wewinagain

Being part of the team working on the Dev Neuro Academy Summer school @kings last week was amazing, so much learning in such a brilliant space with thoughtful, creative people, including the highly motivated students. A real pleasure but also an opportunity for continued professional development, observing alternative ways of teaching. So much learning, it was wonderful to be valued as an educator and to learn from students, experiences that are rare. Meanwhile Synthetic Anatomy has won another award. It’s great that what we do has been recognised. Onto screens – Roadhouse – slick and strangely funny throughout the endless fighting scenes. Kin – season 2 dealing in drugs will end badly!

scienceisamazing

Wow - 3 days working at Kings on the Development Neuro Academy Summer school. I ran a couple of workshops on day 1, exploring how to navigate the tricky issue of team building through DNA, and developing ways of communicating abstract concepts through anatomical models. It's a true pleasure working with such fantastic, thoughtful people. Day 2 was awesome, I was part of two workshops - one looking at data analysis of brain cells and thinking about how we read information and the other, exploring how cells in the brain come to exist and change by hypothetically building one in a dish! Really enjoyed the mental gymnastics. It allowed me to reflect on and rethink some current work and led to revelations on how to develop my own practice. I was able to bring to the table ideas of ethics and practical concerns about bias and prejudice. Superb discussions ensued. It was wonderful to be valued as an educator and to learn from students, experiences that are rare. I wasn't able to attend the whole week due to having to attend graduation and working on timetables for next year at Norwich. But I was straight back for the celebration and sharing on Friday after a day of admin on Thursday. The whole day was an extraordinary experience. The focused energy of the enquiring students was so infectious and a real pleasure and privilege to be part of. The film is made up of one of the outcomes from day one. The brightly coloured models come from my DNA workshop, building self-similar sets. Saturday was all about exhibitions - dropped into South London gallery to see Firelei Báez’s Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) - there is some interesting works on 'found' papers and a large installation. Sid and Jim had a couple of great works in Hot in Here at The Bomb Factory. I particularly loved we're still everything we always were. The work was both funny and poignant - a sculpture of a melted ice sculpture, in theory created by their childhood selves imagining what they would look like as adults - a great idea. 

dualitybalance

Working on several sculptural pieces – thinking about duality, exploring the idea of setting up a dialogue. Looking at the inherent material qualities of stuff I’ve been collecting that has been waiting in the studio, some of it over 35 years sitting on a shelf! Onto screens – We are Lady Parts – funny and addressing important issues. IF – great premise but lacking a script. Drive Away Dolls – gave up. Just started Dark Matter which is turning into a real mind twister. The End We Start With – harrowing example of what is to come