busysteaming

During a STEAM event this week a very small child came up to me and explained that "you can put all the elements in a bag and mix them to make anything. Some are bad some not so. Some will kill you and make you go to hospital. Helium is one of the good ones you can lick". I thought - well that’s about right. Science is done.

Anyway - a full week started out in Norwich, then working with the Kingfisher School Trust people at SZC, finally hanging the children’s interpretation of Energy and then two days at a STEAM event brought some great conversations within the sci-art workshops in SZC’s new visitor centre. My Saturday started out early - leaving the house at 7:20, boarding a train to London, then New Designers, then home at 9:20, a ‘usual day’.  Onto screens – The Devil wears Prada 2………………..uummmh.

whatdoesenergylooklikefinally

It’s taken over a year since the idea was mooted by Sizewell to put children’s drawings on the fences around the Sizewell C development. A version of this request now hangs in the new visitor centre awaiting a STEAM event. In between those two points over 1500 children have engaged in the process of thinking about the role of a power station and been asked to draw energy. The images look impressive all together, it’s a cohesive body of work.

busybusyglasgow

Busy working on the Hospital project – 2 days in Aldeburgh Primary school were wonderful – the children were so small, but the work was excellent. The idea is to share the creative experience, but I think I might include some of the marks into the final piece. A long weekend in Glasgow for G.I. I love Glasgow and it didn’t fail to show its amazingness. Apart from the great food and drink I engaged with there were one or two stand out art moments – Tanoa Sasraku stunningly dark in the old fish market, James Gladwell’s eccentric stitch work, David Wojnarowicz mournful 70s work, Rae-Yen Song’s all consuming installation and performance, Michelle Williams Gamaker’s body horror inflected film, curated by Lydia Honeybone, Bettina’s gorgeous objects, and Sweatmother’s Dyke Just Do It upfront performance. Meanwhile onto screens – Office Romance – cheeky. Ladies First – feel like we’ve been here before.

apackedcoupleofweeks

Started work on digitizing the images created by students who were asked what does energy look like? - the images will be printed up and shown at the new Sizewell C visitor centre as part of a festival celebrating STEAM in East Suffolkschools. I created a pack for schools which included instructions for a workshop to be undertaken by teachers. I'll also be running a series of workshops over the 3 days exploring potential connections between art and science. Packing away the work and materials from this years interation of synthetic anatomy, including archiving the materials. I seem to say this every year but this year was spectacular, a development from the previous year. Either we are getting very good at what we do, word of mouth has got around or/and students are becoming more hybid in their thinking! 2 busy weekends - last week - Caroline - a musical about radio Caroline at the Wolsey in Ipswich then a sharing of the weeks residency at Snape - Tyrone Isaac Stuart with more noise was eclectic - music dance poetry text projection and basketball - this weekend had another sharing with the glorious Alex Groves and The Carice Singers 
what an amazing sound alongside the great retuning of voice with tuning forks - the work exhibited at the cut by Sarah Horton is medative - private view full of conversation brighten the corners, a day festival of free music was energizing - highlights were the full-on Sebukku and the gloriously raucous Rad Pitt hip rock with funk - brilliant.

snapeandkingscontinue

Work at Kings continues - the students value the inclusive way the module sets out to engage with teaching and learning. An understanding of the underlying processes around learning is invaluable to understand how we grow. The latest engagement in what was another thoughtful and foundational session was excellent. It helped connect the group and started to get us thinking about what everyone wants from their involvement on the module. We used six thinking hats as a way of exploring engagement, I was interested in the different languages students chose to present their ideas, visual, textual and diagrammatical - all the sessions deliver tools that can be used to move studies on, I always ask students to consider how they can use them, to think about their role, what they want to explore and what hat they found comfortable wearing. Recent observations include - If your group talks to each other, they get better results. Writing and sketching ideas means that you can revisit your thoughts when reflecting to move the project forward.

Meanwhile some notes for the people working with POWER, the show at Snape.

1, 2 - 3D printed rings that form part of proposed archaeology to be found in the year 3000. The rings were created in 3D software after PowerStation shaped pieces of metal were found in the dig in the year 3000.

The bronze PowerStation shaped pieces of metal are part of this idea – ritual objects

5 – photos of archaeologist’s bags – each bag of tools is unique to each individual archaeologist.

13 – this is a text that is said at the start of all public meetings by the chair.

14 – what happens when the public don’t wait at the traffic lights at Darsham roundabout. Taking short cuts through rural lanes.

All wire pieces in the brown room – ideas about communication referencing lines, conduits, pylons and construction

Leather pieces – the spaces of land controlled by SZC cut out of a cow hide.

17 – alludes to garment that could be worn

27 – both the negative and positive pieces

28 – a gift

Black 3D prints reference earth moving happening on site – systems and holes

Bookwork – allows multiple readings of the prints through juxtaposition

Folded prints – are about communication, connection and – systems. the starting point was the idea that there is so much data generated to enable the workforce to be constructed. The titles are from the abbreviations in 49.

41 – a piece of wood left after the trees were cut down along Willow Marsh Lane.

43 – conversations with art history and the cultural connections that are made whilst wearing PPE

49 abbreviations in SZC documents 

powerandkings

its here - today is the private view of the work ctreated over the past year - POWER - meanwhile another great day at Kings yesterday - day 2 of Synthetic Anatomy - building collaborative teams from the foundation up. As ever I was astounded by the students focused engagement with the content of the session. There were some excellent positions articulated and creative collaborative methodology enacted. It bodes well for the rest of the module and the potential final outcomes.

itsaroundthecorner

only 48 days till the opening of the show at Snape!!! it seems closer, especially as Christmas is still to be navigated, I have a couple of pieces that I still want to make but I'm mainly at the titling and pricing stage - fun. meanwhile I'm continuing the work in schools generating images around energy and talking about the role of an artists - in some way providing an entry point, modelling the role – schools are challenging places, and I am unsure as to their connection to reality. I think teachers are absolute heroes, I have no idea how they navigate the experience yearly, monthly, hourly, minute by minute. onto screens – more wonderful obvious nonsense – My Secret Santa, Love and Wine meanwhile Madam Web – it feels like a set-up for the beginning of a franchise - disappointment all round. Jan Kelly – cinema magic, heart-warmingly brilliant.  The Beast in Me – disturbingly traumatising and wonderful. Knives Out – the least interesting so far

itsnicetobetoldyouareokay

It’s been a busy couple of days - the weekend workshop at Leicester Printworks was special – the space is an oasis of activity in the cultural quarter which was oddly calm – huge post-industrial buildings away from the city centre but just close enough. The people who work there were helpful and understanding, all creative people in their own right. The workshop participants were great company and made some interesting bookwork’s. I developed a new hybrid fold, whilst responding to a person’s investigation of experimental book structures, if I lived locally, I would be a part of this. The journey to Inverness from Suffolk by train is a mammoth undertaking….but remarkably everything went well – connections and wi-fi (no complaints, (in-joke with my parents). Scotland really is another country, especially so far north, and yet there is even more of it further ‘up’. The place feels ‘other’, every single person I met was friendly and super helpful. I can understand the call for devolution and annoyance at the control held by Westminster, a place literally in another country. I was invited to talk at the Scottish Artist Network summit, the theme being around power and energy, my residency at Sizewell seems to sum that up. I am not an activist, or even an artist/activist in what might be considered a ‘traditional’ sense, but I think my activism if I have any is positioned in a broader, more socially engaged way. I guess the point or intention of what I do is to enable or encourage thought, creating a space to consider, or reconsider an issue. A moment to contemplate. It was a great opportunity and interesting to be in Inverness talking about the SZC residency - meeting a lot of artist/activists - seeing how people use their creativity to attempt to create change, social and political change and challenge corporations, capitalism and those in power. This is not my position but maybe it is something I am actively involved in, in a much wider way. Prompting people to just ask themselves questions - about how they choose to live their lives. I have always said that as long as people have full awareness of all positions on a subject and have access to truthful arguments on all sides, they were at liberty to believe in what they believed - I ‘didn't mind’ the choices they made! Don’t not know. Arrogant but as a lecturer there are worst ways to use the position of privilege and power that I find myself in and have observed. I think my talk went down well– my honesty enabled connections to be made – there were some excellent questions and reflections - lots of positive comments and conversations afterwards that I'm in the process of reflecting on. As ever the comments from others inform my thinking about my practice and in many ways explain to me what the work is actually about. It was fascinating to hear about issues I had never thought about. The effect of the transition from oil and gas to wind power on workers involved in generating power and the knock-on effect on their communities. The devastation brought by a lack of investment in the area, places having huge changes imposed on them, without consultation or true community engagement, as ever the money going out to private firms, investors and shareholders. The fact that this happened once with oil and is happening again with wind. This was compounded by the issue of the enclosures, and the slave trade, which in turn paid for more land. And of course, the reparations paid to former slave owners was used to buy even more land on which today windfarms are being built on, with which more money is made. Landlords, don’t you love them. Follow the money! I had many devastating conversations about the environmental damage we are inflicting and the global apocalypse we are living in….I left unsure of a future, but I did have a great time! thanks to all at SCAN. An interesting opportunity whilst being in Inverness talking about the SZC residency was  meeting a lot of artist/activists - seeing how people use their creativity to attempt to create change and challenge corporations, capitalism and those in power. This is not my position but maybe it is something I am actively involved in, in a much broader way. Making objects that prompt people to just ask themselves questions - about how they choose to be. I have always thought and said that as long as people have access to information, full awareness of all positions and have access to truthful arguments on all sides, I ‘didn't mind’ the choices they made.  

moreandmoreSZC

Another great sauna on the beach at Dunwich for a birthday with another in a couple of weeks. Work on the Sizewell residency continues – I’ve decided that a way to navigate the immense project that is SZC with all its huge independent but linked departments is to become several artists that have different interests and approaches to making art. It has delivered an immense freedom to be able to do anything. Two visits to the public facing version SZC. The Archaeology display was full of interesting objects with some insightful commentary An evening at a community film event was lovely with the children in the films delivering a clear steer on what was needed. The first session at Alde Valley Academy went okay – introduced them to an alternative way of thinking. The work itself keeps coming. Woke up at 5.00 today – by 5.30 I was working on the communication pieces, creating couples, the idea of duality seems important, sort of oppositional I have found myself making moulds and using all sorts of materials to cast the voids. Onto films – Nickel Boys – really powerful cinema, filmed in a way that you feel implicated, although it was a little like reading an essay with great footnotes. The Brutalist – challenging, in all sorts of ways. Flight Risk – I wonder what will happen. Kneecap – AWESOME. Lockerbie – it’s a tough but insightful watch, with superb effects of a plane falling out of the sky! Brian and Maggie, lived it but a great illustration of what happened. Gave up on Squid Games – there were no surprises left. 

creativescience

after a busy week I had a wonderful day at Kings, it was team building day on synthetic anatomy utilizing Edward de Bono’s 6 thinking hats. The session was a great success with the spirit of the teams well and truly built. Weird, I ran a similar session at Norwich which went down particularly badly – maybe the conclusion could be that science students are more able to think laterally than fashion students! A private view at the bookartbookshop was excellent, as ever Tanya was a fantastic host and the work by Susan Johanknecht @gefn20 and Katharine Meynell @meynellkatharine was great and the cocktails were truly powerful. Work continues on the SZC residency with meetings about community engagement and new work just pouring out. The ring is part of an ongoing idea around archaeology in the year 3000. Really enjoying the new Charlie XCX featuring Billie Eilish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huGd4efgdPA Onto films – The substance – wow – lesson learnt – live with yourself. Napoleon – just a little bit slow to sustain interest.

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. 

feralandhappystudents

A trip North to work at the Feral Art School in Hull to work on their Rewilding course. There was a sense of returning. Returning to old skool art school – no fixed timetable, odd and messy individual spaces to work and importantly to think and happy, engaged students. Through a series of workshops and presentations everybody ended up with many many starting points for new work, experimental bookwork maquettes, a collaborative, modular sculpture and a bookwork with their own images and text…..not bad in a day. Onto screens – Atlas – woman machine ai madness. Nope – horses and beautiful aliens, what’s not to like!

headingnorth

I have a few interesting workshops coming up – getting ready to head North for a workshop at The Feral Art School, an independent co-operative art school in Hull. It should be fascinating.. Busy assessing in my role at Norwich, interesting to see how the students have progressed in BA2b since BA2a! Onto screens – One Life – sentimental story but I think that it’s allowed in this instance. Hitman – a romantic, action, comedy! bizarre storytelling. Managed to get to see the fabulous Richard Wingate giving a talk at Kings – fabulous storytelling, and it was an honour to get a couple of name checks!

homagetodonald

Another great day with synthetic anatomy at Kings - this week was all about recognizing and harnessing graphic communication tools - how do we communicate without words? In 11/2 hours we went from literally nothing to full table displays of environments containing characters with extensive narratives via genetics, translation and family trees. Glorious. Part of the workshop was to pay homage to a work by Donald Rodney - the film is one outcome. Popped into the curve gallery Barbican to revisit Julianknxx exhibition - choras in memory of flight. It is very moving, especially the first film, the character seemingly taken over, their body convulsing. Onto screens - I rewatched Ad Astra - so moving - the attempt at connecting with a father over a huge distance only to let it all go left me a little bereft. Zone of Interest - I was so worn by it - the endless everyday banality of living next to a concentration camp! And the sound track which feels like both background and a leading character - truly disturbing. American Fiction – a slow dark uncomfortable burn, glorious.

exposingunderneath

Week 3 on the synthetic anatomy module at Kings was fantastic – the bag anatomy session was a treat as proto scientists gave meaning to inanimate objects, just as I said artist's have titled their work, the titles giving entry points and meaning. The module goes from strength to strength It’s great to value each years’ experience, with our learning building on and with each years knowledge rather than a wholesale rewriting of the course every year. What is it to communicate without being able to talk? I like the idea of rules, systems, choice and how intuition is navigated within the workshop.The afternoon was spent drawing in the dissecting room. Alone in a room with dead people and fridges of many random parts of dead people was 'interesting', a strange privilage. I spent a lot of time looking, and marvelling at what I had on the table in front of me. It was only after that I realized that I had focused on hands and feet, the places I had just tattooed. Exploring the bones and tendons under the skin explains the intense pain the week before! Juxtaposing the images of my tattoos with my drawings seems to make sense as resolved outcomes. It was a real privilege. Onto screens – Ferrari – a strangely predictable story but set in beautiful countryside. Welcome II the Terrordome – more odd dystopian future. The Beekeeper – the Stath doing Stath things (killing people creatively) American Star – yes I am a killer, but with a heart! Started Mr and Mrs Smith – nonsense but great fun!

walkingandlookingandoing

a great day on Saturday working on the art path with the Norfolk and Norwich Festival – as part of my workshop participants were asked what they would create a monument to. The results were generous and thoughtful.  I created several temporary interventions which were sited alongside the ones I ‘found’. The map is of the walk and the images some of my favourite answers to questions.  onto screens – The Mother – we may have been here before. Guy Richie’s The Covenant – a video game. Best Man – oh dear. To Catch a Killer – disturbing comment on why it’s like it is. One Ranger – great to spot local sights, the docks in Ipswich, Suffolk CC offices and a space at Bentwaters, Martlesham. Return to Seoul – a tragic stillness, beautifully shot and so sad. Inside – a biblical parable makes for a strange, distant film, the most fun is identifying the art.  

imaginingthefabricofthepast.

Extraordinary day spent in Rotherhithe at the Thames Discovery Centre at a Women at Work event. Really great speakers using finds to reveal the lives of working women through mud larking. So many amazing stories - of the development of ale houses by explaining the relationship between women brewing beer in the home and witch burning - through the use of cauldrons, pointed hats and broom sticks. Then there was the history of women and their role in the manufacturing of pins. The language of pins, their names are absolutely fascinating. Then there was the churches relationship to sex. By decree of Henry II the church was given control of brothels - called stews - there were eighteen licensed brothels in Bankside employing about a thousand prostitutes at any one time. As a result of the church taking control, most of London’s churches built during this period were largely financed by prostitution. https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2017/01/26/a-cesspool-in-the-palace-prostitution-and-the-church-in-medieval-southwark/ After the event I went onto the Thames beach and found a piece of a torpedo bottle – researching what it actually was and finding out about its history was fascinating - this could be a new thing! Akram Khan’s latest piece, Creature was a brutalising visceral experience. The whole evening was totally extraordinary, from the pounding music, sparse set, and mesmerising dancers. onto screens - A Man Called Otto – a study of understated care – quite beautiful. Operation Fortune – gotta love Hugh Grant – he is having a ball.

whatisyourmeaning?

some of the great questions pupils at St Michael's CofE Primary school in Louth asked of the Meridian Line sculptures last week - Do you ever get bored? Are you tired of standing? Do you feel pain? Do you enjoy standing? Why am I holding this? Are you cold? Do you have a soul? Why can girls figure it out, but the men can’t? Why do you have pieces missing? Do you like being wacked? Why do you have lines all over you? How many people have you seen? Why did you decide to be here? What is your meaning? If you were real, what would you do? What do you think about? What is it like to know the Meridian Line? How many more years will you last? What is it like being iron and rock rather than skin? Why do you have a stump on your head?  How old are you? Are you insured? What is it like being a statue? Are you okay? Do you need help? Do you have a brain? Does anybody celebrate your birthday? How much longer do I have to stay here? What’s happening to this world? How did you get your scar? What is it like to see the outside? How are you not cold? How do you keep yourself entertained? What would you say if you could talk? What is the favorite thing you’ve seen? Why is everyone else moving but not me? What do you see that we haven’t? – Do you ever think of being a real person? Why don’t people stay with me forever? How do you survive not talking? What do you do all day? Why are we all lonely? Why was I put here? What is the Meridian Line? 

returningtothefuture

Last week saw me returning to Louth to develop work based on a piece of public artwork I created with Laurence Edwards 22 years ago – it was great to revisit the pieces that have obviously been valued and looked after by the community – it was as if I left them yesterday rather than 22 years ago. The original work set out to create a moment of stillness and reflection, whilst celebrating something that we cannot see. The pieces were used as a catalyst to help us explore our imagination, we looked at how art enables us to engage in the world, to see potential in the seemingly mundane and celebrate what we value through creative thinking. Working with 90 pupils from St. Michael’s Church of England Primary School in Louth over 2 days we generated lots of questions and answers alongside sculptures, books, and drawings. Now I’m in the process of designing a book. Everyone gets a copy. Spent time in Sheffield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Really good to see old favorite's at YSP, the Hepworth’s and Moore’s alongside the awesome Hirst’s and the gloriously lowkey disturbing work by Lindsey Mendick. Also managed to see the awesome Seizure by Roger Hiorns.

magiciswithinusall

A fascinating session at Kings, working with Jon Armstrong enabled us to explore magic within a scientific context – thinking about the magic we all have, thinking about what constitutes magic - the information or secrets that we have accumulated over our practice. Reflecting on the session both in and on the moment and it gets me to thinking about the unseen, the value of stillness – the idea of direction and gesture. It will be interesting to embed these ideas into my day to day teaching as well as rethinking my approach to the studio and making. Reflecting on the idea of the secret took me to craft and the factory. How the experience of working within a scientific field has informed and influenced my making is something I’m constantly thinking about – it happens almost by osmosis – how new ideas have transformed my approach rather than thinking of the work being directly an illustration. The current 3D work explores the seen and unseen, the process of the body as an idea of the internal/external seen simultaneously. Something there and not there, fixed in the moment, the work itself and the idea of it changes as you move around the piece, in that timeframe it exists but it can shift form in a heartbeat, unfixed. This fluidity of thinking shifts away from a need to give objects fixed meaning, a move away from focusing on the object. The craft of 3D printing, using and thinking about the process, to go beyond seeing it as a tool to use, to manufacture, and to use it to explore ideas rather than a means to an end, creating rather than documenting, developing a dialogue with the machine, a language. Meanwhile I managed to see Imi Knoebel’s exhibition ‘Once Upon a Time’ at White Cube Bermondsey which was bright with possibilities. Leah Gordon’s extraordinary photographs Kanaval at Ed Cross Fine Art are extraordinary and mostly disturbing. Onto screens – Megan – disturbing in an OMG AI is taking over. Nolly – disturbing in a wasn’t the past terrible way. Infamously in love – disturbing in a tragic way. Banshee of Inisherin - disturbing in quiet dark way.