare of doughnuts and chip butties mixed with the newer phenomenon of ‘street food’, and helter skelters and gallopers sat next to a range of inventive knitted decorations, from tablecloths and seasonal greetings to representations of sealife and commemorations of the RAF. I walked to Reculver towers under its muddy cliffs, with piles of shells crunching underfoot.<br />
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After years of aspiring to visit Milton Keynes, I found it to be a very stressful experience: I spent hours wandering around its famous roundabouts and ‘greenways’ in circles, looking for its well-hidden and misshapen concrete cows. Milton Keynes seemed a dystopian, disorienting sprawl, overhung by the constant sound of traffic, its grid system swallowing up thatched villages. Its centre consisted largely of cars and carparks, punctuated with anodyne public art.<br />
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My first ever visit to Croydon, where I headed straight afterwards, was a relief after the lifelessness of Milton Keyes, although the town’s general dereliction contrasted sharply with the scale of new development going on.<br />
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From here, I went to see the infamous Crystal Palace dinosaurs, huge concrete representations of what the Victorians considered dinosaurs to look like, which lounge in the sun on an island in the centre of Crystal Place Park.<br />
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My quirkiest trip was a public-transport themed excursion, organised by my friend Marcelle Holt, which started by taking the Hulme’s Ferry – operated by one man and summoned by a makeshift gong – across the River Irwell, between the outer Trafford and Salford suburbs of Davyhulme and Irlam, and concluded with a visit to meet some weekend flyers at Salford’s Barton Airport.<br />
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In Haslingden, Pennine Lancashire, I went to see the Dave Pearson studio, where 15,500 paintings, collages, etchings and drawings by the late artist and teacher cram a terraced house. My favourites were dark, shadowy works drawing on traditions such as the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, calendar customs, and strange and collective elements of everyday English life.<br />
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I lost my heart to Marseille, a charismatically chaotic Mediterranean city nestled between the scenery of the mountains on all sides and a rocky coastline pocked with small islands. A hotel room in Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation gave spectacular views over the city and a series of atmospheric roof-top sunsets. The city’s neighbourhoods were diverse, with the older areas of the city resembling the quirky bits of Granada and Barcelona’s El Raval neighbourhood: in Le Panier, close to the old port, small streets were planted with residents' small-scale yet determined attempts at maintaining greenery. In general, the city was surprisingly green, with cacti and extravagant flowers growing wild everywhere, and parakeets and lizards adding to the street life. A bus to the outskirts of the city, and a walk through pine-scented air, led to the Calanques – a series of secluded coves where the sea was green and clear.</div>
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The long train journey through the French countryside, through fields and fields of sunflowers, their withering, browning and droopy heads turned towards the sun, and along the coast through dense pine forests, and orange rock, was an experience in itself. Although I had been warned, I wasn't prepared for just how touristy and built up the Côte d'Azur was. I stopped off in the quaint town of Fréjus to visit the Jean Cocteau-designed Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Jérusalem, a small gem of chapel in a pine forest above the town, bejewelled with bright Cocteau-designed murals and stained glass, where I was the only visitor.<br />
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A touristy, crowded resort town, Nice couldn’t help but be an anticlimax after Marseille. I stayed in Les Musiciens, where all the street names referenced classical composers. Here, the sea was noticeably darker – a royal blue –and the English, influence was apparent in the names of the streets and large hotels. Underfoot, the striped stones from the dry riverbed that runs into the see rubbed my already blistered feet. The sense that this was a playground for the wealthy was reinforced by the big boats in the harbour. A highlight was stumbling across the work of Denis Morog, a French equivalent to William Mitchell, in the form of huge textured panels flanking a corner building.<br />
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Nearby Villefranche-due-Mer, a town with a fortress, harbour and covered fourteenth century street, was more relaxed. Cocteau’s beautiful murals in the tiny Chapelle Saint-Pierre drew on aspects of everyday life in the town, from women working in the fishing industry to gypsies and the jazzy guitar playing of Django Reinhardt.<br />
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Menton was thankfully less touristy and crowded than much of the nearby coastline. I wandered the narrow, steep-stepped streets of the Italian-influenced old town semi-lost, and picked oranges. Locals get married underneath frescos by Jean Cocteau in the town hall. His work in the marriage hall depicts young lovers in local dress and hats, and blends human, fish and animal features, creating patterns out of everyday life. Cocteau’s contribution is not limited to the walls and ceiling, but includes a pair of mirrors and panther carpets.<br />
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Menton contains not one but two Cocteau museums. At the main Cocteau museum, which showed off the range of diversity and media in which he found expression, from painting and printing to film and poetry, I particularly enjoyed his work in glass, such as a Madonna and Child and depiction of the moon. Alongside his ceramics, the Bastion, a former fort, showed how Cocteau adapted the traditional local mosaic technique using found stones to depict imagery such as lizards.<br />
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Back in the UK, I headed to Weston-Super-Mare to wind down from a job interview in Bristol. Although it had the familiar run-down feel of a seaside town, its expansive sandy beach offered views of the nearby hills and islands.<br />
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Rivington Terraced Gardens, built by Lord Lever into the hillside above Bolton, was magical as summer turned to autumn. Steams and waterfalls wound their way through the woods, and russet leaves gathered in pools on the steps and stone paths that make their way up and down the hillside, past strange, crumbling follies. Rivington Pike gives panoramic views over a reservoir, the moors, the town and the terraces of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.<br />
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I went to the beautiful Georgian town of Chichester in West Sussex for the first time to visit the fantastic Pallant House Art Gallery. Pallant House, housed partially in an old home and partially in a modern extension, showcases a collection of twentieth century artworks alongside interventions into the building and its collection by contemporary artists (and a comprehensive bookshop!). I also enjoyed wandering the city's walls and visiting Chichester Cathedral, where modern additions commissioned by Canon Walter Hussey include paintings by Hans Feibusch and Graham Sutherland, a stained glass window by Mark Chagall, and a vibrant, semi-abstract tapestry by John Piper.<br />
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<b><u>Swims </u></b><br />
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On a snowy day with a freezing wind, I warmed up with a very warm sauna at Bingley’s 1927 pool, and swam under a painted vaulted ceiling and stylised windows. It’s the only pool I’ve ever visited which retains slipper baths, and was also notable for its extremely friendly people.<br />
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Despite its reinvention with a fancy café – where a waterside wedding reception was taking place – Brockwell Lido retained a real community feel, and a multicultural, multilingual atmosphere. Another bonus point was that the water was not too cold! <br />
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It took me until 2018 to find out that it’s possible to swim a 450-metre course at Sale Water Park, a small lake just off the M60 motorway yet surrounded by greenery. With the water a balmy 22 degrees, it was full of Mancunians enjoying the sunshine.<br />
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I returned to Lyon especially to swim in Piscine Tony Bertrand, an outdoor pool on the banks of the Rhône with four huge flag towers and chunky concrete reliefs. Built in 1966, the architecture was a major attraction but it also caters for all tastes with jacuzzis and a water slide.<br />
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The highlight of the year was undoubtedly swimming in clear Mediterranean waters from the rocks at Malmousque and Endoume, Marseille, overlooking small islands.<br />
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One of the coldest swims was in the weed-filled estuary water of Whitstable, surrounded by the oyster fishing trade.<br />
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The water was also extremely, uncomfortably cold at the freshwater lido Pells Pool in Lewes.<br />
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<b><u>Bike rides </u></b><br />
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This summer, I finally explored Salford’s version of the Fallowfield Loop, the very green and pleasant Roe Green Loop Line, which runs between the villagey suburb of Monton and Little Hulton, on the outskirts of the city. From an elevated perspective, the loopline looks down onto woods, fields and cows; it feels and smells like the countryside. Unlike the Fallowfield Loop, the former station platforms are still in place.<br />
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I followed another old railway line, the Middlewood Way, to Bollington, a picturesque Cheshire village of former mills, terraces and back-to-backs in a uniform warm grey stone. Local viewing point White Nancy, on the Gritstone Trail, offers views all around, of the telescope at Jodrell Bank, the skyscrapers of Manchester and high-rises of its outlying towns, and the rolling countryside divided into green plots with drystone walls.<br />
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I also went out eastwards along the Peak Forest Canal to the green, former industrial edgelands of the Tame Valley, where farms and stables made out of old railway carriage stables meet suburban cul-de-sacs.<br />
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On a windy August day in Kent, I followed the Saxon Way out from Faversham’s boatyard into a flat, bleak, marshy landscape, past cows grazing between the sea wall and golden fields of wheat, to the shoreline, where the Swale meets the sea with a crust of oyster shells, driftwood and dried seaweed. On the estuary, a barge passed with its sails up.<br />
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<b><u>Radio</u></b><br />
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I learnt a lot from ‘The Lost Art of Churches’, a documentary on Radio 4 Extra exploring twentieth century and modern-day art in churches, and issues around its value, conservation and upkeep. <br />
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<b><u>Television</u></b><br />
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Aside from the odd episode of <i>University Challenge</i>, the only 2018 TV I managed to watch was <i>Black Mirror</i> special 'Bandersnatch'. In an age where traditional television seems less and less relevant, and has to compete with a myriad other forms of entertainment for our attention, Charlie Brooker changed the game with an interactive and surprising experience, that took us back to the 1980s world of early videogames in order to explore questions about action, agency, our capacity to make decisions, and the part they play in how we think about ourselves, our relationships and our past, present and future lives.<br />
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<b><u>Records </u></b><br />
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Tune-Yards went all eighties dance on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAadziqcQZw" target="_blank">‘Look At Your Hands’</a>.<br />
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I couldn't help but like the taut, New Wave-style punk of Shopping’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn6AOuYAvQk" target="_blank">‘Asking for a Friend’</a> because it features Rachel Ags from two of my favourite bands, Trash Kit and Sacred Paws. <br />
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Both with Fiery Furnaces and as a solo artist Eleanor Friedberger has spent years producing top-rate pop music so catchy it always sounds like you’ve heard it before: this year I particularly enjoyed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SccdsY8tzo" target="_blank">‘In Between Stars’</a>. <br />
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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGKEOqJeSzE" target="_blank">‘Time In Common’</a> appealed to me by sounding like an Aussie take on the Feelies. <br />
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The Orielles’ <i>Silver Dollar Moment</i> is a great debut record, bringing together indie pop with great pop-dance tunes. <br />
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Lastly, I was an extra for Manchester pop legend Edward Barton’s low-budget pop video set at a high school reunion. After miming the words multiple times, I had the tune to the catchy song, ‘Best Laugh’, in my head for months. <br />
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<b><u>Gigs</u></b><br />
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Tune-Yards showed a pop star presence at Manchester’s Albert Hall. The drums and bass of a stripped-down three piece were the backdrop for Merril Garbus’ extraordinary voice, sometimes sweet and at others unabashedly raw and powerful. Many of the songs featured the ukulele we’ve grown used to, but with the addition of a lengthy dance sequence in the middle. <br />
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Ghanaian disco star Ata Kak had joyous energy at Band on the Wall, accompanied by a much younger band and prompted frenetic dancing in an even younger audience.<br />
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I don’t know what I expected when Terry Riley and his son Gyan Riley performed together in a concert at the RNCM, but there were a lot of surprises, including how conventional it was. This was a gig that was warm, human, jazzy, joyful and even funky. Terry Riley switched between piano, melodica and synthesiser, and between musical styles ranging from improv and chanting to what sounded like an evangelical hymn. Gyan Riley’s fast, urgent guitar playing drew on flamenco and classical styles, demonstrating a virtuosity that never became noodly or gratuitous. Between them, they showed a real camaraderie and enjoyment of playing together.<br />
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<b><u>Books </u></b><br />
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John Boughton’s ‘Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing’ was a welcome development from his blog, giving an overview and history of social housing in England and creating a national picture out of small detail (read my review for Manchester Review of Books <a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/homes-for-all/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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Sally Barrett’s ‘A Life’s Work’ is a collection of small stories in poem form.<br />
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‘Radical Essex’, published by Focal Point Gallery, offered a welcome collection of different perspectives and alternative, often radical, histories of the often-maligned county, exploring its innovations in architecture and popular culture (read my review for Manchester Review of Books <a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/beyond-the-basildon-man/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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‘Prefabs: A Social and Architectural History’ by Elisabeth Blanchet and Sonia Zhuravlyova gave an illustrated history of prefab housing, which was both thorough in its detail and an accessible and enjoyable read (read my review for Manchester Review of Books <a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/an-englishmans-home-is-his-castle/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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‘All In the Downs’ by Shirley Collins offered an insight not just into her work and career, but into life in post-war London and Sussex (read my review for Manchester Review of Books <a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/ode-to-sussex/" target="_blank">here</a>). <br />
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<b><u>Theatre </u></b><br />
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I enjoyed two mid-20th century American family psychodramas this year, Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ at Home and Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ at the Royal Exchange.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-70903831505719314512018-12-15T13:44:00.002+00:002018-12-15T13:44:53.797+00:00Folkestone Warren sloe gin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Fight your way through tangles of brambles, nettles and blackthorn bushes, and keep your footing on the narrow, uneven paths that lead down to Folkestone’s Warren, and you’re rewarded with access to the town’s most attractive beach. <br />
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The Warren is a bay at the foot of the white cliffs, looking across to the low-lying coast of France on a clear day. Despite being geographically close, it feels a world away from the Folkestone’s most popular beach, Sunny Sands, where the raw bodied and raw faced holiday people observed in Ted Hughes’ poem <i>Work and Play</i> <br />
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Are laid out like wounded<br />
Flat as in ovens<br />
Roasting and basting<br />
With faces of torment as space burns them blue. <br />
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Although out of town, the Warren is well worth the trip. As part of an exposed coastal landscape that has been remade by landslips over the years, the cliffs are shored up by a wide concrete apron constructed after the Second World War. When the tide is right, regular rows of concrete groynes create the impression of a series of private beaches, both separated from the promenade above and cut off by gently lapping waves to the side. At low tide, the concrete is coated in a springy carpet of vivid green moss that’s treacherous under foot. At high tide, fishermen cast their rods out to sea and concrete steps provide the perfect entry point for swimming in the English Channel, which turns a Mediterranean turquoise under the summer sun. In winter, when stormy grey waves slap unpredictably against the edge, it’s wise to keep your distance.<br />
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Although the Warren is home to a small campsite – and the occasional illicit camper and hermit residing in shacks built into the cliffs – it’s mercifully free of crowds. It’s overlooked only by a couple of Martello Towers, a lone clifftop café at Capel-le-Ferne and a clifftop artwork, <i>Siren</i>, by Marc Schmitz and Dolgor Ser-Od, inspired by the improbable early twentieth-century wartime technology of <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2012/09/sound-and-vision-hythes-acoustic-mirror.html" target="_blank">concrete listening ears</a>, and installed as part of the <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2017/09/folkestone-triennial-town-transformed.html" target="_blank">2017 Folkestone Triennial</a>.</div>
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It wasn’t always this way. The Warren, which had a reputation as Folkestone’s ‘Little Switzerland’, was once a destination for daytrippers and pleasure seekers, served by its own train station. <br />
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The Warren is separated from touristy Sunny Sands by an expanse of rocks, popular with fossil hunters. Sifting idly through the beach’s mixture of sand and pebbles reveals its own treasures, though: pebbles made from brick in various shades of red and yellow, worn smooth over the years, and translucent, gem-like ‘sea glass’, delicately frosted ovals of white, green, brown and blue glass created from decades of discarded bottles being thrown around and ground down by the tide. <br />
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Follow the cliffs in the other direction, past Abbot’s Cliff nudist beach, and eventually you’ll reach the port of Dover. The Folkestone to Dover trainline, too, takes this route, through the cliffs and past the Warren. Though short, it’s a dramatic ride, as the train emerges suddenly alongside the sea. Although spectacular, the route has its perils. In December 2015, storm damage closed the trainline for a full nine months, a reminder that the conceit of man’s control over our island coastline is illusory at best, and that its shape, form and the nature of our relationship with it is something we should never take for granted.<br />
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The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-3165533406217439032018-11-24T19:58:00.000+00:002018-11-25T09:33:40.591+00:00Fanzines! A guest lecture at Bradford School of Art, Wednesday 5 December <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My next lecture in Bradford School of Art's Random Lecture series will take place on Wednesday 5 December at 12 noon in the Dye House Gallery; all welcome.<br />
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I will be giving a personal perspective on fanzines, drawing on material from my own collection of 'zines and printed ephemera, and my experiences of publishing <i>the Shrieking Violet</i>. I will discuss the different forms fanzines have taken, in terms of style and content, and their ongoing evolution, from small, often rough-and-ready self-published magazines aimed at special interest communities such as football supporters, music fans, vegans and anarchists, to hyperlocal examinations of cities and neighbourhoods, and city critiques, to showcases for the work of artists, photographers and poets, to sleek, well-designed objects, often holding much in common with artists' books, to their 'mainstreaming' and the co-option and collecting of fanzines by institutions such as universities and art galleries. I will conclude by looking at the 'zine in the age of the internet, and the ways in which the internet supports 'zine-making by creating communities and increased opportunities for their distribution and consumption. </div>
The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-91380182517121869292018-10-15T22:03:00.001+01:002018-10-15T22:11:44.500+01:00Guest lecture, Bradford School of Art, Wednesday 31 October - Woman's Outlook: A Surprisingly Modern Magazine?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'll be returning to Bradford School of Art on Wednesday 31 October to do another lecture in its Random Lecture series. The lectures take place at 12 noon in the Dye House Gallery; all welcome.<br />
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I'll be talking about my <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.com/2018/02/womans-outlook-book-chapter-in-womens.html" target="_blank">research</a> into the twentieth-century co-operative women's magazine <i>Woman's Outlook</i>, published by the Co-operative Press from Manchester between 1919 and 1967, which combined political campaigning and information with domestic tips and knowledge.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-16845549427664206582018-05-06T09:39:00.000+01:002020-01-15T21:44:59.110+00:00Listening to the city: Mapping Manchester’s Quiet Spaces on International Dawn Chorus Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After a long winter, the first sign I noticed that the seasons were changing was the regularity with which I was awoken at unsociable hours by the dawn chorus in the trees outside my window, loud enough to break through my sleep and punctuate my dreams, before finally waking me fully.<br />
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The rhythm and routine of bird call as part of city life, and the way in which it might coexist with or be altered by birds’ close proximity to humans in urban environments, is something that interests artist Rae Story.
She has spent nearly a year working with Manchester arts group St Luke’s on a participatory project mapping the quiet spaces of the city; one of her long-held ambitions has been to bring people together to listen to a dawn chorus in a publicly accessible green space.<br />
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An appropriate park or garden in which to gather participants safely and discreetly in the depths of night eluded her – until she was introduced to the Parrs Wood Environmental Centre, a hidden green space on the edges of Didsbury. Situated on the southern outskirts of Manchester, where the city meets the River Mersey on the boundary of Cheshire, the site could easily be missed. Although it forms part of a ‘green corridor’ of woodland and riverside paths that provide a pleasant off-road walking and cycling route between Stockport and south Manchester’s suburbs, the entrance is sandwiched between the nondescript architecture of a chain hotel and a huge multi-use leisure complex of the type that often characterise busy arterial routes.<br />
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Parrs Wood Environmental Centre has a long history as an educational outdoor space for the city’s children. Founded in the years immediately following the Second World War, and run for many years by the city council, school classes were given their own plots to tend. The site also provided adult education through the Workers’ Educational Association.<br />
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Initially part of a country estate, with the former stables, walled kitchen garden and gardener’s cottage still in evidence, the centre is now part of Parrs Wood High School, but continues to offer adults and children environmental education under the guidance of volunteers.<br />
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On International Dawn Chorus Day, fifteen of us meet shortly before 4am under a bright lopsided, yellow-tinged moon, sitting low in the sky. Although it’s been a balmy day the grass is sodden with dew; my summer plimsolls are quickly soaked through.<br />
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We’re led through an overgrown path in the woods to a clearing encircled by overturned logs which double as benches, and invited to forget everything else for the next forty minutes in order to focus fully on what we hear in the air surrounding us.<br />
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As the birds call from all sides, under a densely curtained canopy of leaves, it feels like we’re experiencing theatre in the round, in some kind of natural performance tent, the performers unseen. As time goes by, birds enter and leave, and come back; the low-toned call of the wood pigeon is a late entry against a patter of higher pitched trills. Although, we hear the occasional car on the road outside and the rumble of a lone night train, this is the birds’ space and time. Two sirens go past, shifting in and out of the chorus, which continues regardless.<br />
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I’m listening intently, in a way I’m not used to. My sense of smell becomes more acute, too; there’s a definite aroma of the warm, earthy smell of horses and, later, the sweet scent of crabapple blossom. It slowly grows lighter; perhaps our senses are adjusting, too.<br />
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What I feel most acutely, though, is my own illiteracy when it comes to knowledge of birds or the natural world. I can’t even find the words to describe the calls I’ve heard, in order to ask which birds they might belong to.<br />
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<b><i>Mapping Manchester’s Quiet Spaces</i> is a project by the artist Rae Story with St Luke’s Arts Project. A celebration event, with presentations from the workshops, will be held at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House on Tuesday 26 June at 3pm and 6pm. For more information about this and other events visit <a href="http://www.mappingmanchestersquietspaces.org/">www.mappingmanchestersquietspaces.org</a>.
</b>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-70457274938681370442018-02-24T16:42:00.002+00:002018-02-24T18:48:36.070+00:00Transmitting the outskirts: LoneLady's Scrub Transmissions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's often too easy to conflate place with music, and vice versa. It's tempting to view a city through a lens of its cultural production, to hold on to a static image of past achievements and overlook the ways in which places, and their culture, continue to evolve. It's also easy to reduce an artist to their urban identity, to limit them to an artistic lineage that is geographically - and therefore to some extent always arbitrarily - defined.<br />
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There is a sense of LoneLady trying to break out of these boxes, to get away from a very particular - and often male - Mancunian identity. Yet at the same time, her music is undeniably shaped by Manchester. It's the place where she grew up, on the eastern fringes of the city. It's also where her two albums to date were written, rehearsed and recorded, in largely self-built rehearsal and studio spaces in former industrial units in isolated areas outside of the city centre. Until recent acquisitions by developers capitalising on Manchester's property boom, apparently redundant buildings such as these, surrounded by half-demolished buildings, light industrial activity or red light districts, were available and affordable to artists due to their relative geographical and cultural remoteness. Despite their uncertainty of tenure, artists became used to coexisting with damp, cold, mice and indifferent landlords, fashioning and reinventing these spaces to fit their needs and finding the space and freedom for invention and experimentation amidst physical decrepitude. These were the places where most of Manchester's real creative work was done.<br />
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LoneLady both acknowledges this geographical specificity in her work and attempts to break away from it; most recently, she's stretched her wings with a long-term residency at Somerset House in London. As a Mancunian woman, she sees herself not just as struggling for visibility within the mainstream music world, but also as an outsider to the city itself. She situates herself both physically and metaphorically on the edges of Manchester, and outside of the myths manufactured by those who wish to shape our perceptions of it.<br />
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LoneLady wants us to share and understand the mundane places and subtle experiences which influence her sensations of the city day-to-day, and her place within it, as a place that is lived in, worked in and travelled through, and as a city that - far from the promotional spiel of business, tourism, redevelopment and economic growth - continues to be uncertain, often difficult and sometimes unwelcoming for those who exist outside of its dominant uses and narratives.<br />
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Far from the shininess and spectacle of city centre redevelopment, LoneLady tries to tell us different stories and show us other cultural landmarks. In 2012, she invited us to plug our headphones in and experience her music in the context of 1960s elevated motorway the Mancunian Way, through her temporary installation <i><a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/tune-into-architecture-loneladys.html" target="_blank">The Utilitarian Poetic</a></i>, which embedded a previously unreleased track beneath a flyover on the outskirts of the city centre. <i>TUP</i> drew our attention to a structure that is a permanent presence in the city, yet which is almost always experienced in transit, and a place where few stop to linger. Removing fast-flowing traffic from the city's roads, the Mancunian Way flyover distances motorists from the city at ground level, yet it also creates a constant background hum for those who live and work in the estates and buildings alongside it.<br />
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Six years later, LoneLady again asks us to turn our back on the city centre and to venture east to the inner-city neighbourhood of Miles Platting, an area that borders Clayton on one side and Ancoats on the other, on the banks of the Ashton Canal. East Manchester, a former industrial and mining district, where Clayton is situated, remains one of the poorest areas of Manchester, despite the new sporting facilities built for the Commonwealth Games in 2002. By contrast, Ancoats, which borders the hip Northern Quarter area of Manchester city centre, has, in just a few years, become unrecognisable. As derelict former factories and mills have been converted, alongside infill apartment blocks, a previously under-visited area of the city has been filled with bars, shops and restaurants catering to young professionals, and is regularly featured in local and national media as a 'foodie destination'.
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New-build flats are gradually encroaching further into east Manchester, following the improved access to the city brought by the building of the East Manchester tram line. However, in spite of its proximity to Ancoats and Manchester city centre, Miles Platting feels like a different world entirely. Here, we see and hear different uses for the city, which don't fit comfortably elsewhere: families gather in special dress in small sections of industrial units repurposed as places of worship; graffiti artists find ample space to exhibit their work. There's also evidence of others left behind by the city's redevelopment, including rough sleeping and heroin use, on wasteland exposed by the demolition of former industrial buildings.<br />
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There's also a atmosphere of openness and space here, lacking in a city centre that is increasingly embracing height and density - of a place that is yet to be rediscovered and rebuilt. Into this left-behind landscape, embedded in a tower of rubble, LoneLady has inserted 'Little Fugue', an unreleased track from 2014. Behind you are the skeletal outlines of abandoned gas towers. In front and to the side are patched up industrial buildings, some missing windows, and subdivided for a variety of commercial and creative uses. In the background, plodding indie rock competes across the canal with band practice emanating from a facing building. Through the headphones, LoneLady's guitar chimes gothically over a synthy, dancey track that both suggests something of her city's heritage, but shows it is possible to do something new and different with it.<br />
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Then we hear a voiceover, a story about what this area has meant to her. It concludes by urging us to: "Hear the voices of the landscape, before they're scrubbed out."<br />
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<b><i>Scrub Transmissions</i> went live on Sunday 18 February and continues until the battery runs out (duration dependent on weather conditions!).
For map and further information, visit <a href="http://lonelady.co.uk/blog/scrub-transmissions-miles-platting" target="_blank">http://lonelady.co.uk/blog/scrub-transmissions-miles-platting</a>. </b><br />
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<b>An accompanying 'zine by LoneLady is available from the Peer Hat and Piccadilly Records in the Northern Quarter.
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<b><br /></b>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-9651853671155277542018-02-08T15:52:00.000+00:002018-02-08T15:52:34.625+00:00'Woman's Outlook' book chapter in 'Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The Interwar Period'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm really delighted to have a chapter about the twentieth century co-operative women's magazine <i>Woman's Outlook </i>in the new collection <i>Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The Interwar Period</i>, published by Edinburgh University Press (I'm also really pleased that the book features an image of <i>Woman's Outlook</i> on its cover!).<br />
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This blog is one of the places where I have <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/talk-womans-outlook-surprisingly-modern.html" target="_blank">explored my interest</a> in <i><a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/womans-outlook-magazine-visiting.html" target="_blank">Woman's Outlook</a></i>, a magazine for the campaigning women of the co-operative movement, which was published by the Co-operative Press in Manchester between 1919 and 1967 and combined information about political and social issues with domestic tips and advice. The chapter is based on research into the magazine in the National Co-operative Archive in Manchester, which holds a complete set of the publication.<br />
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To find out more about the book and other contributors, visit <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-women-039-s-periodicals-and-print-culture-in-britain-1918-1939.html">https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-women-039-s-periodicals-and-print-culture-in-britain-1918-1939.html</a>.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-38442710489518282672018-01-25T09:29:00.000+00:002018-02-02T19:23:16.150+00:00Guest lecture, Bradford School of Art, Wednesday 31 January - Bradford’s brutalist masterpieces: William Mitchell’s murals in Bradford, Bingley and Ilkley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'll be returning to Bradford School of Art on Wednesday 31 January to do another lecture in its Random Lecture series. The lectures take place at 12 noon; all welcome.<br />
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<b>Bradford’s brutalist masterpieces: William Mitchell’s murals in Bradford, Bingley and Ilkley </b><br />
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Born in 1925, the artist and industrial designer <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/meeting-william-mitchell-modernist.html" target="_blank">William Mitchell</a>’s work can be seen in towns and cities around the world. However, it does not hang on the wall of art galleries, but is an integral part of the buildings in which it is found. These range from everyday places such as schools, libraries, pubs, subway underpasses and the foyers of post-war towerblocks, to flagship buildings like Harrods and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool.<br />
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The talk will give an overview of Mitchell’s work and career, focusing in particular on three artworks by William Mitchell in the Bradford area which demonstrate his post-war work in municipal and civic contexts as well as for corporate and commercial clients. Using innovative techniques and working in media such as moulded concrete and fibreglass, all three murals are distinctively of Mitchell’s style, yet take different stylistic approaches, from abstracted pattern-making to incorporating elements of the history of the area in which they are located.<br />
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It will explore a series of concrete murals in Bradford’s Kirkgate market, built in 1973 to replace a previous Victorian market, and carried out by Mitchell or one of his associates; thirteen fibreglass panels, commissioned for the former Bradford and Bingley Building Society headquarters in Bingley in the early 1970s and depicting the architectural and engineering landmarks of the area; and a large mural for the Ilkley Wool Secretariat, completed in 1968, which explores the history of wool manufacture locally.<br />
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These case studies will be used to highlight wider changes in attitudes towards post-war architecture, and the ways in which these types of artworks are regarded: whilst a new home has been sought in recent years for the Bingley murals, which were removed as the highly unpopular building in which they were situated was demolished, Mitchell’s Ilkley relief has been widely feted and was celebrated with Grade II listing by Historic England in 2015.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-59633794685610555662018-01-16T09:30:00.000+00:002018-01-16T09:30:24.943+00:00'He's Leaving Home' cookbook now available online via Cracking Good Food<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Are you looking for new recipe ideas for 'veganuary', but lacking inspiration or feeling intimidated by vegan cooking and ingredients?<br />
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I'm delighted that my cookery book, <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/hes-leaving-home-shrieking-violet-guide.html" target="_blank">'He's Leaving Home: The Shrieking Violet Guide to Hearty Vegetarian Cooking on a Budget'</a>, is now available online via Manchester-based social enterprise Cracking Good Food, who offer a range of cookery courses around Manchester to brush up on your culinary skills and learn new ideas and techniques.<br />
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'He's Leaving Home' offers a vegan twist on hearty everyday classics, aiming to use affordable, accessible ingredients.<br />
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Now in its third print run, feedback includes:<br />
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<i>The cookbook is great! Cheap, vegetarian and and all simple/practical. I was surprised how many recipes you included also."</i> James, Berlin<br />
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<i>"Brilliant present, thanks!"</i> Ed, Kent<br />
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<i>"Just used your recipe for roast potatoes, was delicious - used the rosemary we found last night on a bike ride near Salford Quays. Can't wait to try the baked beans pie! Could I order one of your recipe books for my friend please? she's vegan too and is moving back to Canada soon so would make a great leaving present to remind her of English food!"</i> Rae, Salford<br />
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Buy online for £5 (copies are also available in the bookshop at Home in Manchester) at: <a href="http://www.crackinggoodfood.org/product/the-shrieking-violet-guide-to-hearty-vegetarian-cooking-on-a-budget" target="_blank">www.crackinggoodfood.org/product/the-shrieking-violet-guide-to-hearty-vegetarian-cooking-on-a-budget</a>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-31863179013036071432017-12-26T22:31:00.002+00:002017-12-26T23:49:33.404+00:00Best of 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2017 has been largely dominated by turning thirty, which I celebrated by bringing together a large number of my favourite people, some of whom had never been in the same room together before, at beautiful Sacred Trinity Church in Salford for an evening of dancing, music from Manchester School of Samba and feasting, potluck-style. It couldn't have been a lovelier occasion. Other things I enjoyed in 2017 included:<br />
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<b><u>Art</u></b><br />
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An early highlight of the year was the Jerwood Drawing Prize, the inaugural show at the reopened <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-turnpike-leigh-newold-contemporary.html" target="_blank">Turnpike Gallery</a> in Leigh. This exhibition was dedicated to drawing in all its forms, from burn marks, to books, text and language, to film, textiles and photograms, showing the ways in which mark-making can be used to map, navigate, measure and help us perceive the world. ‘Singularity’, a film by Solveig Settemsdal was a worthy winner, suspending white ink in gelatine. Mesmerising and beautiful, yet also somehow grotesque, the ink became tangible and took on human and animal qualities, appearing to come alive and suggesting the movements of a jellyfish or a living, beating heart. <br />
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Also at the Turnpike, but spilling over onto the streets of Leigh and Wigan, I enjoyed <i>What I want more than anything else</i>, a collaboration between the artist Mark Titchner and local young people which displayed large posters of young people’s intimate desires prominently on the streets. I found these insights into young people's aspirations and hopes for the future quite poignant (and often revealing). At a time when the nature and form of work and employment, and our expectations of education, careers and security are changing, ‘I want a good job when I am older because … ‘ struck a particular chord.<br />
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At Home, <i>La Movida</i> was an exhibition inspired by the Spanish cultural movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The highlights were three films: Clara Casian’s ‘House on the Borderland’, focused on Michael Butterworth of Savoy Books, which explored memory and the way in which personal stories are recounted and intertwined with much bigger histories; ‘Aliens’, Luis López Carrasco's film about mental health, punk, drugs and sexuality; and ‘Folklore 1’ by Patricia Esquivias, which challenged notions around outsiders, stereotypes and traditions.<br />
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It was a strong year for the Centre For Chinese Contemporary Art: I particularly enjoyed Michael Wolf’s photographs of Hong Kong back alleys. Elsewhere in Manchester, I enjoyed the Galt toys exhibition at Manchester Central Library, which charted the growth and expansion of the Cheshire-based toy manufacturer through colourful toys, games, catalogues and packaging, placing it in post-war culture. I also loved the large, colourful retro textiles of Barbara Brown at the Whitworth Art Gallery.<br />
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One of the highlights of Manchester International Festival was <i>Music for a Busy City</i>, which invited the audience to take ten minutes out of their day to stop and listen in interstitial spaces such as the pedestrian walkway between Selfridges and M&S. As passengers went up and down in the lifts, staring blankly down, a few people stopped, checked their watches and looked up, wondering where the normal pop music of the shops stopped and the piece began, mingling with the clipped, polite tones of customer service announcements.<br />
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Another MIF highlight was <i>ToGather</i> by the German-Egyptian artist Susan Hefuna at the Whitworth Art Gallery. Taking inspiration from the materiality and visuality of the street, Hefuna worked with text, light and shadow to negotiate meaning and obscurity. Working with tracing paper and raw ink, she created iterations and drafts of drawings, layered with meaning and suggesting the grid–like patterns of the city seen from above and by night. Elsewhere at MIF, Karl Hyde’s <i>Homeless</i> <i>Street Poem</i>, which brought together stories of local homeless people with new musical work, was a hugely effective approach to exploring one of the city's most visible and pressing issues.<br />
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Lindsey Bull’s collaboration with Plastique Fantastique was a standout in a good year of exhibitions at Castlefield Gallery. Bull’s ethereal paintings were juxtaposed with a flamboyant, extended performance by Plastique Fantastique, featuring lots of glitter, a hanging man and an electronic, Fall-esque cover of 'Traitor' by Motorhead, bringing new life to the experience of viewing Bull’s paintings in ways that were both bizarre and brilliant. The final show of the year, Peter Hodgson, was a great close to 2017, showing the work of the Cumbrian artist and craftsman alongside contemporary artists such as Laure Prouvost. The results were both humorous and showed great attention to design and detail.<br />
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‘What’s In Store’ at Salford Art Gallery celebrated fifty years of the<a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/an-education-through-art-university-of.html" target="_blank"> University of Salford Art Collection</a>, balancing historic development with its current-day collection policies, showing why it’s so important to collect digital art, art from the north and Chinese art.<br />
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At the Turner Contemporary in Margate I enjoyed the paintings of Kenyan-born artist Michael Armitage, which brought together contemporary and classical references and political, cultural and social themes using densely worked paint and luminous colours on lubago bark fabric. I also loved Phyllida Barlow’s monumental, stacked structures, shown alongside Armitage’s paintings, which resonated with the seaside architecture of the area such as fortifications, sea walls and defences, and suggested a surrealist artistic lineage.<br />
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At the Sidney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury, the surrealist photographs of Claude Cahun played with identity, anthropomorphism and ageing, incorporating natural forms such as rocks, trees, sea and the coast.<br />
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<i>The Idea Home Show</i> at Mima in Middlesbrough brought together a series of interconnected exhibitions about housing, showing how the gallery aims to ask local questions with global resonances. Highlights included a workshop by Assemble, giving practical demonstrations of useful craft skills which can be used to make something beautiful, Stephen Willats’ politicised housing commentary, wallpaper by CommonRoom for rooms in standard new build houses, artworks in portable, foldable form produced by the Artist Tea Towel company, and curtains designed by the artist Katie Schwab for the museum shop. <br />
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Lubaina Himid was a worthy winner of the Turner Prize and there were plenty of opportunities to see her work in 2017. A highlight was her show at FirstSite in Colchester, where the cut out, collaged figures of 'Naming the Money' were decorated with patterns and magazine photos, and soundtracked with stories returning their names, memories and histories.<br />
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The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, which has a collection gifted by artists, presented work from the archive of conceptual artist Olafur Llarsson, documenting performative actions that ranged from counting fingers and toes to inhabiting corners to walking lines to wearing paint; viewers were also encouraged to encounter the work in creative ways.<br />
<b><u><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Talks</u></b><br />
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In the week that Article 50 was triggered, John Akomfrah positioned himself both as a landscape artist in a romantic tradition and used his recent film installation, <i>Vertigo Sea</i>, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, to discuss themes of precariousness, immigration and the value of labour, and the types of welcome we give new arrivals.<br />
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The launch of the new series ‘What We Talk About’ at Mima in Middlesbrough featured four inspiring speakers from Casco in Utrecht, Mima in Middlesbrough, and Islington Mill in Salford exploring alternative ways of imagining and running institutions. The highlight was artist Maurice Carlin, who discussed the ways in which he has used his <i>Temporary Custodians</i> project to both challenge conventional perceptions of art ownership and create a new community.<br />
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At Manchester Art Gallery, Gavin Wade, Director of Birmingham’s Eastside Projects, offered a thoughtful exploration of the role of art and artists in the city, suggesting that artists can be brought together to perform a role akin to a think tank in developing and implementing cultural policy. He asked questions about who funds public art, and who has responsibility for shaping and creating it, positioning the exhibition as fundamental human activity and art as an integral part of life alongside housing, education, care etc. He discussed the ways in which artists shape and change the gallery at Eastside Projects, and the organisation’s ongoing work with Cherwell Council to create an artist’s house in Banbury as part of a public art project.<br />
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<b><u>Film</u></b><br />
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Films have been getting longer in recent years, but despite its three-hour run-time modern-day morality tale <i>Toni Erdman</i> didn’t outstay its welcome and was the film I enjoyed most in 2017. Focused on a morally bankrupt, vacuous daughter on the edge of a nervous breakdown, her father at first seems excruciatingly inappropriate and is the butt of the film's humour, yet for me he ended up being the hero of the story. The film explores love and family bonds, and questions empty friendships. It asks what it means to be successful and explores the nature of fulfilment, at the time as being extremely funny.<br />
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Another darkly funny film was <i>The Other Side of Hope</i>, which was full of hope and small acts of kindness and connection. Set in a Helsinki that was both retro and modern, it felt more human and positively gregarious compared to Kaurismäki’s other films.<br />
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The other stand-out film of the year was <i>The Florida Project</i>, with its exploration of freedom, friendship and vulnerability, conveyed by astonishingly energetic performances from the child actors.<br />
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The year was bookended by <i>Moonlight</i> and <i>Call Me By Your Name</i>, two very different coming of age tales of nascent sexuality, but both of which I loved for their cinematography and use of music.<br />
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I appreciated the brevity of Sally Potter’s <i>The Party</i>, which at 71 minutes was short but fast-paced, stylish and hilarious – I wasn’t the only one in the cinema to laugh out loud – and concluded with a surprise twist at the end which reinforces the message that people and relationships are complex. Despite the familiarity of the characters, it never descended into cliché, featuring a stand-out performance from Kristin Scott Thomas.<br />
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I also enjoyed the quiet everydayness of <i>Certain Women</i>, particularly the loneliness and alienation of the first story, which actor Lily Gladstone made touching, identifiable and relatable. By contrast, I also enjoyed the staged theatricality of<i> Fences</i>. <i>The Red Turtle</i> was a wordless but rapturous and immersive story about life. Its animation felt true to life, its big, overcast skies punctuated with moments of terror and upheaval.<br />
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<i>The Salesman</i> was an underlooked story about forgiveness and redemption, moral judgements and relativism. Another Middle Eastern film, <i>In Between</i>, was a powerful portrayal of female friendship and cultural expectations.<br />
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Two British films I enjoyed this year, which both presented a countryside that’s poor, cold, grim and often lonely, were <i>The Levelling </i>and <i>God’s Own Country</i>. <i>God’s Own Country</i> in particular used the landscape of the north as an effective setting to grapple with identity, education and aspiration, loyalty, duty, family ties, love and masculinity.<br />
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Andrew Kötting's <i>Edith Walks</i>, in which a cast of experts and eccentrics walk the English countryside from Waltham Abbey to St Leonard’s-on-Sea, was a silly but effective follow-up to <i><a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/swandown-dvd-review.html" target="_blank">Swandown</a></i>. One of the highlights is the soundtrack, featuring the voice of Claudia Barton and Jem Finer’s homemade soundbox, along with archive footage of schoolchildren re-enacting the Battle of Hastings in 1966.<br />
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Set in the same part of the world, the best documentary I saw in 2017 was the impossibly moving <i>The Ballad of Shirley Collins</i>, which tells the heartbreaking story of how the cult British folk singer lost her voice – and then found it again. Collins, who worked as a charwoman and then in a Jobcentre in the years leading up to her retirement, came across as totally genuine, and the film was mercifully free of celebrity cameos other than an interview with Stewart Lee, a fan, and David Tibet on their longstanding friendship. The film presented a cross-cultural exchange of working-class song between England and America, juxtaposing song with images of the landscape and working the land, and grounded this culture in labour and communist politics. Starting and ending with the magic and menace of bonfire night in Lewes, and visiting other traditions such as the green man in Hastings, the film showed Britain at its strangest and was rooted in the ancient towns and landscapes of East Sussex. The film was extremely poignant both for the absence of Collins’ sister, Dolly, and in the way it dealt with a woman looking back at her youth, with a sense of approaching the end of her own life.<br />
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<i>I Am Not Your Negro</i> used historical montage as well as contemporary footage to great effect. It told the story of the great American intellectual James Baldwin and his contemporaries at the same time as telling the story of America – and it’s not a pretty one. Critiquing not just individual action but society, culture and systems, it felt an important film for the age of Trump, presenting a divided nation.<br />
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Another film that made great use of archival footage was <i>Beuys</i>, a portrait of the artist and provocateur Joseph Beuys, famous for his saying that ‘everyone is an artist’. Framed by his ongoing Documenta intervention '7,000 Oak Trees', it explored the relation of art to life, asking what role artists should have in society and highlighting his involvement in politics through the German Green Party alongside his art world antics. Despite its historical focus, much of it felt familiar from the public art of today.<br />
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Ai Weiwei’s <i>Human Flow</i> was a portrayal of the refugee crisis on an epic scale, flitting around the globe and presenting stunning aerial views in order not just to show the scale of the problem, but to highlight the myriad reasons for large-scale population displacement.<br />
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On a more lighthearted note, <i>Kedi</i> told the story of Istanbul through its resident cat population, offering a cat’s eye view of the city that foregrounded both their personalities and intelligence. The film shows the function that cats fulfil in the city, from hunting and pest control to providing affection. Although no-one really owns them, they coexist with the human population in life, work and leisure, and those who do care enough take it on themselves to provide antibiotic eyedrops and kitten milk. Although an apparently apolitical film, discreet 'Erdo-gone' stencils were visible in the background, and implicit was a critique of globalisation and westernisation – the market where many of the cats lived was under threat of clearance for a new road, and high-rises were springing up where orchards once stood.<br />
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<b><u>Travel and walks</u></b><br />
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I visited Iceland in May as commiseration for turning thirty. The sun barely came out, aside from brief windows of blue – the skies are ever-changeable and the clouds are permanently low-hung – but by way of compensation the sun barely sets in the summer months. As a result, Iceland’s buildings are set up to maximise whatever light there is, with big windows and balconies. The Harpa concert hall, with its thick glass windows, is a place to watch the changing colours of the sky and look out of the city: all roads seem to lead to the harbour, with its views over the mountains. Outside of downtown Reykjjavik, where colourful houses hide behind each other on different levels, the city’s architecture is largely utilitarian, with grey pebbledash houses and estates of modernist villas, punctuated with outlandish churches, built at skewed angles.<br />
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The lack of colour in Reykjavik is more than made up for by the street art and creativity of the city, with its quirky design shops. Despite the climate, the culture is surprisingly outdoors-focused. In May, there were lots of tulips and clusters of mushrooms, and a surprisingly large number of cyclists.<br />
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Another place with an extreme climate was Bangor, which seemed to be the windiest place on earth – and again, its townscape is split between pebbledash houses and large villas. Huddled at the end of Bangor pier, deserted out of season, I overheard a young woman explaining to her friend the song that would be the first to be played at her wedding. As she recounted the early days of a long-distance relationship, and the travel it had involved, it became apparent that she song she was struggling to put a name to was 'Drive' by the Cars – I was able to help her out. Other highlights included a trip to look over the Menai Strait, a brief curator’s tour of the University of Bangor Art Collection, a trip to Bangor cathedral (where the vicar was so friendly he practically offered to drive me to the Menai Strait himself), and ‘fish and chips’ at a great vegan restaurant. The train to Bangor along the coast was also one of the best journeys of the year.<br />
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In Lancashire, I got up close to moorland for the first time on a walk from Littleborough to Walsden via Blackstone Edge, on a squelchy and muddy walk through a surprisingly varied and diverse landscape. The brooding moors retain a rare sense of wildness and quietness.<br />
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Nob End, on the fringes of Salford, Bolton and Bury, is a place that despite its name is surprisingly beautiful. A country park on former industrial land affords views of hills, trees and horses, as well as mills and chimneys, through which flows the river Irwell and a now defunct canal, filled with reeds, over which artist Liam Curtin has made a bridge out of giant Meccano, with matching benches and picnic furniture. In summer baby moorhens were present, as well as tiny, just-hatched cygnets.<br />
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I continued my Essex explorations with a ferry ride to East Mersea, an island where oysters wash up on the collapsing coastline, into which pillboxes are slowly crumbling, and sea lavender grows alongside strange succulents. Across the bay is Point Clear, largely composed of a village of holiday chalets and a Martello Tower backing onto Brightingsea creek, looking out over the enticingly named Cindery Island – and a Thames Barge picking up scrap. Further inland, the walk from Thorrington creek and mill to Alresford Creek affords muddy, sheep-filled views over the winding creek, through tall grass and corridors of blackthorn, and past a distant church, suddenly opening out to boats, a jetty and abandoned quarry winches. One of the best places for viewing Essex is Walton-on-the-Naze tower, which gives views across the marshes and several counties.<br />
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North Yorkshire’s not a part of the world I was previously familiar with, but Staithes – a picturesque fishing village of cobbled streets, cut in two by a river, and overhung by moors and huge cliffs with allotments trailing down the side – was an ideal base to explore the clifftop Cleveland Way, where the mud makes you slip and slide and feel wary on your feet. Between Robin Hood’s Bay and Ravenscar, the moors loom over small farm buildings in fields of sheep and cows running down to the cliffs. At the bottom, there’s an endless variety of rocks, cut through with stratifications and fossils, at the muddy beach at Boggle Hole. I saw one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen: despite a grey, damp, gloomy day, the soft light blurred the edges of everything and the sky was made pinker by the redbrick of the houses and orange roofs of the area.<br />
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Whitby was a much bigger and livelier town than I expected, with an amazing array of buildings presided over by the dramatic abbey. Less gentrified than southern seaside towns, it retains a great variety of independent shops, including an old-fashioned hardware emporium, two wholefood shops, butchers, bakers and a grocers’ selling rainbow chard, quince and fresh turmeric. As expected – especially on our visit the day of Hallowe’en – goths abound; we saw a goth wedding under a whalebone arch, and even the charity shops are full of secondhand goth wear. The cliff-top church was somewhat po-faced, however, in its signage pointing out that Dracula is not real, and asking visitors not to use the graveyard for photo opportunities. We also spotted a seal from the pier. Saltburn was another genteel resort. Although full of independent shops and upmarket bars and bistros, it was also amply served by tabletop sales and fleamarkets full of bargains.<br />
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Middlesbrough places the spectacular – such as the transformer bridge which carries cars over the Tees and an outscale Anish Kapoor structure – next to derelict boats, desolate emptiness and post-modern PFI architecture. Mima, in the centre of town, has a fancy café and shop and roof terrace, but it also makes an effort to work with the local community; the foyer was busy with women weaving and families. It also has a really interesting archive of ‘Arte Útil’ projects, both local and international.<br />
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Hull felt similar to other twentieth century town centres I’ve visited over the past few years, like Harlow and Coventry, old-fashioned with run-down 1950s buildings. Aside from the iconic Alan Boyson mural on the former Hull Co-op store, which is even more imposing in real life than in the photographs, a real highlight was William Mitchell’s luminous work on Frederick Gibberd’s Hull College, with its uncharacteristically glowing colours gleaming in the late-autumn sunshine.<br />
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Oxford’s not like any other city I've ever visited. With huge university meadows and parks everywhere it really feels like the countryside is right in the city. Wandering along the Thames, I saw a deer, as well as lots of apples and unripe sloes and blackberries. It's a very pleasant city to walk around, and very cycle friendly. There is loads to look at everywhere – and there are great markets. But at the same time it’s also extremely beery and laddy and lairy – overrun by posh students shouting at the tops of their voices in the street – and full of homeless people.<br />
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Shandy Hall is an altered vicarage where Laurence Sterne wrote the last volume of <i>The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy</i>, with an extensive garden. The Laurence Sterne Trust keeps alive the spirit of Sterne, housing different editions of <i>Tristram Shandy</i> as well as a library of books by experimental authors and artists, and inviting contemporary artists and writers respond to his work, such as a series of artists' editions inspired by the black pages in <i>Tristram Shandy</i>. For me, the highlight was artist Anne Vibeke Mou's etched glass window panes resembling book marbling.<br />
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I also finally made it to Bramall Hall, a beautifully restored Tudor home deep in leafy, suburban Stockport, surrounded by green parkland.<br />
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<b><u>Swims</u></b><br />
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Reykjavik’s one of the best cities I have ever visited as a swimming fan. It’s well-served by outdoor pools and hot tubs in densely-populated urban areas, which are one of the most affordable activities in a notoriously expensive city. The art deco indoor pool Sundhöllin, with its rooftop hot tubs overlooking the city, lights up when the sun comes out. It may have been touristy, but the warm, misty, relaxation of the Blue Lagoon was a great place to spend hours floating surrounded by otherworldly lava fields after getting off the plane into the cold Icelandic drizzle.<br />
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Two of my best outdoor swims of the year were in the Oxford area: at suburban and well-used Hinksey pool, and at Woodstock lido, hidden away in an unassuming estate on the outskirts of a twee market town.<br />
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Indoors, Beverley Road Baths in Hull was both grand and luxurious in its Edwardian detailing – and surprisingly quiet. <br />
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<b><u>Bike rides</u></b><br />
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Lancaster to Sunderland Point was a gentle ride along the Lune bikepath and quiet country roads. The marshy, tidal Lune leaves mudbanks for exploration by long-beaked curlews and crossing the causeway feels like cycling into the sea, with waves lapping at your feet. Sunderland Point’s few dwellings are grand, terraced houses with big windows. They contrast with an austere mission church, where services are held only on alternate Sundays. The grave of Samboo, one of the slaves on whom the area’s former wealth was built, is tucked away down a narrow, overgrown path, featuring a memorial now embellished with hand-made beads and painted stones. <br />
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In contrast, Tame Lane was an appropriate name for the flat landscape of Romney Marsh, where I took back roads from Hythe to Dymchurch.<br />
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After years of familiarity with the Trafford and Cheshire stretches of the Bridgewater Canal, I took the Salford branch from Stretford to the mill town of Leigh near Wigan, past architectural landmarks like the lighthouse folly at Monton, where the canal is orange, and dramatic Barton aqueduct. It’s striking how green the canal becomes on the outskirts of Salford, in Worsley, where the city meets the countryside and fields of horses. The landscape changes again as you pass through the former mining towns and villages between Salford and Wigan, with old pit apparatus overhanging the canal at Astley, and scrubby greenery on either side.<br />
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The toughest (hilliest) bike ride I’ve ever been on was from Burnley to Pendle Hill – through Nelson, Barrow Ford, Barley and Roughlee, and unbelievably picturesque Pennine scenery. Pendle itself was abuzz with people enjoying panoramic views over Lancashire and the peaks of Yorkshire.<br />
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<b><u>Radio</u></b><br />
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Two of my favourite singers got a double bill when Jarvis Cocker (whose band, Pulp, introduced me to Scott Walker when he guest produced their final album, <i>We Love Life</i>) interviewed Scott Walker on Six Music ahead of his BBC Proms performance. It could have been a hagiography on Cocker’s part, but instead the interview was illuminating and engaging, with Walker coming across as articulate, thoughtful and down-to-earth, and genuinely surprised by the interest shown in his songs by a new generation.<br />
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<b><u>Television</u></b><br />
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Once I got over the off-putting haunted asylum graphics, I really enjoyed the documentary <i>Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist</i>, which told the poignant story of the British artist and her exile to Mexico, reinstating her place in the Surrealist movement after being sidelined in a group of male-dominated artists.<br />
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A third of the way in, the new <i>Twin Peaks</i> is proving to be as characteristically scary, funny and strange as the original.<br />
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<b><u>Records</u></b><br />
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I loved the smooth yet off-kilter pop song '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPYU5y_bzNQ" target="_blank">¿Dónde Estás María?</a>' by Meridien Brothers, combining falsetto vocals and a quirky organ sound with a thumping, time-keeping drumbeat and a raw, rising violin riff.<br />
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Other favourites included Terry’s twangy, bassy, poppy punk song '<a href="terry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEmR-tSxMnk" target="_blank">Eight Girls</a><i>'</i> and Sacred Paws’ '<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3rQ4nLBu06XacTR0fopGma" target="_blank">Ride</a>', which features their distinctive stripped-down pop sound. I loved the grungy scuzzy guitar sound on Flatworms’s '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7AU95C_zU" target="_blank">Pearl</a>', and the grungy pop song '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvTTx5yLrSE" target="_blank">Analysis Paralysis</a>' by<i> </i>Jen Cloher.</div>
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<i>'</i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQnwpiwjMM8" target="_blank">Never, Never</a><i>'</i> by Phobophobes is a rousing pop song featuring eighties-style organ and I enjoyed the funny, slightly stalkerish lyrics of Wesley Gonzalez’s '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQM8KaSN_Ks" target="_blank">I Am A Telescope</a><i>'</i>. Cory Hanson’s hushed, beautiful '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpkLyJBkOPw" target="_blank">Garden of Delight</a><i>'</i> was made all the better for its gorgeous string arrangements and Aldous Harding’s extraordinary voice was used to great effect on the moody and sultry '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-A0cNSLmc" target="_blank">Imagining My Man</a><i>'. </i>Julia Jacklin’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cX04PX6WFk" target="_blank">'Cold Caller'</a> is woozy country meets shoegaze, Hope Sandoval-style. Two of the catchiest and best-named pop songs, meanwhile, were '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIMlrQgqkts" target="_blank">I Only Bought It For the Bottle</a><i>'</i> and '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvqjG90qCdY" target="_blank">Let Your Dogtooth Grow</a>' by Halifax newcomers the Orielles, which I couldn’t help but love for its smooth female vocals and swirling guitar. Similarly, I really enjoyed the retro, jangly guitar and languid vocals of Chastity Belt’s '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at6cnECezqw" target="_blank">Caught in a Lie</a><i>'</i>.<br />
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I was pleasantly surprised by new records by old favourites this year. '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0prgP6watdo&list=RDtz2CNdup5Zw&index=2" target="_blank">Gone, Gone, Gone</a>' was a welcome return from classic New Jersey band the Feelies, featuring their characteristic haunting guitar sound. I know Peter Perrett best as the singer with the Only Ones, and for his work on <i>So Alone</i> by Jonny Thunders, one of my favourite ever albums. '<a href="https://peterperrett.bandcamp.com/track/sweet-endeavour" target="_blank">Sweet Endeavour</a>' is a brilliant pop song featuring his unmistakeable voice whilst also giving a nod to Lou Reed.<br />
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Tree Trunks (an indie supergroup of sorts featuring Rozi Plain and former members of Planet Earth and Francois and the Atlas Moutains) provided the perfect summer listening with the dreamy, electronic dance-pop of their <i><a href="https://soundcloud.com/heka-trax/sets/tree-trunks-big-rush-ep-out-1" target="_blank">Big Rush</a></i> EP, from the whispered vocals of ‘Big Rush’ and the delicate ‘Days’ to the upbeat disco of ‘You Say’.<br />
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I enjoyed the novelty and catchiness of Deep Throat Choir’s album <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en2krbmyYLg" target="_blank">Be Okay</a></i>, composed entirely of sweet female voices in harmony.<br />
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<b><u>Gigs</u></b><br />
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The year started with the kind of gig I like best, instrumental guitar by Jon Collin and DBH, and the atmosphere songs of Irma Vep, in the living room of a flat in a decaying old mansion in Toxteth, Liverpool, accompanied by a crackling fire.<br />
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It continued with Sacred Paws at Soup Kitchen in Manchester, a gig that was twice as busy as the last time they played there. Sacred Paws’ two-piece band was expanded for the occasion, but they retained their sparse, distinctive sound.<br />
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The Handsome Family at the Quarterhouse in Folkestone were surprisingly jolly for a couple who sing dour country songs. On a more energetic note, I had the best fun of the year skanking with my family – and ageing Fred Perry aficionados – at the Selecter and the Beat gig at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, East Sussex.<br />
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At London Palladium the Zombies played a gig of two halves. The first set featured harder, simpler songs from their early years and solo careers. The second celebrated the anniversary of their classic album <i>Odessey and Oracle</i>, accompanied by psychedelic visuals and reminiscences from the band; it was touching to hear how much it meant to them. Every single note was painstakingly recreated with perfect sound: the Zombies even imported a keyboardist from the Brian Wilson Band in America to help them capture the minute details.<br />
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<b><u>Books</u></b><br />
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<i><a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2017/05/29/english-journey/" target="_blank">Signal Failure</a> </i>by Tom Jeffreys offered an interesting addition to the genre of landscape writing, documenting an attempt to walk along the route of HS2.<br />
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Miranda Doyle’s <i><a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/each-unhappy-family-is-unhappy-in-its-own-way/" target="_blank">A Book of Untruths</a></i> was an effective subversion of the memoir form, incorporating historical, psychological and sociological takes on lying and truth-telling at the same time as offering an intimate portrait of her dysfunctional family.<br />
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I loved <i>67, 100, Sometimes 10</i>, a collection of tragic, comic and true-to-life poems by Manchester-based writers Richard and Sally Barrett, inspired by buses, people and life.<br />
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Richard Brook’s <i>Manchester Modern</i> was both a labour of love and a beautiful object, taking design inspiration from esoteric urban details such as the concrete patterning on the Mancunian Way, and providing an in-depth guide to the city’s twentieth century architectural history.<br />
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Corridor8’s <i>Ripe</i> productively brought together writing on art, erotica and food production, offering new perspectives on each of them.</div>
The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-81266614178537643142017-12-15T10:41:00.000+00:002017-12-15T10:41:56.803+00:00Fallowfield Loop damson gin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the 1960s, Dr Beeching paved the way for the reduction of the British rail network, closing small village stations and branch lines and catalysing the ascendancy of the motorcar as the dominant mode of transport in Britain*.<br />
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Some of long-closed lines are now reopening, after decades dormant. Others, their tracks removed permanently and their station buildings now converted into shops and supermarket cafes (as is the case with the former suburban Manchester stations of Levenshulme and Fallowfield), offer cyclists miles of dedicated bike path free from the traffic and aggressive motoring that increasingly chokes our towns and cities.<br />
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Manchester’s Fallowfield Loop stretches around eight miles, looping around the south and east of the city. Beginning in inner-city Openshaw in east Manchester and ending in leafy Chorlton in south Manchester, it undulates through the former industrial dormitories of Gorton and Levenshulme, passes picturesque Debdale Reservoir, skirts the boundary of Stockport at Reddish, and cuts through studenty Fallowfield and leafy Whalley Range.<br />
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The Loop has the feel of a linear park, offering a backdoor view of the city and its patchwork of official and unofficial green spaces. The Loop itself is an underacknowledged green space. In spring and summer it’s overgrown with branches forming a green tunnel, although in autumn the slipperiness of the accumulated layers of leaves can be treacherous. In winter, the foliage drops right back to reveal numerous back gardens, allotments, recreation grounds, school playing fields, overgrown brownfield sites and industrial land reclaimed as country parks. It links up with other traffic-free routes, too, from the Ashton Canal, with its miles of recently resurfaced towpath, to former branch canals such as the Stockport canal.<br />
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The Fallowfield Loop has become a place of community activism and communal litter-picks. It’s also a place of memorial, to young people who have killed themselves. Recently, it’s become a site of protest, with large EU flags unfurled unmissably from road and railway bridges; when removed, they reappear again soon afterwards, imported en masse from China. Pro-EU graffiti sprayed along the path places the UK at the heart of the EU, and the Manchester bee motif is placed centrally within the circle of stars that represent the EU member states; it’s a reminder that Manchester, along with the neighbouring local authorities of Stockport and Trafford, which the Loop passes close-by, voted remain in the EU referendum, in common with several other northern cities. It’s also a place for creativity, from street art murals celebrating the city’s architecture, to hand-written personal declarations (and accusations – ‘Louis K has a tiny penis’). It’s a place to encounter culture, from bicycle theatre troupes offering outdoor Shakespeare performances to <a href="https://fallowfieldloop.org/2017/06/15/installation-of-wildlife-posts/" target="_blank">public artworks</a> sponsored by the cycle charity Sustrans, which document and draw attention to the flora and fauna of the route. It’s a place of learning and instruction, for small children to gain confidence and practise their bike skills away from the road. It’s also a place for family time: on father’s day, it’s noticeable how the number of men with small children increases.<br />
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Not all is benign – once or twice a year the ambush of women or opportunistic robberies make the deadlines, and mounted police undertake regular patrols. However, generally it’s a place of conviviality and sharing: if a cyclist stops at the side of the path, the next to pass will stop to see if all’s okay, and offer help fixing a chain or a spare inner tube.<br />
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Although cyclists benefit the most from a safe cycling environment uninterrupted by the frequent stops and starts of traffic lights, the Fallowfield Loop is also well-used by walkers, joggers, dogwalkers, students, and schoolchildren on their way to and from school, as well as shoppers just getting from A to B. It’s a meeting place, too, particularly for groups of teenagers.<br />
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These looplines are also fruitful places for the urban forager. Depending on the season, edible mushrooms, horseradish, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, damsons, sloes and apples can all be found along the Loop, whilst in late-summer individuals and groups of people of all ages gather with an assortment of receptacles, from large yoghurt tubs to seaside buckets, Tupperware tubs and carrier bags, to gather blackberries, and offer hints on the best spots.<br />
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This year’s damsons were picked along the Fallowfield Loop, in a year that was unusually fallow for apples, yet plums and damsons of varying hues were in abundance.
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* For a more detailed account of cuts to train services in Manchester see <a href="https://mancunian1001.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/the-reshaping-of-our-railways-1-before-beeching">https://mancunian1001.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/the-reshaping-of-our-railways-1-before-beeching</a>.The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-44422715514742977712017-11-07T23:54:00.000+00:002017-11-08T00:03:37.127+00:00Guest lecture, Bradford School of Art, 15 November: 'The Campus as Art Gallery: The Past, Present and Future of Educational Art Collections'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I will be doing a guest lecture at Bradford School of Art at 12 noon on Wednesday 15 November, drawing on an emerging interest in further/higher educational art collections, which has arisen from my PhD research into <i>Pictures for Schools</i> and post-war art education. The lecture, which takes place as part of the 'Random Lecture series', is free and all are welcome.<br />
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<b>The Campus as Art Gallery: The Past, Present and Future of Educational Art Collections</b>
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Like many institutions, universities and colleges often publicly display portraits of grandees such as chancellors and vice-chancellors in order to convey a sense of tradition, heritage and prestige. Less common but more interesting are those further and higher education establishments which have sought to display works of modern art around campus, turning the educational environment into a gallery space. Universities that have chosen to collect and display contemporary art range from modern, post-war universities, where brutalist 1960s architecture is offset by landscaped grounds filled with sculpture by artists such as Henry Moore, to redbrick Victorian universities, to former technical colleges which attained university status in the 1960s. Here (primarily) paintings were purchased for display in communal areas such as corridors and lecture rooms, as well as more privately in staff offices. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, many teacher training colleges also became enthusiastic buyers of contemporary art as part of a broader culture of artistic patronage among educational establishments such as schools, and art became a part of the training context for a future generation of educators.<br />
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Some educational establishments continue to take pride in these collections, make a point of promoting public awareness and access, and continue to actively acquire work. In other cases artworks have been lost, faded into the background or become hidden in the everyday fabric of the institution as universities and colleges have merged, been expanded, modernised and redeveloped over time. This has been due to insufficient documentation and knowledge about the optimum conditions for the display of artworks, a lack of dedicated resource and staff time, or a lack of planning around care and maintenance for the future.<br />
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This lecture will explore the historical establishment and development of some of these educational art collections in colleges and universities in the twentieth century. It will explore their perceived educational impact and appeal, the types of artworks that were considered to be of value and use for display in educational settings, and what this says about changing ideas about the nature and purpose of education. It will ask what an educational art collection might look like now and what it might add to the educational experience of today’s students.</div>
The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-60015181485893609082017-09-01T16:40:00.001+01:002018-06-03T08:01:23.094+01:00Folkestone Triennial: a town transformed by art?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“It’s the best job in the world,” enthuses Folkestone Triennial curator Lewis Biggs, as he bounds along the Leas promenade in a straw hat and tropical shirt. The Victorian seaside splendour of the Leas, lined with grand hotels and mansion blocks, is one of the locations currently displaying new artworks for the fourth instalment of the town’s triennial. Some require the viewer to look hard to spot them – David Shrigley and Camille Biddell recreated one of the Leas’ traditional, ornate lampposts from memory and installed it on the Leas, where it differs only slightly in height and colour from those around it – whereas Richard Woods’ brightly coloured holiday chalets stand out garishly around the town. His fantasy structures float in the harbour and perch on the top of the cliffs, aiming to highlight the impact of second home ownership on the south east’s overheated property market.
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Across the town, the triennial opens up new spaces to residents and visitors alike. This includes a former Baptist burial ground, hidden among a huge redbrick railway viaduct and tall, austere rows of terraces. Accessed via a steep row of steps, it hosts sensor-activated sound compositions by Emily Peasgood. Antony Gormley invites visitors to descend into the dank, cavernous space under the Harbour Arm, where one of his characteristic figures surveys the dramatic white cliffs of Dover and the passing of cross-channel traffic. Hoycheong Wong makes the invisible visible, giving a new façade to an otherwise anonymous Islamic cultural centre, which for 28 years has served the area’s 300 Muslims from a nondescript industrial building. Other pieces blur the boundaries between the private and the public, as in Amalia Pica’s seashell sculptures, positioned in people’s front windows, which reference souvenirs, kitsch and collecting. Other work literally illuminates, in the case of a lamppost in the dingy market square, powered by an experimental mushroom battery, installed by Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas. Some of the work highlights familiar locations or landmarks. Alex Hartley’s 'Wall' appears to balance precariously at the edge of the white cliffs, constantly at risk of erosion. Other artists bring attention to aspects of the town’s history and economy, as in Jonathan Wright’s small-scale replicas of Folkestone’s fishing fleet – only ten of which remain in operation – developed in collaboration with local fishermen and suspended on posts around the town. Lubaina Himid, meanwhile, suggests an alternative history in her beachfront jelly mould pavilion, that encourages us to think about the links between leisure and pleasure, slavery and sugar.<br />
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This is Biggs’ second triennial – he took over from Andrea Schlieker for the 2014 edition – and it’s clear that he considers it a job for life. His enthusiasm stems partly from the opportunities offered by Folkestone’s architecture and geography – “I’m obsessed with art and place,” he explains. “They are constructed in the same way – through material and stories.” The process of choosing work for the triennial starts, Biggs explains, “with a list of places I want to illuminate”.<br />
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In large part, too, Biggs is driven by working “in a town small enough to see a difference”. As much as the excitement of opening up places and bringing artists to work in the town, Biggs is interested in urbanism, civic life, democracy and the long-term effect of the triennial. “It’s really important that art is seen as part of life,” says Biggs. “It’s the glue between people in society.” He explains: “I believe that if we get better at constructing art then we get better at constructing place.”<br />
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Biggs’ concern with place-making and transformation is shared by Alastair Upton, Chief Executive of the <a href="http://www.creativefoundation.org.uk/" target="_blank">Creative Foundation</a>. The Creative Foundation was formed in 2002 by the philanthropist Roger De Haan, founder of Saga, a major local employer based in nearby Sandgate (De Haan is still chair of the Creative Foundation). The Creative Foundation set out to explore the potential for creative-led regeneration in a town that had “lost its economic purpose” following the decline of tourism in the second half of the twentieth century and the loss of its channel crossing in 2000. For Upton, the raison d'être of the Creative Foundation, which he joined in 2011, is to ask: “How can creative activities make Folkestone a better place to live, work, study and visit?” The answer, for Upton, is by creating a place that has “interesting architecture, buildings and things going on – a cultural life”.
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Both Upton and Biggs previously worked in Liverpool, Biggs as curator of Liverpool Biennial from 2000-2011, before which he led Tate Liverpool, and Upton as Director of the Bluecoat in Liverpool. Upton explains that “historically all the stories about Liverpool were negative”. Liverpool’s designation as the Capital of Culture in 2008 was an opportunity to change the way the city was perceived, both by residents and by outsiders. “The defensive pride that people felt has became positive,” says Upton.
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Biggs, too, explains that he learnt a lot in Liverpool: “I found that I needed to relearn and think again, because art and audiences behave differently in and outside of the institution. In the gallery, the primary reference is always to other art – you are always working in the parameters of art history and it is circular, as it appeals to people who are already interested in art.”<br />
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Having seen how art can change places in Liverpool, Upton and Biggs share a sense that there is potential to “make more of a difference” in Folkestone, a medium-sized town of around 50,000 people. In the nine years since the first Folkestone Triennial took place in 2008 the town has undeniably undergone something of a transformation. When the work of the Foundation started, the town had been subject to decades of decline. Like town centres across the country, the high street has been in a sorry state for years: one of the largest retailers, M&S, abandoned the town in 2006, leaving empty shops in its wake. Although community arts company <a href="http://www.strangecargo.org.uk/" target="_blank">Strange Cargo</a> was long-established in the town, there was little in the way of contemporary art of national or international quality in Kent. For many years the Metropole Gallery, founded in 1961 with the support of the critic and broadcaster Sir Kenneth Clark – a resident of Saltwood Castle in nearby Hythe – brought a varied programme of changing exhibitions by emerging and established artists to the town. However, constrained by its base in an old-fashioned Victorian building dominated by parquet floors, large windows and wooden panelling, it finally wound down in 2008.<br />
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One catalyst for the revival of the Folkestone’s fortunes has been the opening of the high-speed train route from London. In 2007, the Kent coast was connected to St Pancras by high-speed train: the journey from Folkestone to London, which previously took around an hour and fifty minutes, can now be done in under an hour. This has had the effect of bringing the Kent coast closer to London; it has also prompted an influx of incomers, including artists, attracted by cheaper property and a better quality of life, still within commuting distance of the capital.<br />
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The cultural offering in the county, too, has improved dramatically in the past five to ten years, with the opening of the Turner Contemporary in Margate in 2011 and the Beaney in Canterbury in 2012 (as well as the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings, East Sussex in 2012), as well as new music venues along the coast, from Ramsgate Music Hall to Dover’s new Booking Hall venue.<br />
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However, Upton sees the Creative Foundation as offering an alternative to the “concept or consumption-led” gallery model, which relies on a landmark building to create a trickle-down effect in the town’s economy. Instead, Upton sees a need to “make a place for people to make”, believing that it offers a “firmer base for development” and a “change that brings the whole economy with it”. The Creative Foundation started this process by “making a place for artists to live and work, a production base”. It bought, did up and hired out ninety buildings in a derelict and unloved area of town; these spaces are now at full capacity.<br />
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Today, the old town is almost unrecognisable. In the picturesque old high street, derelict shops have been smartened up and painted bright colours. The cobbled streets are now lined with coffee shops, small galleries and boutiques. The triennial is just one aspect of this transformation. Alongside the triennial is an established fringe festival, and independent galleries and artist spaces proliferate in the old town. These include the Brewery Tap, which showcases work by artists and academics from the University of the Creative Arts. <a href="http://www.folkestonemuseum.co.uk/" target="_blank">Folkestone Museum</a> has recently reopened in a new space in the former town hall, telling the stories from the town’s natural and archaeological history, as well as hosting changing exhibitions.<br />
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One of the biggest transformations of all has been the reopening of the <a href="http://folkestoneharbourarm.co.uk/" target="_blank">Harbour Arm</a>, in a run-down part of town that few had any reason to venture into following the demolition of the Rotunda amusement park and the closure of the ferry crossing. Until recently, the Harbour Arm station connected Folkestone to the continent via the Orient Express; although trains no longer run there, it’s been reinvented as a leisure destination, with pop-up bars and food stalls in the former station buildings. Snaking dramatically out into the sea, it offers views out to France and the white cliffs of Dover in one direction, and around the bay to Dungeness power station in the other.<br />
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For Upton, another of the big success stories is the <a href="https://www.quarterhouse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Quarterhouse</a>, which hosts gigs, film screenings, comedy and spoken word and other events. Unlike many arts venues, whose subsidised programme is patronised mainly by those in the upper socioeconomic groups, he says its audience represents a very similar demographic to that of the town. Upton also emphasises the Foundation’s work with young people. For example, “every single child” from the town’s schools visits Folkestone Book Festival, there is a drop-in arts club, and there are opportunities for work experience.<br />
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There’s still work to be done, for example in promoting and developing jobs and livelihoods for local people in the creative industries. There are opportunities for further connections to be made with projects exploring digital futures. There’s also a need for the art scene to be more visible in between triennials, and for Folkestone to be linked up more with other cultural initiatives across the South East: neighbouring East Sussex, separated from Folkestone by Romney Marsh, now has a <a href="http://coastalculturetrail.com/" target="_blank">Coastal Cultural Trail</a> connecting up the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea and the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings.<br />
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The main challenge now, though, says Upton, is “How do you make it inclusive? How do you make sure it remains for everyone?” Upton regards the changes that have taken place so far as “rebalancing” as much as “gentrification”, but the town will change considerably again over the next ten years, as a large area surrounding the harbour area is redeveloped with a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/27/folkestone-gentrification-row-saga-tycoon-harbour-development" target="_blank">much-discussed</a> and long-stalled residential and commercial development. The challenge, says Upton, is that, “as Folkestone changes we’ve got to make sure artists are involved in the very fabric of the town and how it sees itself”. As Biggs puts it: “Folkestone is changing at such a rate. We need feedback between development and the arts. People are now in conversation.”<br />
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Upton highlights that “lots of artists in the triennial describe themselves as socially engaged”, and some of the most interesting work at the triennial is that which encourages interaction, or provides spaces for people to come together to talk, think and play. This ranges from Sol Calero’s brightly-painted and participatory 'Casa Anacaona' beach pavilion, which is filled with movable furniture and acts as a social space for young people, to Bob and Roberta Smith’s ‘Folkestone is an art school’, which is working with ten local young people as well as celebrating the artistic activity that already goes on in the area: as Biggs explains, “Folkestone is an art school already – you need to change your attitude so you can see it”. A new ‘Urban Room’ in the recently restored former Customs House at the Harbour Arm houses a library of books about the history of the town, alongside texts on urbanism, art and citizenship, as well as maps and drawings showing the ways the town’s landscape and its uses have changed over time. It’s a place not just to learn about the past, but to add to, to imagine and to discuss the future.<br />
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<b><i>Folkestone Triennial: Double Edge</i> takes place at various venues in Folkestone from Saturday 2 September until Sunday 5 November. For more information, including locations, opening times and the accompanying programme of events visit <a href="http://www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/">www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk</a>.</b>The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2452997769094600310.post-56321409553221917782017-08-25T08:52:00.002+01:002017-08-25T23:36:54.390+01:00Phyllida Barlow and the seaside architecture of the south coast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Phyllida Barlow, <i>untitled: dunce</i> (2015)</b></span><br />
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One of the defining features of Phyllida Barlow’s sculptures is their scale. Often reminiscent of natural forms such as rock formations, they tower over you, sometimes with immersive effect. This was the case, for example, at her 2015 solo show at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, which transformed the space into a claustrophobic series of close-up encounters with her work as the viewer navigated through various pinch-points.<br />
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Rock formations are an apt starting point for Barlow’s work, which could be placed in a lineage of twentieth century British sculptors who have referenced organic forms
such as the beach pebble – most obviously the modernism of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Whereas their sculpture takes the humble seaside stone and transforms it into something sleek and abstracted, carved from stone or cast in heavyweight bronze, Barlow’s sculptural forms are rough, messy, eroded, often showing the material or process of their making and incorporating appropriated and ephemeral materials.<br />
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Barlow’s work has been brought to Margate as part of the ‘Artist’s Rooms’ series of touring exhibitions. This places a regional spotlight on Barlow’s five-decade career at the same time as she represents Britain internationally at the Venice Biennale; her work is shown alongside that of the British-Kenyan artist Michael Armitage, a former student of Barlow’s at the Slade. Armitage incorporates imagery from African mythology and current social and cultural issues into a series of remarkable narrative paintings in densely worked, luminous paint on textural lubugo bark fabric.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phyllida Barlow, <i>untitled: holder</i> (2014)</span></b></div>
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Designed by David Chipperfield, the Turner Contemporary is an iconic building overlooking Margate harbour, which created a new physical and cultural landmark in the town when it opened in 2011. The self-consciously modern development stands alone at the harbour’s edge; it is made particularly striking by its setting in a Victorian townscape of tall, narrow terraces.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phyllida Barlow, <i>untitled: upturnedhouse, 2 </i>(2012)</span></b></div>
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A strong architectural influence is apparent in Barlow’s work. This runs through her work on paper, in particular her pencil drawings, which have an air of the study or plan about them, all angles and perspectives. Sometimes they suggest interiors, at others a maze or labyrinth, or the footprint or outline of a building. It’s also apparent in the materiality of her work, which uses material such as wood, sand and mesh frames, overlaid with crude and thick layers of paint. Most of all, it’s visible in her sculptures, which suggest the Colosseum in Rome (‘untitled: holder’, 2014), at one extreme, and the garden shed at the other (‘upturnedhouse 2’, 2012).<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Richard Wilson, <i>18 Holes </i>(2008)</span></b></div>
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‘upturnedhouse, 2’ also brings to mind Richard Wilson’s <span id="goog_1064850930"></span>‘18 Holes’<span id="goog_1064850931"></span>, commissioned for the first <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/sugarloaf-hill-sloe-gin.html" target="_blank">Folkestone</a> <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/folkestone-triennial-million-miles-from.html" target="_blank">Triennial</a> in 2008. For this large-scale public work, in another former seaside resort looking to art for regeneration and reinvention, Wilson recycled large slabs of crazy golf surfacing from the nearby Rotunda amusement park, demolished to make way for a residential, retail and leisure development, in order to build a trio of new beach huts. In doing so, he brought together two archetypal forms of seaside recreation, inserted into a uniform row of standard issue concrete huts to be stumbled across as an unexpected encounter with art.<br />
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The constituent parts of Barlow’s sculptures often resemble building blocks; they appear unstable, as if in a state of perpetual assembly and dismantling, caught between balance and stability, strength and fragility, much like the architectural and natural landscape of this stretch of coast.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O5J6IF5KnbU/WZ9AR4fVlmI/AAAAAAAACOg/iUOcLgcDlCciu1tVDoKPA0u3REwL2aaAgCLcBGAs/s1600/11873440_1695247757363403_1930002628038141176_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="652" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O5J6IF5KnbU/WZ9AR4fVlmI/AAAAAAAACOg/iUOcLgcDlCciu1tVDoKPA0u3REwL2aaAgCLcBGAs/s400/11873440_1695247757363403_1930002628038141176_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Collapsed Martello tower, Hythe, Kent</span></b></div>
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<b>Defences</b><br />
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One of the Turner Contemporary’s selling points is its panoramic views out to sea. Seen in this setting, Barlow’s sculptures invite comparison to the defensive architecture of this area, which acted both as deterrent and as vantage point from which to spot any potential attackers. From Essex in the north to Sussex in the East via Kent and Romney Marsh, these largely flat lands have been subject to successive layers of attack, from anticipated Napoleonic invasion to wartime bombing raids to the ongoing onslaught of the sea. The response to these threats has left its mark in the landscape, from solid brick <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/postcard-from-essex-jaywick.html" target="_blank">Martello towers</a> and redoubts, some still standing and other crumbling slowly into the sea, to modern rock groynes and concrete sea walls. Barlow’s 2015 work ‘Tryst’, though not shown here, resembles the monumental Maunsell Sea forts, fortresses built during the Second World War and raised high on stilts above the sands off the coast of Kent. Others make more utilitarian references, suggesting steps, staircases and stacks, as seen in ‘Untitled (Yellow Racks)’ (2006). ‘Awnings’ meanwhile, suggests a series of flags: a coded message or warning.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RM1xtw2xoTw/WZ9AighGyEI/AAAAAAAACOk/Df8eyWUcIzUcmOl4U6gH-zAYhYX2bZyMACLcBGAs/s1600/Yellow%2Brack%2Bside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RM1xtw2xoTw/WZ9AighGyEI/AAAAAAAACOk/Df8eyWUcIzUcmOl4U6gH-zAYhYX2bZyMACLcBGAs/s320/Yellow%2Brack%2Bside.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phyllida Barlow, <i>Untitled: (Yellow Racks) </i>(2006)</span></b></div>
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More than any sculptor, the reference point that seems closest to Barlow’s work is the painter and photographer Paul Nash. It’s easy to return to Nash, yet his <a href="http://theshriekingviolets.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/but-first-maintain-wall-paul-nashs.html" target="_blank">depictions of Romney Marsh</a> are still unequalled, and he found much inspiration in the Kentish landscape. Just as Turner is celebrated for drawing on the particular qualities of light and skies that characterise Margate, Nash’s recognisable brand of British Surrealism conveys the ultra-vivid strangeness of Romney Marsh, 35 miles to the west. In a muted palette of dusty, desert colours, Nash depicted the expansive vistas around the bay, the luridness of its light, and a landscape still punctuated with defensive architecture, from sea walls to pillarboxes now silted up neck-high with shingle. Like Barlow, his paintings suggest layering and stacking: the steps that separate the promenade from the beach below, the wall that guards the farmland from an encroaching sea, and the overlapping waves that stretch out like ominous slabs towards the moon.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pill box, Hythe, Kent</span></b></div>
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<b>Transforming</b><br />
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Like the work of Nash and other British surrealists, Barlow’s work transforms our perception of forms and materials, and the nature of sculpture. It suggests a negotiation between the familiar and the mystical, and an ability to transform the everyday. In ‘Hoard’, a tube is suspended above an uneven surface of tables, stacked like crazy paving or stepping stones. It could be a pipeline, a piece of functional infrastructure, or it could be the moon, illuminating anew in its particular way a landscape below.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phyllida Barlow, <i>Hoard </i> </span></b></div>
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<b><i>Phyllida Barlow: Artist Rooms</i> is at Turner Contemporary, Margate as part of <i>Every Day is a new Day</i> (with the paintings of Michael Armitage) until Sunday 24 September. For more information visit <a href="http://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/phyllida-barlow-artists-rooms">www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/phyllida-barlow-artists-rooms</a>.
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The Shrieking Violethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18124837581300212067noreply@blogger.com0