14 Bacon Street, erectile E1 6LF, page 11th-18th December
The pop-up shop does what it says on the tin, buy appears in a different location for a limited time, so you have to be quick to get in and see what’s inside. But make the effort as you can find a plethora of goodies from new designers and artists, hand picked from exotic locations all around the world. The store also supports the East End charity Kids Company, so you’ll be doing your bit to help as you shop.
Enjoy an evening of late-night shopping on London’s trendiest street, as well as rumageing through all that vintage, there will be refreshments on hand and special Christmas gifts available only on this night.
The Bizarre Bazaar
Sunday 21st December
Monday 8th December Joan as Policewoman, Thekla, capsule Bristol
Ex-Antony and the Johnsons collaborator touring in support of her new album. Expect mesmerising vocals and heart-rending tunes.
Boss Hog, Luminaire, London
Jon Spencer (as in Blues Explosion) and his wife Cristina Martinez front this long-standing blues-rock outfit.
Tuesday 9th December
Kong, Buffalo Bar, London
Art-noise, cool as Manchester band, heavy on the guitars.
The Miserable Rich, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Folky, orchestrated Brighton group, with links to Lightspeed Champion.
Sixtoes, Big Chill House, London
Cinematic, spooky blues-folk with a melancholy Eastern European edge.
Wednesday 10th December
Little Death, Club Fandango @ 229, London
Cool, cosmopolitan London band playing psychadelic tinged noise-pop.
Land of Talk, Water Rats, London
Canadian indie-rock.
Thursday 11th December
Good Books, Proud Galleries, London
Danceable indie-electro.
Mike Bones, Old Blue Last, London
One man and his guitar.
Friday 12th December
Rose Elinor Dougall, Barfly, Cardiff
Pretty girl music from this ex-Pipette. Still very pop but less of the sixties girl group rip-offs.
Free Fridays: Brute Chorus, La Shark, Josh Weller, 93 Feet East, London
Bonkers hair (Josh Weller) and outfits (La Shark) will abound at this FREE night featuring up-and-coming bands including Brute Chorus who will presumably play new single ‘She Was Always Cool’.
Saturday 13th December
Herman Dune, The Deaf Institute, Manchester
Perennial Parisian folksters on tour to promote new album ‘Next Year in Zion’.
Glissando, Holy Trinity Church, Leeds
Dreamy and ethereal. Should be lovely in a church.
Stereolab, Black Box, Belfast
Long-standing lounge/electronic post-rock with female French singer.
Getting up at 6am on a cold Saturday morning may be unthinkable to some -but for myself and fellow fashion enthusiasts, information pills the Angels Vintage and Costume clothing sale was more than enough motivation for the long, look early trek over to Wembley….or so we thought. The queue turned out to be VERY long… a 3 to 4 hour wait we were told. Despite our earlier determination, it was too long for us and we gracefully admitted defeat, leaving behind a growing queue of seriously hardcore shoppers.
One of those hardcore shoppers was ameliasmagazine.com’s very own Music Editor, Prudence Ivey, here’s her take on it, “Leaving the house at 6.30am, we were in the queue by about 7.15am and, although in the first 500, we were nowhere near the front. Some people – vintage shop buyers – had been there since Friday afternoon. There was a really friendly atmosphere, you could tell these people were true vintage fiends, as there was not a scruffbag in sight, it was all red lipstick and glamourous outfits despite the ungodly hour.
When we were allowed in, after just over an hour of wating, there was virtual silence and heads down as people rifled through the cardboard boxes packed with clothes on the floor. A cloud of dust filled the room after about 10 minutes, most of the clothes were in a bit of a state and everything I ended up with turned the water black when I put it in to hand-wash, not to mention my black snot… A quick sort through, try on and swapping session with my friend, along with some excellent packing meant that I left with 18 items of pretty decent, some of them really excellent, vintage finds for a measly £20. One of my favourite shopping trips EVER.” (above and below is Prudence modeling her two of her wonderful buys)
So now I wish I had stayed in the queue – but my day was not wasted, I found a far more inviting alternative, which boasted the benefits of being a. inside and b. no queue! It was the first London edition of New York magazine BUST‘s Christmas Craftacular.
Set in the St. Aloysius Social Hall in Euston, a mixed group of cool crafty kids, cute guys and even grannies filled the aptly dated-yet-cozy bar, and the Shellac Sisters played classic retro tunes on their wind-up gramophone, which added to the kitsch atmosphere. Having taken off in New York over the last 4 years, the Craftacular event has now come to British shores and brings together craft sellers, knitting circles, badge making stations and of course, lots of cake!
Tatty Divine turned into doctors for the day and set up their very own ‘craft clinic’ offering advice and tips to craft novices or lovers.
An ArtYarn Guerilla Graffiti Knitting Crew even set up a training camp, where boys sat happily next to their teachers, learning how to knit one, pearl one and Random Monkey Designs offered lessons in cross stitch.
With a packed out venue and buzzing crowd, it’s likely that (and we hope) the Craftacular event will become a regular date in the British calendar.
Monday Dec 8th
It seems most exhibition spaces in this area begin like this, drugs in someone’s flat. Every day this week at 79a Brick Lane, viagra 100mg there will be an exhibition of seven separate artists (one for each day) alongside a selected feature film, including the likes of Saturday Night Fever, North by Northwest, and The Truman Show. It starts at eight and ends when the film does. For a more detailed itinerary, check here. Admission is free.
Tuesday Dec 9th A Family in Disguise, by Yu Jinyoung has been extended at Union on Teesdale Street and is worth a look, if not only for the fact that entering the exhibition is a surreal experience in itself. Not a curator to be seen, and with a camera that links the room to their gallery in Ewer Street, you are alone in a haunting room with this disparate family of forlorn faces. Ring the buzzer and take a look.
Wednesday Dec 10th
Indian Highway is the new exhibition starting today at the Serpentine, describing itself as a snapshot of the vibrant generations artists working across the country today, well-established artists shown besides lesser known practitioners. Using a array of medias they are threaded together with a common engagement with the social and political, examining complex issues in contemporary India such as environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class. It runs until Feb 22nd.
Thursday Dec 11th
Hermetic Seel is a new exhibition by Shane Bradford opening on Wednesday at the Vegas Gallery. It might just be satisfying to see fourteen historical art encyclopedias subjected to Bradford’s “post-Pollock” dipping technique.
Friday Dec 12th
Here’s what one of our writers said of Omnifuss’ last exhibition: In the heart of Dalston, down the end of a small alley road was a large garage with a little door. Through this door, a group of 24 artists showcased their work. Sculpture, music, performance and photography took place in the old car workshop that was far away from the usual pristine white walls of gallery spaces and created a rustic, and inspiring location for this exhibition. With flame heaters to warm those tootsies, and the symphonious sound of a violinist haunting the open rooms, I found myself immersed in the eclectic furniture and art… Downstairs is their new exhibit, an exploration of domesticity in its rawest states through sound, sculpture, video and installation, and by the sounds of it is worth a visit.
Saturday Dec 13th Awopbopaloobop. Artists listen to music, everyone listens to music. Lyrics are etched into our minds whether we want them there or not, and we can’t help but allow them to inform our everyday. Awopbopaloobop (I just like saying that word) is an exhibition at http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/index.html, asking a host of artists to produce based on a favourite song lyric. This exhibition is coming to an end, (21st of Dec), so go and see it if you haven’t already. The space itself is worth the trip, and it’s fun to walk around a gallery with a song-sheet in your hands!
Brian Aldiss’ short story, drug “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, this to which the exhibition “Super-Toys” makes reference, abortion tells the story of a mother and her android son in the overcrowded world of the future who, however hard they try, cannot find a way to love each other. It makes love seem like a human malfunction, a flaw which can never be imitated. But moreover it captures the feeling of dismay when two people who know that they should love each other realise they can’t – that they fundamentally don’t know how. The android boy, who questions whether or not he is real, seems more humane than his human mother; who sends him to be repaired for the flaw from which she herself suffers. Love cannot be programmed; but is a lover not someone who says all those things that you want to hear, like an automated machine?
So with high expectations of an exhibition dealing with the strange interaction between humans and machine, fantasy and reality, love and compromise; what I found was initially disappointing. The notions the story had alluded to, the emotions and the complexity of them, were not to be found. Machine ducks floating in a pond, a room of human shaped stuffed objects lying mundanely on the floor; flashing machines dancing in a square box; all interesting to look at, but lacking explanation. The most interesting part of the exhibition was the nightmarish, garish and lurid room that followed, full of toys ripped apart: toys with two head, toys mutilated and deformed by visitors, and all in the name of art. With shelves and window ledges packed already, I was invited to create my own monster from a pile of rejected toys. There was something sinister about being instructed to rip the head off a teddy bear; glue Barbie legs where paws should be; and to work at a designated workstation. Despite the visual pleasure and hands on aspect of super-toys, it seemed to be an exhibition full of concept without real content. But maybe that’s what it allows you to do; to explore you own memories of love, childhood, playfulness and ultimately rejection; and realise that everyone else feels the same way too.
Anne Collier Dispersion is a patchy affair. Curated by the director of the Chisenhale gallery Polly Staple, hospital it features seven artists working from different locations, view tied together under the banner of an examination of the ‘circulation of images in contemporary society….in our accelerated image economy’. This seems a fairly sound starting point, although a bit nebulous and too wide in the sense of the number of artists that could be described as grappling with these issues.
Recycling and colliding of images is examined most clearly in Anne Collier’s photographs. Iconic posters, complete with creases, walk the line between multiple realities; but unlike other work in the show, the centre of power lies not in some theoretical hinterland but in the jarring sensation between seeing the photograph of the image and the image itself. Again this is hardly a new idea but it is well executed. The twin set of images a box of photos of the sea provides a further layer of tension between the natural and man-made.
Anne Collier
Seth Price
Most of the the other works are films. Seth Price’s ‘Digital Video Effect:Editions‘ (2006) , juxtaposing high and low cultural references (such as those barriers still exist), feels like an early 90′s MTV insert in its scope and complexity. Mark Leckey, now with the epithet ‘Turner Prize Winner’, is due to give a one off lecture/live performance ‘Mark Leckey in the Long Tail‘ in January tackling the similar ground, hopefully to better effect.
A better example of the film work on display is Hito Steyerl’s fascinating ‘Lovely Andrea’ (2007). This is an engaging documentary-esque look at a Japanese bondage artist, cut with scenes fom Wonder Woman cartoons and ‘backstage’ footage of the creation or recreation of scenes, calling the whole film’s authenticity into question. This could have led to a horribly self reflexive pile of mush but is actually a taut and gripping set of mixed narratives.
Henrik Olesen’s computer printed images mounted on blackboards, ‘some gay-lesbian artists and/or artists relevant to homosocial culture V,VI.VII’(2007), a collection reappropriated around queer history, touched on interesting ideas; a collection of female portraits by female artists from Renaissance onwards, for example. But the sum of its parts felt lazy and, like the rest of the show, he veers into hectoring or frustrating silence instead of fostering conversation between the work and viewer.
This is a problem, but one the ICA can absorb better than other cultural centres. The institution was founded as an ‘adult playground’ and this remit naturally involves risky and challenging work, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Dispersion is a perfect encapsulation of this.
The disjointed art punk of San Fransisco’s Deerhoof is pretty brilliant on record but I’d heard it was even better live and so couldn’t wait to see them at ULU on their only UK date this year. Their music is disarmingly simple sounding, online loved by music aficionados and 10 year old girls alike – my kid sister loves Panda Panda Panda and Milkman almost as much as any Girls Aloud single. Perhaps I should have sent her along to review the show. It would have been easier for her to convince the people on the door that she was called Prudence Ivey (the name I was under on the list) than a scruffy and definitely male reviewer. They thought I was a street-crazy.
Achieving such wide-ranging popularity is an impressive feat considering that, sick underneath that childlike simplicity, their songs consist of complex structures alongside fragments of dissonant guitar thrash/twang and improvisation. However, seeing Deerhoof is no overblown, intellectual chore. They manage to be simultaneously clever, loud and cartoonishly entertaining and enlivened ULU with a set that encompassed a lot of new album material alongside some stuff to keep the old school fans happy.
The crowd were particularly receptive to old favourite Milkman, along with the Yo La Tengo-in-a-parallel-universe sounds of new album Offend Maggie – a title that always gives me the mental image of an outraged, pre-dementia Margaret Thatcher. There were clipped drums ahoy, along with Deerhoof’s twinkling wire to fuzz guitar textures. Satomi’s vocals, all coy and Japanese, were accentuated by goofy hand gestures – a fitting accompaniment to her surreal and playful subject matter. The whole band were really tight and surprisingly enthusiastic after fourteen years playing together. I can’t wait to see them again.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, drugs I thoroughly recommend this charming animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return. This definitely ‘isn’t about polar bears anymore!’
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out then Get a Grip in the Aniboom Awards 2008 click here.
Written by Lucy Jones on Tuesday December 9th, 2008 6:16 pm
On Thursday the bath-time lovelies at Lush supported one of my great loves, casetroche by staging Climate Rush themed picnics outside all 89 of their UK stores.
As was detailed by Cari in a previous post, unhealthy my local Lush store just happens to be in Liverpool Street Station. Chosen as the flagship store for this event the picnic was attended by Lush superstar campaigners Sean and Andrew, here who have together helped us out in a very big way.
I sent the interns ahead on foot and arrived to find a fetching gingham tablecloth – bearing the timely ‘Climate Change is No Picnic’ slogan – being spread and upon it a yummy selection of vegan cake and cookies laid out for passersby to enjoy.
A trio of violins led by the Rush’s very own Deborah (her of sticky-fingers-in-parliament fame) struck up a tune as the lovely Lush girls, dressed in full Edwardian garb, handed out Trains Not Planes sashes to business men passing by and even managed to engage some climate change denialists in some productive conversation.
The police, as ever, were present. In fact I swear I recognised one of them from the “Riot Gate” at Kingsnorth during Climate Camp last year. Unlike then, they were eager to smell the soaps (all packaged in recyclable paper – Lush tries not to use excess packaging, just one of the reasons we love ‘em) and chat to the pretty shop girls. I wonder if they’ll be so nice to us on Monday…
As Tamsin did her best to butter up the passersby in those famous suffragette must-haves, fishnet tights and a miniskirt, we were pounced on by a person dressed up as a giant mobile phone.
A slightly surreal experience to say the least, as the Lush shop girls tried to dress the ungainly thing in some bright red sashes, whilst Sean did his best to engage the phone in conversation about how many times a year it flies. My interns finally arrived and proceeded to pose marvelously for the camera. We’ve been joking that Jonno and Roisin are evil twins – just check them out!
Over the weekend there has been a flurry of Climate Rush activity, both promotional and creative – we’ve flyered the South Bank twice, and approached friendly looking cyclists left, right and centre.
It seems that if you ride a bike you are generally a friendly soul, and all of them were happy to hear about Climate Rush bar a particularly unpleasant yuppie couple with a pair of fold out Bromptons that no doubt only see the light of day when the sun shines at the weekend. Fairweather cyclists, who’d have ‘em?!
In between accosting cyclists we have managed to print a mammoth amount of sexy sashes and flags to attach to the back of bikes.
I’ve discovered that I can still sew, and managed to knock up 5 pairs of fetching bloomers in record time (just don’t look too closely at the sewing, I was in a hurry okay?!) Made out of red and white striped fabric with lacey ruffles on the legs they look part clown and more than a little bit burlesque, but then whoever said we take the Edwardian theme too seriously?! I can’t wait to see what everyone else dons for out bike ride tomorrow.
Bring it on…. let’s show the government and big corporations that we won’t let them get away with business as usual when it comes to Climate Change. Collectively we can stop this beautiful world of ours from being buggered over, so make sure you come along and enjoy a stylish Bike Rush with a purpose. This is one cycle ride you’re sure to remember…
Read a past blog about this event here. What do you think about direct action over Climate Change? Let us know your views. Rowdy – Never Smile at a Crocodile
Sartorial Contemporary Art
26 Argyle Square
London WC1H 8AP
June 4th – June 27th
Open Tues – Sat 1:30 – 7pm or by appointment
With work described as ‘Ren & Stimpy meets Goldsworthy’, shop this is the first major solo show for Rowdy in London to date. Mixing the Ancient with the Urban, medical Rowdy juxtaposes his trademark playful crocodile sculptures with the modern cityscape jungle. He also produces street art paintings reminiscent of caveman-esque cartoon monoliths.
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Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture
Saatchi Gallery
Duke of York’s HQ
King’s Road
London
SW3 4SQ
Until 13th September
10am-6pm, illness 7 days a week
Free
A new generation of radical American abstract painters and sculptors from the US, 35 of them in total, with work both daring and inventive, fresh and exhilarating.
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Aditya Pande
Alexia Goethe Gallery
7 Dover Street, London W1S 4LD
Until 18th July
Monday – Friday 10-6
Saturday 11-4
New Dehli artist Aditya Pande’s first solo London show draws on both fine and applied art principles. What start as drawings on computer morph into paper prints or canvas creations, and then become starting points for three-dimensional narratives. Frantic, glossy, grand and descriptive.
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Feel The Force
Cafe Gallery
By the Lake, Southwark Park
London SE16 2UA
Until 28th June
Wednesday – Sunday 12 – 6
Free
Maja Bajevic, Benjamin Beker, Astrid Busch, Kate Gilmore, Immo Klink, Susan MacWilliam, James Pogson, Anina Schenker
Curated by Clare Goodwin and Liz Murray
Inspired by engagement in power and resistance, Feel the Force is a collaborative show from eight international artists and debates the psychological, the political and the physical. Investigating roles of victim and perpetrator, the artists approach the term Force through avenues diverse as obsessional first love and the military.
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The Social Lives of Objects
Castlefield Gallery
2 Hewitt Street
Knott Mill
Manchester M15 4GB
Until 19th July
1-6pm Wednesday-Sunday
Free
Hilary Jack, Lisa Penny and Dallas Seitz provide insightful examinations of society’s complex and perplexing relationship with material goods, from their beginnings in production to their inevitable obsolescence and decay. Everyday objects are recovered and represented and reinterpreted for our reevaluation of what role ‘stuff’ has in our lives and in our world.
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The Butterfly Effect
ARCH Gallery
15 Resolution Way
Deptford
London SE8 4NT
Until 20th June
Thurs – Sat 12:00 to 5:00pm
The well-known theory that subtle actions can and will ultimately alter the paths of world disaster is given a makeover by God’s gift to drawing Paul Marks. Using the system to create intricate line drawings in which each line added by hand effects the next one added. The comparisons are as varied as lunar landscapes, overtly sexual and flows of air, smoke or water.
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ARCHIPELAGO – Gemma Anderson
Whitecross Gallery
122 Whitecross St.
London EC1Y 8PU
Until 6. June
Tues – Sat 11 – 6pm or by appointment
Free
The final week to catch new work from Gemma Anderson including her signature drawings and newer etching work. Dream-like and fantastical depictions of fairies, land and seascapes drawing on her experiences of researching the Natural History archives in Canada, Japan and France her new work doubles as a personal travelogue.
Gang Gang Dance are one of the most exciting bands around at the moment. They take inspiration from all over the world without erring into the Vampire Weekend‘s at times jarring pseudo-exoticism, by mixing everything through a furore of delay pedals and reverbs, to create a cyclical and danceable freaky electronica. With support from Hot Chip‘s Alexis Taylor’s improv side project About.
Tuesday 2nd June
Fanfarlo and {Stricken City} at ICA, London.
Amelia’s favourites Anglo-Swedish Fanfarlo, bring their grandiose but whimsical pop to the ICA. With support from {Stricken City}
Wednesday 3rd June
Post War Years, Milke and My Tiger My Timing at The Lexington, London.
Thursday 4th June
Deolinda and Oliver Man at ICA, London
Get that summer vibe with some Portugese music… Deolinda, an excellent four piece inspired by traditional fado music. Australian Oliver Mann offers support at the ICA.?
Friday 5th June
Dan Deacon, Future Islands, Teeth Mountain, Adventure at ULU, London.
This Friday, Upset the Rhythm are serving up the finest Baltimore exports since The Wire, with the promise of more bells than Stringer. Dan Deacon headlines at ULU with the Wham CIty Collective, having loved his latest record Bromst with it’s melodic plinky plonky electro noise, I can’t wait to see him live apparently his shows are a sight to behold. He shares the bill with the Baltimore synth-poppers Future Islands, the noisy electro outfit Teeth Mountain, and “game-boy” soul band Adventure.
That’s right! Mega-group Devo play the Forum this Saturday, interestingly and even more awesomely member Mark Mothersbaugh also composes for Wes Anderson. They merge kitschy science fiction and a dark sense of humour- this is truly going be legendary.
Monday 1st June
BEGIN THE SUMMER OF PROTEST IN STYLE! remember..
1.Meet in St James Square, visit just off The Mall, from 5pm (we set off at 6pm).?
2. Bring bells, banners, Suffragette style, a picnic to share.?
3. If you miss us then you can come and join at any point along the way, or just for the picnic, call 07751 805 275 to find out where we’re at.
On Monday 1st June the UK Parliament returns from recess for the summer sitting. We want to give them a warm welcome and remind them of the heat they can expect if they continue to ignore climate change.
Ed Miliband (Secretary of State Energy and Climate Change) is in Bonn that evening, discussing with other ‘world leaders’ the agenda for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Let’s give our ‘leaders’ a taste of the civil disobedience they can expect if real climate justice fails to materialise.
It is also the first evening of a coal conference at the illustrious ‘Chatham House’. Everyone who’s anyone, at least in the coal world, will be there.
We’ll begin our bike-ride outside their conference before winding our way ?through town.
Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through London. Labour might think that investing in electric cars is the solution to climate change but we know that cars using electricity from coal-fired power stations is yet another red-herring.
Have you ever needed more reason to leave the house, embrace the sunshine and join the pedal-powered as they move about town?
Come along and make your impact felt.
Entering an Ecological Age,
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, W1.
Peter Head explores how the world can begin to make the transition towards an ecological age of civilisation. focussing on urban areas and inefficient food production methods which consume land and non-renewable resources, 6.30pm, £8/£5
Info: 7580 5533/ info@bb.cc.org.uk
Celebrating World Environment Day – towards a new concept of development,
Francisco Lozano Winterhalder, 6.30pm, Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Square
SW1. Info: 7235 0353
Wednesday 3rd June
7pm
?‘Meltdown The End of The Age of Greed’?with Paul Mason
?Housmans Bookshop?
5 Caledonian Road?
LONDON,?
England
?N1 9DX,?UK?
Newsnight’s economics editor Paul Mason discusses the financial crash and explains why, love it or loathe it, the neo-liberal era is over. Followed by Q&A and book signing.???’Meltdown‘ tells the story of the financial crash that destroyed the West’s investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and began to undermine three decades of neo-liberal orthodoxy. Covering the credit crunch and its aftershocks from the economic front line, BBC journalist Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK’s financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London.??In response to the immense challenge now facing the existing economic system, he outlines a new era of hyper-regulated capitalism that could emerge from the wreckage. Paul Mason writes: “The book tells the story of the events of September-October 2008: I’m the economics editor of BBC Newsnight, so I had a ringside seat. It explains how we got here – from the shadow banking system, to subprime, to the commodities speculation that forced a billion people to go without meals in mid-2008. It also explains why, love it or loathe it, the neo-liberal era is over.”?
About the author: ??Paul Mason is the economics editor of BBC Newsnight and has covered globalisation and social justice stories from locations across the world, including Latin America, Africa and China. His previous book ‘Live Working, Die Fighting‘ was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.??Paul’s blog on the unfolding financial crisis ‘Idle Scrawl‘ can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/.
Thursday 4th June
The Gate of Heavenly Peace,
7.30pm
Prince Charles Cinema,
7 Leicester Place, WC2 .
Tickets £6.50 / £5 Students / £4.50 Member – Q&A
Starring: ?This extraordinary three-hour film…is a deep, powerful and rivetingly complex study of Tiananmen… THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE will prove controversial in the West as well, for it shows that the student movement was divided against itself, with some its most influential leaders hoping for carnage. The student leader Chai Ling, shortly before the crackdown, announces in an interview that `only when the square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes.’ We have a special Q&A session with Antony Thomas (director of The Tank Man) and Tian Ai Zhang soprano soloist.
Friday 5th June
7.30pm Food for All?
George Alagiah introduces the first in a series of debates on the big issues of our times, free, St. Peter’s Church, De Beauvoir Rd, Hackney
Saturday 6 June
Climate Camp Benefit Night
7pm -1.30am
Cross Kings Pub,
126 York Way,
N1 0AX
Are you interested in doing more to highlight the urgency of climate change? Are you intrigued but feel uncomfortable about going outside the mainstream political process? Would you consider getting involved but don’t know how? Are you nervous about the consequences? Climate Camp Benefit Night
Poetry, Comedy and Bands
WDM’s London campaigner convention
When: 10am – 5pm, Saturday 6 June 2009 ?
Where: The Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA
Join the World Development Movement in discussing just and sustainable solutions to the financial and climate crises, and learn useful skills for campaigning for a better world.
Speakers include: Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation)?, Emily Thornberry MP, ?Nicola Bullard (Focus on the Global South), ?Paul Chatterton (Author, Do It Yourself: A handbook for changing our world)? Plus WDM policy officers and campaigners.
Another world is possible
For 30 years, free market dogma has dominated official politics the world over. Now that dogma has brought us a financial crisis, a climate crisis, and for thousands of the world’s poorest people a crisis of soaring food prices too.
Yet all over the world, people are responding to these crises by challenging vested interests and proposing alternatives. Alternatives which seek to build a just, sustainable and peaceful world, and which put people before profit. Think Global is about making those alternatives a reality, by helping you to spread the word, understand the issues and learn the skills you need to bring about change.
Sessions include:
What is climate justice? ?Working with diaspora communities?. Stop Europe’s great trade robbery. ?Practical activism: Making change happen in your community. ?How to lobby your MP or MEP. ?The Green New Deal? Economic alternatives from the global south.
Plus bookstalls, lots of free educational and campaigns materials and refreshments.
WDM’s Annual General Meeting will take place during the day, and all WDM members are welcome to attend. There will be a parallel session for non-members during this time.
Email register@wdm.org.uk/ 7820 4900
Saturday 6th June
Eco-village occupation London
In May 1996, 500 The Land is Ours activists occupied 13 acres of derelict land on the banks of the River Thames in Wandsworth, highlighting the misuse of urban land, the lack of provision of affordable housing and the deterioration of the urban environment. That action grew into far more than just a simple land rights action.
A community grew up on the site called Pure Genius!! over the 5½ months that the occupation lasted for…..
Then and now: “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars”Martin Luther King.
In the first three months of 2009, nearly 13,000 Britons lost their home to repossessions. Now, perhaps more than ever, the ideas of peaceful land reclamation and eco-villages are becoming recognized as the solution to problems such as overcrowding in cities and the destruction of the land due to harmful agricultural practices.
Action:
In the spirit of Pure Genius, On June 6th 2009, hundreds of activists will converge on a piece of derelict land close by to Hammersmith in south west London to create an eco-village community based entirely on sustainable technology and construction techniques.
Come and be a part of this eco-village community.
Meet-up:
The exact location of the site will be revealed on the day. The meet up point is at Waterloo Station (under the clock in the middle of the station) at 10AM on Saturday 6th June. Please try to be on time as we don’t want to be hanging around all morning.
If you would like to speak to someone regarding the campaign or the occupation, please contact Carolyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or email: diggers360@yahoo.co.uk
Sunday 7 June
3pm – 7pm Green Sunday Arcola Theatre, 27 Arcola Street, E8.
Drop in between 3pm and 7pm for tea and cake on the roof, activities with the Secret Seed Society, a swap shop, market, debate about ethical consumerism with Neil Boorman and Morgan Philips plus music, film and books.
Info: anna@arcolatheatre.com
Find out more here
Mowgli. Ace Ventura. Romulus, buy Remus. Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls – there’s a number of individuals across the board that have lived their lives shoulder to shoulder with the animal kingdom. Whether these life experiences amounted to much creative cashback for the above is unknown – what we do know is that it certainly did for Dutch jeweller Felieke van der Leest, pharm who grew up next door to a zoo. She has spent years making collections of animal- inspired jewellery that has been exhibited in a whole lot of museums, including the International Museum of Applied Arts in Turn, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Montreal, the Modern Art Museum in Arnhem, and the Dutch Textile Museum in Tilburg.
Most affronting is the seamlessly funny juxtaposition of ideas – like the rapper penguin with bling around his neck and diamond eyes (a brooch), rubber ducks squeezed into lifeboat rings (a necklace). Her creations are bit like neo-Sylvanian families gone Shoreditch: a testament to a wealth of spangly imagination channelling the uninhibited spirit of the animal world.
As van der Leest says, “animals are never boring”, and when they’re swinging from hoops, or squatting on their own little aeroplane runways, even less so. I think she accomplishes the same effect as Beatrix Potter, Enid Blyton or Lewis Carroll, tapping into her customer’s childish sense of wonder that might have got replaced by cynicism along the way. It was her own childhood fascination that propelled her into her profession, having spent her family holidays indoors watching National Geographic and knitting clothes for her bears, even crocheting an entire mouse family along with a piece of cheese.
There’s something so perfect about them they are almost uncanny; you might be left scratching your head and wondering if Jack Russells hadn’t been nonchalantly wearing American football uniforms all along. She has also, amazingly, made much of it multi-functional, including the necklace of strolling lions whose leader can be detached and worn as a brooch.
This reaction, of course, might have something to do with van der Leest’s crazy good capabilities with her materials. Van der Leest, who originally trained as a goldsmith, combines metals with textile techniques – after studying metalwork in Amsterdam she became reacquainted with knitting and crocheting. She began to introduce metal into her works after she developed RSI as a means of combating the repetitiveness of knitting, although she has said she enjoys working with textiles for their variety and availability. It’s not all kittens and cupcakes though: there’s something masochistic about some of her work, in particular the dismembered animal parts hanging from a chain, or the decapitated giraffe with a nest instead of a head.
They’re startling pieces that seem to upset you with their disorder, making you wonder about the relationship between the animal world and the human one; how one can shape – and, indeed, destroy – the other.
Humanising animals is a tradition that goes so far back into children’s stories that it would almost seem unnatural to have van der Leest’s creatures without a narrative. Like the rollerskating diplodocus: since as the diplodocus was a famously slow animal, the next logical step was for van der Leest to allocate it with two pairs of tiny rollerskates). However along with this tradition comes a tendency to infantilise the idea as it happens, but what’s most striking about van der Leest’s pieces are their modernity and their sophistication – in short, it’s subversive humour for grown-ups. In a period of fashion where people are mercilessly bandying around words like ‘austerity’ and ‘practicality’, I think wearing a badge of a goldfish on a giant set of wheels has never been more necessary.
The smoking ban of two long summers ago that plighted many a filthy nicotine habit may be an odd choice for artistic inspiration, viagra 40mg but the marvelous Kate Jenkins took it as an opportunity to switch us from lighting up to lightening up with her quirky knitted collection ‘Soft Smokes’.
This was the follow up to her debut range ‘Comfort Food’ which launched her as an artist in 2007 and created a name for her, treat paving the way to many a wondrous thing, buy information pills including her ‘Cardigans in Bloom’ show as part of Brighton’s much respected annual Open Door exhibition season.
From there to being picked up by the Art Group publishing group to produce greeting cards of loveliness and offered a spot to sell her collectable Specimen Cabinets of bugs, butterflies and beauty in Liberty of London, a solo show at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery opens next week and considering her immense talent, is way over due.
Whilst many of us have ashamedly only become aware of knitting and it’s creative possibilities in the recent-ish upsurge of craft culture renaissance, Jenkins is no newbie to needles. Pre 2003, when her own label Cardigan was launched, she was turning up and casting off for the likes of Missoni, Donna Karan and Marc Jacobs. Her new work entitled ‘Kate’s Café’ will be a feast to behold; knitted breakfasts on knitted plates, knitted cups on knitted saucers, and knitted condiments to go on your.. yep, you guessed it- knitted fish and chips.
As well as pieces to wear and give, Jenkins produces wall worthy art work that provide instant talking points and mood enhancers as they are simply impossible to not fall in love with. In fact, Kate includes in her philosophy ‘anything can be created from yarn as long as it is made with love’. There is definitely something intrinsic about knitting and a giddy devoted heart.
Perhaps it’s the fact that art which relies on incredible meticulous skills, as knitting surely does, is bound to enlist blood sweat and tears and a huge helping from the heart. The ones who succeed do so because they love what they do, and in kind reciprocation we love it back.
Her noteworthy collaborations include Jon Link and Mick Bunnage, the Mr and Mr of Modern Toss fame, who commissioned Jenkins to produce a knitted book for their exhibition ‘Museum of Urban Shitniks’ at London’s Ink’d Gallery. She is now represented by Modern Toss’ agents Agency Rush for her illustrated commissions, who also deal with Ryu Itadani, Emily Forgot and Natsko Seki.
Kate Jenkins
Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
28 Charlotte Street,
Fitzrovia,
London W1T 2NA
Monday – Saturday 10 – 6
Sunday – Closed
6th June – 27th June 2009
We are crouched in the dory, a traditional canoe carved from a solid tree trunk, being punted upstream through the darkening jungle. The vine covered rafters reach over us, blackening into the night sky. Jorge struggles valiently but weighed low with passengers we frequently grind to a halt and have to jump out barefoot and push. It starts to drizzle, only adding to the atmosphere.
Eventually we arrive, slipping precariously up the bank with our lumps of luggage, climbing a stepped slope until we arrive at a covered courtyard and calls of welcome from our fellow students. We’ve reached the Maya Mountain Research Farm(MMRF) ready to begin a two week Permaculture Design Course.
MMRF
MMRF is the life’s work of Christopher Nesbitt, a forty-something New Yorker who in the eighties swapped the furious pace of a Manhatten cycle courier for a seventy acre damaged citrous farm in Southern Belize. From his early days living in a wooden shack, beholden to the sun for wake-up calls and lights-out, he has observed, studied, planted and nurtured his land into a lush and productive agroforestry system. Papaya, pineapple, breadnut, corn, beans, coconuts, eggs, vanilla, cacao, coffee… the list goes on and on. Solar panel by solar panel, stone by stone he has built a comfortable, light-filled home – complete with kitchen, book-lined study and panoramic vista’d bedroom – fit for the cover of glossy magazine.
Although the dreadlocks went decades ago he’s not shaved since eighteen and Chris could now be credited with creating the ‘Jungle Rabbinic’ look: cropped hair and vast beard, baggy Carhartt pants betraying his urban roots, wellingtons, army surplus rucksack slung over one shoulder and riffle or machete over the other. His face is open and kind but his large, sad eyes hint at the tough graft and personal tragedies that he’s overcome building his home in the jungle of this sparsely populated river valley.
Chris was the perfect host and his farm the perfect location to study something that I hoped desperately could offer a last minute reprieve to a world on life-support.
‘Permanent Agriculture’
Permaculture is short for ‘permanent agriculture’. It sums up the ambitious hopes of its founders, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who in 1978 launched it with the publication of ‘Permaculture One’. In 1988 the hefty ‘Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual’ was published, one percent ethics and ninety percent practical design instruction, where the definition given is “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive and healthy ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems.” Still not clear? I wasn’t either.
Most of my fellow students weren’t entirely sure, but our anticipation grew during the introduction: we were to be learning a whole new vocabulary that included the mysterious ‘swales‘, the principle of ‘stacking functions’ and the crucial tool of ‘needs and yields analysis’. With it we could share ideas with the millions of other permaculturists around the world, in the common language of the ‘permaculture army’.
There were sixteen students, of all ages and backgrounds. Many were from the U.S. but there was a Canadian, some Mexicans, a Trinidadian and some Belizians on scholarship. Three teachers joined Chris – Albert Bates, Maria A Martinez Ros and and Andrew ‘Goodheart’ Brown – making an eclectic and experienced team who each brought their own angle. Initially teaching was theory-heavy as we learnt key principles of ecology and of permaculture design. Later in the week we practiced mapping out an area of the farm, using our bodies as rulers – our result was 2,000 square ‘Erles’ – and learnt how to use a simple A-frame to measure along the contours of a slope to dig a swale – simply a shallow ditch that catches and holds water, but a key tool to build healthy soil.
Piece by piece it started to make sense.
A Deficit of Ducks
There’s a story that one day a student was lamenting to permaculture’s founder, Bill Mollison, about loosing her lettuces to an onslaught of slugs. “You don’t have a surplus of slugs problem.” he replied. “You have a deficit of ducks”. It neatly illustrates the goal of permaculture – to think like an ecosystem and strive always to ‘close the loop’.
The carefully fostered illusion of consumer culture is that things magically appear and disappear to satisfy our needs. Yet every bit of matter passing through our hands comes from and returns to the earth’s ecosystem and is part of its cycles. (A point made brilliantly in The Story of Stuff). Extraction and disposal have consequences and these can only be ignored for so long before they return to bite us. Simply put, our waste is wasting us – most prominently, our waste carbon, which we thought we could walk away from. Surprise, surprise, we can’t. ‘Up in smoke’ should not be a synonym for disappeared.
Nature works in cycles and so permaculture rejects the whole concept of ‘waste’. Waste is a resource that we’ve not been smart enough to put to good use yet. No good use at all – spent nuclear fuel rods, for example – is a warning that whatever system is producing it has no sustainable place in the world. There’s no waste in nature as such.
So one of the key tools we learnt was ‘Needs and Yields Analysis’. Each element of a design has needs and yields and the aim is to match them up – to close the loop. The chickens on Chris’s farm are my favourite example. They need food, water, space to roam, a safe place for the night. They yield products and useful services: kitchen scraps disappear greedily, turned into tasty eggs and nutrient rich droppings. A big problem for tropical farmers are Leafcutter Ants, or ‘Wee Wees’. The fossil fuel solution: put poison in the system, pesticides bought from outside – a complex external industrial product. The permaculture solution: Wee Wees as chicken food. Having been chased from my bed by Soldier Ants I gained a new found respect for the chicken as I watched them gobble up huge-pincered ants streaming from an aggravated nest.
Nature Resplendent
So we are part of the loop, but everyday life constantly hides this from us. For me the beauty of studying at MMRF was that you couldn’t forget this basic fact: from the bug bites yelling “you’re part of the food chain” to the tasty meals cooked from ingredients plucked straight from nearby trees. For the first week I recoiled: used to a more sterile environment I was faintly flustered by it all, by bugs and bites and slippy pathways. Then I relaxed, the unseasonal showers passed, and I felt wonderfully and peacefully at home.
My favourite moments were stolen between classes: swinging gently on the hammock, cool after a swim in the river, just soaking in the sounds; cheeps, flutters, rustles, whistles, pulsing bug rubbings, the high pitched whine and zoom of passing flies; the jungle community going about its daily business, from soil to canopy top. There was a rhythm and intimacy with nature that brought a deep sense of calm.
“Normal”: Discuss
As the exotic became more familiar what struck me was that this ‘exotic’ was nothing of the sort. This is how it has been, day after day, for millions of years. My normal (our normal) everyday life is a freakish aberration: we drive complex machines over fields of asphalt, stopping at filling stations to pay pittance for fossilised sunlight, and then carelessly burn up this rich energy resource (equivalent to thousands of hours of human labour) on activities that we could often happily do without. All civilisations are temporary, perhaps as temporary as their foundations, and we have thrown in our lot with a dwindling treasure trove of inherited energy, egged on by blind faith in free-market capitalism whose priests insist that the mighty market will provide – “We’ll cross that bridge…”; “Don’t plan ahead (Communist!), believe”; don’t save for a rainy day…
The ‘normal’ has a way of lulling us into a false sense of security and permanence. For hundreds of years life was very ‘normal’ in this now jungle-filled river valley, when it was part of a bustling Mayan metropolis. One evening we climbed the ridge in the gold of the setting sun and through a clearing in the undergrowth looked at a beautifully set Mayan wall, 1200 years old. Chris told us that there are literally hundreds of house mounds dotted around the farm (his house is in fact built on one). At their zenith the Maya ruled an area from Southern Mexico to Northern Honduras for over 600 years before their civilisation declined and came to an end. But we’re smarter than them, right? We have Google and ATM machines. And cars. And toilet paper made from ancient forests. The Mayans might beg to differ and challenge us to last a little longer than the century and a half since industrialisation began.
Just not seeing it
When I first walked through Chris’s farm I saw trees. Just lots of trees. But walk through with Chris as translator and you start to see complex systems, carefully designed and incredibly productive: coffee and cacao shaded under breadnut trees and coconut palms, pinapple crescents catching water and building soil around sapplings. My illiteracy was shared by the ‘conquerors’ five hundred years ago, who lamented the ignorant slash and burn agriculture while missing the carefully managed agroforestry system of the ‘fallow’ land (see ‘Beyond Wilderness: Seeing the Garden in the Jungle‘).
Yes, we know more than the Mayans. Our scientific method is qualitatively different from what went before. It has given us great power. But perhaps we’re all the more stupid for it.
The fertile middle ground
For me the genius of permaculture is that it recognises this stupidity but refuses to fall into the opposite trap of romanticising past cultures. It respects both the natural systems that ultimately support all life and also the scientific method that has given us so much power to understand and influence them. My interpretation of permaculture as that it is a science-based design system. Ultimately we are completely reliant on nature, but if we approach it with respect we can understand and learn from the systems that keep our world alive. Then we can apply our intelligence and creativity to tweak and mould them to provide generously for human life. It is a middle ground between domination (destined to fail) and subservience (destructive of our humanity), aimed at creating a humane space within the natural world. A garden.
Spades out for the revolution
So that’s what it boils down to: permaculture is gardening. And to think as a boy I saw my Grandfather as such an anachronism, with his rows of raspberries and inability to operate a video recorder. If engineers ruled in the 20th Century then perhaps the 21st belongs to the gardeners: scientifically literate, socially influential and operating in their millions. We hope.
‘Everything gardens’ is a permaculture principle and it was illustrated every night as we carefully stepped over the torch lit highway of Leafcutter Ants, ferrying green chunks in their millions back to their nest. They use the leaves to grow mould that will feed the whole colony. They hardly ever kill a tree, Chris explained, but strip only some branches before moving on. They do not destroy that which they depend upon. The heart of permaculture is learning from nature, and we could take a leaf from their book.
I Will Survive: Permaculture Remix
It was a fun-filled night tinged with sadness, as everyone pitched in for the ‘No Talent’ show that rounded off the two week course. I’ll spare you the full version, but my group had ‘re-designed’ Gloria Gaynor’s classic ‘I will survive’ to include lines such as: “At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without these pesticides” and “But no, not us, we will survive. For as long as we know how to swale I know we’ll stay alive.” After two weeks we had all become quite fond of each other. I wondered where this group of radical gardeners would get to, and what difference we would make. And why the course was only two thirds full when the ‘normal’ world is so clearly starting to unravel.
Still, we left inspired, determined to plant and compost to a better future.
Back to Civilisation
The bus was pretty swish – air conditioned, reclining chairs, video screens – but I felt uncomfortable. A growing sense of agitation was making me desperate for the journey to end.
We stopped at Gautemala’s version of a service station. As I looked round at a forest of plastic, tin cylinders behind glass and bulging humans poking at synthetic food on polyester plates, I realised what I was suffering – culture shock. I was trying to place it all in the natural cycles I’d become used to and so little of it would fit.
It showed the change my fortnight at MMRF had brought. In my five years of ‘environmentalism’, first of study then work, I’ve heard lots of theory about living within the earth’s limits. Now for the first time I really felt it, in my guts. Permaculture might not be ‘the answer’ – there’s no such thing – but it taught me to see the fundamental logic of our place in the natural order.
More than this, perhaps it might allow me the audacity of hope for a reconciliation between humanity and the world we’re currently beating the crap out of. Perhaps environmentalism does not equal atavism. Perhaps MMRF hints at a way forward, rather than a retreat, as the interns check their emails under locally grown bananas: the Apple Mac sitting with the permaculture pineapple.
I don’t know yet, but I firmly believe that Bill Mollison was right in 1988 when he wrote that “in the near future we will see the end of wasted energy or the end of civilization as we know it”. I just hope that, over two decades later, another of his assertions still holds true: “What we have done, we can undo.”
_____
Photo credits: Thanks to Erle Noronha for the second picture (Chris’s house) and Albert Bates for the group photo. All others are my own.
What permaculture can do – the mighty ‘swale’ in action. A great little video:
COMMENTS: interested, bored, indifferent? Write a comment…
This article originally featured on EyesLikeSaucers.
Written by Mikey B on Tuesday June 2nd, 2009 1:30 pm
14 Bacon Street, erectile E1 6LF, page 11th-18th December
The pop-up shop does what it says on the tin, buy appears in a different location for a limited time, so you have to be quick to get in and see what’s inside. But make the effort as you can find a plethora of goodies from new designers and artists, hand picked from exotic locations all around the world. The store also supports the East End charity Kids Company, so you’ll be doing your bit to help as you shop.
Enjoy an evening of late-night shopping on London’s trendiest street, as well as rumageing through all that vintage, there will be refreshments on hand and special Christmas gifts available only on this night.
The Bizarre Bazaar
Sunday 21st December
Monday 8th December Joan as Policewoman, Thekla, capsule Bristol
Ex-Antony and the Johnsons collaborator touring in support of her new album. Expect mesmerising vocals and heart-rending tunes.
Boss Hog, Luminaire, London
Jon Spencer (as in Blues Explosion) and his wife Cristina Martinez front this long-standing blues-rock outfit.
Tuesday 9th December
Kong, Buffalo Bar, London
Art-noise, cool as Manchester band, heavy on the guitars.
The Miserable Rich, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Folky, orchestrated Brighton group, with links to Lightspeed Champion.
Sixtoes, Big Chill House, London
Cinematic, spooky blues-folk with a melancholy Eastern European edge.
Wednesday 10th December
Little Death, Club Fandango @ 229, London
Cool, cosmopolitan London band playing psychadelic tinged noise-pop.
Land of Talk, Water Rats, London
Canadian indie-rock.
Thursday 11th December
Good Books, Proud Galleries, London
Danceable indie-electro.
Mike Bones, Old Blue Last, London
One man and his guitar.
Friday 12th December
Rose Elinor Dougall, Barfly, Cardiff
Pretty girl music from this ex-Pipette. Still very pop but less of the sixties girl group rip-offs.
Free Fridays: Brute Chorus, La Shark, Josh Weller, 93 Feet East, London
Bonkers hair (Josh Weller) and outfits (La Shark) will abound at this FREE night featuring up-and-coming bands including Brute Chorus who will presumably play new single ‘She Was Always Cool’.
Saturday 13th December
Herman Dune, The Deaf Institute, Manchester
Perennial Parisian folksters on tour to promote new album ‘Next Year in Zion’.
Glissando, Holy Trinity Church, Leeds
Dreamy and ethereal. Should be lovely in a church.
Stereolab, Black Box, Belfast
Long-standing lounge/electronic post-rock with female French singer.
Getting up at 6am on a cold Saturday morning may be unthinkable to some -but for myself and fellow fashion enthusiasts, information pills the Angels Vintage and Costume clothing sale was more than enough motivation for the long, look early trek over to Wembley….or so we thought. The queue turned out to be VERY long… a 3 to 4 hour wait we were told. Despite our earlier determination, it was too long for us and we gracefully admitted defeat, leaving behind a growing queue of seriously hardcore shoppers.
One of those hardcore shoppers was ameliasmagazine.com’s very own Music Editor, Prudence Ivey, here’s her take on it, “Leaving the house at 6.30am, we were in the queue by about 7.15am and, although in the first 500, we were nowhere near the front. Some people – vintage shop buyers – had been there since Friday afternoon. There was a really friendly atmosphere, you could tell these people were true vintage fiends, as there was not a scruffbag in sight, it was all red lipstick and glamourous outfits despite the ungodly hour.
When we were allowed in, after just over an hour of wating, there was virtual silence and heads down as people rifled through the cardboard boxes packed with clothes on the floor. A cloud of dust filled the room after about 10 minutes, most of the clothes were in a bit of a state and everything I ended up with turned the water black when I put it in to hand-wash, not to mention my black snot… A quick sort through, try on and swapping session with my friend, along with some excellent packing meant that I left with 18 items of pretty decent, some of them really excellent, vintage finds for a measly £20. One of my favourite shopping trips EVER.” (above and below is Prudence modeling her two of her wonderful buys)
So now I wish I had stayed in the queue – but my day was not wasted, I found a far more inviting alternative, which boasted the benefits of being a. inside and b. no queue! It was the first London edition of New York magazine BUST‘s Christmas Craftacular.
Set in the St. Aloysius Social Hall in Euston, a mixed group of cool crafty kids, cute guys and even grannies filled the aptly dated-yet-cozy bar, and the Shellac Sisters played classic retro tunes on their wind-up gramophone, which added to the kitsch atmosphere. Having taken off in New York over the last 4 years, the Craftacular event has now come to British shores and brings together craft sellers, knitting circles, badge making stations and of course, lots of cake!
Tatty Divine turned into doctors for the day and set up their very own ‘craft clinic’ offering advice and tips to craft novices or lovers.
An ArtYarn Guerilla Graffiti Knitting Crew even set up a training camp, where boys sat happily next to their teachers, learning how to knit one, pearl one and Random Monkey Designs offered lessons in cross stitch.
With a packed out venue and buzzing crowd, it’s likely that (and we hope) the Craftacular event will become a regular date in the British calendar.
Monday Dec 8th
It seems most exhibition spaces in this area begin like this, drugs in someone’s flat. Every day this week at 79a Brick Lane, viagra 100mg there will be an exhibition of seven separate artists (one for each day) alongside a selected feature film, including the likes of Saturday Night Fever, North by Northwest, and The Truman Show. It starts at eight and ends when the film does. For a more detailed itinerary, check here. Admission is free.
Tuesday Dec 9th A Family in Disguise, by Yu Jinyoung has been extended at Union on Teesdale Street and is worth a look, if not only for the fact that entering the exhibition is a surreal experience in itself. Not a curator to be seen, and with a camera that links the room to their gallery in Ewer Street, you are alone in a haunting room with this disparate family of forlorn faces. Ring the buzzer and take a look.
Wednesday Dec 10th
Indian Highway is the new exhibition starting today at the Serpentine, describing itself as a snapshot of the vibrant generations artists working across the country today, well-established artists shown besides lesser known practitioners. Using a array of medias they are threaded together with a common engagement with the social and political, examining complex issues in contemporary India such as environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class. It runs until Feb 22nd.
Thursday Dec 11th
Hermetic Seel is a new exhibition by Shane Bradford opening on Wednesday at the Vegas Gallery. It might just be satisfying to see fourteen historical art encyclopedias subjected to Bradford’s “post-Pollock” dipping technique.
Friday Dec 12th
Here’s what one of our writers said of Omnifuss’ last exhibition: In the heart of Dalston, down the end of a small alley road was a large garage with a little door. Through this door, a group of 24 artists showcased their work. Sculpture, music, performance and photography took place in the old car workshop that was far away from the usual pristine white walls of gallery spaces and created a rustic, and inspiring location for this exhibition. With flame heaters to warm those tootsies, and the symphonious sound of a violinist haunting the open rooms, I found myself immersed in the eclectic furniture and art… Downstairs is their new exhibit, an exploration of domesticity in its rawest states through sound, sculpture, video and installation, and by the sounds of it is worth a visit.
Saturday Dec 13th Awopbopaloobop. Artists listen to music, everyone listens to music. Lyrics are etched into our minds whether we want them there or not, and we can’t help but allow them to inform our everyday. Awopbopaloobop (I just like saying that word) is an exhibition at http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/index.html, asking a host of artists to produce based on a favourite song lyric. This exhibition is coming to an end, (21st of Dec), so go and see it if you haven’t already. The space itself is worth the trip, and it’s fun to walk around a gallery with a song-sheet in your hands!
Brian Aldiss’ short story, drug “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, this to which the exhibition “Super-Toys” makes reference, abortion tells the story of a mother and her android son in the overcrowded world of the future who, however hard they try, cannot find a way to love each other. It makes love seem like a human malfunction, a flaw which can never be imitated. But moreover it captures the feeling of dismay when two people who know that they should love each other realise they can’t – that they fundamentally don’t know how. The android boy, who questions whether or not he is real, seems more humane than his human mother; who sends him to be repaired for the flaw from which she herself suffers. Love cannot be programmed; but is a lover not someone who says all those things that you want to hear, like an automated machine?
So with high expectations of an exhibition dealing with the strange interaction between humans and machine, fantasy and reality, love and compromise; what I found was initially disappointing. The notions the story had alluded to, the emotions and the complexity of them, were not to be found. Machine ducks floating in a pond, a room of human shaped stuffed objects lying mundanely on the floor; flashing machines dancing in a square box; all interesting to look at, but lacking explanation. The most interesting part of the exhibition was the nightmarish, garish and lurid room that followed, full of toys ripped apart: toys with two head, toys mutilated and deformed by visitors, and all in the name of art. With shelves and window ledges packed already, I was invited to create my own monster from a pile of rejected toys. There was something sinister about being instructed to rip the head off a teddy bear; glue Barbie legs where paws should be; and to work at a designated workstation. Despite the visual pleasure and hands on aspect of super-toys, it seemed to be an exhibition full of concept without real content. But maybe that’s what it allows you to do; to explore you own memories of love, childhood, playfulness and ultimately rejection; and realise that everyone else feels the same way too.
Anne Collier Dispersion is a patchy affair. Curated by the director of the Chisenhale gallery Polly Staple, hospital it features seven artists working from different locations, view tied together under the banner of an examination of the ‘circulation of images in contemporary society….in our accelerated image economy’. This seems a fairly sound starting point, although a bit nebulous and too wide in the sense of the number of artists that could be described as grappling with these issues.
Recycling and colliding of images is examined most clearly in Anne Collier’s photographs. Iconic posters, complete with creases, walk the line between multiple realities; but unlike other work in the show, the centre of power lies not in some theoretical hinterland but in the jarring sensation between seeing the photograph of the image and the image itself. Again this is hardly a new idea but it is well executed. The twin set of images a box of photos of the sea provides a further layer of tension between the natural and man-made.
Anne Collier
Seth Price
Most of the the other works are films. Seth Price’s ‘Digital Video Effect:Editions‘ (2006) , juxtaposing high and low cultural references (such as those barriers still exist), feels like an early 90′s MTV insert in its scope and complexity. Mark Leckey, now with the epithet ‘Turner Prize Winner’, is due to give a one off lecture/live performance ‘Mark Leckey in the Long Tail‘ in January tackling the similar ground, hopefully to better effect.
A better example of the film work on display is Hito Steyerl’s fascinating ‘Lovely Andrea’ (2007). This is an engaging documentary-esque look at a Japanese bondage artist, cut with scenes fom Wonder Woman cartoons and ‘backstage’ footage of the creation or recreation of scenes, calling the whole film’s authenticity into question. This could have led to a horribly self reflexive pile of mush but is actually a taut and gripping set of mixed narratives.
Henrik Olesen’s computer printed images mounted on blackboards, ‘some gay-lesbian artists and/or artists relevant to homosocial culture V,VI.VII’(2007), a collection reappropriated around queer history, touched on interesting ideas; a collection of female portraits by female artists from Renaissance onwards, for example. But the sum of its parts felt lazy and, like the rest of the show, he veers into hectoring or frustrating silence instead of fostering conversation between the work and viewer.
This is a problem, but one the ICA can absorb better than other cultural centres. The institution was founded as an ‘adult playground’ and this remit naturally involves risky and challenging work, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Dispersion is a perfect encapsulation of this.
The disjointed art punk of San Fransisco’s Deerhoof is pretty brilliant on record but I’d heard it was even better live and so couldn’t wait to see them at ULU on their only UK date this year. Their music is disarmingly simple sounding, online loved by music aficionados and 10 year old girls alike – my kid sister loves Panda Panda Panda and Milkman almost as much as any Girls Aloud single. Perhaps I should have sent her along to review the show. It would have been easier for her to convince the people on the door that she was called Prudence Ivey (the name I was under on the list) than a scruffy and definitely male reviewer. They thought I was a street-crazy.
Achieving such wide-ranging popularity is an impressive feat considering that, sick underneath that childlike simplicity, their songs consist of complex structures alongside fragments of dissonant guitar thrash/twang and improvisation. However, seeing Deerhoof is no overblown, intellectual chore. They manage to be simultaneously clever, loud and cartoonishly entertaining and enlivened ULU with a set that encompassed a lot of new album material alongside some stuff to keep the old school fans happy.
The crowd were particularly receptive to old favourite Milkman, along with the Yo La Tengo-in-a-parallel-universe sounds of new album Offend Maggie – a title that always gives me the mental image of an outraged, pre-dementia Margaret Thatcher. There were clipped drums ahoy, along with Deerhoof’s twinkling wire to fuzz guitar textures. Satomi’s vocals, all coy and Japanese, were accentuated by goofy hand gestures – a fitting accompaniment to her surreal and playful subject matter. The whole band were really tight and surprisingly enthusiastic after fourteen years playing together. I can’t wait to see them again.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, drugs I thoroughly recommend this charming animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return. This definitely ‘isn’t about polar bears anymore!’
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out then Get a Grip in the Aniboom Awards 2008 click here.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, buy information pills I thoroughly recommend this snappy animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return.
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out in Aniboom Awards 2008. No Equal clothing are a company who don’t pander to press agendas and celebrities, sick instead they are refreshingly focused on working with new and exciting design talent and helping charities.
They also know how to throw a party – and it was good cause central. In the first room of The Russian Club Studios was a display of logoed t-shirts and hoodies, website like this made in collaboration with three emerging illustrators– Yann Le Bec, Thibaud Herem and Jean Jullien.
10% of the sales – not just profit – of this No Equal apparel are being donated to three charities, which No Equal Clothing are supporting, Kidsco, Addaction and XLP. To mix up the mediums and give some background to the collaborations, there was also a video installation showing the three artists at work.
In the second room, as part of their desire to champion new designers, No Equal clothing held a silent auction (of which all profits go to Kidsco, Addaction and XLP) for the London College of Fashion. Seven of LCF’s undergraduate students working for the college’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion created collections that were environmentally and ethically conscious and these were being sold.
The auction is also a possible reason for the eclectic mixture of guests. East London kids hung out with men in suits (in separate groups obviously) in the sparse concrete venue created an unusual atmosphere, you could have been in an underground club, art gallery or exclusive couture shop.
The students collections were varied and interesting, Michela Carraro (pictured below) used hemp based fabrics sourced from small family run businesses to create a romantic chiffon-esque collection, while Manon Flener created deconstructed / reconstructed garments made of pieces of fabric pieced together with studs. She says her motivation for the collection was to reduce waste in fashion; each piece can be put together in a different way to make many garments.
Supporting the Fashioning the Future programme at LCF, which encourages designers to think about the environmental imapct of their work, No Equal clothing are actively championing eco-friendly designers of the future and with their own clothing label, bucking the greedy fashion trend by giving a percentage of profits to charity. Good work all round.
Last week the Earth team at Amelia’s Magazine went along to the Friends House in Euston to listen to a report made by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC). The issue was climate change and the information it uncovered was alarming.
As a self-confessed newbie to these sorts of events I must admit to harboring uneasiness about feeling out of place in a room full of swampys. But my silly preconceptions were immediately flattened.
Lead by a panel of speakers expert in their field, story the atmosphere at the Friends House was alive with people from all manner of backgrounds but united in the opinion that climate change is a matter of urgency.
Chairing the debate was Christian Hunt who kicked off by asking the audience a few questions. 99% raised their hand when asked whether they would describe themselves as environmentalists. Roughly 70% would say they had some knowledge of climate change while roughly 20% would say they had lots of knowledge on the subject. 99% of us responded yes we did like his t-shirt that read ‘don’t give up.’
The first to speak from the panel was Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He started with a clear message: the question of climate change is a humanitarian one. While the U.K. and E.U’s definition of a dangerous climate change as 2°C per annum may be an adequate threshold for us in the western world, it is not nearly small enough to safeguard the rest of the world.
It is the southern hemisphere, containing the world’s poorest, that is targeted the most by global warming in it’s present state, with people dying on a daily basis. Therefore it is an ethical decision about how much we care about the world’s weakest as to how and when we go about dealing with the climate.
He went on to say that the entire climate change debate needs an urgent rethink when taking into account the latest emissions data. The planet is heating up at an even faster rate than we thought, and our government seems to be denying this is happening by following the miscalculated advice from the Stern Report and not pumping in nearly dosh needed to implement a strategy that will radically cut back our emissions.
But Kevin Anderson pointed out there may be a silver lining to retrieve from the present economical situation. History has shown us that larger emission reductions occur when there is economic turmoil. I guess this has something to with cut backs in industry forced by a plummeting economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, for example, there was a record drop of 5% per annum.
Tim Helweg-Larson, the director of Public Interest Research Centre bounded onto the platform next. So this is where it gets rather technical but don’t worry, Tim’s clear and straightforward delivery meant that even my mind didn’t drift into thinking about what I might eat for tea.
He showed us a series of images showing the levels of sea ice in the arctic in 1979 and in 2007 and I was taken back to those pretty pictures in my school science lab…Predictably the more recent images contained a much larger surface area of dark gloominess.
These dark regions absorb more heat. This additional heat penetrates 1500km inland across a plain of perma-frost. This stuff is harmless if left untouched but once melted, its carbon content-which is twice the amount of the entire global atmosphere-is released into the air. Yep that means even more bad stuff is added to the high intensity of CO2 that started this whole malarkey.
The knock-on effect going on in the arctic-known as the triple melt- is steadily destroying the climatic state of the entire planet. Soon we will reach the point where we will no longer be within the realm of temperatures that enable things to grow and humanity to survive (known as the middle climate). If this isn’t scary enough this tipping point is likely to peak sooner than we thought; as early as 2011 to 2015.
George Momboit was next to speak. Hello. His exuberance for the cause was exciting…ooh la…did you know he has been shot at, shipwrecked and pronounced clinically dead? Well he was very much alive that evening as I listened – intently- to his practical, if ambitious, advice to the government to stop fannying about and introduce a ‘crash program of total energy replacement.’
He whizzed through a series of steps geared to cut our emissions by 20% by 2012 and more thereafter. But those wild curls, brisk demeanor and air of academic brilliance were just a little distracting. Without getting too carried away I managed to jot down the key points of this radical plan:
1. To train up a green army of builders that is equipped to build more energy efficient homes
2.A mass subsidy program to re insulate homes
3.Replacement of power plants
4.Re engineering of roads to cater better for cycles and coaches
5. To Cap number of landing spots for airports so that by 2030 the maximum number of flights is 5% of current levels.
6.Agriculture should be devoted to the most efficient carbon saving schemes
7.He summed up with the statement that lowering demand for fossil fuels should happen simultaneously with lowering their supply and we need to dramatically cut oil and gas exploitations.
Pretty rousing stuff…
Solar energy pioneer, Jeremy Leggett gave us a more buisnessy slant on what can be done for climate change especially in this current state of economic upheaval and an encroaching energy crunch (the I.E.A. predicts 5 years time). With people becoming increasingly disheartened by the government’s spending priorities, now’s the time to duck in and make a collective effort to re-engineer capitalism. He enforced the notion that money needs to go into building a carbon army of workers that would create 10 thousand new jobs and…cost a measly half a billion squid
Caroline Lucas, MEP for South East England and Leader of the Green Party, disheartened by the inertia of our government, shocked us all by urging ‘a massive campaign of civil disobedience.’ This prompted uproar amongst the audience and I must say it felt pretty inspiring .She went on to talk about Climate Rush, an activist group who take their inspiration from the Suffragette movement. Like the women who were denied the vote, their rush on parliament really is a demand for life itself. They also dress-up in fancy Edwardian petticoats, which sounds fun. But their theatricality is not without sincerity, direction and a passion to change the injustices that climate change is causing on humanity. Caroline Lucas’ speech stirred an energetic drive to ‘do something’ in me. She reminded us of the words of Emily Pankhurst ‘to be a militant is to be a privilege’ and something hit home. We are very lucky to not be totally powerless in this situation, as so many people across the world are, and it is possible to make our government listen to us, albeit with a bit of hard work. To find about the next climate rush action click here.
So I’ve dipped my toe into the murky sludge of our current climate. All the facts and figures might not have filtered through into this article but I hope if, like me, you previously thought this issue was for only for really clever people and maybe just a little put off by dreadlocks, you’ve realized that this is something we should all be aware of whether we want to listen to it or not, including our government.
As I left the Climate Safety talk to cycle home, I felt almost grateful for never bothering to learn to drive as perhaps in a small way it might make up for that stomach-sinking feeling of how terribly selfish I had been for only vaguely paying attention to news of melting popsicles and greenhouses.
The truth is I felt safe in the view that the really scary things won’t happen for a very long time, well after I’m buried in the ground and used for compost. Well I was wrong, it’s not our grandkid’s grandkid that’s going to feel the full force of climate change-it’s us.
We’ve searched online for hours to find these wonderful gift ideas for Christmas this year! Including solar powered fairy lights, advice recycled wrapping paper, rx sew-it-yourself dresses, fairtrade teddies and handmade jewellery.
JEWELLERY
Kate Slater First up on our list, and featured in Issue 10 of Amelia’s Magazine, we have wonderfully talented illustrator Kate Slater. She is one of many artists currently selling her work on etsy in the form of these gorgeous little accessories that she has made. Kate‘s illustrations come alive through the use of collage, mixed papers and wire for relief work. Furtive Pheasant Brooch Kate’s collaged pheasant has been remade into this lovely brooch. The original illustration has been printed onto durable shrink plastic and bejeweled with green diamantes. We love the idea of being able to wear Kate’s illustrations! Buy the Furtive Pheasant Brooch here
Butterfly Dress Kit Gossypium is a great place to buy gifts from! All the clothes on their site are high quality, fairtrade and made from biodegradable materials. They’re one of the great sites working with the idea of a zero-impact on the environment, and we’ve love this Butterfly Dress Kit. It is a sew-it-yourself organic cotton kit that comes with a lovely printed fabric and easy instructions to create one of three garments. You can make a blouse, a dress or a smock with or without pockets, and have the option of long or short sleeves; with nine different styles to choose from you are in total control of how your finished product looks! Buy the Butterfly Dress Kit here.
Solar Helicopter This little toy is perfect as a desk ornament, and is loads of fun for kids and grown ups! Working with as little light as from a desk lamp, the solar cells demonstrate how efficient modern eco technology is. Buy the Solar Helicopter here.
Outdoor Solar Powered Christmas Fairy Lights These all-year-round lights are a great way to bring some green sparkle to your home! They’re waterproof and come with 8 different settings including flashing, continuous light patterns! The lights only come on when it’s dark (so about 3:30pm…) and the solar panel uses high grade Kyocera Solar cells that store enough energy to run for 10 hours, even on winter days! These lights are a bargain too at only £19.99! Buy your Solar Powered Fairy Lights here.
These 100% recycled wrapping papers are by Lisa Jones and come in many different styles! They are modernist and brightly coloured using vegetable inks. Get some Recycled Wrapping Paper here.
Cardboard Cutting Table This 100% Icelandic made brilliant cardboard table can be used as a meeting table, a cutting table (it comes with a laminated white surface top), a dinner table and a baby changing table! It’s portable and folds away to save space! (and comes with a handy 18% discount for design students!). Buy the Cardboard Table here.
KIDS
‘Woodsy The Owl’ Bib This adorable bib is by etsy seller ‘cocoandmilkweed‘, consisting of Evan and Lila Maleah- a husband and wife team intent on creating lovely products for little and big people! Woodsy has been handmade in a dark brown eco-felt that has been made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, and sewn onto a soft cotton woodgrain fabric. the entire bib has been backed with organic cotton flannel and lined with organic cotton and bamboo for extra absorption! All this detail has added to its appeal, and it even has a snap closure to make sure its little wearer isn’t able to yank it off! Buy a ‘Woodsy The Owl’ bib here.
Dala Horse Stocking The Christmas tradition of stocking has been brought into the 21st century by Erin ‘sewsewsuckurtoe‘ by using the folk art inspired Dala Horse. It is constructed out of eco-felt which is made from recycled plastic bottles and lined in cotton to make it strong enought to hold as many things as possible! Buy a Dala Horse Stocking here.
Witness are a group, based in New York, that use video and online technologies to expose human rights violations all over the world. By making videos of victim’s personal stories, they direct attention to injustice and promote public engagement and policy change.
Sam’s first up on the video (below), telling us that the images of a school teacher in East Burma hiding out in a forest with her children is one of the images that shows us we need to go further with our actions to help those whose human rights have been severely violated.
A video producer, trainer and human rights advocate, Sam’s videos have been screened at the US Congress, UK Houses of Parliament, The UN and in film festivals worldwide.
The group are also launching an online channel for these videos called The Hub. This is a new multi-lingual online portal dedicated to human rights media and action. It provides the opportunity for individuals, organizations, networks and groups around the world to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention.
To find out more about Witness (www.witness.org) click here.
The non-existent morality faeries that do not sit either side of my head were in a fluster last Thursday. I took them down to a police auction in Bethnal Green, salve and for the entirety of my pedal there, they could not be resolved: surely there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalising on the lost and stolen goods of hapless victims, or worse still, liquidated assets, urgh! But then again, stolen … and retrieved; lost … and found. Where else would these items, long since departed from owners, go? I have nothing to say about liquidated assets, but apparently that’s next time – this week was reserved to lost and stolen goods only, courtesy of the metropolitan police; thanks.
Once we arrived, debates were dispelled and there was nothing to fluster about – it did not seem in the least bit seedy. This fortnightly event, put on by Frank G. Bowen Ltd Auctioneers and Valuers, two men both of whom are very friendly, one of whom looks like Santa Clause, takes place in an old air raid shelter, making for a strangely intimate and cosy affair. Potential bidders arrive early to browse, an advisable precaution seeing as nothing can be returned once purchased. I felt like the passer-by who steps into a regulars-only pub, my obvious excitement an instant give-away; but I tried my best to look like this was routine, and nestled myself in amongst the clutter on Lot 135, 1 wooden kitchen-table chair. Pensive brow in place, I concentrated on my catalogue sheet, my mind now settling to the bewildering list before me …
An initial glance reveals nothing of a surprise: bicycles, phones, cameras, and mp3 players; but it’s not long before you start to wonder … who steals a kitchen chair? A cupboard? An oak mirror overmantle (Lot 379)? The clothing list is the strangest of all: Lot 4: A pair of Ladies sandals, size 40; Lot 58: (non-specific) Ladies Clothing as bagged. One Lot contained a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a pair of trainers – all stolen from a single owner? How did that happen?
Against all inclinations, we ended up describing the place and the experience as a gem. Don’t go expecting to find vintage treasures, but there are amenities at a good price (surely I need a quad bike). And a few pointers: don’t let the excitement of bidding make you go for things for no other rational reason than the pleasure of raising your hand; careful of the man who will out-bid everyone for bikes; and don’t take a lunch break in the middle, thus missing that one item you’d circled in red that you were willing to spend forty quid on, and ended up going for under twenty, pah.
Don’t miss this excellent event tonight:
Cheshire Street Christmas Shopping
Friday 12th December
This Friday, case pop down to Cheshire Street as the whole street will be open to 10pm, cost so you can get your quirky Christmas gifts till late(ish) into the night and enjoy wine and nibbles while you do it. The shops will be offering exclusive discounts also, including 20% off on the night at I Dream of Wires. Amazing.
Frock Me! Vintage Fashion Fair
Sunday 14th December
Frock Me! vintage fashion should not be confused with the questionable television show of the same name hosted by a certain over-exposed designer and TV presenter. It is in fact a fabulous vintage fashion fair, and this Sunday, in the swanky surroundings of the Chelsea Town Hall you can pop down and pick up a genuine vintage garment.
They even have their own tea-room. What more could you want?
Open: 11am – 5.30pm
Admission: £4 (students £2 with ID)
Nearest Tube: Sloane Square / South Kensington
Christmas singles, diagnosis still the preserve of naff novelty acts, pillpop stars in trendy coats and X Factor winners, or newly fertile ground for acts that are unlikely to even get a sniff at the bottom of the charts? As the Top 40 becomes less and less of a barometer for success and following much-loved Christmas releases from the likes of Low and Sufjan Stevens, this year it seems that more and more indie bands are joining in on the act. But are any of them actually any good? And how to stop them seeming like lame commercial cash-ins in the style of the Christmas tunes of yore?
1. One way to quash accusations of rabid commercialism is to give your single away for free as Slow Club (see above) have done, with ‘Christmas TV’ offered as a free download in a spirit of seasonal goodwill to all mankind. A sweet little folk pop tune about travelling home for Christmas and snuggling in front of the Vicar of Dibley or some such, this is good for anyone feeling the pangs of seasonal separation. The boy/girl vocals chime prettily together in a song that has thematic echoes of ‘Driving Home For Christmas’.
2. Stay true to your signature style. If you’re usually a grumpy old misery guts, Christmas is no time to suddenly become cheerful just for the hell of it so why not whack out a truly miserable Christmas EP a la Glasvegas? A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) is the one to pull out when your Dad forgot to turn the oven down, your mum’s sobbing into her charred potatoes and your granny’s being cantankerous.
3. Restrict your mentions of the season to atmospherically wintery weather references a la The Leisure Society with their pretty waltz ‘Last of the Melting Snow’. Cinematic strings, romantic lyrics and a slightly more upbeat B-side in the form of ‘A Short Weekend Begins With Longing’. It’s available to download but it would be far more festive to buy one of the limited edition handmade copies in the spirit of wonky gingerbread men and glitter-glued everything.
There’s just one thing we’re a little bit worried about. Where are all the sleighbells???????
Now I know I sound like a purist, medicine but sometimes I wish Photoshop had never been invented. After seeing the ingenuity of the post-war artists featuring in Estorick’s ongoing exhibition, rxCut & Paste: European Photomontage 1920-1945, I longed for the days when you could actually tell something had been done by hand. When skill was quantifiable – based on precision, patience and masterfully cut and mounted shapes; not down to your aptitude with adjustment layers, clipping masks and liquify tools. Of course these arguably require a well-honed set of digital skills within themselves, but Photoshop has cheapened photography to a certain extent. Unimaginably cool things can be done on it by anyone with a shard of creative impulse, so we can’t help but lose the eensiest bit of respect for the end product, no matter how groundbreaking this may be. Don’t you think?
Regardless, this is a little gem of a show. Small – with only around 25 pieces – it looks at the modernist manipulation of photomontage (in which cut-out photographs and fragments of newsprint from illustrated journals were pasted into drawings and paintings) by the Cubists, Futurists and Dadaists. There’s also a healthy dose of angular Russian Constructivism in there, so for such a small exhibition, they have all the seminal art movements of the early 20th Century well and truly covered.
Developed towards the end of the First World War by the Dadaists in Berlin (the word ‘photomontage’ was taken from engineering and film editing practices) it was a way of making art with a new kind of conceptual clarity. And grit. It was powerful and playful – there is one untitled image of Hitler and a devilish-looking Churchill quaintly enjoying a cup of tea together – and mixed mediums in a way which made people stop and look. And they still have that affect today.
All the works are beautifully balanced and composed. Italian Futurist Enrico Prampolini’s Broom (1922) is a punchy little piece with huge red circles and chunky text overlaid on a photo of a massive machine, while Gustav Klucis’ Spartakiada Moscow / All-Union Olympiad (1928) is packed with movement and angles so sharp you could cut your fingers on them.
Curated by Lutz Becker, Cut & Paste showcases work made almost a century ago, but which feels surprisingly fresh and modern. It’ll make you turn off your computer, pick up a pair of scissors and start attacking The Daily Mail like there’s no tomorrow. I think that’s always a good thing.
I’m not a person who wins things; Lady Luck is not my friend. Never has my name been picked from a raffle or hat, discount scratch cards always defeat me, and even when I tried to Derren Brown the ticket man at Walthamstow Dogs, “Look into my eyes, this is the winning ticket”, I still came away empty handed. So when my name was electronically selected for the Time Out Bus Tour, a heavily over-subscribed perk to First Thursdays, I was veritably excited.
I’m not sure what I imagined, a day of musing amalgamated in something entirely inconceivable bearing reference to the Playbus and set firmly beyond the realm of reality. This is the description from which I fabricated: Each month, join leading curators, writers, academics and artists on a guided bus tour visiting a selection of First Thursdays Galleries; and that’s precisely what it was, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed when I saw a very ordinary looking bus waiting outside Whitechapel Gallery, a bit health & safety and sanitised, OAP visit to Hastings anyone?
If you were in fact there for a guided bus tour with leading academics, curators, and artists, and not for a bus of dreams, then you’d probably be satisfied. Four selected galleries, a talk from a curator in each, and the wealth of information that only a guided tour can give, adding much more depth to your engagement with the work. My favourite part was a six-strong bowling team that unofficially tagged along, following the bus in a Transit, and innocuously joining the talks wearing matching blue team shirts, names on the breast. I did feel a pang of jealousy at the scores of people casually strolling between galleries on Vyner Street, drinks in hands, hmmms and ahhhs at the ready. I’ll opt for a home made bicycle tour next time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this.
If you’re planning on going to any of these events, sale or have something you want to write an article about for the Earth Blog, email us: earth@ameliasmagazine.com!
Now here’s a lovely story: One felt-making coffee morning in South London, three suburban mums discover a shared hoarding habit, a joy in rummaging through rubbish and a desire to make pretty things (with or without the use of felt). Out from the discarded chicken-shop boxes and begrudged lotto tickets emerged, not Oscar the Grouch (think Sesame Street) but The Skip Sisters.
These ladies really know how to make-do-and-mend, rescuing shabby bits and bobs found in skips and attics and revamping them into something truly lovely. 100% eco-friendly.
From now until Christmas Eve the Skip Sisters will be selling all sorts of treasures from the debris at 14 Northcross Road in East Dulwich. (Not open Mondays).
Clocks made out of tins…found in a skip!
Jewelry…found in a skip!
Necklaces made with real human hands…found in a skip!
At 3am on the morning of the 7th of December two mini buses, thumb a 1960s fire engine and just over 50 cold, eager and very excited protesters turned up at a gate near the long stay car park of Stansted airport. Calmly and attentively we piled out of the mini buses and began to swarm around the entry point. A security vehicle happened to be passing just as we arrived, which instilled some nervous butterflies in our stomachs, but there was no stopping us. Once through the fence panel with our wire cutters we marched, as if to a temporary ark of safety (which we were to construct), two by two, carrying the tools and materials we were to need. Our objective was to reach the taxiway and setup a Harris fence enclosure around us to which we would lock-on to for as long as possible. After 6am, which was when the first flight was scheduled for take-off, every minute was to count as extremely important – directly stopping the release of ridiculous amounts of CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere.
We were all so pleased to be doing something so direct; the feeling was one of pride in knowing that we were helping to facilitate discussions, raised levels of awareness, and aid to those directly suffering as a result of raised CO2 emissions in developing countries around the world. It really won’t be long before we are seriously suffering from our selfish actions, we need to look and focus on long-term rewards not short term ones. In reading the press coverage after the action I have been surprised to read a few comments by people who were disrupted – one man was quoted to say “Why couldn’t they have waited a few hours?” if we all adopt that approach where will we be left?
I will go on to strongly encourage non-violent direct action to be taken by as many of you reading this as possible, it feels so great to be there, in the heart of potential change, to be able to say “I have tried my hardest”. It is our future generation who will suffer, and personally I don’t want my children to be struggling as much as they will be if no “green” systematic changes occur.
At The Climate Safety Talk delivered at Friends House, Euston, a few weeks ago I became scared – and directly inspired by that very fear to act, with others feeling the same way, as soon as I could, as this seems to have the most impact. I am newly accessing this level of climate science through living with some of the most inspiring women I have had the pleasure to meet and we discuss this issue of climate change daily, and innovatively focus most of our energy in the direction of raising awareness and creating social change methods and access points. Tamsin Omond lives upstairs and is helping to organize another suffragette style Climate Rush at Heathrow on Jan 12th, which I invite everyone to attend. Beth Stratford, Mel Evans, who spoke to the press after the Stansted protests, and Clemmie James from the Drax 29 also inhabit this eco-warrior house.
This action came as an opportunity for myself and others to not just discuss what is happening, but directly and physically respond, and gain immediate results – we stopped 86 flights from leaving the airport and acted as a catalyst for many many discussions.
Stansted has on average at least one flight leaving its runway every minute during working hours generating a shocking 4.2 tonnes of CO2 every single minute! Aviation is the fastest growing source of emissions and already contributes at least 13 per cent of the UK’s total climate impact. In October controversial plans for an expansion of Stansted Airport were given the go-ahead by the Government. Airport owner BAA wants to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million a year and flights leaving the airport from 241,000 to 264,000 a year. Objectors say an expansion would damage the environment, but some unions said the proposal could bring new jobs. Do we really need new jobs in this sector, should the Government not be pushing for new green jobs to go along with its emissions reduction target? The target that has been broadly accepted by many bodies including our own Government is that a rise in global average temperature of more than 2C above its preindustrial value must not be allowed. If this airport expansion is really given the go-ahead there will be very little chance of us being able to achieve the targets.
Aviation is the fastest growing cause of climate change and a major threat to the earth and everything living on it. But rather than reining the industry in and trying to reduce demand for flying, the government is promoting it through tax breaks and through its plans for massive expansion at our airports: the equivalent of a new Heathrow every five years!
Plane Stupid demands a fundamental rethink of the government’s 2003 Aviation White Paper which predicts that air travel will treble by 2030: an increase in annual plane journeys from 180 million to 501 million.
We, as Plane Stupid want to see airport expansion plans scrapped, and an end to short haul flights and aviation advertising.
Discussions and presentations are important, as the information and science needs to spread as far and wide, and touch as many people as possible, but we need to follow contact with this information with direct action as nothing else seems to be getting the results we need as soon as we need them. The Government has been making empty promises of reductions in the levels of CO2 emissions, and as nothing has happened yet we want to directly affect this ourselves.
www.planestupid.com
It’s Saturday and everything at the Eco-Design Christmas Fair in the Old Truman Brewery, piluleBrick Lane, is daubed in gloominess. Thanks to the amazing British weather, the Christmas spirit is not in the air as greyness bears down through the skylights and umbrellas drip a murky trail behind each visitor. We all gravitate towards a stall selling mulled wine, but the smell – delicious at first – soon mixes with the sickly sweetness of organic soap and incense.
The fair, now in its fifth year, brings together designers whose work is centered on sustainability and kindness to the environment, the products on sale range from clothing, jewellery, toys and furniture to edible shoe polish.
The best find of the day is Finnish designer Minna Hepburn. Hepburn looks and sounds like she is channelling Claudia Schiffer, and is selling her leftover designs from London Fashion Week’s eco-sustainable show ,estethica. Her clothes, all creamy Scottish lace and organic or fair trade silk embellished with found brooches, buttons, outshine neighbouring designs. (pictured below)
Around the relatively small space, recycled jewellery stalls clamour for attention. Rosie Weisencrantz‘s display is by far the most elegant; some of her work is even framed and mounted on the wall. (pictured below) Weisencrantz was a weaver for 25 years before becoming a jewellery designer, and her pieces hang on intricately woven string. She also likes to root around at markets and on ebay for antique brooches, which she transforms into one-off, textured necklaces.
Using an altogether different approach, Kirsty Kirkpatrick buys enormous bags of old jewellery and spends hours sifting through, detangling chains and picking out gems, before reassembling them into new designs. She uses recycled materials too, making geometric necklaces from wine and biscuit boxes. Kirkpatrick has a quick smile and soft Scottish accent, and is obviously proud of her “anti-landfill” label. (pictured below)
After Minna Hepburn, the rest of the clothing at the fair is a bit of a let down. T-shirts are in abundance, most sporting slogans and stencilled graphics like those by design collective Edge. (Their ethos: “We will make eco-fashion cool if it kills us”). (pictured below)
Overall, there was far more here for the eco-jewellery enthusiast than anyone else.
Karolin Schnoor has contributed some illustrations to our upcoming Earth blog ‘Tipping Point’. We loved them so much we decided to make her our illustrator of the week! Her work is being featured in this week’s issue of TimeOut.
Below are a few examples of her work, here and a little bit about her!
Reindeer Illustration (Part of a series of illustrations by Karolin appearing in TimeOut)
“I am originally from Germany and came over to London to study Illustration with a 5 month stint at a Parisian school in my third year. In my illustration work my main interest is narrative and characters and lately I have really enjoyed labouring over intricate folk-like patterns to contrast with my two-dimensional and quite simplistic drawing style.”
A recent Christmas card design
“I used to play it quite safe when it came to colours, physician using mainly pencil and occassional bits of red until I had a tutorial in my first year and my tutor called out rather exasperatedly: “What is missing here is colour! Colour!!” Since then I have gone a bit overboard sometimes but I think I am feeling more comfortable with colour now.
“Norwegian Wood” Illustration of the famous Beatles song
(screenprinted for Karolin’s degree show).
I was also rather obsessed with screenprinting at college and really miss it, but I think the process still informs the way I build my illustrations. At the moment I am freelancing, drawing, designing websites and I might be designing a book next year which I am very excited about.”
800feet is the new exhibition at sale 89490, see en.html”target=”_blank”>Space in Portsmouth, exhibiting the work of over 20 Portsmouth based artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and film. Established in 1980 by graduates of the then Portsmouth Polytechnic, Art Space Portsmouth will soon celebrate 30 years of supporting, nurturing and retaining creative talent in the City.
Tuesday Dec 16th
Museum 52 hosts a one-off festive grotto beginning today and running until Saturday the 20th. The grotto will pool in a breadth of work, with over 30 artists exhibiting unique hand-made works from tea-towels to comics, films, and scarves. A percentage of all profits will go to shelter.
“The Greatest sleeptalker in recorded history?” I would not imagine such a category to exist; who I wonder, is the second greatest sleeptalker in recorded history. I pointed you in the direction of Seventeen last week, but that was before I knew about the happenings in the basement, which is why I’ll recommend you to go again. So Somniloquent leads you into a dark basement of low ceilings and cubbyholes, where you are invited to sit back and listen to the surreal world as incarnated by Dion Mcgregor. Bizarre narratives and entire worlds were conjured by this man, only to be forgotten upon awakening, until somebody finally decided to put a tape recorder to the purpose. It runs until the 24th of January.
Friday Dec 19th
Head down to St Johns Church in Bethnal Green this Friday for Ghost, hosted by the Belfry Project and guest-curated by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal, a spooky project that plays on the 1953 artwork by Marcel Duchamp entitled “A Guest + a Host = a Ghost”. The show will spread over the entire space, spilling from the cobwebbed dark alcoves of the belfry into the entrance hall, past the red velvet curtains and into the church. There will be performances, video, sound and scent installations, and later on, a program of artists’ films. Mulled wine and mince pies too!
According to the fountain of knowledge aka Wikipedia, ‘Fan death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can cause the death of those inside.’ Interesting… Whether this was the inspiration for the band name, I don’t know, but I do know that their tune, with its 70′s funky strings and Debbie Harry-esque vocal, mixed with 80′s synth beats, went down well in the party mix.
Our thoughts about the song were that, although it was fine accompaniment to our turkey and stuffing, it wasn’t a highly distinctive or original tune. As my housemate put it, “I’d dance to it if it was on in a club, if I was drunk, but I wouldn’t be bothered otherwise.”
I think she was being a harsh judge, although not groundbreaking, produced by club king Erol Alkan (who also provides a remix) Veronica’s Veil is a solid electro pop tune that interestingly merges the key sounds of my two favourite musical decades and deserves to be more than just background music.
Celebrate a goth Christmas headlined by bowlcutted eyeliner queens playing a weird and wonderful fusion of 60s and 80s guitar sounds in excellent monochrome outfits. Dark pop disco support.
The Boy Least Likely To, The School, Mia Vigour, Hoxton Bar and Grill, London
Christmas party from dreamy whimsical pop gang who are releasing a Christmas single this year.
Britpop stalwarts who’ve been around for at least a decade break out the indie, with support from up-and-coming, poppy Brooklynites TPOBPAH playing songs from their new album, out next Feb.
New folk extravaganza with performances from as many up-and-coming and up-and-come young folk stars as you can fit in one room. Many of them are either featured in the new issue of the magazine (out now!), or have been featured in the past.
Wednesday 17th December
A Thompson Family Christmas, Royal Festival Hall, London
More of a loosely interpreted folk family than blood relations (although it does feature his mother Linda and sister Kami), Teddy Thompson has organised this extravaganza in aid of Amnesty International.
Fresh from their stint as Roky Erikson‘s backing band, this Texan quintet are bound to bring some warped Southern musical weirdness to ULU. Expect dark, driving stoner-rock sounds.
The Broken Family Band, The Accidental, End of the Road @ Cargo, London
Whistful, unassuming country-tinged tunes with a sense of humour.
Maximo Park guitarist playing material from his new solo album with an early Graham Coxon jangly lo-fi feel. Screaming Tea Party also offer more of their bonkers but sweet pop tinged punk sounds.
Everyone, including Madonna’s, favourite gypsy punk band tend to play pretty explosive sets, often culminating in Eugene Hutz crowd-surfing on a drum and other scrape and bruise inducing antics.
An ideal Saturday night gig. Dress up, go out and dance dance dance to these electro faves.
Sunday 21st December
Sensible Sundays @ Lock Tavern: The Wild Wolves, The Social, Helouisa, Lock Tavern, London
The perfect end to the weekend/ beginning of real Christmas at this folky acoustic afternoon to evening. Look out for Helouisa, a uke-toting trio with the voices of angels, influenced by the likes of Emmy the Great and Peggy Sue and the Pirates. But then we would say that as the Luisa of their name is our very own art girl.
Joan Wasser – Singer, find songwriter, and violinist, and seemingly omnipresent force in the New York indie scene. Starting her post-music-school career in the Damnbuilders, Those Bastard Souls and Black Beetle, she has since racked up a very impressive CV. In 1999 she became a ‘Johnson’, featuring on the Mercury winning ‘I am a Bird Now’, Anthony Hegarty being a dramatically positive and calming influence on her both personally and musically.
The mishmash of folk milling around the Empire typifies Joan’s broad appeal. Clearly her talent knows no boundaries or subcultures which can’t be won over, which creates a delicious mix of middle-aged couples, muso types and uber-trendy lesbians.
She commands the stage with her sultry New York sassiness, giggling at the irritating and oh-so British heckles that makes you wish you could sod off and see her properly in New York. The first few songs, although technically perfect, seem to be missing something until suddenly, the weighty silence that fell in the fist few bars of ‘To be Lonely’ hit. Effortlessly, she pours the melody into the piano keys, which melt with the words and take you to her world. In fact, Joan’s world is very much Joan’s music. As an artist she is intrinsically linked to her history, her story, and it’s the subjectivity of her music that makes her so appealing. One of the most exhaustive sets I have ever seen, she pretty much played her entire back catalogue, including ‘Eternal Flame’, ‘Christobel’ and incredible Elliot Smith tribute ‘We Don’t Own It’.
Joan breathes, bleeds, feels and loves. Her solo work is very much her new beginning and the performance has this wonderful amalgamation of an accomplished, qualified, and experienced musician with something so fresh, tender, and pure. She’ll make you laugh, cry and fall in love all at the same time.
This was an event for the lovers of fun, more about performance, website like this spectacle, fascination and interaction, and was it all of the above…oh yes, most definitely!
Decompression celebrates the reuniting and collaboration of like-minded artistic individuals who are familiar with Burning Man and/or No-Where festival(s). They refer to the gathering as a reunion. The on-site setup lasts a mere two days, but artists, performers and choreographers work for just over a month in preparation for this one night. Decompression, Burning Man and No-Where describe their holistic key principles as:
• Self-expression: The freedom to BE in a creative and liberating space.
• Radical self-reliance: YOU are responsible for YOURSELF.
• No commerce: Bring it because you can’t buy it, give it because you can.
• Leave no trace: Create something from nothing, and leave nothing behind.
• Participation: Get involved, this is not an event for spectators.
I haven’t attended Burning Man or No-Where, but what I’ve heard from those who have is always so positive and inspiring. The two events have been said to be life changing, and are also said to stay within the hearts of all participators for life. The key principles lay down the ideals held centrally by most successful communities, and I feel this is really the way we need to all begin living.
Within a community you have so much support, so much strength-brought from everybody’s unique sets of gathered and nurtured skills and their desire to share them, a sense of shared purpose and the ability to achieve great things through all of the above points collectively. Greenpeace have published an Energy (R)evolution report which talks of energy solutions coming from local opportunities at both a small and community scale. Their focus is on us all working together to produce a sustainable model of living, and I feel that these events inspired by Burning Man, and Burning man itself of course, are celebrated examples of what it is to be and function within that method of collective habitation, energy production (homemade solar panels and water purifiers being a common site within the festivals), food and waste management. Theses spaces, allowing a coming together of similarly focused creatives, also allow a lot of focused discussion around important topics, and being an important topic, sustainable models of living get spoken about a lot. These people are trying to break down the barriers between people and to re-focus energy on shared living, creativity and innovation.
Burning Man (Nevada desert, California), No-Where (The site is situated in the region of Aragon in northern Spain between Zaragoza and Lleida desert, Spain) and London Decompression are events linked through concept, predominantly focusing on shared experience and expression, with an overwhelmingly strong foundation of creativity. There is a leave no trace concept, which after a week of partying and artistic workshops in the middle of the desert with thousands of other people can, as you will imagine, takes a little time-combing every square foot-they are not happy to leave a single sequin!
images from Genevive Lutkin-Burning Man 2007
I was working alongside three really good girl friends of mine to produce a recycled elephant sculpture, whose body acted as a tent and projector screen, and which offered an educational journey thought the mandala painting techniques originating from South India. Our elephant was exploring what you could create with rubbish, and how you could turn it into something beautiful, making people think about what they throw away. Wire coat-hangers, hanging baskets, stripped electrical wire and plastic milk bottles made up the body structure. The tent and 4 costumes were made from a few meters of bought fabric, but decorated with sections of old sari fabric we had been collecting for the last few years, the floor underneath the elephant was covered with saris, on which lay pots and pots of the brightest rangoli paint, 4 blackboards and lots of rangoli stencils.
Rangoli, also known as Alpana, Kolam and by other names is a traditional art of decorating courtyards and walls of Indian houses, places of worship and sometimes eating-places. The powder of white stone, lime, rice flour and other paste is used to draw intricate and ritual designs.
Although Rangoli art is Maharashtrian in origin, it has become quite popular all over the country. Each state of India has its own way of painting Rangoli. One characteristic of Rangolis is that it’s painted by commoners. On some special occasions like Diwali it is painted in every home, with or without formal training in Rangoli art. The art is
typically transferred from generation to generation and from friend to friend.
images from Monique Gregson-Hampi, South India, 2005
images supplied by Yolanda Yong-Decompression 2008
Sophie Rostas, of Café Cairo (a nomadic decorational and tea party troupe who put on beautiful nights at changing venues, since their South London site burnt down a few years ago) created a greatly entertaining performance based instillation called ‘Feast of Fools’, for which I aided her in costume making. The feast was held at a huge wooden table, constructed especially for the event, on which a dance was held, then a lavish feast of skipped food spread. A precession of fools in costume led an inquisitive crowd to the table. After a ballet performed by two beautiful dancers hatching our of eggs on the table, the performance began…an eager and excitable king sitting at the head of the table on a chair raised to be on-top of the table stomped a steady beat to which 8 dancers circled the table in rich, exquisite costume. The circling slowly declining from an orderly chair swap to hectic table clambering and mass interaction, not just with the other members of the dance, but with the onlookers, and as the order dropped the kings beat quickened pace, with him becoming more and more excited by the movement of his fools. It ended up with his passing out and being carried off the table, to return with a broom sweeping up the scraps of the feast a little later.
images from Joie De Winter-Decompression 2008
The Café Cairo nomadic troupe
The transformation for Decompression is quite incredible with its pace, transforming old railway arches, now used as car parks, into a rich artistic exploration. The artists can apply for funding directly from the organizers, who will try and cover up to 70% of their total spending on materials. This allows artists the freedom to work without being hindered by material costs, although a lot of the participating artists work with reclaimed materials, scavenged from here and there, the budget helps with necessities needed for the pieces. Imagine the space if you will…dark, large and cave like with each corner, section of the ceiling, large open space and doorway covered or filled with a different instillation, from huge art cars, costume camp, to water tanks for underwater ballet performances in gas masks, a tunnel of lust and love full of projections and erotic sounds, a photographer and his plush set awaiting visitors in extravagant and curious fancy dress in the corner of one room, a Drawing Booth by Interactive Instillation artist Joie De Winter and too many more instillations and art pieces to mention.
Joie’s Drawing Booth is a highly interactive performance based piece featuring set, concept, performance and makeup. It offers up an environment, which encourages social exploration through creative engagement. Rather than relying on the capturing of a moment and memory within a photo booth, she creates a richer version of this experience and celebrates the art of drawing as a social tool.
image from Joie De Winter-Decompression 2008
If jewellery is your gift of choice this year, page thanks to the internet there is an abundance of quirky and beautiful necklaces etc to get your hands on. If you want to make your choice extra festive, order here are some places that have brought out exclusive Christmas pieces. Snap them up fast as last postage date to places in the UK is the 19th December.
If you love to wear a necklace and have people admire it saying, “where did you get that from?” This is the place to go. Anyone would be very happy with a unique trinket from here, especially this seasonal necklace:
So go on, get the lady in your life a Christmas trinket she will treasure all year round.
Wetdog thrive on the chaotic; their debut longplayer Enterprise Reversal is a head-spinning, web giddy joyride of layered chants, sick sharp guitars and thick, viagra 60mg reverb-laced bass lines, all pushing, shoving and fighting each other for room on each of the record’s 22 tracks. But amid all of the pandemonium, there is a strong, swaggering melody to keep things ticking over and entrancing, jabbering lyrics that verge on inaudible, but still deviously drag you ear-first into the commotion.
Continually changing tempo from track to track, the record sways between the raucous and the slower, more sprawling thumps, but retains a definite style, neatly affixing the assortment of songs together as a whole. ‘8 Days’ swings between thudding bass and chanting multi-vocals and ‘Zah und Zaheet’ conjures up memories of Nirvana during the Bleach-era (if they had a yelling girl group in tow).
With most of the tracks never pushing past the 2 minute mark, Wetdog undoubtedly won’t be to everyone’s taste, but their strident and unabashed style and jumbled sound of The Slits stumbling over The Fall is certainly attention-grabbing and deserving of a listen.
With unduly brilliant timing the Climate Change secretary Ed Miliband called for a Suffragette-type movement to push forward political change on the very same day as the Plane Stupid Stansted protest.
“When you think about all the big historic movements, recipe from the suffragettes, physician to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had popular mobilisation,” said Miliband, quoted in the Guardian on December 8th. “Maybe it’s an odd thing for someone in government to say, but I just think there’s a real opportunity and a need here.” So, in the spirit of the Suffragettes we at Climate Rush thought it would be nice gesture to invite Ed Miliband and some of his governmental cohorts along to Dinner at Departures, at Heathrow on the 12th January at 7pm. (Terminal One, y’all) After all, shouldn’t he be supporting us?
So, today I toddled off to Westminster to meet my fellow Climate Rushers with the aim of hand-delivering a few invites to our Dinner, which is, of course, open to all. Tamsin was instantly recognised by a ‘friendly bobby‘ who merrily told us that the last time he saw her was on the top of Parliament.
Photocall with the Evening Standard done we headed off to Downing Street. Which was when we realised that hand delivering invites is clearly worthy of police intimidation; two coppers were soon tailing our every move.
Maybe they felt it was a good use of tax payer’s money to capture the features of our youngest recruit, who delivered a festive invite for Gordon Brown. (why not invite them all?!)
Next up was Ed Miliband himself, over at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. We weren’t allowed much further than reception, but had time to admire the big TV screen showing images of penguins and cute seals (endangered….. ahhhh) and oil rigs (hmmmm) I hope he gets his invite.
On our way up to see Geoff Hoon over at the Department for Transport (who will make the final decision over whether the 3rd runway goes ahead) we passed a hair salon with an entirely appropriate name.
For some reason the security guards seemed a bit wary of us, making sure that the door was firmly closed and bolted when we delivered the invite.
Not so over at Defra, where environment secretary Hilary Benn‘s personal secretary came down to meet us in reception and accept the invite – she asked who she could rsvp to and we realised we hadn’t included an address – woops! Perhaps we weren’t quite expecting such personal attention.
We have done our best to invite the people we think should come to our Dinner at Departures – the people who will ultimately decide whether a new runway goes ahead. Now it’s up to you to make your own statement about what you think should happen – join us, dress Edwardian, and bring food to share. More information can be found here and on facebook here.
The aim of this project is to, sildenafil “inspire debate and awareness about the destructive impact of consumer values on the emotional wellbeing of society.” Through the medium of art.
The exhibition will take place between 16th – 27th of March 2009 and currently there is a call for artists, so if you are any kind of visual or performing artist and think that you would find it a satisfactory challenge, here is the brief and requirements:
* Painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
* Placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and fame, a failure to distinguish between what we need and what we want.
Consider that the excessive wealth seeking in consumerist nations lead to the unhappiness of its citizens and higher rates of emotional and mental distress.
The work
The exhibition is submission based with a solid panel of high profile judges including author and psychologist Oliver James, Jonathan Barnbrook (Barnbrook Design) and Michael Czerwinski (Design Museum) who will assess the work and decide on the final entries.
We encourage performance, sound pieces, sculpture, photography and broad based visual arts. Entrants are invited to submit a proposal for work to be completed or existing work.
We will need
* A brief biography/CV
* Artist statement
* Samples of work: CD or digital pdf is preferred, but we will accept up to 10 images, 35 mm slides. (Please include a self-addressed envelope if you need the work returned.)
* Proposal including dimensions and technical specifications
Submit your entry by 30th January 2009 for the chance to be included in the exhibition. To submit work contact Hege Sæbjørnsen on 07734944685 or e-mail submissions@theaffluenzaexhibition.org
Last week I gave you a dummy’s guide to the Climate Safety Report.
Round Two of my wising-up to climate science took place at The Wellcome Trust in Euston. It was an event run by TippingPoint, web an organization that sets out to provide up-to-date climate science to artists who might then go off to create something influenced by the knowledge they have ingested and further inspire the people that see their work. The idea is to spread the word to different sectors of society so that collectively we can start coming up with solutions to solve the problem.
We were greeted with a laminated nametag and a cup of mild coffee to prepare us for the (ahem) 5-hour lecture ahead of us. Here’s what I learnt…
Dr Chris West, medical Director of the UK Climate Impact Programme, was a lovely bear of a man with a comforting voice. He eased us into what would become a scientifically complicated afternoon (zzz) with The Basics. Wonderful. I felt gently steered from point to point and a few ‘basics’ were magically made clear.
Ta-daa…I now know about The Greenhouse Effect: This is when the hot and cold energy in the atmosphere is out of balance and causes the temperature here on earth to rise. The reason why there is this unbalance is because we are emitting too many (hot) greenhouse gases to cool that can’t cool the (hot) radiation that hits us from the sun. There is nowhere for these hot gases to go so they form a stuffy enclosure of concentrated heat around us, just like Kew Gardens.
Higher temperatures cause sea levels to rise and weather patterns to change dramatically. The point to which this cannot continue the aftermath is the problem this afternoon of presentations hopes to explore…
Anthony Costello, head of the Centre for International Health and Development at UCL, talked about the decrease in population of mountain marmots. Well sort of… he did say that it has been predicted 15-37% of species face extinction by 2050 as a direct result of climate change.
Climate change is ‘the global health problem of this century’. We know that Malaria transmissibility is set to increase significantly (hotter climate means more bugs to pass the disease about). Again he said that it is difficult to be certain how climate change will effect worldwide health but that research should focus on examining changing disease patterns, food security, human settlements and migration in relation to sea-level projections and hotter temperatures.
We then had a break and a chocolate biscuit or five. I perused the handouts tried to look insightful. Tim Lenton, professor of Earth System Science at the University of East Anglia, concentrated on this phenomenon of Tipping Points that had been bugging me. What are they and when do they occur? Well, in a nutshell, a tipping point is a point of no return. If we carry on heating up the planet, scientists predict that we will reach a point where we will go over our limits and enter a new climactic territory –the characteristics of which are uncertain but it’s not likely to be very habitable.
There seems to be some dispute as to whether there is one global tipping point that would lead to ‘runaway’ climate change or many tipping points dotted around the globe. But Tim Lenton was all about multiple tipping points (dirty bugger) that may work in a domino effect.
The Big Ones are the disintegration of arctic sea ice and the melt of the ice sheet in Greenland. Not forgetting the die back of the Amazon rainforest, the collapse of the Atlantic, the Indian monsoon… He summed up with saying that the tipping element is an inevitable component of the earth system and, with this is mind, we should be building future societies that are adaptive and resilient to climate tipping.
Diana Liverman, director of the Environmental Change Institute came on stage apologizing for being attached to her blackberry. She was in fact keeping tabs on the Climate Change Conference in Poznan. This is when a group of people from the U.N. sits around a table and work out how to cut back on global emissions. The 1997 Kyoto Agreement runs out in 2012 so plans are being made now for a new agreement to be decided in Copenhagen in 2009.
As we know, recent climate science calls for much deeper cuts. The proposed cuts are 50% worldwide and 80% in industrial countries, 20% in Europe and 80% in the U.K. The new agreement is set to include developing countries (China, India and Brazil) who have previously had no commitment, and of course the big bad U.S.A.
It is also intended to reform the Clean Development Mechanism (C.D.M), a system whereby developing countries reduce their emissions and developed countries reach their emission targets through joint activities. So far it hasn’t worked very well and there needs to be a big change in the way countries are dealing with/failing to deal with their emission targets. But habits are deep rooted, if we are going to combat global warming, there needs to be a major transformation of our social system.
The question on everyone’s lips was ‘how?’ How do we create change on such a grand scale?
We had hoped that big natural disasters would prompt change but the U.S. government’s failure to do so when Hurricane Katrina hit has squashed that one. So now there’s more focus than ever on pushing for civil mobilization; if our government can’t do it, we can. The recession is seen also to change people’s attitudes. As we have evidence that our old ways are not necessarily working, there should be massive investment into new alternatives such as geo-engineering. The view that high emitting corporations should be attacked directly also got a few nods. Or, as one lady put it nicely, mass social change can be achieved through ‘experiment, extremity and engagement with people who are different. ‘
Written by Lucy Jones on Wednesday December 17th, 2008 2:33 pm
14 Bacon Street, erectile E1 6LF, page 11th-18th December
The pop-up shop does what it says on the tin, buy appears in a different location for a limited time, so you have to be quick to get in and see what’s inside. But make the effort as you can find a plethora of goodies from new designers and artists, hand picked from exotic locations all around the world. The store also supports the East End charity Kids Company, so you’ll be doing your bit to help as you shop.
Enjoy an evening of late-night shopping on London’s trendiest street, as well as rumageing through all that vintage, there will be refreshments on hand and special Christmas gifts available only on this night.
The Bizarre Bazaar
Sunday 21st December
Monday 8th December Joan as Policewoman, Thekla, capsule Bristol
Ex-Antony and the Johnsons collaborator touring in support of her new album. Expect mesmerising vocals and heart-rending tunes.
Boss Hog, Luminaire, London
Jon Spencer (as in Blues Explosion) and his wife Cristina Martinez front this long-standing blues-rock outfit.
Tuesday 9th December
Kong, Buffalo Bar, London
Art-noise, cool as Manchester band, heavy on the guitars.
The Miserable Rich, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Folky, orchestrated Brighton group, with links to Lightspeed Champion.
Sixtoes, Big Chill House, London
Cinematic, spooky blues-folk with a melancholy Eastern European edge.
Wednesday 10th December
Little Death, Club Fandango @ 229, London
Cool, cosmopolitan London band playing psychadelic tinged noise-pop.
Land of Talk, Water Rats, London
Canadian indie-rock.
Thursday 11th December
Good Books, Proud Galleries, London
Danceable indie-electro.
Mike Bones, Old Blue Last, London
One man and his guitar.
Friday 12th December
Rose Elinor Dougall, Barfly, Cardiff
Pretty girl music from this ex-Pipette. Still very pop but less of the sixties girl group rip-offs.
Free Fridays: Brute Chorus, La Shark, Josh Weller, 93 Feet East, London
Bonkers hair (Josh Weller) and outfits (La Shark) will abound at this FREE night featuring up-and-coming bands including Brute Chorus who will presumably play new single ‘She Was Always Cool’.
Saturday 13th December
Herman Dune, The Deaf Institute, Manchester
Perennial Parisian folksters on tour to promote new album ‘Next Year in Zion’.
Glissando, Holy Trinity Church, Leeds
Dreamy and ethereal. Should be lovely in a church.
Stereolab, Black Box, Belfast
Long-standing lounge/electronic post-rock with female French singer.
Getting up at 6am on a cold Saturday morning may be unthinkable to some -but for myself and fellow fashion enthusiasts, information pills the Angels Vintage and Costume clothing sale was more than enough motivation for the long, look early trek over to Wembley….or so we thought. The queue turned out to be VERY long… a 3 to 4 hour wait we were told. Despite our earlier determination, it was too long for us and we gracefully admitted defeat, leaving behind a growing queue of seriously hardcore shoppers.
One of those hardcore shoppers was ameliasmagazine.com’s very own Music Editor, Prudence Ivey, here’s her take on it, “Leaving the house at 6.30am, we were in the queue by about 7.15am and, although in the first 500, we were nowhere near the front. Some people – vintage shop buyers – had been there since Friday afternoon. There was a really friendly atmosphere, you could tell these people were true vintage fiends, as there was not a scruffbag in sight, it was all red lipstick and glamourous outfits despite the ungodly hour.
When we were allowed in, after just over an hour of wating, there was virtual silence and heads down as people rifled through the cardboard boxes packed with clothes on the floor. A cloud of dust filled the room after about 10 minutes, most of the clothes were in a bit of a state and everything I ended up with turned the water black when I put it in to hand-wash, not to mention my black snot… A quick sort through, try on and swapping session with my friend, along with some excellent packing meant that I left with 18 items of pretty decent, some of them really excellent, vintage finds for a measly £20. One of my favourite shopping trips EVER.” (above and below is Prudence modeling her two of her wonderful buys)
So now I wish I had stayed in the queue – but my day was not wasted, I found a far more inviting alternative, which boasted the benefits of being a. inside and b. no queue! It was the first London edition of New York magazine BUST‘s Christmas Craftacular.
Set in the St. Aloysius Social Hall in Euston, a mixed group of cool crafty kids, cute guys and even grannies filled the aptly dated-yet-cozy bar, and the Shellac Sisters played classic retro tunes on their wind-up gramophone, which added to the kitsch atmosphere. Having taken off in New York over the last 4 years, the Craftacular event has now come to British shores and brings together craft sellers, knitting circles, badge making stations and of course, lots of cake!
Tatty Divine turned into doctors for the day and set up their very own ‘craft clinic’ offering advice and tips to craft novices or lovers.
An ArtYarn Guerilla Graffiti Knitting Crew even set up a training camp, where boys sat happily next to their teachers, learning how to knit one, pearl one and Random Monkey Designs offered lessons in cross stitch.
With a packed out venue and buzzing crowd, it’s likely that (and we hope) the Craftacular event will become a regular date in the British calendar.
Monday Dec 8th
It seems most exhibition spaces in this area begin like this, drugs in someone’s flat. Every day this week at 79a Brick Lane, viagra 100mg there will be an exhibition of seven separate artists (one for each day) alongside a selected feature film, including the likes of Saturday Night Fever, North by Northwest, and The Truman Show. It starts at eight and ends when the film does. For a more detailed itinerary, check here. Admission is free.
Tuesday Dec 9th A Family in Disguise, by Yu Jinyoung has been extended at Union on Teesdale Street and is worth a look, if not only for the fact that entering the exhibition is a surreal experience in itself. Not a curator to be seen, and with a camera that links the room to their gallery in Ewer Street, you are alone in a haunting room with this disparate family of forlorn faces. Ring the buzzer and take a look.
Wednesday Dec 10th
Indian Highway is the new exhibition starting today at the Serpentine, describing itself as a snapshot of the vibrant generations artists working across the country today, well-established artists shown besides lesser known practitioners. Using a array of medias they are threaded together with a common engagement with the social and political, examining complex issues in contemporary India such as environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class. It runs until Feb 22nd.
Thursday Dec 11th
Hermetic Seel is a new exhibition by Shane Bradford opening on Wednesday at the Vegas Gallery. It might just be satisfying to see fourteen historical art encyclopedias subjected to Bradford’s “post-Pollock” dipping technique.
Friday Dec 12th
Here’s what one of our writers said of Omnifuss’ last exhibition: In the heart of Dalston, down the end of a small alley road was a large garage with a little door. Through this door, a group of 24 artists showcased their work. Sculpture, music, performance and photography took place in the old car workshop that was far away from the usual pristine white walls of gallery spaces and created a rustic, and inspiring location for this exhibition. With flame heaters to warm those tootsies, and the symphonious sound of a violinist haunting the open rooms, I found myself immersed in the eclectic furniture and art… Downstairs is their new exhibit, an exploration of domesticity in its rawest states through sound, sculpture, video and installation, and by the sounds of it is worth a visit.
Saturday Dec 13th Awopbopaloobop. Artists listen to music, everyone listens to music. Lyrics are etched into our minds whether we want them there or not, and we can’t help but allow them to inform our everyday. Awopbopaloobop (I just like saying that word) is an exhibition at http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/index.html, asking a host of artists to produce based on a favourite song lyric. This exhibition is coming to an end, (21st of Dec), so go and see it if you haven’t already. The space itself is worth the trip, and it’s fun to walk around a gallery with a song-sheet in your hands!
Brian Aldiss’ short story, drug “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, this to which the exhibition “Super-Toys” makes reference, abortion tells the story of a mother and her android son in the overcrowded world of the future who, however hard they try, cannot find a way to love each other. It makes love seem like a human malfunction, a flaw which can never be imitated. But moreover it captures the feeling of dismay when two people who know that they should love each other realise they can’t – that they fundamentally don’t know how. The android boy, who questions whether or not he is real, seems more humane than his human mother; who sends him to be repaired for the flaw from which she herself suffers. Love cannot be programmed; but is a lover not someone who says all those things that you want to hear, like an automated machine?
So with high expectations of an exhibition dealing with the strange interaction between humans and machine, fantasy and reality, love and compromise; what I found was initially disappointing. The notions the story had alluded to, the emotions and the complexity of them, were not to be found. Machine ducks floating in a pond, a room of human shaped stuffed objects lying mundanely on the floor; flashing machines dancing in a square box; all interesting to look at, but lacking explanation. The most interesting part of the exhibition was the nightmarish, garish and lurid room that followed, full of toys ripped apart: toys with two head, toys mutilated and deformed by visitors, and all in the name of art. With shelves and window ledges packed already, I was invited to create my own monster from a pile of rejected toys. There was something sinister about being instructed to rip the head off a teddy bear; glue Barbie legs where paws should be; and to work at a designated workstation. Despite the visual pleasure and hands on aspect of super-toys, it seemed to be an exhibition full of concept without real content. But maybe that’s what it allows you to do; to explore you own memories of love, childhood, playfulness and ultimately rejection; and realise that everyone else feels the same way too.
Anne Collier Dispersion is a patchy affair. Curated by the director of the Chisenhale gallery Polly Staple, hospital it features seven artists working from different locations, view tied together under the banner of an examination of the ‘circulation of images in contemporary society….in our accelerated image economy’. This seems a fairly sound starting point, although a bit nebulous and too wide in the sense of the number of artists that could be described as grappling with these issues.
Recycling and colliding of images is examined most clearly in Anne Collier’s photographs. Iconic posters, complete with creases, walk the line between multiple realities; but unlike other work in the show, the centre of power lies not in some theoretical hinterland but in the jarring sensation between seeing the photograph of the image and the image itself. Again this is hardly a new idea but it is well executed. The twin set of images a box of photos of the sea provides a further layer of tension between the natural and man-made.
Anne Collier
Seth Price
Most of the the other works are films. Seth Price’s ‘Digital Video Effect:Editions‘ (2006) , juxtaposing high and low cultural references (such as those barriers still exist), feels like an early 90′s MTV insert in its scope and complexity. Mark Leckey, now with the epithet ‘Turner Prize Winner’, is due to give a one off lecture/live performance ‘Mark Leckey in the Long Tail‘ in January tackling the similar ground, hopefully to better effect.
A better example of the film work on display is Hito Steyerl’s fascinating ‘Lovely Andrea’ (2007). This is an engaging documentary-esque look at a Japanese bondage artist, cut with scenes fom Wonder Woman cartoons and ‘backstage’ footage of the creation or recreation of scenes, calling the whole film’s authenticity into question. This could have led to a horribly self reflexive pile of mush but is actually a taut and gripping set of mixed narratives.
Henrik Olesen’s computer printed images mounted on blackboards, ‘some gay-lesbian artists and/or artists relevant to homosocial culture V,VI.VII’(2007), a collection reappropriated around queer history, touched on interesting ideas; a collection of female portraits by female artists from Renaissance onwards, for example. But the sum of its parts felt lazy and, like the rest of the show, he veers into hectoring or frustrating silence instead of fostering conversation between the work and viewer.
This is a problem, but one the ICA can absorb better than other cultural centres. The institution was founded as an ‘adult playground’ and this remit naturally involves risky and challenging work, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Dispersion is a perfect encapsulation of this.
The disjointed art punk of San Fransisco’s Deerhoof is pretty brilliant on record but I’d heard it was even better live and so couldn’t wait to see them at ULU on their only UK date this year. Their music is disarmingly simple sounding, online loved by music aficionados and 10 year old girls alike – my kid sister loves Panda Panda Panda and Milkman almost as much as any Girls Aloud single. Perhaps I should have sent her along to review the show. It would have been easier for her to convince the people on the door that she was called Prudence Ivey (the name I was under on the list) than a scruffy and definitely male reviewer. They thought I was a street-crazy.
Achieving such wide-ranging popularity is an impressive feat considering that, sick underneath that childlike simplicity, their songs consist of complex structures alongside fragments of dissonant guitar thrash/twang and improvisation. However, seeing Deerhoof is no overblown, intellectual chore. They manage to be simultaneously clever, loud and cartoonishly entertaining and enlivened ULU with a set that encompassed a lot of new album material alongside some stuff to keep the old school fans happy.
The crowd were particularly receptive to old favourite Milkman, along with the Yo La Tengo-in-a-parallel-universe sounds of new album Offend Maggie – a title that always gives me the mental image of an outraged, pre-dementia Margaret Thatcher. There were clipped drums ahoy, along with Deerhoof’s twinkling wire to fuzz guitar textures. Satomi’s vocals, all coy and Japanese, were accentuated by goofy hand gestures – a fitting accompaniment to her surreal and playful subject matter. The whole band were really tight and surprisingly enthusiastic after fourteen years playing together. I can’t wait to see them again.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, drugs I thoroughly recommend this charming animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return. This definitely ‘isn’t about polar bears anymore!’
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out then Get a Grip in the Aniboom Awards 2008 click here.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, buy information pills I thoroughly recommend this snappy animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return.
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out in Aniboom Awards 2008. No Equal clothing are a company who don’t pander to press agendas and celebrities, sick instead they are refreshingly focused on working with new and exciting design talent and helping charities.
They also know how to throw a party – and it was good cause central. In the first room of The Russian Club Studios was a display of logoed t-shirts and hoodies, website like this made in collaboration with three emerging illustrators– Yann Le Bec, Thibaud Herem and Jean Jullien.
10% of the sales – not just profit – of this No Equal apparel are being donated to three charities, which No Equal Clothing are supporting, Kidsco, Addaction and XLP. To mix up the mediums and give some background to the collaborations, there was also a video installation showing the three artists at work.
In the second room, as part of their desire to champion new designers, No Equal clothing held a silent auction (of which all profits go to Kidsco, Addaction and XLP) for the London College of Fashion. Seven of LCF’s undergraduate students working for the college’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion created collections that were environmentally and ethically conscious and these were being sold.
The auction is also a possible reason for the eclectic mixture of guests. East London kids hung out with men in suits (in separate groups obviously) in the sparse concrete venue created an unusual atmosphere, you could have been in an underground club, art gallery or exclusive couture shop.
The students collections were varied and interesting, Michela Carraro (pictured below) used hemp based fabrics sourced from small family run businesses to create a romantic chiffon-esque collection, while Manon Flener created deconstructed / reconstructed garments made of pieces of fabric pieced together with studs. She says her motivation for the collection was to reduce waste in fashion; each piece can be put together in a different way to make many garments.
Supporting the Fashioning the Future programme at LCF, which encourages designers to think about the environmental imapct of their work, No Equal clothing are actively championing eco-friendly designers of the future and with their own clothing label, bucking the greedy fashion trend by giving a percentage of profits to charity. Good work all round.
Last week the Earth team at Amelia’s Magazine went along to the Friends House in Euston to listen to a report made by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC). The issue was climate change and the information it uncovered was alarming.
As a self-confessed newbie to these sorts of events I must admit to harboring uneasiness about feeling out of place in a room full of swampys. But my silly preconceptions were immediately flattened.
Lead by a panel of speakers expert in their field, story the atmosphere at the Friends House was alive with people from all manner of backgrounds but united in the opinion that climate change is a matter of urgency.
Chairing the debate was Christian Hunt who kicked off by asking the audience a few questions. 99% raised their hand when asked whether they would describe themselves as environmentalists. Roughly 70% would say they had some knowledge of climate change while roughly 20% would say they had lots of knowledge on the subject. 99% of us responded yes we did like his t-shirt that read ‘don’t give up.’
The first to speak from the panel was Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He started with a clear message: the question of climate change is a humanitarian one. While the U.K. and E.U’s definition of a dangerous climate change as 2°C per annum may be an adequate threshold for us in the western world, it is not nearly small enough to safeguard the rest of the world.
It is the southern hemisphere, containing the world’s poorest, that is targeted the most by global warming in it’s present state, with people dying on a daily basis. Therefore it is an ethical decision about how much we care about the world’s weakest as to how and when we go about dealing with the climate.
He went on to say that the entire climate change debate needs an urgent rethink when taking into account the latest emissions data. The planet is heating up at an even faster rate than we thought, and our government seems to be denying this is happening by following the miscalculated advice from the Stern Report and not pumping in nearly dosh needed to implement a strategy that will radically cut back our emissions.
But Kevin Anderson pointed out there may be a silver lining to retrieve from the present economical situation. History has shown us that larger emission reductions occur when there is economic turmoil. I guess this has something to with cut backs in industry forced by a plummeting economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, for example, there was a record drop of 5% per annum.
Tim Helweg-Larson, the director of Public Interest Research Centre bounded onto the platform next. So this is where it gets rather technical but don’t worry, Tim’s clear and straightforward delivery meant that even my mind didn’t drift into thinking about what I might eat for tea.
He showed us a series of images showing the levels of sea ice in the arctic in 1979 and in 2007 and I was taken back to those pretty pictures in my school science lab…Predictably the more recent images contained a much larger surface area of dark gloominess.
These dark regions absorb more heat. This additional heat penetrates 1500km inland across a plain of perma-frost. This stuff is harmless if left untouched but once melted, its carbon content-which is twice the amount of the entire global atmosphere-is released into the air. Yep that means even more bad stuff is added to the high intensity of CO2 that started this whole malarkey.
The knock-on effect going on in the arctic-known as the triple melt- is steadily destroying the climatic state of the entire planet. Soon we will reach the point where we will no longer be within the realm of temperatures that enable things to grow and humanity to survive (known as the middle climate). If this isn’t scary enough this tipping point is likely to peak sooner than we thought; as early as 2011 to 2015.
George Momboit was next to speak. Hello. His exuberance for the cause was exciting…ooh la…did you know he has been shot at, shipwrecked and pronounced clinically dead? Well he was very much alive that evening as I listened – intently- to his practical, if ambitious, advice to the government to stop fannying about and introduce a ‘crash program of total energy replacement.’
He whizzed through a series of steps geared to cut our emissions by 20% by 2012 and more thereafter. But those wild curls, brisk demeanor and air of academic brilliance were just a little distracting. Without getting too carried away I managed to jot down the key points of this radical plan:
1. To train up a green army of builders that is equipped to build more energy efficient homes
2.A mass subsidy program to re insulate homes
3.Replacement of power plants
4.Re engineering of roads to cater better for cycles and coaches
5. To Cap number of landing spots for airports so that by 2030 the maximum number of flights is 5% of current levels.
6.Agriculture should be devoted to the most efficient carbon saving schemes
7.He summed up with the statement that lowering demand for fossil fuels should happen simultaneously with lowering their supply and we need to dramatically cut oil and gas exploitations.
Pretty rousing stuff…
Solar energy pioneer, Jeremy Leggett gave us a more buisnessy slant on what can be done for climate change especially in this current state of economic upheaval and an encroaching energy crunch (the I.E.A. predicts 5 years time). With people becoming increasingly disheartened by the government’s spending priorities, now’s the time to duck in and make a collective effort to re-engineer capitalism. He enforced the notion that money needs to go into building a carbon army of workers that would create 10 thousand new jobs and…cost a measly half a billion squid
Caroline Lucas, MEP for South East England and Leader of the Green Party, disheartened by the inertia of our government, shocked us all by urging ‘a massive campaign of civil disobedience.’ This prompted uproar amongst the audience and I must say it felt pretty inspiring .She went on to talk about Climate Rush, an activist group who take their inspiration from the Suffragette movement. Like the women who were denied the vote, their rush on parliament really is a demand for life itself. They also dress-up in fancy Edwardian petticoats, which sounds fun. But their theatricality is not without sincerity, direction and a passion to change the injustices that climate change is causing on humanity. Caroline Lucas’ speech stirred an energetic drive to ‘do something’ in me. She reminded us of the words of Emily Pankhurst ‘to be a militant is to be a privilege’ and something hit home. We are very lucky to not be totally powerless in this situation, as so many people across the world are, and it is possible to make our government listen to us, albeit with a bit of hard work. To find about the next climate rush action click here.
So I’ve dipped my toe into the murky sludge of our current climate. All the facts and figures might not have filtered through into this article but I hope if, like me, you previously thought this issue was for only for really clever people and maybe just a little put off by dreadlocks, you’ve realized that this is something we should all be aware of whether we want to listen to it or not, including our government.
As I left the Climate Safety talk to cycle home, I felt almost grateful for never bothering to learn to drive as perhaps in a small way it might make up for that stomach-sinking feeling of how terribly selfish I had been for only vaguely paying attention to news of melting popsicles and greenhouses.
The truth is I felt safe in the view that the really scary things won’t happen for a very long time, well after I’m buried in the ground and used for compost. Well I was wrong, it’s not our grandkid’s grandkid that’s going to feel the full force of climate change-it’s us.
We’ve searched online for hours to find these wonderful gift ideas for Christmas this year! Including solar powered fairy lights, advice recycled wrapping paper, rx sew-it-yourself dresses, fairtrade teddies and handmade jewellery.
JEWELLERY
Kate Slater First up on our list, and featured in Issue 10 of Amelia’s Magazine, we have wonderfully talented illustrator Kate Slater. She is one of many artists currently selling her work on etsy in the form of these gorgeous little accessories that she has made. Kate‘s illustrations come alive through the use of collage, mixed papers and wire for relief work. Furtive Pheasant Brooch Kate’s collaged pheasant has been remade into this lovely brooch. The original illustration has been printed onto durable shrink plastic and bejeweled with green diamantes. We love the idea of being able to wear Kate’s illustrations! Buy the Furtive Pheasant Brooch here
Butterfly Dress Kit Gossypium is a great place to buy gifts from! All the clothes on their site are high quality, fairtrade and made from biodegradable materials. They’re one of the great sites working with the idea of a zero-impact on the environment, and we’ve love this Butterfly Dress Kit. It is a sew-it-yourself organic cotton kit that comes with a lovely printed fabric and easy instructions to create one of three garments. You can make a blouse, a dress or a smock with or without pockets, and have the option of long or short sleeves; with nine different styles to choose from you are in total control of how your finished product looks! Buy the Butterfly Dress Kit here.
Solar Helicopter This little toy is perfect as a desk ornament, and is loads of fun for kids and grown ups! Working with as little light as from a desk lamp, the solar cells demonstrate how efficient modern eco technology is. Buy the Solar Helicopter here.
Outdoor Solar Powered Christmas Fairy Lights These all-year-round lights are a great way to bring some green sparkle to your home! They’re waterproof and come with 8 different settings including flashing, continuous light patterns! The lights only come on when it’s dark (so about 3:30pm…) and the solar panel uses high grade Kyocera Solar cells that store enough energy to run for 10 hours, even on winter days! These lights are a bargain too at only £19.99! Buy your Solar Powered Fairy Lights here.
These 100% recycled wrapping papers are by Lisa Jones and come in many different styles! They are modernist and brightly coloured using vegetable inks. Get some Recycled Wrapping Paper here.
Cardboard Cutting Table This 100% Icelandic made brilliant cardboard table can be used as a meeting table, a cutting table (it comes with a laminated white surface top), a dinner table and a baby changing table! It’s portable and folds away to save space! (and comes with a handy 18% discount for design students!). Buy the Cardboard Table here.
KIDS
‘Woodsy The Owl’ Bib This adorable bib is by etsy seller ‘cocoandmilkweed‘, consisting of Evan and Lila Maleah- a husband and wife team intent on creating lovely products for little and big people! Woodsy has been handmade in a dark brown eco-felt that has been made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, and sewn onto a soft cotton woodgrain fabric. the entire bib has been backed with organic cotton flannel and lined with organic cotton and bamboo for extra absorption! All this detail has added to its appeal, and it even has a snap closure to make sure its little wearer isn’t able to yank it off! Buy a ‘Woodsy The Owl’ bib here.
Dala Horse Stocking The Christmas tradition of stocking has been brought into the 21st century by Erin ‘sewsewsuckurtoe‘ by using the folk art inspired Dala Horse. It is constructed out of eco-felt which is made from recycled plastic bottles and lined in cotton to make it strong enought to hold as many things as possible! Buy a Dala Horse Stocking here.
Witness are a group, based in New York, that use video and online technologies to expose human rights violations all over the world. By making videos of victim’s personal stories, they direct attention to injustice and promote public engagement and policy change.
Sam’s first up on the video (below), telling us that the images of a school teacher in East Burma hiding out in a forest with her children is one of the images that shows us we need to go further with our actions to help those whose human rights have been severely violated.
A video producer, trainer and human rights advocate, Sam’s videos have been screened at the US Congress, UK Houses of Parliament, The UN and in film festivals worldwide.
The group are also launching an online channel for these videos called The Hub. This is a new multi-lingual online portal dedicated to human rights media and action. It provides the opportunity for individuals, organizations, networks and groups around the world to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention.
To find out more about Witness (www.witness.org) click here.
The non-existent morality faeries that do not sit either side of my head were in a fluster last Thursday. I took them down to a police auction in Bethnal Green, salve and for the entirety of my pedal there, they could not be resolved: surely there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalising on the lost and stolen goods of hapless victims, or worse still, liquidated assets, urgh! But then again, stolen … and retrieved; lost … and found. Where else would these items, long since departed from owners, go? I have nothing to say about liquidated assets, but apparently that’s next time – this week was reserved to lost and stolen goods only, courtesy of the metropolitan police; thanks.
Once we arrived, debates were dispelled and there was nothing to fluster about – it did not seem in the least bit seedy. This fortnightly event, put on by Frank G. Bowen Ltd Auctioneers and Valuers, two men both of whom are very friendly, one of whom looks like Santa Clause, takes place in an old air raid shelter, making for a strangely intimate and cosy affair. Potential bidders arrive early to browse, an advisable precaution seeing as nothing can be returned once purchased. I felt like the passer-by who steps into a regulars-only pub, my obvious excitement an instant give-away; but I tried my best to look like this was routine, and nestled myself in amongst the clutter on Lot 135, 1 wooden kitchen-table chair. Pensive brow in place, I concentrated on my catalogue sheet, my mind now settling to the bewildering list before me …
An initial glance reveals nothing of a surprise: bicycles, phones, cameras, and mp3 players; but it’s not long before you start to wonder … who steals a kitchen chair? A cupboard? An oak mirror overmantle (Lot 379)? The clothing list is the strangest of all: Lot 4: A pair of Ladies sandals, size 40; Lot 58: (non-specific) Ladies Clothing as bagged. One Lot contained a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a pair of trainers – all stolen from a single owner? How did that happen?
Against all inclinations, we ended up describing the place and the experience as a gem. Don’t go expecting to find vintage treasures, but there are amenities at a good price (surely I need a quad bike). And a few pointers: don’t let the excitement of bidding make you go for things for no other rational reason than the pleasure of raising your hand; careful of the man who will out-bid everyone for bikes; and don’t take a lunch break in the middle, thus missing that one item you’d circled in red that you were willing to spend forty quid on, and ended up going for under twenty, pah.
Don’t miss this excellent event tonight:
Cheshire Street Christmas Shopping
Friday 12th December
This Friday, case pop down to Cheshire Street as the whole street will be open to 10pm, cost so you can get your quirky Christmas gifts till late(ish) into the night and enjoy wine and nibbles while you do it. The shops will be offering exclusive discounts also, including 20% off on the night at I Dream of Wires. Amazing.
Frock Me! Vintage Fashion Fair
Sunday 14th December
Frock Me! vintage fashion should not be confused with the questionable television show of the same name hosted by a certain over-exposed designer and TV presenter. It is in fact a fabulous vintage fashion fair, and this Sunday, in the swanky surroundings of the Chelsea Town Hall you can pop down and pick up a genuine vintage garment.
They even have their own tea-room. What more could you want?
Open: 11am – 5.30pm
Admission: £4 (students £2 with ID)
Nearest Tube: Sloane Square / South Kensington
Christmas singles, diagnosis still the preserve of naff novelty acts, pillpop stars in trendy coats and X Factor winners, or newly fertile ground for acts that are unlikely to even get a sniff at the bottom of the charts? As the Top 40 becomes less and less of a barometer for success and following much-loved Christmas releases from the likes of Low and Sufjan Stevens, this year it seems that more and more indie bands are joining in on the act. But are any of them actually any good? And how to stop them seeming like lame commercial cash-ins in the style of the Christmas tunes of yore?
1. One way to quash accusations of rabid commercialism is to give your single away for free as Slow Club (see above) have done, with ‘Christmas TV’ offered as a free download in a spirit of seasonal goodwill to all mankind. A sweet little folk pop tune about travelling home for Christmas and snuggling in front of the Vicar of Dibley or some such, this is good for anyone feeling the pangs of seasonal separation. The boy/girl vocals chime prettily together in a song that has thematic echoes of ‘Driving Home For Christmas’.
2. Stay true to your signature style. If you’re usually a grumpy old misery guts, Christmas is no time to suddenly become cheerful just for the hell of it so why not whack out a truly miserable Christmas EP a la Glasvegas? A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) is the one to pull out when your Dad forgot to turn the oven down, your mum’s sobbing into her charred potatoes and your granny’s being cantankerous.
3. Restrict your mentions of the season to atmospherically wintery weather references a la The Leisure Society with their pretty waltz ‘Last of the Melting Snow’. Cinematic strings, romantic lyrics and a slightly more upbeat B-side in the form of ‘A Short Weekend Begins With Longing’. It’s available to download but it would be far more festive to buy one of the limited edition handmade copies in the spirit of wonky gingerbread men and glitter-glued everything.
There’s just one thing we’re a little bit worried about. Where are all the sleighbells???????
Now I know I sound like a purist, medicine but sometimes I wish Photoshop had never been invented. After seeing the ingenuity of the post-war artists featuring in Estorick’s ongoing exhibition, rxCut & Paste: European Photomontage 1920-1945, I longed for the days when you could actually tell something had been done by hand. When skill was quantifiable – based on precision, patience and masterfully cut and mounted shapes; not down to your aptitude with adjustment layers, clipping masks and liquify tools. Of course these arguably require a well-honed set of digital skills within themselves, but Photoshop has cheapened photography to a certain extent. Unimaginably cool things can be done on it by anyone with a shard of creative impulse, so we can’t help but lose the eensiest bit of respect for the end product, no matter how groundbreaking this may be. Don’t you think?
Regardless, this is a little gem of a show. Small – with only around 25 pieces – it looks at the modernist manipulation of photomontage (in which cut-out photographs and fragments of newsprint from illustrated journals were pasted into drawings and paintings) by the Cubists, Futurists and Dadaists. There’s also a healthy dose of angular Russian Constructivism in there, so for such a small exhibition, they have all the seminal art movements of the early 20th Century well and truly covered.
Developed towards the end of the First World War by the Dadaists in Berlin (the word ‘photomontage’ was taken from engineering and film editing practices) it was a way of making art with a new kind of conceptual clarity. And grit. It was powerful and playful – there is one untitled image of Hitler and a devilish-looking Churchill quaintly enjoying a cup of tea together – and mixed mediums in a way which made people stop and look. And they still have that affect today.
All the works are beautifully balanced and composed. Italian Futurist Enrico Prampolini’s Broom (1922) is a punchy little piece with huge red circles and chunky text overlaid on a photo of a massive machine, while Gustav Klucis’ Spartakiada Moscow / All-Union Olympiad (1928) is packed with movement and angles so sharp you could cut your fingers on them.
Curated by Lutz Becker, Cut & Paste showcases work made almost a century ago, but which feels surprisingly fresh and modern. It’ll make you turn off your computer, pick up a pair of scissors and start attacking The Daily Mail like there’s no tomorrow. I think that’s always a good thing.
I’m not a person who wins things; Lady Luck is not my friend. Never has my name been picked from a raffle or hat, discount scratch cards always defeat me, and even when I tried to Derren Brown the ticket man at Walthamstow Dogs, “Look into my eyes, this is the winning ticket”, I still came away empty handed. So when my name was electronically selected for the Time Out Bus Tour, a heavily over-subscribed perk to First Thursdays, I was veritably excited.
I’m not sure what I imagined, a day of musing amalgamated in something entirely inconceivable bearing reference to the Playbus and set firmly beyond the realm of reality. This is the description from which I fabricated: Each month, join leading curators, writers, academics and artists on a guided bus tour visiting a selection of First Thursdays Galleries; and that’s precisely what it was, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed when I saw a very ordinary looking bus waiting outside Whitechapel Gallery, a bit health & safety and sanitised, OAP visit to Hastings anyone?
If you were in fact there for a guided bus tour with leading academics, curators, and artists, and not for a bus of dreams, then you’d probably be satisfied. Four selected galleries, a talk from a curator in each, and the wealth of information that only a guided tour can give, adding much more depth to your engagement with the work. My favourite part was a six-strong bowling team that unofficially tagged along, following the bus in a Transit, and innocuously joining the talks wearing matching blue team shirts, names on the breast. I did feel a pang of jealousy at the scores of people casually strolling between galleries on Vyner Street, drinks in hands, hmmms and ahhhs at the ready. I’ll opt for a home made bicycle tour next time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this.
If you’re planning on going to any of these events, sale or have something you want to write an article about for the Earth Blog, email us: earth@ameliasmagazine.com!
Now here’s a lovely story: One felt-making coffee morning in South London, three suburban mums discover a shared hoarding habit, a joy in rummaging through rubbish and a desire to make pretty things (with or without the use of felt). Out from the discarded chicken-shop boxes and begrudged lotto tickets emerged, not Oscar the Grouch (think Sesame Street) but The Skip Sisters.
These ladies really know how to make-do-and-mend, rescuing shabby bits and bobs found in skips and attics and revamping them into something truly lovely. 100% eco-friendly.
From now until Christmas Eve the Skip Sisters will be selling all sorts of treasures from the debris at 14 Northcross Road in East Dulwich. (Not open Mondays).
Clocks made out of tins…found in a skip!
Jewelry…found in a skip!
Necklaces made with real human hands…found in a skip!
At 3am on the morning of the 7th of December two mini buses, thumb a 1960s fire engine and just over 50 cold, eager and very excited protesters turned up at a gate near the long stay car park of Stansted airport. Calmly and attentively we piled out of the mini buses and began to swarm around the entry point. A security vehicle happened to be passing just as we arrived, which instilled some nervous butterflies in our stomachs, but there was no stopping us. Once through the fence panel with our wire cutters we marched, as if to a temporary ark of safety (which we were to construct), two by two, carrying the tools and materials we were to need. Our objective was to reach the taxiway and setup a Harris fence enclosure around us to which we would lock-on to for as long as possible. After 6am, which was when the first flight was scheduled for take-off, every minute was to count as extremely important – directly stopping the release of ridiculous amounts of CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere.
We were all so pleased to be doing something so direct; the feeling was one of pride in knowing that we were helping to facilitate discussions, raised levels of awareness, and aid to those directly suffering as a result of raised CO2 emissions in developing countries around the world. It really won’t be long before we are seriously suffering from our selfish actions, we need to look and focus on long-term rewards not short term ones. In reading the press coverage after the action I have been surprised to read a few comments by people who were disrupted – one man was quoted to say “Why couldn’t they have waited a few hours?” if we all adopt that approach where will we be left?
I will go on to strongly encourage non-violent direct action to be taken by as many of you reading this as possible, it feels so great to be there, in the heart of potential change, to be able to say “I have tried my hardest”. It is our future generation who will suffer, and personally I don’t want my children to be struggling as much as they will be if no “green” systematic changes occur.
At The Climate Safety Talk delivered at Friends House, Euston, a few weeks ago I became scared – and directly inspired by that very fear to act, with others feeling the same way, as soon as I could, as this seems to have the most impact. I am newly accessing this level of climate science through living with some of the most inspiring women I have had the pleasure to meet and we discuss this issue of climate change daily, and innovatively focus most of our energy in the direction of raising awareness and creating social change methods and access points. Tamsin Omond lives upstairs and is helping to organize another suffragette style Climate Rush at Heathrow on Jan 12th, which I invite everyone to attend. Beth Stratford, Mel Evans, who spoke to the press after the Stansted protests, and Clemmie James from the Drax 29 also inhabit this eco-warrior house.
This action came as an opportunity for myself and others to not just discuss what is happening, but directly and physically respond, and gain immediate results – we stopped 86 flights from leaving the airport and acted as a catalyst for many many discussions.
Stansted has on average at least one flight leaving its runway every minute during working hours generating a shocking 4.2 tonnes of CO2 every single minute! Aviation is the fastest growing source of emissions and already contributes at least 13 per cent of the UK’s total climate impact. In October controversial plans for an expansion of Stansted Airport were given the go-ahead by the Government. Airport owner BAA wants to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million a year and flights leaving the airport from 241,000 to 264,000 a year. Objectors say an expansion would damage the environment, but some unions said the proposal could bring new jobs. Do we really need new jobs in this sector, should the Government not be pushing for new green jobs to go along with its emissions reduction target? The target that has been broadly accepted by many bodies including our own Government is that a rise in global average temperature of more than 2C above its preindustrial value must not be allowed. If this airport expansion is really given the go-ahead there will be very little chance of us being able to achieve the targets.
Aviation is the fastest growing cause of climate change and a major threat to the earth and everything living on it. But rather than reining the industry in and trying to reduce demand for flying, the government is promoting it through tax breaks and through its plans for massive expansion at our airports: the equivalent of a new Heathrow every five years!
Plane Stupid demands a fundamental rethink of the government’s 2003 Aviation White Paper which predicts that air travel will treble by 2030: an increase in annual plane journeys from 180 million to 501 million.
We, as Plane Stupid want to see airport expansion plans scrapped, and an end to short haul flights and aviation advertising.
Discussions and presentations are important, as the information and science needs to spread as far and wide, and touch as many people as possible, but we need to follow contact with this information with direct action as nothing else seems to be getting the results we need as soon as we need them. The Government has been making empty promises of reductions in the levels of CO2 emissions, and as nothing has happened yet we want to directly affect this ourselves.
www.planestupid.com
It’s Saturday and everything at the Eco-Design Christmas Fair in the Old Truman Brewery, piluleBrick Lane, is daubed in gloominess. Thanks to the amazing British weather, the Christmas spirit is not in the air as greyness bears down through the skylights and umbrellas drip a murky trail behind each visitor. We all gravitate towards a stall selling mulled wine, but the smell – delicious at first – soon mixes with the sickly sweetness of organic soap and incense.
The fair, now in its fifth year, brings together designers whose work is centered on sustainability and kindness to the environment, the products on sale range from clothing, jewellery, toys and furniture to edible shoe polish.
The best find of the day is Finnish designer Minna Hepburn. Hepburn looks and sounds like she is channelling Claudia Schiffer, and is selling her leftover designs from London Fashion Week’s eco-sustainable show ,estethica. Her clothes, all creamy Scottish lace and organic or fair trade silk embellished with found brooches, buttons, outshine neighbouring designs. (pictured below)
Around the relatively small space, recycled jewellery stalls clamour for attention. Rosie Weisencrantz‘s display is by far the most elegant; some of her work is even framed and mounted on the wall. (pictured below) Weisencrantz was a weaver for 25 years before becoming a jewellery designer, and her pieces hang on intricately woven string. She also likes to root around at markets and on ebay for antique brooches, which she transforms into one-off, textured necklaces.
Using an altogether different approach, Kirsty Kirkpatrick buys enormous bags of old jewellery and spends hours sifting through, detangling chains and picking out gems, before reassembling them into new designs. She uses recycled materials too, making geometric necklaces from wine and biscuit boxes. Kirkpatrick has a quick smile and soft Scottish accent, and is obviously proud of her “anti-landfill” label. (pictured below)
After Minna Hepburn, the rest of the clothing at the fair is a bit of a let down. T-shirts are in abundance, most sporting slogans and stencilled graphics like those by design collective Edge. (Their ethos: “We will make eco-fashion cool if it kills us”). (pictured below)
Overall, there was far more here for the eco-jewellery enthusiast than anyone else.
Karolin Schnoor has contributed some illustrations to our upcoming Earth blog ‘Tipping Point’. We loved them so much we decided to make her our illustrator of the week! Her work is being featured in this week’s issue of TimeOut.
Below are a few examples of her work, here and a little bit about her!
Reindeer Illustration (Part of a series of illustrations by Karolin appearing in TimeOut)
“I am originally from Germany and came over to London to study Illustration with a 5 month stint at a Parisian school in my third year. In my illustration work my main interest is narrative and characters and lately I have really enjoyed labouring over intricate folk-like patterns to contrast with my two-dimensional and quite simplistic drawing style.”
A recent Christmas card design
“I used to play it quite safe when it came to colours, physician using mainly pencil and occassional bits of red until I had a tutorial in my first year and my tutor called out rather exasperatedly: “What is missing here is colour! Colour!!” Since then I have gone a bit overboard sometimes but I think I am feeling more comfortable with colour now.
“Norwegian Wood” Illustration of the famous Beatles song
(screenprinted for Karolin’s degree show).
I was also rather obsessed with screenprinting at college and really miss it, but I think the process still informs the way I build my illustrations. At the moment I am freelancing, drawing, designing websites and I might be designing a book next year which I am very excited about.”
800feet is the new exhibition at sale 89490, see en.html”target=”_blank”>Space in Portsmouth, exhibiting the work of over 20 Portsmouth based artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and film. Established in 1980 by graduates of the then Portsmouth Polytechnic, Art Space Portsmouth will soon celebrate 30 years of supporting, nurturing and retaining creative talent in the City.
Tuesday Dec 16th
Museum 52 hosts a one-off festive grotto beginning today and running until Saturday the 20th. The grotto will pool in a breadth of work, with over 30 artists exhibiting unique hand-made works from tea-towels to comics, films, and scarves. A percentage of all profits will go to shelter.
“The Greatest sleeptalker in recorded history?” I would not imagine such a category to exist; who I wonder, is the second greatest sleeptalker in recorded history. I pointed you in the direction of Seventeen last week, but that was before I knew about the happenings in the basement, which is why I’ll recommend you to go again. So Somniloquent leads you into a dark basement of low ceilings and cubbyholes, where you are invited to sit back and listen to the surreal world as incarnated by Dion Mcgregor. Bizarre narratives and entire worlds were conjured by this man, only to be forgotten upon awakening, until somebody finally decided to put a tape recorder to the purpose. It runs until the 24th of January.
Friday Dec 19th
Head down to St Johns Church in Bethnal Green this Friday for Ghost, hosted by the Belfry Project and guest-curated by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal, a spooky project that plays on the 1953 artwork by Marcel Duchamp entitled “A Guest + a Host = a Ghost”. The show will spread over the entire space, spilling from the cobwebbed dark alcoves of the belfry into the entrance hall, past the red velvet curtains and into the church. There will be performances, video, sound and scent installations, and later on, a program of artists’ films. Mulled wine and mince pies too!
According to the fountain of knowledge aka Wikipedia, ‘Fan death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can cause the death of those inside.’ Interesting… Whether this was the inspiration for the band name, I don’t know, but I do know that their tune, with its 70′s funky strings and Debbie Harry-esque vocal, mixed with 80′s synth beats, went down well in the party mix.
Our thoughts about the song were that, although it was fine accompaniment to our turkey and stuffing, it wasn’t a highly distinctive or original tune. As my housemate put it, “I’d dance to it if it was on in a club, if I was drunk, but I wouldn’t be bothered otherwise.”
I think she was being a harsh judge, although not groundbreaking, produced by club king Erol Alkan (who also provides a remix) Veronica’s Veil is a solid electro pop tune that interestingly merges the key sounds of my two favourite musical decades and deserves to be more than just background music.
Celebrate a goth Christmas headlined by bowlcutted eyeliner queens playing a weird and wonderful fusion of 60s and 80s guitar sounds in excellent monochrome outfits. Dark pop disco support.
The Boy Least Likely To, The School, Mia Vigour, Hoxton Bar and Grill, London
Christmas party from dreamy whimsical pop gang who are releasing a Christmas single this year.
Britpop stalwarts who’ve been around for at least a decade break out the indie, with support from up-and-coming, poppy Brooklynites TPOBPAH playing songs from their new album, out next Feb.
New folk extravaganza with performances from as many up-and-coming and up-and-come young folk stars as you can fit in one room. Many of them are either featured in the new issue of the magazine (out now!), or have been featured in the past.
Wednesday 17th December
A Thompson Family Christmas, Royal Festival Hall, London
More of a loosely interpreted folk family than blood relations (although it does feature his mother Linda and sister Kami), Teddy Thompson has organised this extravaganza in aid of Amnesty International.
Fresh from their stint as Roky Erikson‘s backing band, this Texan quintet are bound to bring some warped Southern musical weirdness to ULU. Expect dark, driving stoner-rock sounds.
The Broken Family Band, The Accidental, End of the Road @ Cargo, London
Whistful, unassuming country-tinged tunes with a sense of humour.
Maximo Park guitarist playing material from his new solo album with an early Graham Coxon jangly lo-fi feel. Screaming Tea Party also offer more of their bonkers but sweet pop tinged punk sounds.
Everyone, including Madonna’s, favourite gypsy punk band tend to play pretty explosive sets, often culminating in Eugene Hutz crowd-surfing on a drum and other scrape and bruise inducing antics.
An ideal Saturday night gig. Dress up, go out and dance dance dance to these electro faves.
Sunday 21st December
Sensible Sundays @ Lock Tavern: The Wild Wolves, The Social, Helouisa, Lock Tavern, London
The perfect end to the weekend/ beginning of real Christmas at this folky acoustic afternoon to evening. Look out for Helouisa, a uke-toting trio with the voices of angels, influenced by the likes of Emmy the Great and Peggy Sue and the Pirates. But then we would say that as the Luisa of their name is our very own art girl.
Joan Wasser – Singer, find songwriter, and violinist, and seemingly omnipresent force in the New York indie scene. Starting her post-music-school career in the Damnbuilders, Those Bastard Souls and Black Beetle, she has since racked up a very impressive CV. In 1999 she became a ‘Johnson’, featuring on the Mercury winning ‘I am a Bird Now’, Anthony Hegarty being a dramatically positive and calming influence on her both personally and musically.
The mishmash of folk milling around the Empire typifies Joan’s broad appeal. Clearly her talent knows no boundaries or subcultures which can’t be won over, which creates a delicious mix of middle-aged couples, muso types and uber-trendy lesbians.
She commands the stage with her sultry New York sassiness, giggling at the irritating and oh-so British heckles that makes you wish you could sod off and see her properly in New York. The first few songs, although technically perfect, seem to be missing something until suddenly, the weighty silence that fell in the fist few bars of ‘To be Lonely’ hit. Effortlessly, she pours the melody into the piano keys, which melt with the words and take you to her world. In fact, Joan’s world is very much Joan’s music. As an artist she is intrinsically linked to her history, her story, and it’s the subjectivity of her music that makes her so appealing. One of the most exhaustive sets I have ever seen, she pretty much played her entire back catalogue, including ‘Eternal Flame’, ‘Christobel’ and incredible Elliot Smith tribute ‘We Don’t Own It’.
Joan breathes, bleeds, feels and loves. Her solo work is very much her new beginning and the performance has this wonderful amalgamation of an accomplished, qualified, and experienced musician with something so fresh, tender, and pure. She’ll make you laugh, cry and fall in love all at the same time.
This was an event for the lovers of fun, more about performance, website like this spectacle, fascination and interaction, and was it all of the above…oh yes, most definitely!
Decompression celebrates the reuniting and collaboration of like-minded artistic individuals who are familiar with Burning Man and/or No-Where festival(s). They refer to the gathering as a reunion. The on-site setup lasts a mere two days, but artists, performers and choreographers work for just over a month in preparation for this one night. Decompression, Burning Man and No-Where describe their holistic key principles as:
• Self-expression: The freedom to BE in a creative and liberating space.
• Radical self-reliance: YOU are responsible for YOURSELF.
• No commerce: Bring it because you can’t buy it, give it because you can.
• Leave no trace: Create something from nothing, and leave nothing behind.
• Participation: Get involved, this is not an event for spectators.
I haven’t attended Burning Man or No-Where, but what I’ve heard from those who have is always so positive and inspiring. The two events have been said to be life changing, and are also said to stay within the hearts of all participators for life. The key principles lay down the ideals held centrally by most successful communities, and I feel this is really the way we need to all begin living.
Within a community you have so much support, so much strength-brought from everybody’s unique sets of gathered and nurtured skills and their desire to share them, a sense of shared purpose and the ability to achieve great things through all of the above points collectively. Greenpeace have published an Energy (R)evolution report which talks of energy solutions coming from local opportunities at both a small and community scale. Their focus is on us all working together to produce a sustainable model of living, and I feel that these events inspired by Burning Man, and Burning man itself of course, are celebrated examples of what it is to be and function within that method of collective habitation, energy production (homemade solar panels and water purifiers being a common site within the festivals), food and waste management. Theses spaces, allowing a coming together of similarly focused creatives, also allow a lot of focused discussion around important topics, and being an important topic, sustainable models of living get spoken about a lot. These people are trying to break down the barriers between people and to re-focus energy on shared living, creativity and innovation.
Burning Man (Nevada desert, California), No-Where (The site is situated in the region of Aragon in northern Spain between Zaragoza and Lleida desert, Spain) and London Decompression are events linked through concept, predominantly focusing on shared experience and expression, with an overwhelmingly strong foundation of creativity. There is a leave no trace concept, which after a week of partying and artistic workshops in the middle of the desert with thousands of other people can, as you will imagine, takes a little time-combing every square foot-they are not happy to leave a single sequin!
images from Genevive Lutkin-Burning Man 2007
I was working alongside three really good girl friends of mine to produce a recycled elephant sculpture, whose body acted as a tent and projector screen, and which offered an educational journey thought the mandala painting techniques originating from South India. Our elephant was exploring what you could create with rubbish, and how you could turn it into something beautiful, making people think about what they throw away. Wire coat-hangers, hanging baskets, stripped electrical wire and plastic milk bottles made up the body structure. The tent and 4 costumes were made from a few meters of bought fabric, but decorated with sections of old sari fabric we had been collecting for the last few years, the floor underneath the elephant was covered with saris, on which lay pots and pots of the brightest rangoli paint, 4 blackboards and lots of rangoli stencils.
Rangoli, also known as Alpana, Kolam and by other names is a traditional art of decorating courtyards and walls of Indian houses, places of worship and sometimes eating-places. The powder of white stone, lime, rice flour and other paste is used to draw intricate and ritual designs.
Although Rangoli art is Maharashtrian in origin, it has become quite popular all over the country. Each state of India has its own way of painting Rangoli. One characteristic of Rangolis is that it’s painted by commoners. On some special occasions like Diwali it is painted in every home, with or without formal training in Rangoli art. The art is
typically transferred from generation to generation and from friend to friend.
images from Monique Gregson-Hampi, South India, 2005
images supplied by Yolanda Yong-Decompression 2008
Sophie Rostas, of Café Cairo (a nomadic decorational and tea party troupe who put on beautiful nights at changing venues, since their South London site burnt down a few years ago) created a greatly entertaining performance based instillation called ‘Feast of Fools’, for which I aided her in costume making. The feast was held at a huge wooden table, constructed especially for the event, on which a dance was held, then a lavish feast of skipped food spread. A precession of fools in costume led an inquisitive crowd to the table. After a ballet performed by two beautiful dancers hatching our of eggs on the table, the performance began…an eager and excitable king sitting at the head of the table on a chair raised to be on-top of the table stomped a steady beat to which 8 dancers circled the table in rich, exquisite costume. The circling slowly declining from an orderly chair swap to hectic table clambering and mass interaction, not just with the other members of the dance, but with the onlookers, and as the order dropped the kings beat quickened pace, with him becoming more and more excited by the movement of his fools. It ended up with his passing out and being carried off the table, to return with a broom sweeping up the scraps of the feast a little later.
images from Joie De Winter-Decompression 2008
The Café Cairo nomadic troupe
The transformation for Decompression is quite incredible with its pace, transforming old railway arches, now used as car parks, into a rich artistic exploration. The artists can apply for funding directly from the organizers, who will try and cover up to 70% of their total spending on materials. This allows artists the freedom to work without being hindered by material costs, although a lot of the participating artists work with reclaimed materials, scavenged from here and there, the budget helps with necessities needed for the pieces. Imagine the space if you will…dark, large and cave like with each corner, section of the ceiling, large open space and doorway covered or filled with a different instillation, from huge art cars, costume camp, to water tanks for underwater ballet performances in gas masks, a tunnel of lust and love full of projections and erotic sounds, a photographer and his plush set awaiting visitors in extravagant and curious fancy dress in the corner of one room, a Drawing Booth by Interactive Instillation artist Joie De Winter and too many more instillations and art pieces to mention.
Joie’s Drawing Booth is a highly interactive performance based piece featuring set, concept, performance and makeup. It offers up an environment, which encourages social exploration through creative engagement. Rather than relying on the capturing of a moment and memory within a photo booth, she creates a richer version of this experience and celebrates the art of drawing as a social tool.
image from Joie De Winter-Decompression 2008
If jewellery is your gift of choice this year, page thanks to the internet there is an abundance of quirky and beautiful necklaces etc to get your hands on. If you want to make your choice extra festive, order here are some places that have brought out exclusive Christmas pieces. Snap them up fast as last postage date to places in the UK is the 19th December.
If you love to wear a necklace and have people admire it saying, “where did you get that from?” This is the place to go. Anyone would be very happy with a unique trinket from here, especially this seasonal necklace:
So go on, get the lady in your life a Christmas trinket she will treasure all year round.
Wetdog thrive on the chaotic; their debut longplayer Enterprise Reversal is a head-spinning, web giddy joyride of layered chants, sick sharp guitars and thick, viagra 60mg reverb-laced bass lines, all pushing, shoving and fighting each other for room on each of the record’s 22 tracks. But amid all of the pandemonium, there is a strong, swaggering melody to keep things ticking over and entrancing, jabbering lyrics that verge on inaudible, but still deviously drag you ear-first into the commotion.
Continually changing tempo from track to track, the record sways between the raucous and the slower, more sprawling thumps, but retains a definite style, neatly affixing the assortment of songs together as a whole. ‘8 Days’ swings between thudding bass and chanting multi-vocals and ‘Zah und Zaheet’ conjures up memories of Nirvana during the Bleach-era (if they had a yelling girl group in tow).
With most of the tracks never pushing past the 2 minute mark, Wetdog undoubtedly won’t be to everyone’s taste, but their strident and unabashed style and jumbled sound of The Slits stumbling over The Fall is certainly attention-grabbing and deserving of a listen.
With unduly brilliant timing the Climate Change secretary Ed Miliband called for a Suffragette-type movement to push forward political change on the very same day as the Plane Stupid Stansted protest.
“When you think about all the big historic movements, recipe from the suffragettes, physician to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had popular mobilisation,” said Miliband, quoted in the Guardian on December 8th. “Maybe it’s an odd thing for someone in government to say, but I just think there’s a real opportunity and a need here.” So, in the spirit of the Suffragettes we at Climate Rush thought it would be nice gesture to invite Ed Miliband and some of his governmental cohorts along to Dinner at Departures, at Heathrow on the 12th January at 7pm. (Terminal One, y’all) After all, shouldn’t he be supporting us?
So, today I toddled off to Westminster to meet my fellow Climate Rushers with the aim of hand-delivering a few invites to our Dinner, which is, of course, open to all. Tamsin was instantly recognised by a ‘friendly bobby‘ who merrily told us that the last time he saw her was on the top of Parliament.
Photocall with the Evening Standard done we headed off to Downing Street. Which was when we realised that hand delivering invites is clearly worthy of police intimidation; two coppers were soon tailing our every move.
Maybe they felt it was a good use of tax payer’s money to capture the features of our youngest recruit, who delivered a festive invite for Gordon Brown. (why not invite them all?!)
Next up was Ed Miliband himself, over at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. We weren’t allowed much further than reception, but had time to admire the big TV screen showing images of penguins and cute seals (endangered….. ahhhh) and oil rigs (hmmmm) I hope he gets his invite.
On our way up to see Geoff Hoon over at the Department for Transport (who will make the final decision over whether the 3rd runway goes ahead) we passed a hair salon with an entirely appropriate name.
For some reason the security guards seemed a bit wary of us, making sure that the door was firmly closed and bolted when we delivered the invite.
Not so over at Defra, where environment secretary Hilary Benn‘s personal secretary came down to meet us in reception and accept the invite – she asked who she could rsvp to and we realised we hadn’t included an address – woops! Perhaps we weren’t quite expecting such personal attention.
We have done our best to invite the people we think should come to our Dinner at Departures – the people who will ultimately decide whether a new runway goes ahead. Now it’s up to you to make your own statement about what you think should happen – join us, dress Edwardian, and bring food to share. More information can be found here and on facebook here.
The aim of this project is to, sildenafil “inspire debate and awareness about the destructive impact of consumer values on the emotional wellbeing of society.” Through the medium of art.
The exhibition will take place between 16th – 27th of March 2009 and currently there is a call for artists, so if you are any kind of visual or performing artist and think that you would find it a satisfactory challenge, here is the brief and requirements:
* Painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.
* Placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and fame, a failure to distinguish between what we need and what we want.
Consider that the excessive wealth seeking in consumerist nations lead to the unhappiness of its citizens and higher rates of emotional and mental distress.
The work
The exhibition is submission based with a solid panel of high profile judges including author and psychologist Oliver James, Jonathan Barnbrook (Barnbrook Design) and Michael Czerwinski (Design Museum) who will assess the work and decide on the final entries.
We encourage performance, sound pieces, sculpture, photography and broad based visual arts. Entrants are invited to submit a proposal for work to be completed or existing work.
We will need
* A brief biography/CV
* Artist statement
* Samples of work: CD or digital pdf is preferred, but we will accept up to 10 images, 35 mm slides. (Please include a self-addressed envelope if you need the work returned.)
* Proposal including dimensions and technical specifications
Submit your entry by 30th January 2009 for the chance to be included in the exhibition. To submit work contact Hege Sæbjørnsen on 07734944685 or e-mail submissions@theaffluenzaexhibition.org
Last week I gave you a dummy’s guide to the Climate Safety Report.
Round Two of my wising-up to climate science took place at The Wellcome Trust in Euston. It was an event run by TippingPoint, web an organization that sets out to provide up-to-date climate science to artists who might then go off to create something influenced by the knowledge they have ingested and further inspire the people that see their work. The idea is to spread the word to different sectors of society so that collectively we can start coming up with solutions to solve the problem.
We were greeted with a laminated nametag and a cup of mild coffee to prepare us for the (ahem) 5-hour lecture ahead of us. Here’s what I learnt…
Dr Chris West, medical Director of the UK Climate Impact Programme, was a lovely bear of a man with a comforting voice. He eased us into what would become a scientifically complicated afternoon (zzz) with The Basics. Wonderful. I felt gently steered from point to point and a few ‘basics’ were magically made clear.
Ta-daa…I now know about The Greenhouse Effect: This is when the hot and cold energy in the atmosphere is out of balance and causes the temperature here on earth to rise. The reason why there is this unbalance is because we are emitting too many (hot) greenhouse gases to cool that can’t cool the (hot) radiation that hits us from the sun. There is nowhere for these hot gases to go so they form a stuffy enclosure of concentrated heat around us, just like Kew Gardens.
Higher temperatures cause sea levels to rise and weather patterns to change dramatically. The point to which this cannot continue the aftermath is the problem this afternoon of presentations hopes to explore…
Anthony Costello, head of the Centre for International Health and Development at UCL, talked about the decrease in population of mountain marmots. Well sort of… he did say that it has been predicted 15-37% of species face extinction by 2050 as a direct result of climate change.
Climate change is ‘the global health problem of this century’. We know that Malaria transmissibility is set to increase significantly (hotter climate means more bugs to pass the disease about). Again he said that it is difficult to be certain how climate change will effect worldwide health but that research should focus on examining changing disease patterns, food security, human settlements and migration in relation to sea-level projections and hotter temperatures.
We then had a break and a chocolate biscuit or five. I perused the handouts tried to look insightful. Tim Lenton, professor of Earth System Science at the University of East Anglia, concentrated on this phenomenon of Tipping Points that had been bugging me. What are they and when do they occur? Well, in a nutshell, a tipping point is a point of no return. If we carry on heating up the planet, scientists predict that we will reach a point where we will go over our limits and enter a new climactic territory –the characteristics of which are uncertain but it’s not likely to be very habitable.
There seems to be some dispute as to whether there is one global tipping point that would lead to ‘runaway’ climate change or many tipping points dotted around the globe. But Tim Lenton was all about multiple tipping points (dirty bugger) that may work in a domino effect.
The Big Ones are the disintegration of arctic sea ice and the melt of the ice sheet in Greenland. Not forgetting the die back of the Amazon rainforest, the collapse of the Atlantic, the Indian monsoon… He summed up with saying that the tipping element is an inevitable component of the earth system and, with this is mind, we should be building future societies that are adaptive and resilient to climate tipping.
Diana Liverman, director of the Environmental Change Institute came on stage apologizing for being attached to her blackberry. She was in fact keeping tabs on the Climate Change Conference in Poznan. This is when a group of people from the U.N. sits around a table and work out how to cut back on global emissions. The 1997 Kyoto Agreement runs out in 2012 so plans are being made now for a new agreement to be decided in Copenhagen in 2009.
As we know, recent climate science calls for much deeper cuts. The proposed cuts are 50% worldwide and 80% in industrial countries, 20% in Europe and 80% in the U.K. The new agreement is set to include developing countries (China, India and Brazil) who have previously had no commitment, and of course the big bad U.S.A.
It is also intended to reform the Clean Development Mechanism (C.D.M), a system whereby developing countries reduce their emissions and developed countries reach their emission targets through joint activities. So far it hasn’t worked very well and there needs to be a big change in the way countries are dealing with/failing to deal with their emission targets. But habits are deep rooted, if we are going to combat global warming, there needs to be a major transformation of our social system.
The question on everyone’s lips was ‘how?’ How do we create change on such a grand scale?
We had hoped that big natural disasters would prompt change but the U.S. government’s failure to do so when Hurricane Katrina hit has squashed that one. So now there’s more focus than ever on pushing for civil mobilization; if our government can’t do it, we can. The recession is seen also to change people’s attitudes. As we have evidence that our old ways are not necessarily working, there should be massive investment into new alternatives such as geo-engineering. The view that high emitting corporations should be attacked directly also got a few nods. Or, as one lady put it nicely, mass social change can be achieved through ‘experiment, extremity and engagement with people who are different. ‘
Written by Lucy Jones on Wednesday December 17th, 2008 2:33 pm
The eponymous release from New York based The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has everything you could want from a summer album. A certain been-in-the-sun-too-long hazy-headyness without the too-much-ice-cream sugariness of many indie-pop summer albums. No-No! I’m rallying for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart being trail-blazers for a new genre we shall call ‘Sandalgaze” aka Shoegaze for when it’s not raining out.
From the rip-roaring opener ‘Contender’, buymore about the album manages to be catchy without being twee, shop noise without being dreary, imagine My Bloody Valentine on a beach doo-wopping and you’re halfway there.
Whilst treading this line The Pains of Being Pure at Heart consistently avoid being schmaltzy. The track; Young Adult Friction is danceable, its lyrics of a whimsy worthy of Stuart Murdoch yet reflect on themes like first love with a sort of yearning nostalgia, again souring the sweetness. Here the oft-overdone boy/girl singing duo is slightly off-kilter and the effect is more reminiscent of early Yo La Tengo or Jesus and Mary Chain than Belle & Sebastian.
The Pains of Being Pure of Heart is definitely tinged with nods towards the 80s and early 90s,yet it is perhaps too easy to criticise the album for this. The band manage to utilise certain stylistic tropes without being too retrospective or shallow.
In fact The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is refreshing in it’s redefinition of certain preconceptions: summer isn’t all about whistling and tambourine jangling anymore and Shoegaze is reinterpreted with a sunny touch rather like enjoying a 99 flake with Kevin Shields!
The album ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’ is available now and the single ‘Young Adult Friction’ is released on 18th May (Fortuna Pop!)
They play The Lexington, London on 15th May
Kitsuné has really got its groove on this time. Left eyebrows are often tilted to a 74-degree angle at the mention of a Parisian fashion boutique that puts out compilation CDs, symptoms amongst other music releases. At first, tadalafil you kind of expect endless Dimitri From Paris types churning out catwalk-flavoured lint, but Kitsuné really knows what it is getting, and won’t be holding onto the receipt. With utter confidence and bravado, you see, it was Kitsuné that released Wolfmother’s ball-busting old-metal limited edition EP. Benetton scratches its head in confusion.
For all that, Compilation 7 is a danceable disc, with lots of European disco-beats, and plenty of fruity basslines in the Frenchified Electro style. But it’s not the kind of thoughtless, juvenile poppy end of it. You won’t hear anything approaching “Lady, give me tonight, cos my feeling is just so right”, since the Maison-people (Maisonettes?) are clued up. They listen to Tangerine Dream and Elvis Costello, and anything they select from the here and now is selected with a certainty that reminds me of the chap who picks the leaves for PG Tips: He just knows where the good stuff’s at.
Highpoints include Chateau Marmont’sBeagle, filled with synths fresh from Tomorrow’s World demonstrations, sidewinding through arpeggiated chords, with the occasional crash-bang with a wooden spoon by the stove, and Beni’sFringe Element, which popcorns along with hi-hats before going to a thoroughly spiffing hiatus of slap bass with one of the squidgiest, wiggly-wormiest synth solos since Mr.Scruff’sShrimp. Probably the most exciting track here is Crystal Fighters’ (above) Xtatic Truth, a journey involving Epic-Ragga-Happy-Hardcore, hints of Chinese Folk, and a choir of the ether.
But it’s a plentiful CD. There are nineteen songs, in all, and although everything chugs along to the metronomic pulse of cubase, there is pacing and variety to the beast overall. Gentle relief comes best of all in This Sweet Love by James Yuill (above), as remixed by Prins Thomas, a ponderous chillscape based on the warmest fingerpicking, and an embrace of vocals. You will feel truly hugged. And once you’ve digested it all, you can take that lovely warm glow on the Eurostar with you, and buy yourself the bestest clothes (I’m not a fashion writer, actually) in all Pareeee!
You can buy the Maison’s goodies at www.kitsune.fr or at their myspace.
If you are a university student, online what do you make of your schools environmental policies? Do they even have green policies to speak of? This week, the students of the University of Arts London have been bringing environmental issues to the forefront, and discussing the various ways that both themselves, their campuses and the courses themselves can be more environmentally aware.
The Go Green Week, also known as Green: The New Black has been running for the last few days and culminates in talks and workshops on Friday, that include Fashion Forward: Creating an Ethical Label between 4pm-6pm RHS East Space, LCF, John Princes Street
which asks: “How can you create a label that looks good, but is also good to the environment?” ECCA and the Centre for Sustainable Fashion present fashion design businesses that are sustainable throughout from their manufacturing processes and materials, to marketing methods that aim communicate and promote their ethical processes to their customers.
Also on Friday afternoon at LCC is the meeting “Students Going Green” –top of the agenda are the following points “Fed up with the lack of recycling at your College? … Want sustainability on the curriculum? … Think Arts London should GO GREEN?” Speaking with the Press Officers of the Student Union, I learnt that a large number of students have voiced their concerns over this topic. The recycling issue specifically has been on ongoing and much debated subject. Many students feel that not enough is being done to provide facilities to recycle. The Green Charter laid out by the Student Union demands that “Sufficient recycling facilities should be available at all Arts London Sites and all Halls of Residence, with consideration also given to specialist recycling e.g. textiles, wood at relevant sites.”
Also on the agenda is for the issues of sustainability to feature more heavily in the Universities curriculum, either in the form of specific modules, or integrated as a whole, and for the campuses to switch to a green energy provider. The student union also explained that they are setting up an “Ethical and Environmental assembly” that will set future Go Green Assembly’s. They have also been encouraging students to sign a petition that is campaigning for a greener Arts London. Realising that strong visuals are the best way to get the point across, the students were asked to be photographed with the green charter and upload their pictures to the blog. An example would be these brave folks.
Learning about the concerted efforts to raise environmental awareness amongst students started me wondering how other universities and student bodies broach this subject. As this is a topic that is dear to our heart, we would love your input on whether your schools and universities are committed to the environmental cause, and if so, do you feel that they are doing enough? . Tell us more at hello@ameliasmagazine.com and maybe we can help to highlight the issue.
Written by Cari Steel on Thursday May 7th, 2009 5:54 pm
Most of us pat ourselves on the back at the thought of having ‘done our bit‘, symptomsinformation pills whether it’s recycling or bringing a load of old clothes to a charity shop. Robert Bradford, ailment in that case, deserves a rather large pat on the back. Not only did he ‘do his bit’, but also got rather creative doing it.
Whilst staring at his children’s box of discarded toys, a beam of light shun down from the heavens, a choir of angels sung and everything was still. Well, perhaps inspiration doesn’t happen like that in real life, but Bradford defiantly had a light bulb moment. Instead of taking the toys to local charity shop, Bradford decided to make sculptures out of them. Bradford assembles the toys into kaleidoscopic life-size dogs and people. Since his foray into toys, Bradford has also transformed other would-be discarded items. Crushed Coca-cola cans, combs, pegs and washing up brushes have also been made into extra family members and man’s best friend. Using what most would describe as rubbish, Bradford is one artist who wouldn’t mind his work being so called. It says so on his website.
Does It Offend You, Yeah?, The Joy Formidable, The Operators and Young Fathers – 229, London Ned Collette Band, Lawrence Arabia and The Boat People – The Windmill, London Good Books, Polka Party and The Molotovs – Proud Galleries, London Monday 27th October Camden Arts Centre, advice ‘Wallace Berman’: Untl 23rd November
Arkwright Road, drugs London NW3 6DG
Considered as a major mover and shaker in the beat generation in the late 50s and 60s, view Wallace Berman’s (1926-1976) jazz record covers, art publications are all on display. Also his 16mm film ‘aleph’ is screened as well as posters, book covers and postcards. Most people recognise his portrait on the cover of The Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ but he’s got plenty of other art to have a gander over.
Tuesday 28th October White Cube, Sam Taylor-Wood: Yes I No: Until 29th November
Mason’s Yard and No 1 The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8HA
This show includes three groups of photographs and a large scale film installation on the subject of absensce and morality. Other photos based on Wuthering Heights with desire and suffering playing key themes.
Wednesday 29th October: V&A Museum of Childhood, Tom Hunter’: until 9th November
Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green E2 9PA
Exploring the changing face of the East End, Hunter’s photographs focus on people, places and community in and around the area.
Thursday 30th October: Stephen Friedman Gallery, ‘Catherine Opie’: Until 15thNovember
25-28 Old Burlington Street?London W1S 3AN
The exhibition title, ‘The Blue of Distance’, is inspired by Rebecca Solnit, a writer on photography and landscape. Here, Opie continues her investigation with two new series of work capturing the remote beauty of the Alaskan landscape.
Friday 31st October: Whitecross Gallery, ‘Girlie’: Daphne Plessner: Until 21 November
122 Whitecross St, London EC1Y 8PU
Whitecross Gallery welcomes you to ‘Girlie’, an exciting and thought provoking solo exhibition of luscious new paintings by talented artist Daphne Plessner.?Her work combines uncompromising social critique with colourful, elaborate surface decoration, and beautifully crafted, exquisite attention to detail.
Saturday 1st November: ICA, ‘Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’ Retrospective: Until 23rd November
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
In tandem with Under Scan on Trafalgar Square, a retrospective of Lozano-Hemmer’s moving-image works, via a series of documentaries, spanning the past decade of his career. Lozano-Hemmer has been commissioned for events such as the millennium celebrations in Mexico City, the Cultural Capital of Europe in Rotterdam (2001), the United Nations World Summit of Cities in Lyon (2003), the opening of the Yamaguchi Centre for Art and Media in Japan (2003) and the expansion of the European Union in Dublin (2004).
Warm and jubilant and wholesome. That’s how a Tilly and the Wall gig will leave you – and the title to their debut album in 2004, check Wild Like Children, cheapest is an indicator as to how. Add to this Slow Club, who when I saw several months ago in a weekly slot at The Enterprise in Camden, had brought along home-baked goods to pass round, and you’re wholly rejuvenated.
The ULU played host to this delectable recipe on Saturday, and they do compliment each other incredibly. Dulcet boy/girl harmonies, songs that pay homage to the bliss of youth and spontaneity, and full sounding percussion that is hard to put your finger on until you see it; The Slow Club often bang their drumsticks on chairs, and the percussion for Tilly is tap-dancer Jamie on a mic’ed up wooden box (they used to steal road-signs for the purpose but have since become more legit).
Tilly’s latest release, “o” was produced by acclaimed producer, Mike Mogis. Their kaleidoscopic sound has gotten bigger and fuller, but maintaining to the familiarity of Tilly ingredients. “I feel like I know them”, I heard someone say, and when the encore brought them back on stage with Charles and Rebecca from the Slow Club in tow, tambourines in hand, it felt like we all did. Clapping and stamping along, I thought the experience perhaps drew a thin line next to what I’d imagine an evangelist Sunday session to be like, only without strings attached, a drink in hand, and prophets that chant out about first loves, recklessness and “life that is so wonderful it shines like fire” (Let it Rain – Tilly); so put that in your wine glass and sip it.
Across the pond in Portland, viagra buy Oregon environmental art group Leave No Plastic Behind (LNPB) are holding a month long art exhibit intitled “Haste Management” and a one off film night, “Plastic Fantastic” to showcase the creative ways that plastic can be saved from the landfill. So it’s a given that you can recycle paper, aluminum and glass, but shiny plastic has been left behind. LNPB focus on avoiding plastic for this very reason, and not relying on recycling.
The “Haste Management” exhibition runs from the 6th-30th November and includes contributions from the wonderful>>>>>
On Nov 23rd “Plastic Fantastic”, a special film event from performance artsist and film maker Devon Damonte will be screened.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jessica Lyness | jessica.lyness@gmail.com | 503-913-3882
Environmental Group- Leave No Plastic Behind
Presents a Plastic Art Show and Film Event
November 6-30
(Portland, OR). Recycling paper, check. Recycling aluminum, check. Recycling glass, check. Recycling plastic? Not so fast. Environmental art group Leave No Plastic Behind (LNPB) urges consumers to curb plastic habits through reducing, reusing and creating. Concentrating on single-use plastic, LNPB focuses on avoiding the material and not relying on recycling. The Portland based group present a month-long art exhibit “Haste Management” and a special film night, “Plastic Fantastic” to showcase creative ways that plastic can be saved from the landfill.
The “Haste Management” exhibition begins on First Thursday, November 6 with an artist reception and Opening Night party at Visage, 1047 NW Johnson Ave. The Exhibition continues through Sunday, November 30. A special film event from performance artist and filmmaker Devon Damonte entitled “Plastic Fantastic”, takes place on November 23 at the Waypost, 3120 N Williams Ave. Following the exhibition, artist’s work will be available for view online at www.lnpb.org.
Artists participating in this exhibition are from all around the country including Waterville, ME, San Francisco, CA, Olympia, WA and Portland, OR. Each participant engages in a three month “episode” to live a plastic-free lifestyle, wherein any plastic they do collect, they make art out of it. Participants include filmmakers, photographers, musicians, and activists. In the past two years, over 50 artists have participated in an episode of LNPB.
LNPB presents art exhibits and creative events year round to raise awareness about the damaging effects of single use plastic and offers alternative suggestions on how to reduce and reuse. LNPB continues to be inspired by Captain Charles Moore and the Algalita Marine Research. This collective considers the true costs of modern convenience and demonstrates the importance of collaborative resourcefulness. Photos: Gawain Hewitt
Portuguese party starters Buraka Som Sistema are perhaps one of the most hyped up musical endeavors to hit our shores in recent years. They launched onto the stage at cargo and turned the lackluster Tuesday night, ask tired from work, health crowd into a bunch of whooping partygoers.
Buraka’s set up onstage is a little out of the ordinary, but it works. Essentially it’s a DJ and MC set up, but with some added percussion in the form of a guy on bongos and a drummer. I can’t help but always get excited by the addition of bongos to live show; everyone loves bongo players.
The only problem with tonight’s gig may be that people don’t know an awful lot of their stuff, having not released their album yet. They get round this though by breaking out their own interpretations of Around The World by Daft Punk and Thunderstruck by AC/DC. These seem to have quite an effect in rousing the crowd. Some people were actually shaking their booty so much that my friend had to move out of their way – honestly; some people just have no manners.
My favourite track of the night was Luanda Lisboa, a track that genuinely gives me the jitters if I listen to it very loud. I’ve only heard the instrumental version of it before now, but live the MCs managed to get the crowd particularly on side, even though the vast majority had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.
What seemed to get the crowd most excited was Sound Of Kuduro, which has been thrown into popularity largely because it features M.I.A on vocals, and it has really good video. Live it was brought to life by the female MC they have live.
I’ve seen DJ sets by these guys before, but the live show is a much more engrossing experience. I was left blown away by their show, though what really excited me about them is their production skills – which is so often the case with electronic music.
The Irrepressibles will be playing two sets as part of an event to support a forthcoming display of contemporary art installations at the museum including works by Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Ron Mueck, Antony Gormley and Noble and Webster. Best of all, it’s completely free. Perfect for these crunchy credit times.
This is just one of the question posed by Campaign against Climate Change. Under the labour government CO2 emissions have increased by 2%, cheap plans are under-way to expand Heathrow and other airports and there are plans for a new wave of coal-fired power stations starting with Kingsnorth in Kent. Further, viagra measures have been introduced increasing the use of biofuels which accelerate deforestation, information pills a major cause of climate change. But, what some see as the biggest failing is the government’s failure to respond to the problem. There is no grasp of the immensity and urgency of the threat to shape the policies we need to combat climate change.
Come down to Friends House at 7pm, Thursday November 6th to listen to what can be done to counteract these problems of climate change. The diverse panel: George Monbiot, Zac Goldsmith– editor of “Ecologist” magazine, Bob Crow– general secretary of the RMT, Ann Pettifor- director of Advocacy International and Phil Thornhill– national coordinator of Campaign against Climate Change, give their views on these issues and ask them your own questions.
Campaign against Climate Change
Is the government failing us on climate change?
Public Meeting, Thursday November 6th
7.00 pm at the Friends House, 173 Euston Road (opposite Euston Station)
A date for your diaries is the 6th December, the next Campaign against Climate Change event, part of a Global Day of Action. In which a march to parliament fro speakers corner is taking place, campaigning against the issues mentioned above.
Images courtesy of Campaign against Climate Change
Written by Dearbhaile Kitt on Tuesday November 4th, 2008 12:01 pm
A few weeks ago a rather lovely fashion shoot dropped into Amelia’s Magazine inbox. A collaboration from the photographer Paul Cassidy and producerCristina Duran styled by and starring Silvia.
The entirely vintage shoot expresses the dramatic romanticism of Grey Gardens and the personal idiosyncrasies of the stylist. Shot for the majority in Paul’s living room, ordervisit web the beautifully coloured photographs develop (through the relation between house activity and the outfit it requires) the homage to two characters of fashion: Big and Little Edie.
When approaching the subject of Grey Gardens it became clear to Paul and Cristina that Silvia would have to be the stylist, medicine realising “as the concept developed…that an actual model wouldn’t be able to pull it off and that Silvia was perfect… As Silvia is, well, Silvia and they are her own clothes.”
In Grey Gardens, the subplot revolves around Little Edie’s rebellion towards her isolated existence is her outfits. After being introduced to the documentary by a friend, Cristina and Paul “became fascinated by the characters” Despite never watching it fully and Cristina only once, the two creatives built an “interior set without referring to the film too much. Most of the elements were really already in place, and my (Paul’s) apartment took very little adjusting” in order to be used in the photos.”
The photographs celebrate the whimsical side to fashion, the belief in an ability to create new versions of the self through personally sourced clothing. It is not surprising that Silvia command’s the viewer’s attention, her individuality bathed in the gentle light of the 1970’s. The cold colour hues are perfect compliment to the clothes, attributed no doubt to Cristina’s “particularly strong connection to retro aesthetic and colour. I guess Grey Gardens was a catalyst that brought everything together.”
A strong compositional element of the photographs is the mirroring of colour between the clothes and the environment. In the photograph below the peach colour of the dress references the cloth on the couch, as the blue occurs in the images pinned to the notice boards.
The fashion shoot expresses Paul and Cristina desire for “something a bit mad (in the sense of someone without normal social convention),” Little Edie and Big Edie were certainly considered that for their choice to eschew society. Paul continues to explain what made Silvia the perfect model. “Silvia in person is quite restrained and formal but like most people she has a flamboyant and eccentric side and really it took very little direction to get her to express that in the photos. She was one of the most interesting subjects that I’ve ever worked with in her manner of physical expression and her posing. So I think that there’s an awful lot of Silvia in the photos but there’s also a lot of fabrication and exaggeration in the story telling.”
Discussing the composition Paul mentioned the importance the collective places on storytelling bordering on “truth, untruth or realism and surrealism.” The collaborations’ synergy –evident in the sequence of photographs that illustrate the article – has developed from a mutual “deep focus on character,” expressed through the model’s ability to convey the concept of the piece through the position of her body within the camera’s frame or choice of garment to illustrate her occupying activity.
Whilst the aim of the photoshoot might not have been to directly encourage people to be thrifty when buying clothes, it cannot help but do so. Whilst thrifty shopping might not new in Madrid or the rest of Europe, what is missing is beautifully constructed fashion shoots celebrating this. As Paul mentions “second-hand clothes are always popular when there’s little money about. You find this strange mixture of a generation of young people that have dressed themselves between H&M and second-hand clothes shops. Both are cheap options and the vintage clothes can give personality and quality to the generic chain store brands.”
Little Edie would be proud to see the continued celebration of the individual and her sense of creative spirit.
A few weeks ago a rather lovely fashion shoot dropped into Amelia’s Magazine inbox. A collaboration from the photographer Paul Cassidy and producer Cristina Duran styled by and starring Silvia.
The entirely vintage shoot expresses the dramatic romanticism of Grey Gardens and the personal idiosyncrasies of the stylist. Shot for the majority in Paul’s living room, page the beautifully coloured photographs develop (through the relation between house activity and the outfit it requires) the homage to two characters of fashion: Big and Little Edie.
When approaching the subject of Grey Gardens it became clear to Paul and Cristina that Silvia would have to be the stylist, page realising “as the concept developed…that an actual model wouldn’t be able to pull it off and that Silvia was perfect… As Silvia is, stuff well, Silvia and they are her own clothes.”
In Grey Gardens, the subplot revolves around Little Edie’s rebellion towards her isolated existence is her outfits. After being introduced to the documentary by a friend, Cristina and Paul “became fascinated by the characters” Despite never watching it fully and Cristina only once, the two creatives built an “interior set without referring to the film too much. Most of the elements were really already in place, and my (Paul’s) apartment took very little adjusting” in order to be used in the photos.”
The photographs celebrate the whimsical side to fashion, the belief in an ability to create new versions of the self through personally sourced clothing. It is not surprising that Silvia command’s the viewer’s attention, her individuality bathed in the gentle light of the 1970’s. The cold colour hues are perfect compliment to the clothes, attributed no doubt to Cristina’s “particularly strong connection to retro aesthetic and colour. I guess Grey Gardens was a catalyst that brought everything together.”
A strong compositional element of the photographs is the mirroring of colour between the clothes and the environment. In the photograph below the peach colour of the dress references the cloth on the couch, as the blue occurs in the images pinned to the notice boards.
The fashion shoot expresses Paul and Cristina desire for “something a bit mad (in the sense of someone without normal social convention),” Little Edie and Big Edie were certainly considered that for their choice to eschew society. Paul continues to explain what made Silvia the perfect model. “Silvia in person is quite restrained and formal but like most people she has a flamboyant and eccentric side and really it took very little direction to get her to express that in the photos. She was one of the most interesting subjects that I’ve ever worked with in her manner of physical expression and her posing. So I think that there’s an awful lot of Silvia in the photos but there’s also a lot of fabrication and exaggeration in the story telling.”
Discussing the composition Paul mentioned the importance the collective places on storytelling bordering on “truth, untruth or realism and surrealism.” The collaborations’ synergy –evident in the sequence of photographs that illustrate the article – has developed from a mutual “deep focus on character,” expressed through the model’s ability to convey the concept of the piece through the position of her body within the camera’s frame or choice of garment to illustrate her occupying activity.
Whilst the aim of the photoshoot might not have been to directly encourage people to be thrifty when buying clothes, it cannot help but do so. Whilst thrifty shopping might not new in Madrid or the rest of Europe, what is missing is beautifully constructed fashion shoots celebrating this. As Paul mentions “second-hand clothes are always popular when there’s little money about. You find this strange mixture of a generation of young people that have dressed themselves between H&M and second-hand clothes shops. Both are cheap options and the vintage clothes can give personality and quality to the generic chain store brands.”
Little Edie would be proud to see the continued celebration of the individual and her sense of creative spirit. The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence aimed to kick start a transition to a new economy, website looking at everybody’s carbon footprint and educating with a range of talks, speakers and workshops.
Held on 350:Day of Climate Action, the event was one of the hundreds happening worldwide to push people to tackle climate change. The Bigger Picture was held in an old warehouse on the South Bank, which although fairly old and decrepit, had a certain charm to it. The day before was spent setting up the four floors and rooms so that when the public were let in, the warehouse was packed full of leaflets, objects, art and a yellow t-shirted posse, ready to navigate people up the narrow staircases and back-rooms.
I spent the day wondering in and out, generally getting a bit overwhelmed by it all, but I’ve managed to pick out five of the workshops that stood out the most…
1. Climate Camp Climate Camp had it’s own two rooms and had set up a replicate camp complete with tents, a fire made from bike lights, and a huge banner backdrop of tripods from a previous camp at Kingsnorth. All that was missing were hay bales that had been stopped by the determined health and safety who also prevented us from giving away cake, yes cake. Although, that didn’t stop a range of speakers and musicians telling people all about Climate Camps in the past and what we aim to do in the future.
2. Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It
You could pay a visit to the Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It and collect your very own Carbon Ration Book. The issued ration books showed the carbon emissions of our daily activities, like using a laptop or using public transport. This little book is something that we may have to get used to in the not so distant future, when carbon emissions become a commodity, although probably not in such a lovely 1950s design.
3. Magnificent Revolution
Art collective, Magnificent Revolution, was also there to create the world’s first cycle-powered home in a special room at The Bigger Picture. Strangely shaped, bike-like sculptures, with protruding pedals powered various things from washing machines to blenders. You could even jump on and have a go, which is a great way to encourage all of us to take more steps towards low-energy living.
4. Beekeeping
Heidi Hermann, founding member of the Natural Beekeeping Trust, gave an introduction into natural bee keeping with an array of beautiful crafted beehives and advice on how to set up your own. Due to human impact, the number of bees are dying dramatically and setting up your own can help reverse this. Believe it or not, when bees become extinct, the human race can only survive for a few years. Most people don’t realise how much the humble bumble bee is indeed an important part of our delicate eco system.
5. Breadmaking
There was a chance to join master baker and bread hero, Paul Barker of Cinnamon Square, for some bread making lessons and tips to bake the perfect loaf. People could also take home the bread at the end of the day, which meant the lovely freshly baked bread aroma filled the warehouse all day.
With over forty-five leading thinkers, activists, authors and artists attending The Bigger Picture, it meant throughout the whole day people could get involved with a range of debates and discussions, from lively talks on money issues to in-depth discussions about the Copenhagen summit in December.
The one-day event put on by Nef, an independent think-and-do tank, was hugely popular. Huge queues snaked around outside most of the day, with singers and speakers having to keep people entertained outside. The day certainly helped to encourage people to look at their own carbon footprint and it was good to see solutions and not only the problems, with everyone starting to look a little closer at the bigger picture.
Written by Adam S on Thursday October 29th, 2009 4:20 pm
Not as impressive as their first output, more aboutmind not as depressive as their comeback, ask their third album manages to have some really solid hits while they explore their own roots and bring the angular guitars back. Unfortunately, site the excessive number of fillers making the experience less pleasant than it should be. You can’t blame them for trying. Their new songs see them trying to sound like their old selves – back when they had enough dancefloor anthems to make Franz Ferdinand jealous, and a major behind after them. After being dropped by their label because of News And Tributes, the second album which lacked the material which made them interesting in the first place, they had no option but to go back and give us their best impression of The Jam playing punk versions of Beach Boys songs. In The Beginning of the Twist, Radio Heart and Broke Up the Time they show that they still have what it takes to create shiny pop-dance songs. So what am I forgetting to mention? Oh, yes, the bad songs on the album. The ones that sound like a pastiche of themselves; soulless use of guitar and drums (as well as their accent – which we all liked) making me wonder where the energetic, meaningful two minutes of punk madness went. It could’ve been their chance to make it via their self made label, but regrettably This is Not the World could only be a good if it was an EP.
The member of Black Ghosts‘ solo project Lord Skywave is steeped in biographical influences and sways into the worlds of pop, and dub reggae and avant-garde electronica. Then again, order when you look at Simon Lord’s musical career you can see why his solo project is such a multi-genre mish mash.
Perhaps the most heartwarming part of this album is his extensive use of his families musical past. He samples the music his grandmother used to make so many moons ago. After a summer of visiting his grandfather’s house and going through his collection of old reel-to-reel tape recordings and 78′s, pilule he had an entire archive of her fantastically composed sweep off-your-feet instrumentals to work with.
As well as this, all the electronic bass sounds on the album were produced using the Lord Skywave synthesizer which was built by Simon’s dad in the 70′s, and only 10 were made. Which I find hard to believe with such a tantalizing name, surely there must have been more demand!
I don’t know about you, but I find all this absolutely fascinating, and such a refreshing change from the majority of music, which can sometimes can appear to be something of a soulless, money grabbing, dried out husk.
It’s so hard to pinpoint my favourite tracks on this album because it’s all so diverse and to start comparing them makes my retinas hurt. I think what I find so gripping about his style is his voice. At points it’s heartbreak in a sound wave and at others it‘s the happy morning shower singing that I thought only really occured in plays set in New York in the 1950′s.
Even though Simon Lord is an established musician, as both an ex-member of Simian and current half of The Black Ghosts, this album sets him apart from all his previous endeavors. It sounds like Prince if he was quintessentially British. What more can I say?
I’d seen the Amarylas a couple of weeks ago at an Oxjam night at Brixton’s Windmill and had been pleasantly surprised. Heading over to Islington’s hallowed pharmacy +Greater+London, what is ed +UK&fb=1&view=text&latlng=469594232395886090″target=”_blank”>Hope & Anchor, it was time to reacquaint myself with their psychedelia infused sound.
Tonight they were the opening act on the bill, so the venue was still pretty quiet, which was a shame. A guitar based four-piece, led by mop haired singer Luke Segura, they blend that classic, slightly psychedelic pop whimsy of Syd Barrett or Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake-era Small Faces with a Clash inspired New Wave edge. Basically, what Pete Doherty might sound like if he didn’t have quite so many, er, distractions!
For all of you still mourning the passing of the Libertines, make sure you check out the Amarylas when they play a venue near you.
Calling all budding fashion designer’s, adiposity Carla Fernandez, medicine founder of the leading ethical label, thereTaller Flora, is giving designers the opportunity to jet over to Mexico to become part of her team for five months.
After winning the British Council’sInternational Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award, Carla has been rewarded with a cash prize to spend on a project which both tailors to her specific interests and contributes to developing the relationship between her country and the UK. The Mexican designer has chosen to give a printed textile designer and menswear designer from the UK the fantastic opportunity of working with herself and the Taller Flora team on two lines of clothing in Mexico in August 2008.
This is not, however, for someone who just likes the idea of sipping tequilas in the sun. The menswear candidate will work with Carla to develop tailoring within the range while the textile designer will help out on her printed textile designs.
Requirements for the menswear applicants:
Should have a BA or MA in fashion or be a talented designer.
Demonstrable competence of pattern cutting is mandatory
Ability to work independently
Team player with good interpersonal and communication skills
Knowledge of and an interest in ethical fashion
Knowledge of Spanish would be an asset
Must be a resident in the UK.
And the requirements for the textile applicants:
Should have a BA or MA in textile design or be a talented print designer
Excellent freehand drawing skills
Knowledge of Photoshop is mandatory
Silk screening experience
Ability to work independently
Team player with good interpersonal and communication skills
Knowledge of and an interest in ethical fashion
Knowledge of Spanish would be an asset
Must be a resident in the UK.
Sound like you? Designers interested in the project are asked to send a short (no longer than 300 words) written statement outlining why they want to be part of this project, up to 12 images of their work, their CV and the details of one of their references, to Alison.Moloney@britishcouncil.org or Carla Fernandez at carla@flora2.com by 16th June 2008.
HEALTH at Korova, abortion Liverpool
Emmy the Great, web Diane Cluck, buy information pills younghusband at Cargo, London
White Williams at Puregroove Records, London
The Dodos at Night and Day Cafe, Manchester
I Was A Cub Scout at Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Semifinalists at Amersham Arms, London
Beach House, Fleet Foxes at ULU, London
Thursday 12th
Gnarls Barkley at Bush Hall, London
The Dodos at Crawdaddy, Dubin
O Children, S.C.U.M. at Puregroove Records, London
Friday 13th
Little Boots at Club Pony w/Midfield General, Sheffield
Sportsday Megaphone at Club NME @ Sin City, Swansea
Wild Beasts at Cross Keys, London
Saturday 14th
Deerhunter, High Places at Dublin Vicar Street
Leonard Cohen at Irish Museum Of Modern Art, Dublin
Meltdown – Massive Attack, Fuck Buttons at Royal Festival Hall, London
Sportsday Megaphone at Club NME at Welly Club, Hull
Sunday 15th
The Twilight Sad at Edinburgh Bongo Club
The Sugars at Fleece, Bristol
On Monday evening Ethic held the award ceremony for it’s annual ethical fashion competition in London.
Being one of the hottest days this year, buy I arrived at the uba trendy Fashion and Textile Museum feeling slightly harassed having endured 10 minutes of the rush hour on London’s sweaty central line. Thankfully I quickly located the bar and after gladly helping myself to a chilled white wine and tasty mini tuna baguette I was ready to fully immerse myself in the show
Now in its second year, more about The Ethic Competition is a contest open to over 150 fashion courses in the UK. Students were given the brief of designing a garment under £100 which addressed a key issue surrounding ethical fashion (eg fair-trade, organic materials, recycling, animal friendly or innovative environmentally friendly new materials), while still maintaining elements of current trends.
While I’d admit that none of the finalist’s work could be worn beyond the museums four walls, credit has to be given to the students for managing to produce garments that were at least visually appealing and a pleasure to watch on the catwalk. Design team Reduce, Reuse, Recycle managed to create a strapless full skirted gown using just newspaper, bubble wrap, bin bags and scrap pieces of recycled material.
The winners, and admittedly my favourites, were Nicole Da Silva and Phong Nguyen from Hackney Community College, who used second hand materials and clippings from the BBC website to address the issue of recycling while still managing to incorporate this season’s obsession with volume and ruffles in an extravagant tiered wedding gown.
Once the winners had taken their lap of honor and the buffet started to fizzle out, I made tracks to leave feeling very inspired and I must admit, a little merry!
Whether you’re eco-minded, page bemused by the concept, price or like me, help just generally confused; scribble down in your diaries ‘Climate Forum’, which is happening this weekend! The event includes a huge range of 50+ seminars with speakers varying from Michael Meacher MP, Tony Jupiter (Director Friends of the Earth UK) to George Galloway MP. But, you’ll not be listening to others all day as workshops, art, music, performance, stalls and exhibitions allow you to get stuck in straight away. There’s even a Saturday night party ‘Climate Caper’ at the Synergy Centre for those groovy rebel campaigners wanting to throw some shapes.
The event is organised by the group CCC (‘Campaign against Climate Change’) who seek to raise awareness about the gravity and urgency of global warming. They aim to get people together, forming street campaigns, pushing for a reduction in global emissions. The first day’s plenary is: ‘Are we losing the race against climate catastrophe?’ where workshops will investigate solutions such as climate justice, biodiversity and even ‘Youth and climate change: Campaigning for our future’ (so all you raging student activists with burning questions to ask-note this down)! Sunday will consequently focus on ‘Climate change from around the world’ where speakers will be holding a selection of workshops, including: ‘direct action’, ‘climate change, energy and health’, ‘combined networks’ and many more.
One workshop that pinpricked my interest was: ‘Youth and climate change: Campaigning for our future’ with Abigail Jabines of Greenpeace on Saturday. In a 2007 seminar in Sydney she stated that a one-metre sea level rise would result in 700 million square metres of land where 15 out of 16 regions’ coastlines would be affected. Not only does risen sea levels effect eco systems but it also has immediate consequences for small communities ill equipped to deal with climate changes.
The assortment of workshops happening throughout the weekend range from the political (‘Energy and Anarchy: why we need to escape from market-based thinking’), economical (‘Climate change and your bank’), political (‘Direct Action’), to spiritual (‘Faith and Climate Change’). One organiser told me the objective of the Weekend was to ‘raise awareness and forge a community of people who care about these issues; through political action as well as individual choices’. Her sunny outlook imparted a sense of positivity in me, as in the words of Abigail Jabines in her lecture; ‘We can do something. The window for action is getting very slim and the time to act is now.’
The line-up tonight does appear a little bit thrown together, page as all the bands don’t really lead on from one another. What Would Jesus Drive kick off the night’s proceedings. I’ve yet to decide on how feel about bands who get their names from bumper stickers, but judging a band by their favored car trinkets should always be avoided. This duo and their drum machine manage to put on a quirky live show of American tinged indie rock that seems to entertain this crowd at least.
Next on the bill is Polka Party, who offer a perfectly enjoyable bunch of pop songs with more southern drawl and dandy temperament than you could shake a stick at. Their latest single ‘Japanese Haircut’ is almost perfect indie disco fodder and it certainly had one girl at the front pulling Agyness Dean style pouts for the camera. I think this must be how indie music is rated nowadays.
Dananananaykroyd stole the show quite easily, though it’s not their style to do things effortlessly. The energy from their live show was infectious, and I’d have to say the catalyst for this was their duo of drummers. Facing opposite ways they dual perpetually, and the effect is almost hypnotic. Thankfully there is a large distraction from all the fun drumming in the form of the ever so brash lead singer. His microphone seemed to be broken for the majority of the set, but he truly didn’t care, and neither did I. He was shouting so loud that you could get the jist of what he might sound like if the microphone was working, and his flailing was for more interesting than any type of lyrics. I’d like to think of him as a lead flailer than a lead singer.
14 Bacon Street, erectile E1 6LF, page 11th-18th December
The pop-up shop does what it says on the tin, buy appears in a different location for a limited time, so you have to be quick to get in and see what’s inside. But make the effort as you can find a plethora of goodies from new designers and artists, hand picked from exotic locations all around the world. The store also supports the East End charity Kids Company, so you’ll be doing your bit to help as you shop.
Enjoy an evening of late-night shopping on London’s trendiest street, as well as rumageing through all that vintage, there will be refreshments on hand and special Christmas gifts available only on this night.
The Bizarre Bazaar
Sunday 21st December
Monday 8th December Joan as Policewoman, Thekla, capsule Bristol
Ex-Antony and the Johnsons collaborator touring in support of her new album. Expect mesmerising vocals and heart-rending tunes.
Boss Hog, Luminaire, London
Jon Spencer (as in Blues Explosion) and his wife Cristina Martinez front this long-standing blues-rock outfit.
Tuesday 9th December
Kong, Buffalo Bar, London
Art-noise, cool as Manchester band, heavy on the guitars.
The Miserable Rich, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Folky, orchestrated Brighton group, with links to Lightspeed Champion.
Sixtoes, Big Chill House, London
Cinematic, spooky blues-folk with a melancholy Eastern European edge.
Wednesday 10th December
Little Death, Club Fandango @ 229, London
Cool, cosmopolitan London band playing psychadelic tinged noise-pop.
Land of Talk, Water Rats, London
Canadian indie-rock.
Thursday 11th December
Good Books, Proud Galleries, London
Danceable indie-electro.
Mike Bones, Old Blue Last, London
One man and his guitar.
Friday 12th December
Rose Elinor Dougall, Barfly, Cardiff
Pretty girl music from this ex-Pipette. Still very pop but less of the sixties girl group rip-offs.
Free Fridays: Brute Chorus, La Shark, Josh Weller, 93 Feet East, London
Bonkers hair (Josh Weller) and outfits (La Shark) will abound at this FREE night featuring up-and-coming bands including Brute Chorus who will presumably play new single ‘She Was Always Cool’.
Saturday 13th December
Herman Dune, The Deaf Institute, Manchester
Perennial Parisian folksters on tour to promote new album ‘Next Year in Zion’.
Glissando, Holy Trinity Church, Leeds
Dreamy and ethereal. Should be lovely in a church.
Stereolab, Black Box, Belfast
Long-standing lounge/electronic post-rock with female French singer.
Getting up at 6am on a cold Saturday morning may be unthinkable to some -but for myself and fellow fashion enthusiasts, information pills the Angels Vintage and Costume clothing sale was more than enough motivation for the long, look early trek over to Wembley….or so we thought. The queue turned out to be VERY long… a 3 to 4 hour wait we were told. Despite our earlier determination, it was too long for us and we gracefully admitted defeat, leaving behind a growing queue of seriously hardcore shoppers.
One of those hardcore shoppers was ameliasmagazine.com’s very own Music Editor, Prudence Ivey, here’s her take on it, “Leaving the house at 6.30am, we were in the queue by about 7.15am and, although in the first 500, we were nowhere near the front. Some people – vintage shop buyers – had been there since Friday afternoon. There was a really friendly atmosphere, you could tell these people were true vintage fiends, as there was not a scruffbag in sight, it was all red lipstick and glamourous outfits despite the ungodly hour.
When we were allowed in, after just over an hour of wating, there was virtual silence and heads down as people rifled through the cardboard boxes packed with clothes on the floor. A cloud of dust filled the room after about 10 minutes, most of the clothes were in a bit of a state and everything I ended up with turned the water black when I put it in to hand-wash, not to mention my black snot… A quick sort through, try on and swapping session with my friend, along with some excellent packing meant that I left with 18 items of pretty decent, some of them really excellent, vintage finds for a measly £20. One of my favourite shopping trips EVER.” (above and below is Prudence modeling her two of her wonderful buys)
So now I wish I had stayed in the queue – but my day was not wasted, I found a far more inviting alternative, which boasted the benefits of being a. inside and b. no queue! It was the first London edition of New York magazine BUST‘s Christmas Craftacular.
Set in the St. Aloysius Social Hall in Euston, a mixed group of cool crafty kids, cute guys and even grannies filled the aptly dated-yet-cozy bar, and the Shellac Sisters played classic retro tunes on their wind-up gramophone, which added to the kitsch atmosphere. Having taken off in New York over the last 4 years, the Craftacular event has now come to British shores and brings together craft sellers, knitting circles, badge making stations and of course, lots of cake!
Tatty Divine turned into doctors for the day and set up their very own ‘craft clinic’ offering advice and tips to craft novices or lovers.
An ArtYarn Guerilla Graffiti Knitting Crew even set up a training camp, where boys sat happily next to their teachers, learning how to knit one, pearl one and Random Monkey Designs offered lessons in cross stitch.
With a packed out venue and buzzing crowd, it’s likely that (and we hope) the Craftacular event will become a regular date in the British calendar.
Monday Dec 8th
It seems most exhibition spaces in this area begin like this, drugs in someone’s flat. Every day this week at 79a Brick Lane, viagra 100mg there will be an exhibition of seven separate artists (one for each day) alongside a selected feature film, including the likes of Saturday Night Fever, North by Northwest, and The Truman Show. It starts at eight and ends when the film does. For a more detailed itinerary, check here. Admission is free.
Tuesday Dec 9th A Family in Disguise, by Yu Jinyoung has been extended at Union on Teesdale Street and is worth a look, if not only for the fact that entering the exhibition is a surreal experience in itself. Not a curator to be seen, and with a camera that links the room to their gallery in Ewer Street, you are alone in a haunting room with this disparate family of forlorn faces. Ring the buzzer and take a look.
Wednesday Dec 10th
Indian Highway is the new exhibition starting today at the Serpentine, describing itself as a snapshot of the vibrant generations artists working across the country today, well-established artists shown besides lesser known practitioners. Using a array of medias they are threaded together with a common engagement with the social and political, examining complex issues in contemporary India such as environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class. It runs until Feb 22nd.
Thursday Dec 11th
Hermetic Seel is a new exhibition by Shane Bradford opening on Wednesday at the Vegas Gallery. It might just be satisfying to see fourteen historical art encyclopedias subjected to Bradford’s “post-Pollock” dipping technique.
Friday Dec 12th
Here’s what one of our writers said of Omnifuss’ last exhibition: In the heart of Dalston, down the end of a small alley road was a large garage with a little door. Through this door, a group of 24 artists showcased their work. Sculpture, music, performance and photography took place in the old car workshop that was far away from the usual pristine white walls of gallery spaces and created a rustic, and inspiring location for this exhibition. With flame heaters to warm those tootsies, and the symphonious sound of a violinist haunting the open rooms, I found myself immersed in the eclectic furniture and art… Downstairs is their new exhibit, an exploration of domesticity in its rawest states through sound, sculpture, video and installation, and by the sounds of it is worth a visit.
Saturday Dec 13th Awopbopaloobop. Artists listen to music, everyone listens to music. Lyrics are etched into our minds whether we want them there or not, and we can’t help but allow them to inform our everyday. Awopbopaloobop (I just like saying that word) is an exhibition at http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/index.html, asking a host of artists to produce based on a favourite song lyric. This exhibition is coming to an end, (21st of Dec), so go and see it if you haven’t already. The space itself is worth the trip, and it’s fun to walk around a gallery with a song-sheet in your hands!
Brian Aldiss’ short story, drug “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, this to which the exhibition “Super-Toys” makes reference, abortion tells the story of a mother and her android son in the overcrowded world of the future who, however hard they try, cannot find a way to love each other. It makes love seem like a human malfunction, a flaw which can never be imitated. But moreover it captures the feeling of dismay when two people who know that they should love each other realise they can’t – that they fundamentally don’t know how. The android boy, who questions whether or not he is real, seems more humane than his human mother; who sends him to be repaired for the flaw from which she herself suffers. Love cannot be programmed; but is a lover not someone who says all those things that you want to hear, like an automated machine?
So with high expectations of an exhibition dealing with the strange interaction between humans and machine, fantasy and reality, love and compromise; what I found was initially disappointing. The notions the story had alluded to, the emotions and the complexity of them, were not to be found. Machine ducks floating in a pond, a room of human shaped stuffed objects lying mundanely on the floor; flashing machines dancing in a square box; all interesting to look at, but lacking explanation. The most interesting part of the exhibition was the nightmarish, garish and lurid room that followed, full of toys ripped apart: toys with two head, toys mutilated and deformed by visitors, and all in the name of art. With shelves and window ledges packed already, I was invited to create my own monster from a pile of rejected toys. There was something sinister about being instructed to rip the head off a teddy bear; glue Barbie legs where paws should be; and to work at a designated workstation. Despite the visual pleasure and hands on aspect of super-toys, it seemed to be an exhibition full of concept without real content. But maybe that’s what it allows you to do; to explore you own memories of love, childhood, playfulness and ultimately rejection; and realise that everyone else feels the same way too.
Anne Collier Dispersion is a patchy affair. Curated by the director of the Chisenhale gallery Polly Staple, hospital it features seven artists working from different locations, view tied together under the banner of an examination of the ‘circulation of images in contemporary society….in our accelerated image economy’. This seems a fairly sound starting point, although a bit nebulous and too wide in the sense of the number of artists that could be described as grappling with these issues.
Recycling and colliding of images is examined most clearly in Anne Collier’s photographs. Iconic posters, complete with creases, walk the line between multiple realities; but unlike other work in the show, the centre of power lies not in some theoretical hinterland but in the jarring sensation between seeing the photograph of the image and the image itself. Again this is hardly a new idea but it is well executed. The twin set of images a box of photos of the sea provides a further layer of tension between the natural and man-made.
Anne Collier
Seth Price
Most of the the other works are films. Seth Price’s ‘Digital Video Effect:Editions‘ (2006) , juxtaposing high and low cultural references (such as those barriers still exist), feels like an early 90′s MTV insert in its scope and complexity. Mark Leckey, now with the epithet ‘Turner Prize Winner’, is due to give a one off lecture/live performance ‘Mark Leckey in the Long Tail‘ in January tackling the similar ground, hopefully to better effect.
A better example of the film work on display is Hito Steyerl’s fascinating ‘Lovely Andrea’ (2007). This is an engaging documentary-esque look at a Japanese bondage artist, cut with scenes fom Wonder Woman cartoons and ‘backstage’ footage of the creation or recreation of scenes, calling the whole film’s authenticity into question. This could have led to a horribly self reflexive pile of mush but is actually a taut and gripping set of mixed narratives.
Henrik Olesen’s computer printed images mounted on blackboards, ‘some gay-lesbian artists and/or artists relevant to homosocial culture V,VI.VII’(2007), a collection reappropriated around queer history, touched on interesting ideas; a collection of female portraits by female artists from Renaissance onwards, for example. But the sum of its parts felt lazy and, like the rest of the show, he veers into hectoring or frustrating silence instead of fostering conversation between the work and viewer.
This is a problem, but one the ICA can absorb better than other cultural centres. The institution was founded as an ‘adult playground’ and this remit naturally involves risky and challenging work, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Dispersion is a perfect encapsulation of this.
The disjointed art punk of San Fransisco’s Deerhoof is pretty brilliant on record but I’d heard it was even better live and so couldn’t wait to see them at ULU on their only UK date this year. Their music is disarmingly simple sounding, online loved by music aficionados and 10 year old girls alike – my kid sister loves Panda Panda Panda and Milkman almost as much as any Girls Aloud single. Perhaps I should have sent her along to review the show. It would have been easier for her to convince the people on the door that she was called Prudence Ivey (the name I was under on the list) than a scruffy and definitely male reviewer. They thought I was a street-crazy.
Achieving such wide-ranging popularity is an impressive feat considering that, sick underneath that childlike simplicity, their songs consist of complex structures alongside fragments of dissonant guitar thrash/twang and improvisation. However, seeing Deerhoof is no overblown, intellectual chore. They manage to be simultaneously clever, loud and cartoonishly entertaining and enlivened ULU with a set that encompassed a lot of new album material alongside some stuff to keep the old school fans happy.
The crowd were particularly receptive to old favourite Milkman, along with the Yo La Tengo-in-a-parallel-universe sounds of new album Offend Maggie – a title that always gives me the mental image of an outraged, pre-dementia Margaret Thatcher. There were clipped drums ahoy, along with Deerhoof’s twinkling wire to fuzz guitar textures. Satomi’s vocals, all coy and Japanese, were accentuated by goofy hand gestures – a fitting accompaniment to her surreal and playful subject matter. The whole band were really tight and surprisingly enthusiastic after fourteen years playing together. I can’t wait to see them again.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, drugs I thoroughly recommend this charming animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return. This definitely ‘isn’t about polar bears anymore!’
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out then Get a Grip in the Aniboom Awards 2008 click here.
For anyone wanting to brush up on their climate science, buy information pills I thoroughly recommend this snappy animation by Leo Murray.
The friendly and clear narration takes you steadily through the various chemical processes that are happening on our planet in it’s present climatic state. Without being overly ominous, the film warns how these processes, unchanged for millions of years, are being disturbed by man-made CO2 emissions and may be heading towards a tipping point where we will be plummeted into a place of no return.
I found it really helpful for clarifying some terminology, the science bits- told in a simple way- are up- to- date, and it projects a statement of encouragement, not one of doom. The prospects are scary but we’re lucky to be the generation who could prevent them from happening.
To vote for Wake Up Freak Out in Aniboom Awards 2008. No Equal clothing are a company who don’t pander to press agendas and celebrities, sick instead they are refreshingly focused on working with new and exciting design talent and helping charities.
They also know how to throw a party – and it was good cause central. In the first room of The Russian Club Studios was a display of logoed t-shirts and hoodies, website like this made in collaboration with three emerging illustrators– Yann Le Bec, Thibaud Herem and Jean Jullien.
10% of the sales – not just profit – of this No Equal apparel are being donated to three charities, which No Equal Clothing are supporting, Kidsco, Addaction and XLP. To mix up the mediums and give some background to the collaborations, there was also a video installation showing the three artists at work.
In the second room, as part of their desire to champion new designers, No Equal clothing held a silent auction (of which all profits go to Kidsco, Addaction and XLP) for the London College of Fashion. Seven of LCF’s undergraduate students working for the college’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion created collections that were environmentally and ethically conscious and these were being sold.
The auction is also a possible reason for the eclectic mixture of guests. East London kids hung out with men in suits (in separate groups obviously) in the sparse concrete venue created an unusual atmosphere, you could have been in an underground club, art gallery or exclusive couture shop.
The students collections were varied and interesting, Michela Carraro (pictured below) used hemp based fabrics sourced from small family run businesses to create a romantic chiffon-esque collection, while Manon Flener created deconstructed / reconstructed garments made of pieces of fabric pieced together with studs. She says her motivation for the collection was to reduce waste in fashion; each piece can be put together in a different way to make many garments.
Supporting the Fashioning the Future programme at LCF, which encourages designers to think about the environmental imapct of their work, No Equal clothing are actively championing eco-friendly designers of the future and with their own clothing label, bucking the greedy fashion trend by giving a percentage of profits to charity. Good work all round.
Last week the Earth team at Amelia’s Magazine went along to the Friends House in Euston to listen to a report made by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC). The issue was climate change and the information it uncovered was alarming.
As a self-confessed newbie to these sorts of events I must admit to harboring uneasiness about feeling out of place in a room full of swampys. But my silly preconceptions were immediately flattened.
Lead by a panel of speakers expert in their field, story the atmosphere at the Friends House was alive with people from all manner of backgrounds but united in the opinion that climate change is a matter of urgency.
Chairing the debate was Christian Hunt who kicked off by asking the audience a few questions. 99% raised their hand when asked whether they would describe themselves as environmentalists. Roughly 70% would say they had some knowledge of climate change while roughly 20% would say they had lots of knowledge on the subject. 99% of us responded yes we did like his t-shirt that read ‘don’t give up.’
The first to speak from the panel was Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He started with a clear message: the question of climate change is a humanitarian one. While the U.K. and E.U’s definition of a dangerous climate change as 2°C per annum may be an adequate threshold for us in the western world, it is not nearly small enough to safeguard the rest of the world.
It is the southern hemisphere, containing the world’s poorest, that is targeted the most by global warming in it’s present state, with people dying on a daily basis. Therefore it is an ethical decision about how much we care about the world’s weakest as to how and when we go about dealing with the climate.
He went on to say that the entire climate change debate needs an urgent rethink when taking into account the latest emissions data. The planet is heating up at an even faster rate than we thought, and our government seems to be denying this is happening by following the miscalculated advice from the Stern Report and not pumping in nearly dosh needed to implement a strategy that will radically cut back our emissions.
But Kevin Anderson pointed out there may be a silver lining to retrieve from the present economical situation. History has shown us that larger emission reductions occur when there is economic turmoil. I guess this has something to with cut backs in industry forced by a plummeting economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, for example, there was a record drop of 5% per annum.
Tim Helweg-Larson, the director of Public Interest Research Centre bounded onto the platform next. So this is where it gets rather technical but don’t worry, Tim’s clear and straightforward delivery meant that even my mind didn’t drift into thinking about what I might eat for tea.
He showed us a series of images showing the levels of sea ice in the arctic in 1979 and in 2007 and I was taken back to those pretty pictures in my school science lab…Predictably the more recent images contained a much larger surface area of dark gloominess.
These dark regions absorb more heat. This additional heat penetrates 1500km inland across a plain of perma-frost. This stuff is harmless if left untouched but once melted, its carbon content-which is twice the amount of the entire global atmosphere-is released into the air. Yep that means even more bad stuff is added to the high intensity of CO2 that started this whole malarkey.
The knock-on effect going on in the arctic-known as the triple melt- is steadily destroying the climatic state of the entire planet. Soon we will reach the point where we will no longer be within the realm of temperatures that enable things to grow and humanity to survive (known as the middle climate). If this isn’t scary enough this tipping point is likely to peak sooner than we thought; as early as 2011 to 2015.
George Momboit was next to speak. Hello. His exuberance for the cause was exciting…ooh la…did you know he has been shot at, shipwrecked and pronounced clinically dead? Well he was very much alive that evening as I listened – intently- to his practical, if ambitious, advice to the government to stop fannying about and introduce a ‘crash program of total energy replacement.’
He whizzed through a series of steps geared to cut our emissions by 20% by 2012 and more thereafter. But those wild curls, brisk demeanor and air of academic brilliance were just a little distracting. Without getting too carried away I managed to jot down the key points of this radical plan:
1. To train up a green army of builders that is equipped to build more energy efficient homes
2.A mass subsidy program to re insulate homes
3.Replacement of power plants
4.Re engineering of roads to cater better for cycles and coaches
5. To Cap number of landing spots for airports so that by 2030 the maximum number of flights is 5% of current levels.
6.Agriculture should be devoted to the most efficient carbon saving schemes
7.He summed up with the statement that lowering demand for fossil fuels should happen simultaneously with lowering their supply and we need to dramatically cut oil and gas exploitations.
Pretty rousing stuff…
Solar energy pioneer, Jeremy Leggett gave us a more buisnessy slant on what can be done for climate change especially in this current state of economic upheaval and an encroaching energy crunch (the I.E.A. predicts 5 years time). With people becoming increasingly disheartened by the government’s spending priorities, now’s the time to duck in and make a collective effort to re-engineer capitalism. He enforced the notion that money needs to go into building a carbon army of workers that would create 10 thousand new jobs and…cost a measly half a billion squid
Caroline Lucas, MEP for South East England and Leader of the Green Party, disheartened by the inertia of our government, shocked us all by urging ‘a massive campaign of civil disobedience.’ This prompted uproar amongst the audience and I must say it felt pretty inspiring .She went on to talk about Climate Rush, an activist group who take their inspiration from the Suffragette movement. Like the women who were denied the vote, their rush on parliament really is a demand for life itself. They also dress-up in fancy Edwardian petticoats, which sounds fun. But their theatricality is not without sincerity, direction and a passion to change the injustices that climate change is causing on humanity. Caroline Lucas’ speech stirred an energetic drive to ‘do something’ in me. She reminded us of the words of Emily Pankhurst ‘to be a militant is to be a privilege’ and something hit home. We are very lucky to not be totally powerless in this situation, as so many people across the world are, and it is possible to make our government listen to us, albeit with a bit of hard work. To find about the next climate rush action click here.
So I’ve dipped my toe into the murky sludge of our current climate. All the facts and figures might not have filtered through into this article but I hope if, like me, you previously thought this issue was for only for really clever people and maybe just a little put off by dreadlocks, you’ve realized that this is something we should all be aware of whether we want to listen to it or not, including our government.
As I left the Climate Safety talk to cycle home, I felt almost grateful for never bothering to learn to drive as perhaps in a small way it might make up for that stomach-sinking feeling of how terribly selfish I had been for only vaguely paying attention to news of melting popsicles and greenhouses.
The truth is I felt safe in the view that the really scary things won’t happen for a very long time, well after I’m buried in the ground and used for compost. Well I was wrong, it’s not our grandkid’s grandkid that’s going to feel the full force of climate change-it’s us.
We’ve searched online for hours to find these wonderful gift ideas for Christmas this year! Including solar powered fairy lights, advice recycled wrapping paper, rx sew-it-yourself dresses, fairtrade teddies and handmade jewellery.
JEWELLERY
Kate Slater First up on our list, and featured in Issue 10 of Amelia’s Magazine, we have wonderfully talented illustrator Kate Slater. She is one of many artists currently selling her work on etsy in the form of these gorgeous little accessories that she has made. Kate‘s illustrations come alive through the use of collage, mixed papers and wire for relief work. Furtive Pheasant Brooch Kate’s collaged pheasant has been remade into this lovely brooch. The original illustration has been printed onto durable shrink plastic and bejeweled with green diamantes. We love the idea of being able to wear Kate’s illustrations! Buy the Furtive Pheasant Brooch here
Butterfly Dress Kit Gossypium is a great place to buy gifts from! All the clothes on their site are high quality, fairtrade and made from biodegradable materials. They’re one of the great sites working with the idea of a zero-impact on the environment, and we’ve love this Butterfly Dress Kit. It is a sew-it-yourself organic cotton kit that comes with a lovely printed fabric and easy instructions to create one of three garments. You can make a blouse, a dress or a smock with or without pockets, and have the option of long or short sleeves; with nine different styles to choose from you are in total control of how your finished product looks! Buy the Butterfly Dress Kit here.
Solar Helicopter This little toy is perfect as a desk ornament, and is loads of fun for kids and grown ups! Working with as little light as from a desk lamp, the solar cells demonstrate how efficient modern eco technology is. Buy the Solar Helicopter here.
Outdoor Solar Powered Christmas Fairy Lights These all-year-round lights are a great way to bring some green sparkle to your home! They’re waterproof and come with 8 different settings including flashing, continuous light patterns! The lights only come on when it’s dark (so about 3:30pm…) and the solar panel uses high grade Kyocera Solar cells that store enough energy to run for 10 hours, even on winter days! These lights are a bargain too at only £19.99! Buy your Solar Powered Fairy Lights here.
These 100% recycled wrapping papers are by Lisa Jones and come in many different styles! They are modernist and brightly coloured using vegetable inks. Get some Recycled Wrapping Paper here.
Cardboard Cutting Table This 100% Icelandic made brilliant cardboard table can be used as a meeting table, a cutting table (it comes with a laminated white surface top), a dinner table and a baby changing table! It’s portable and folds away to save space! (and comes with a handy 18% discount for design students!). Buy the Cardboard Table here.
KIDS
‘Woodsy The Owl’ Bib This adorable bib is by etsy seller ‘cocoandmilkweed‘, consisting of Evan and Lila Maleah- a husband and wife team intent on creating lovely products for little and big people! Woodsy has been handmade in a dark brown eco-felt that has been made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, and sewn onto a soft cotton woodgrain fabric. the entire bib has been backed with organic cotton flannel and lined with organic cotton and bamboo for extra absorption! All this detail has added to its appeal, and it even has a snap closure to make sure its little wearer isn’t able to yank it off! Buy a ‘Woodsy The Owl’ bib here.
Dala Horse Stocking The Christmas tradition of stocking has been brought into the 21st century by Erin ‘sewsewsuckurtoe‘ by using the folk art inspired Dala Horse. It is constructed out of eco-felt which is made from recycled plastic bottles and lined in cotton to make it strong enought to hold as many things as possible! Buy a Dala Horse Stocking here.
Witness are a group, based in New York, that use video and online technologies to expose human rights violations all over the world. By making videos of victim’s personal stories, they direct attention to injustice and promote public engagement and policy change.
Sam’s first up on the video (below), telling us that the images of a school teacher in East Burma hiding out in a forest with her children is one of the images that shows us we need to go further with our actions to help those whose human rights have been severely violated.
A video producer, trainer and human rights advocate, Sam’s videos have been screened at the US Congress, UK Houses of Parliament, The UN and in film festivals worldwide.
The group are also launching an online channel for these videos called The Hub. This is a new multi-lingual online portal dedicated to human rights media and action. It provides the opportunity for individuals, organizations, networks and groups around the world to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention.
To find out more about Witness (www.witness.org) click here.
The non-existent morality faeries that do not sit either side of my head were in a fluster last Thursday. I took them down to a police auction in Bethnal Green, salve and for the entirety of my pedal there, they could not be resolved: surely there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalising on the lost and stolen goods of hapless victims, or worse still, liquidated assets, urgh! But then again, stolen … and retrieved; lost … and found. Where else would these items, long since departed from owners, go? I have nothing to say about liquidated assets, but apparently that’s next time – this week was reserved to lost and stolen goods only, courtesy of the metropolitan police; thanks.
Once we arrived, debates were dispelled and there was nothing to fluster about – it did not seem in the least bit seedy. This fortnightly event, put on by Frank G. Bowen Ltd Auctioneers and Valuers, two men both of whom are very friendly, one of whom looks like Santa Clause, takes place in an old air raid shelter, making for a strangely intimate and cosy affair. Potential bidders arrive early to browse, an advisable precaution seeing as nothing can be returned once purchased. I felt like the passer-by who steps into a regulars-only pub, my obvious excitement an instant give-away; but I tried my best to look like this was routine, and nestled myself in amongst the clutter on Lot 135, 1 wooden kitchen-table chair. Pensive brow in place, I concentrated on my catalogue sheet, my mind now settling to the bewildering list before me …
An initial glance reveals nothing of a surprise: bicycles, phones, cameras, and mp3 players; but it’s not long before you start to wonder … who steals a kitchen chair? A cupboard? An oak mirror overmantle (Lot 379)? The clothing list is the strangest of all: Lot 4: A pair of Ladies sandals, size 40; Lot 58: (non-specific) Ladies Clothing as bagged. One Lot contained a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a pair of trainers – all stolen from a single owner? How did that happen?
Against all inclinations, we ended up describing the place and the experience as a gem. Don’t go expecting to find vintage treasures, but there are amenities at a good price (surely I need a quad bike). And a few pointers: don’t let the excitement of bidding make you go for things for no other rational reason than the pleasure of raising your hand; careful of the man who will out-bid everyone for bikes; and don’t take a lunch break in the middle, thus missing that one item you’d circled in red that you were willing to spend forty quid on, and ended up going for under twenty, pah.
Don’t miss this excellent event tonight:
Cheshire Street Christmas Shopping
Friday 12th December
This Friday, case pop down to Cheshire Street as the whole street will be open to 10pm, cost so you can get your quirky Christmas gifts till late(ish) into the night and enjoy wine and nibbles while you do it. The shops will be offering exclusive discounts also, including 20% off on the night at I Dream of Wires. Amazing.
Frock Me! Vintage Fashion Fair
Sunday 14th December
Frock Me! vintage fashion should not be confused with the questionable television show of the same name hosted by a certain over-exposed designer and TV presenter. It is in fact a fabulous vintage fashion fair, and this Sunday, in the swanky surroundings of the Chelsea Town Hall you can pop down and pick up a genuine vintage garment.
They even have their own tea-room. What more could you want?
Open: 11am – 5.30pm
Admission: £4 (students £2 with ID)
Nearest Tube: Sloane Square / South Kensington
Christmas singles, diagnosis still the preserve of naff novelty acts, pillpop stars in trendy coats and X Factor winners, or newly fertile ground for acts that are unlikely to even get a sniff at the bottom of the charts? As the Top 40 becomes less and less of a barometer for success and following much-loved Christmas releases from the likes of Low and Sufjan Stevens, this year it seems that more and more indie bands are joining in on the act. But are any of them actually any good? And how to stop them seeming like lame commercial cash-ins in the style of the Christmas tunes of yore?
1. One way to quash accusations of rabid commercialism is to give your single away for free as Slow Club (see above) have done, with ‘Christmas TV’ offered as a free download in a spirit of seasonal goodwill to all mankind. A sweet little folk pop tune about travelling home for Christmas and snuggling in front of the Vicar of Dibley or some such, this is good for anyone feeling the pangs of seasonal separation. The boy/girl vocals chime prettily together in a song that has thematic echoes of ‘Driving Home For Christmas’.
2. Stay true to your signature style. If you’re usually a grumpy old misery guts, Christmas is no time to suddenly become cheerful just for the hell of it so why not whack out a truly miserable Christmas EP a la Glasvegas? A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) is the one to pull out when your Dad forgot to turn the oven down, your mum’s sobbing into her charred potatoes and your granny’s being cantankerous.
3. Restrict your mentions of the season to atmospherically wintery weather references a la The Leisure Society with their pretty waltz ‘Last of the Melting Snow’. Cinematic strings, romantic lyrics and a slightly more upbeat B-side in the form of ‘A Short Weekend Begins With Longing’. It’s available to download but it would be far more festive to buy one of the limited edition handmade copies in the spirit of wonky gingerbread men and glitter-glued everything.
There’s just one thing we’re a little bit worried about. Where are all the sleighbells???????
Now I know I sound like a purist, medicine but sometimes I wish Photoshop had never been invented. After seeing the ingenuity of the post-war artists featuring in Estorick’s ongoing exhibition, rxCut & Paste: European Photomontage 1920-1945, I longed for the days when you could actually tell something had been done by hand. When skill was quantifiable – based on precision, patience and masterfully cut and mounted shapes; not down to your aptitude with adjustment layers, clipping masks and liquify tools. Of course these arguably require a well-honed set of digital skills within themselves, but Photoshop has cheapened photography to a certain extent. Unimaginably cool things can be done on it by anyone with a shard of creative impulse, so we can’t help but lose the eensiest bit of respect for the end product, no matter how groundbreaking this may be. Don’t you think?
Regardless, this is a little gem of a show. Small – with only around 25 pieces – it looks at the modernist manipulation of photomontage (in which cut-out photographs and fragments of newsprint from illustrated journals were pasted into drawings and paintings) by the Cubists, Futurists and Dadaists. There’s also a healthy dose of angular Russian Constructivism in there, so for such a small exhibition, they have all the seminal art movements of the early 20th Century well and truly covered.
Developed towards the end of the First World War by the Dadaists in Berlin (the word ‘photomontage’ was taken from engineering and film editing practices) it was a way of making art with a new kind of conceptual clarity. And grit. It was powerful and playful – there is one untitled image of Hitler and a devilish-looking Churchill quaintly enjoying a cup of tea together – and mixed mediums in a way which made people stop and look. And they still have that affect today.
All the works are beautifully balanced and composed. Italian Futurist Enrico Prampolini’s Broom (1922) is a punchy little piece with huge red circles and chunky text overlaid on a photo of a massive machine, while Gustav Klucis’ Spartakiada Moscow / All-Union Olympiad (1928) is packed with movement and angles so sharp you could cut your fingers on them.
Curated by Lutz Becker, Cut & Paste showcases work made almost a century ago, but which feels surprisingly fresh and modern. It’ll make you turn off your computer, pick up a pair of scissors and start attacking The Daily Mail like there’s no tomorrow. I think that’s always a good thing.
I’m not a person who wins things; Lady Luck is not my friend. Never has my name been picked from a raffle or hat, discount scratch cards always defeat me, and even when I tried to Derren Brown the ticket man at Walthamstow Dogs, “Look into my eyes, this is the winning ticket”, I still came away empty handed. So when my name was electronically selected for the Time Out Bus Tour, a heavily over-subscribed perk to First Thursdays, I was veritably excited.
I’m not sure what I imagined, a day of musing amalgamated in something entirely inconceivable bearing reference to the Playbus and set firmly beyond the realm of reality. This is the description from which I fabricated: Each month, join leading curators, writers, academics and artists on a guided bus tour visiting a selection of First Thursdays Galleries; and that’s precisely what it was, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed when I saw a very ordinary looking bus waiting outside Whitechapel Gallery, a bit health & safety and sanitised, OAP visit to Hastings anyone?
If you were in fact there for a guided bus tour with leading academics, curators, and artists, and not for a bus of dreams, then you’d probably be satisfied. Four selected galleries, a talk from a curator in each, and the wealth of information that only a guided tour can give, adding much more depth to your engagement with the work. My favourite part was a six-strong bowling team that unofficially tagged along, following the bus in a Transit, and innocuously joining the talks wearing matching blue team shirts, names on the breast. I did feel a pang of jealousy at the scores of people casually strolling between galleries on Vyner Street, drinks in hands, hmmms and ahhhs at the ready. I’ll opt for a home made bicycle tour next time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this.
If you’re planning on going to any of these events, sale or have something you want to write an article about for the Earth Blog, email us: earth@ameliasmagazine.com!
Now here’s a lovely story: One felt-making coffee morning in South London, three suburban mums discover a shared hoarding habit, a joy in rummaging through rubbish and a desire to make pretty things (with or without the use of felt). Out from the discarded chicken-shop boxes and begrudged lotto tickets emerged, not Oscar the Grouch (think Sesame Street) but The Skip Sisters.
These ladies really know how to make-do-and-mend, rescuing shabby bits and bobs found in skips and attics and revamping them into something truly lovely. 100% eco-friendly.
From now until Christmas Eve the Skip Sisters will be selling all sorts of treasures from the debris at 14 Northcross Road in East Dulwich. (Not open Mondays).
Clocks made out of tins…found in a skip!
Jewelry…found in a skip!
Necklaces made with real human hands…found in a skip!
At 3am on the morning of the 7th of December two mini buses, thumb a 1960s fire engine and just over 50 cold, eager and very excited protesters turned up at a gate near the long stay car park of Stansted airport. Calmly and attentively we piled out of the mini buses and began to swarm around the entry point. A security vehicle happened to be passing just as we arrived, which instilled some nervous butterflies in our stomachs, but there was no stopping us. Once through the fence panel with our wire cutters we marched, as if to a temporary ark of safety (which we were to construct), two by two, carrying the tools and materials we were to need. Our objective was to reach the taxiway and setup a Harris fence enclosure around us to which we would lock-on to for as long as possible. After 6am, which was when the first flight was scheduled for take-off, every minute was to count as extremely important – directly stopping the release of ridiculous amounts of CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere.
We were all so pleased to be doing something so direct; the feeling was one of pride in knowing that we were helping to facilitate discussions, raised levels of awareness, and aid to those directly suffering as a result of raised CO2 emissions in developing countries around the world. It really won’t be long before we are seriously suffering from our selfish actions, we need to look and focus on long-term rewards not short term ones. In reading the press coverage after the action I have been surprised to read a few comments by people who were disrupted – one man was quoted to say “Why couldn’t they have waited a few hours?” if we all adopt that approach where will we be left?
I will go on to strongly encourage non-violent direct action to be taken by as many of you reading this as possible, it feels so great to be there, in the heart of potential change, to be able to say “I have tried my hardest”. It is our future generation who will suffer, and personally I don’t want my children to be struggling as much as they will be if no “green” systematic changes occur.
At The Climate Safety Talk delivered at Friends House, Euston, a few weeks ago I became scared – and directly inspired by that very fear to act, with others feeling the same way, as soon as I could, as this seems to have the most impact. I am newly accessing this level of climate science through living with some of the most inspiring women I have had the pleasure to meet and we discuss this issue of climate change daily, and innovatively focus most of our energy in the direction of raising awareness and creating social change methods and access points. Tamsin Omond lives upstairs and is helping to organize another suffragette style Climate Rush at Heathrow on Jan 12th, which I invite everyone to attend. Beth Stratford, Mel Evans, who spoke to the press after the Stansted protests, and Clemmie James from the Drax 29 also inhabit this eco-warrior house.
This action came as an opportunity for myself and others to not just discuss what is happening, but directly and physically respond, and gain immediate results – we stopped 86 flights from leaving the airport and acted as a catalyst for many many discussions.
Stansted has on average at least one flight leaving its runway every minute during working hours generating a shocking 4.2 tonnes of CO2 every single minute! Aviation is the fastest growing source of emissions and already contributes at least 13 per cent of the UK’s total climate impact. In October controversial plans for an expansion of Stansted Airport were given the go-ahead by the Government. Airport owner BAA wants to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million a year and flights leaving the airport from 241,000 to 264,000 a year. Objectors say an expansion would damage the environment, but some unions said the proposal could bring new jobs. Do we really need new jobs in this sector, should the Government not be pushing for new green jobs to go along with its emissions reduction target? The target that has been broadly accepted by many bodies including our own Government is that a rise in global average temperature of more than 2C above its preindustrial value must not be allowed. If this airport expansion is really given the go-ahead there will be very little chance of us being able to achieve the targets.
Aviation is the fastest growing cause of climate change and a major threat to the earth and everything living on it. But rather than reining the industry in and trying to reduce demand for flying, the government is promoting it through tax breaks and through its plans for massive expansion at our airports: the equivalent of a new Heathrow every five years!
Plane Stupid demands a fundamental rethink of the government’s 2003 Aviation White Paper which predicts that air travel will treble by 2030: an increase in annual plane journeys from 180 million to 501 million.
We, as Plane Stupid want to see airport expansion plans scrapped, and an end to short haul flights and aviation advertising.
Discussions and presentations are important, as the information and science needs to spread as far and wide, and touch as many people as possible, but we need to follow contact with this information with direct action as nothing else seems to be getting the results we need as soon as we need them. The Government has been making empty promises of reductions in the levels of CO2 emissions, and as nothing has happened yet we want to directly affect this ourselves.
Charlotte Daffern’s playful statement jewellery borders on the completely eccentric, cheap whilst tackling ideas of gender and national stereotype. The work re-visits the 1950’s as a result of the surge in a return to the ideals of the housewife from baking and sowing to the current increase in upcycling. Daffern’s work re-invents what are considered to be traditionally upper crust British Fabrics into something fresh and vitalic for today’s youth.
From looking at your designs, the humour and whimsicality often associated with the idea Britishness is incredibly evident, especially in the manipulation of tartan. What other material stereotypes did you find to be eponymous with British Culture?
Whilst I was studying for my MA we had a seminar discussion about what imagery you see when you think of British fashion or British people. It was basically fairly twee: twin sets and pearls for women, shooting jackets for men, flat caps etc. Pearls have run through all of my collections so far, I suppose its one element that nods towards the stereotype and the historical fashion of Britain. I try to create an updated version of the pearl necklace. I think most people imagine pearls on royalty, wealthy ladies or the light lipped librarian. However I didn’t want people to dismiss wearing them because of stereotypes they might have.
Subsequently, how has the exploration of what it is to be British affected your designs?
Whilst my work is based on stereotypes it aims to subvert whilst making reference to them at the same time. In the red tartan work, everyone comments on the connection to Vivienne Westwood. If you change the fabric to something that isn’t tartan I’m not sure you would necessarily make that link with her. I suppose I learned the power changing one element such as a print or colour can have on the perception of the work. Having studied with international students and networked with some American artists and galleries I realised how interested they were in British culture and style, perhaps more so than British people themselves. Really it was a natural progression from observing other cultures perception of ‘Britishness’. The result was a want to present my idea on British lifestyle and stereotypes through design.
Continuing from the discussion on stereotypes, how do ideas of gender and sociology feature in your work? – I particularly enjoyed the ‘hoody’ body adornment and the one armed necklace.
I like to challenge ideas of gender by putting pearls on a man or by giving a woman a pretty polka dot penis necklace. I love humour, irony and contradictions and I think this corresponds with my ideas of what it is to be British as well. I like knowing what’s going on with social and fashion trends. There are things you can take from the pieces that maybe reference different aspects of past or present culture/ lifestyle.
My more recent work is a combination of two stereotypes – the 1990’s acid house rave character combined with the 1950’s housewife. I represent the raver stereotype through the acidic fluorescent colours and the chaotic nature of some of the pieces and the fabrics are all typical to the 1950’s style – polka dots, stripes, gingham checks, florals.
Favourite designers?
I’ve done some work experience at Paul Smith which really influenced my love of all things British! Vivienne Westwood is obviously a huge inspiration and proof you can achieve anything if you go for it and believe in yourself. I suppose that’s the ultimate dream to work for Vivienne Westwood! Comme des Garcons, Viktor and Rolf – love their style and how they challenge rhythm and tradition within their designs. I like to see what other people are doing as well, other jewellers, illustrators, graphic designers, furniture makers! The list is endless.
From reading previous answers, would you say your choice of fabric evolves from their involvement in the stereotypes your are subverting?
Yes I think they do. I begin with fabrics that people associate with the stereotype and try to deconstruct and develop new sometimes mutated forms from the initial subjects forms and materials. I think a lot of people associate tartan with ‘Britishness’ and gingham checks with tablecloths but they don’t usually see these made into other things and then transformed into something wearable.
What fabric are you using in the new collection?
In my latest collection I have used the things that I associate with the imagery of the 1950’s housewives. Polka dots, checks, ginhams, florals. I imagined the polka dots on a housewifes dress, the stripey shirts of her husband, the checks on her tablecloth, the flowers sitting in a vase on her table. The fabrics I use are a combination of new, vintage and second hand.
As Amelia’s Magazine focuses frequently on sustainable fashion – I wondered if I could could enquire about your thoughts on the following? Would you consider yourself environmentally aware? If so does being aware of the environment impact your work?
I would definitely like to think I am environmentally aware. My fashion degree dissertation was based on what it is to make a company ethical and profitable. Through all the research I learned a lot about how much gets wasted and which companies are taking steps towards improving their methods and sourcing. I love recycling and upcycling. There’s something exciting about spotting something in a charity shop that others have overlooked. There is also the challenge of trying to make it into something even better! The only downside to this way of working is storage space. My mum has endured my hoarding ways for years and now my poor boyfriend is going to be subject to it.
Are there ways that you think our society can be improved and are you as a designer or as an individual engaged in doing anything about this?
I think the ‘fast fashion’ of today is really damaging. Most customers who pop into town won’t know what goes into their £2.50 t-shirt. I think there have been programmes on television which have tried to highlight this but I can appreciate those on low incomes will completely overlook that when they’re at the till. I don’t think it is going to do much good by trying to educate people and leave it solely in their hands. I think it’s the responsibility of the designers and manufacturers to only offer sustainable options (or as sustainable as possible). As a designer there’s the argument of where do you draw the line at calling something ‘sustainable’ or ‘ethical’? I don’t usually bring up where my materials come from unless people ask. However I do like to use recycled beads, haberdashery, fabrics etc and combine these with new. I would like to use more and more recycled materials in the future. Sometimes the problem lies in getting good quality second hand materials and I would rather create something combining new and old so that the aesthetic of the work is not compromised.
Where did you study and how did you find the design ethos of the teachers on the MA?
I studied at Birmingham School of Jewellery In the Jewellery Quarter. I found that the course supported ideas, concepts and material investigation. It isn’t about trying to fit into any boxes as far as style or design is concerned. You are really encouraged to develop your own creative handwriting and I learned to be confident in making work that some people might not understand. The work I make is a hybrid of fashion and jewellery; I’ve always struggled to explain it to people when they ask what I do! I’ve found that most people like to be able to explain exactly what something is and they get confused when they see some of my pieces. I think it adds to the fascination but people sometimes reject what they don’t recognise. I think they are happy for you to do anything here, just justify why and that there is a market for it and you can do anything!
What aspects of design make you happy?
So many aspects of designing make me happy! I like to find creative solutions to problems such as how to use the last scrap of vintage fabric effectively; How I can incorporate and combine various colours, fabrics and findings etc. I love creating something that makes other people smile. I think fashion should be fun and daring! It’s a shame that as we get older we sometimes lose that playfulness that we had with our dressing up box. I worked in retail for a couple of years and met such a wide range of interesting people. I was really inspired by peoples reaction to colours, trends etc. One lady told me that despite the credit crunch she wanted the bright orange dress and not the safe black cardigan, That really got me thinking – of course if you only have so much to spend you want to spend it on something that’s got the wow factor! This made me happy!
Charlotte Daffern’s playful statement jewellery borders on the completely eccentric, malady whilst tackling ideas of gender and national stereotype. The work re-visits the 1950’s as a result of the surge in a return to the ideals of the housewife from baking and sowing to the current increase in upcycling. Daffern’s work re-invents what are considered to be traditionally upper crust British Fabrics into something fresh and vitalic for today’s youth.
From looking at your designs, the humour and whimsicality often associated with the idea Britishness is incredibly evident, especially in the manipulation of tartan. What other material stereotypes did you find to be eponymous with British Culture?
Whilst I was studying for my MA we had a seminar discussion about what imagery you see when you think of British fashion or British people. It was basically fairly twee: twin sets and pearls for women, shooting jackets for men, flat caps etc. Pearls have run through all of my collections so far, I suppose its one element that nods towards the stereotype and the historical fashion of Britain. I try to create an updated version of the pearl necklace. I think most people imagine pearls on royalty, wealthy ladies or the light lipped librarian. However I didn’t want people to dismiss wearing them because of stereotypes they might have.
Subsequently, how has the exploration of what it is to be British affected your designs?
Whilst my work is based on stereotypes it aims to subvert whilst making reference to them at the same time. In the red tartan work, everyone comments on the connection to Vivienne Westwood. If you change the fabric to something that isn’t tartan I’m not sure you would necessarily make that link with her. I suppose I learned the power changing one element such as a print or colour can have on the perception of the work. Having studied with international students and networked with some American artists and galleries I realised how interested they were in British culture and style, perhaps more so than British people themselves. Really it was a natural progression from observing other cultures perception of ‘Britishness’. The result was a want to present my idea on British lifestyle and stereotypes through design.
Continuing from the discussion on stereotypes, how do ideas of gender and sociology feature in your work? – I particularly enjoyed the ‘hoody’ body adornment and the one armed necklace.
I like to challenge ideas of gender by putting pearls on a man or by giving a woman a pretty polka dot penis necklace. I love humour, irony and contradictions and I think this corresponds with my ideas of what it is to be British as well. I like knowing what’s going on with social and fashion trends. There are things you can take from the pieces that maybe reference different aspects of past or present culture/ lifestyle.
My more recent work is a combination of two stereotypes – the 1990’s acid house rave character combined with the 1950’s housewife. I represent the raver stereotype through the acidic fluorescent colours and the chaotic nature of some of the pieces and the fabrics are all typical to the 1950’s style – polka dots, stripes, gingham checks, florals.
Favourite designers?
I’ve done some work experience at Paul Smith which really influenced my love of all things British! Vivienne Westwood is obviously a huge inspiration and proof you can achieve anything if you go for it and believe in yourself. I suppose that’s the ultimate dream to work for Vivienne Westwood! Comme des Garcons, Viktor and Rolf – love their style and how they challenge rhythm and tradition within their designs. I like to see what other people are doing as well, other jewellers, illustrators, graphic designers, furniture makers! The list is endless.
From reading previous answers, would you say your choice of fabric evolves from their involvement in the stereotypes your are subverting?
Yes I think they do. I begin with fabrics that people associate with the stereotype and try to deconstruct and develop new sometimes mutated forms from the initial subjects forms and materials. I think a lot of people associate tartan with ‘Britishness’ and gingham checks with tablecloths but they don’t usually see these made into other things and then transformed into something wearable.
What fabric are you using in the new collection?
In my latest collection I have used the things that I associate with the imagery of the 1950’s housewives. Polka dots, checks, ginhams, florals. I imagined the polka dots on a housewifes dress, the stripey shirts of her husband, the checks on her tablecloth, the flowers sitting in a vase on her table. The fabrics I use are a combination of new, vintage and second hand.
As Amelia’s Magazine focuses frequently on sustainable fashion – I wondered if I could could enquire about your thoughts on the following? Would you consider yourself environmentally aware? If so does being aware of the environment impact your work?
I would definitely like to think I am environmentally aware. My fashion degree dissertation was based on what it is to make a company ethical and profitable. Through all the research I learned a lot about how much gets wasted and which companies are taking steps towards improving their methods and sourcing. I love recycling and upcycling. There’s something exciting about spotting something in a charity shop that others have overlooked. There is also the challenge of trying to make it into something even better! The only downside to this way of working is storage space. My mum has endured my hoarding ways for years and now my poor boyfriend is going to be subject to it.
Are there ways that you think our society can be improved and are you as a designer or as an individual engaged in doing anything about this?
I think the ‘fast fashion’ of today is really damaging. Most customers who pop into town won’t know what goes into their £2.50 t-shirt. I think there have been programmes on television which have tried to highlight this but I can appreciate those on low incomes will completely overlook that when they’re at the till. I don’t think it is going to do much good by trying to educate people and leave it solely in their hands. I think it’s the responsibility of the designers and manufacturers to only offer sustainable options (or as sustainable as possible). As a designer there’s the argument of where do you draw the line at calling something ‘sustainable’ or ‘ethical’? I don’t usually bring up where my materials come from unless people ask. However I do like to use recycled beads, haberdashery, fabrics etc and combine these with new. I would like to use more and more recycled materials in the future. Sometimes the problem lies in getting good quality second hand materials and I would rather create something combining new and old so that the aesthetic of the work is not compromised.
Where did you study and how did you find the design ethos of the teachers on the MA?
I studied at Birmingham School of Jewellery In the Jewellery Quarter. I found that the course supported ideas, concepts and material investigation. It isn’t about trying to fit into any boxes as far as style or design is concerned. You are really encouraged to develop your own creative handwriting and I learned to be confident in making work that some people might not understand. The work I make is a hybrid of fashion and jewellery; I’ve always struggled to explain it to people when they ask what I do! I’ve found that most people like to be able to explain exactly what something is and they get confused when they see some of my pieces. I think it adds to the fascination but people sometimes reject what they don’t recognise. I think they are happy for you to do anything here, just justify why and that there is a market for it and you can do anything!
What aspects of design make you happy?
So many aspects of designing make me happy! I like to find creative solutions to problems such as how to use the last scrap of vintage fabric effectively; How I can incorporate and combine various colours, fabrics and findings etc. I love creating something that makes other people smile. I think fashion should be fun and daring! It’s a shame that as we get older we sometimes lose that playfulness that we had with our dressing up box. I worked in retail for a couple of years and met such a wide range of interesting people. I was really inspired by peoples reaction to colours, trends etc. One lady told me that despite the credit crunch she wanted the bright orange dress and not the safe black cardigan, That really got me thinking – of course if you only have so much to spend you want to spend it on something that’s got the wow factor! This made me happy!
Radical Nature is an exhibition at the Barbican that explores art and architecture for a changing planet, page it was held over summer but is now coming to a close with next week as the last chance to go and see the exhibits.
The gallery has brought together an array of artists, viagra 60mg designers and architects across different generations to collaborate in the space. The ideas are drawn from environmental activism, generic experimental architecture and utopianism and make for an interesting whirlwind tour of how we can look to live in the changing global climate.
With over 20 artists presenting their work there is plenty to take in and lots to learn, I’ve picked out my top 6 most inspiring installations.
One of the first things you come across, the bubble cell joined up plastic blobs that relate to Tomas’s concept of Air-Port City. He wants it to challenge the political structure and look for people and nations to communicate and join in synergy with a no borders approach. The conjoined cells, and black rope make up an interesting visual and you can instantly relate it to some far off futuristic utopia.
Taking one of the centre places is the Geodesic dome, pioneered by Richard Fuller over sixty years ago. The revolutionary structure built up of triangular elements is now replicated all over the world. A film, Modelling Universe, where Fuller explains how universal and natural elements can be simplified down to triangles is defiantly worth a watch.
A collaboration in the seventies where the two began to work on projects that would benefit the ecosystem. It culminated in Full Farm, which is restaged at the Barbican. Cleverly constructed raised beds and vegetable plots are used to grow a range of crops. Tomatoes in a gallery are certainly a first for me, although not too sure about the huge watt bulbs powering the photosynthesis.
An inspiring take on environmental art that can’t help to challenge peoples perceptions. Wheatfield – A Confrontation where two acres of wheat were planted in a landfill right next to New York created amazing images. The project was created at Dalston Mill for the Radical Nature exhibition. The fields and towers give an apocalyptic and futuristic feel and the idea of crops bordering towns and cities seem like an attractive idea to me.
Another installation to challenge perceptions, a 16metre squared piece of rainforest is flipped on its side. The massive lights create an artificial environment that Hakansson aims to point out the unbalanced relationship between man and nature, although I’m not sure if the huge electricity power needed is meant to be part of the analysis.
6. Waste Flow
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Involving all of New York’s districts Mierle met every bin man in the area and personally thanked all 8,500 of them. What I found most interesting was the rubbish flow film that came out of the project, which follows the household rubbish through the streets to landfill. The amount of waste and the fact that we all distance ourselves from the process means that it is a fascinating and eye-opening documentary on our waste and throw away culture.
The exhibition is defiantly worth a visit and with plenty of other intricacies and projects to look at and learn from on the two floors. Urban Harvest Festival will also be taking place next Thursday the 15th where a DIY disco invite people to bring their own music to season the evening alongside a food and end-of-season harvest Swapshop, as well as chefs from Searcy’s cooking up a treat.
Written by Adam S on Thursday October 8th, 2009 5:20 pm
