Monday 27 January 2014

The Monument

The Monument is far more than just a monument to the Great Fire of London. It is Zenith Telescope http://amhistory.si.edu/surveying/type.cfm?typeid=23 designed to discover solar parallax - but also providing lattitude measurement - in an attempt to provide a fixed point form which to survey the City of London. It also was used for experiments on gravity that were to lead to Hookes Law.

It lies on the site St Margaret's Church Fish Street Hill and is surrounded by the burial ground (though not really visible). It is still the tallest freestanding column in the world and marks the route from Old London Bridge (altered to the present site in the 19th century) and thus is a shadow of the City's former self. It is a landmark and a means of orientation for visitors even now. 
Stallholders at Billingsgate Market (c1910) by Bishopsgate Institute


 http://www.themonument.info/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Great_Fire_of_London



http://www.themonument.info/panorama/Monument.html  Time lapse view from top

Friday 24 January 2014

London Mayor Boris Johnson "calls in" Royal Mail Mount Pleasant Site, Islington

"Boris Johnson has bypassed the town hall by calling in plans to build nearly 700 homes at the Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant site.

The Mayor of London made his ruling yesterday (January 21) after the newly-privatised company asked him to step in over the future of London’s largest building site – in Farringdon Road.

Campaigners against the project, which will provide only 12 per cent affordable housing, were outraged by the Mayor’s decision and 
Islington Council leader Cllr Richard Watts called the move “premature and unjustified” and executive member for housing and development Cllr James Murray branded Boris “outrageous"  ...."  (more? follow link http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/boris_bypasses_islington_council_with_outrageous_royal_mail_call_in_1_3234742 )

Johnson and Johnson (Boris left, Leo right)

this seems to "pre-empt" the situation in Tower Hamlets where the local council refused planning permission for the controversial London Fruit and Wool Exchange Development http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19896394

The scheme has faced considerable local opposition http://islingtonnow.co.uk/royal-mail-criticised-over-32m-development-plans/ and planning permission may have been refused. By pre-empting the decision. Mayor Boris avoids criticism that he is quashing local democracy

The Islington Site was previously the one of the largest mail-sorttng centres in the world  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pleasant_Mail_Centre


It was a main hub for the now-disused "Rail Mail" underground rail system http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Rail+Mail;


Wednesday 22 January 2014

NI Minister Mark Durkan's speech welcoming the Northern Ireland Landscape Charter

Speech welcoming the Northern Ireland Landscape Charter     at   the "Changing Landscapes" Conference at Craigavon

+ a film at the end....
http://www.craigavon.gov.uk/the-council/news/3839-minister-opens-major-landscape-conference.html

Minister, Mark H Durkan, said:
It gives me great pleasure to be here in Craigavon Civic Centre at the invitation of Craigavon Borough Council to open this conference on ‘Changing Landscapes’.   I welcome you all to what I know will be a very informative and challenging exchange of ideas about our landscape.
The fact that the venue has been moved to the main conference hall to accommodate a quite unexpected increase in delegate numbers shows the interest that this conference has aroused.

I would like to thank Craigavon Borough Council, the Landscape Institute for Northern Ireland and my own officials in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency for organising this event and bringing you together.  I know you have come from across local and central Government as officials, elected Councillors and Council CEOs as well as community leaders, representatives of environmental voluntary groups, landscape design and environmental professions in Northern Ireland to consider the future of this national resource, our landscape.
I welcome speakers who have come to share their experience of best practice in Scotland and England and also to celebrate 50 years since the creation by Royal Charter of Craigavon New Town and nearly 50 years since the formation of the Landscape Institute in Ireland.

The New Town Movement was founded on the ideal of a better life lived closer to nature through good design. The landscape architectural concerns of effective site planning and sustainable design have meant that the landscape infrastructure of Craigavon has out-lived the original new building stock. 
The New Town concept has always been about living sustainably.  It was a reaction against the excesses of the industrial revolution of the previous century which had sacrificed peoples’ quality of life for their productivity.  One can imagine life in the closely packed tenement houses that surround the industrial mills of Victorian Belfast or similar cities, with poor air quality, limited sanitation and no access to open green spaces.  
One can also imagine the same ideal bringing young families from the ‘troubles’ and tenement houses of Belfast in the early 1970s to start a new life in the planned garden city of Craigavon New Town.  The same ideal also brought landscape and other design professionals to Craigavon to assist in its creation.  These came from across the world with their own skills and cultural influences – India, USA, Scandinavia, Germany as well as Great Britain.  Today Craigavon is a testament to their legacy and vision.  It is easy to look outside this building at the lakes and be deceived into thinking this is the work of nature and not man.  I urge you to compare the ‘before’ (Ordinance Survey map) and ‘after’ (current aerial photograph) of the lakes area on the conference publicity.  We now need to re-apply these same ideals and proven skills to our landscapes in Northern Ireland as we start a period of significant change in local governance here.  This will be the theme of today.

Current environmental thinking includes concepts of Natural Capital, Eco-system Services and Green Infrastructure.  Craigavon has these in abundance.  Where else in Northern Ireland can you find dedicated pedestrian and cycle routes, separated from traffic, well lit and maturely planted that actually get you quicker to where you want to go than getting in a car and driving there.  Look outside this building – the lakes are a sustainable urban drainage system or eco-system service in operation.  They not only look natural and are a pleasure to visit for wildlife and humans, they are also providing a service which today can be quantified in monetary terms.  The ‘Balancing Lakes’ as they are correctly called, control surface run off into Lough Neagh from all hard surfaces in the urban areas of Craigavon.  Two lakes working together via sluice gates below an international railway line on a future motorway median; futuristic landscape design in the 1970s which today provides an eco-system service for local rate payers at no cost.

Buildings are said to be the signature of architects whereas often the highest compliment you can make about the work of a landscape architect is to say that you thought it was always there – that nature made it. Generally that is when the design is right because it works naturally. 
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the fact that 50 years ago the landscape design professionals drawn together in the creation of Craigavon New Town formed the cradle for that profession on the island of Ireland.  In 1966 they established a Landscape Institute of Ireland (then called the Society of Landscape Architects in Ireland).  Today the Republic of Ireland has its own Landscape Institute, and I extend a warm welcome to those delegates attending today.  Both Institutes are now represented in the European Federation of Landscape Architects which contributed to drafting the European Landscape Convention that came into force in the UK on 1 March 2007.  To ensure that Northern Ireland takes its commitment seriously to the Convention, the officials in my Landscape Architects Branch moved into the Northern Ireland Environment Agency earlier last year tasked with advancing Northern Ireland’s compliance with the European Landscape Convention.  Progress here will be reported to the congress of the Council of Europe, along with England, Scotland and Wales, in Strasbourg in March 2015.

As we all know, the Review of Public Administration will see planning powers devolved to new councils here in April 2015.  The timing of this conference is important as we need to build capacity now in new councils to help them make the right decisions in the future to achieve growth whilst protecting and enhancing the landscapes within their stewardship.  Today the speed and scale of change can be more dramatic than ever before, particularly from energy generation, waste disposal, agri-food, urban expansion and infrastructure projects.

We need therefore in the run-up to April 2015 to establish a sound evidence base for decision making about our landscape and its value.  Landscape Character Assessment is an invaluable tool in helping guide development without damaging the landscape in which it is located.  It can also stimulate economic development by identifying opportunities to be grasped. In 2000 my Department was at the forefront of landscape assessment with the first regional Landscape Character Assessment in the UK.  Practice has now moved on but I intend Northern Ireland to re-occupy that first position again.  I am pleased to announce that the Northern Ireland Environment Agency has produced a Seascape Assessment of our entire coastline with 21 shoreline areas and 3 off-shore areas of Seascape to assist sound decision making about our coasts and marine environment.  Northern Ireland is fortunate to have a coastline that already merits Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status for approximately 70% of its length.  The Seascape Assessment will assist in ensuring that the unique character of each part of our coastline is recognised and celebrated. 

Similarly we are fortunate that within a relatively small geographic area in Northern Ireland we have such quality and variety of landscape types.  Since 2000 our landscape has experienced the effects of both economic boom and economic decline which has only made more urgent the need for us to clearly value what remains. Therefore I intend to initiate through the Landscape Architects team in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency a complete renewal of our terrestrial Landscape Character Assessment.  The first regional phase will be completed by April 2015 following latest international best practice which this conference will help to determine. The second local phase will be completed by the same team in partnership with officials from new council groupings after the transfer of planning functions.

In the meantime we have not stood still.  My Department recently completed consultation on ‘Living Places’ which is being taken to each new council grouping to promote good practice in our urban areas.  The European Landscape Convention stresses that “All Landscapes Matter”.  For this reason today I am also particularly pleased to officially launch Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter.

A hard copy is included in each delegate’s pack and since the 1st January 2014 it has been accessible on the website of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. Many have already signed up and drawn attention to the unique value of particular places and landscapes in Northern Ireland.  Clearly a ‘conversation’ has already started between individuals, organisations and my Department from which we can all learn over the coming months. The Landscape Charter is not new policy. It is simply a non-statutory call to action for every section of society to wake up to their surroundings.  I encourage and urge you all to endorse the clear vision, principles and objectives of Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter by signing up to it today. Please continue this ‘conversation’ with my Department over the next 6 months.  

This can be done simply by sending an e-mail to the address on its last page.  Remember to include any comments about our landscapes, particularly of good examples and practice locally that you would like to be celebrated or the concerns and issues you wish to be highlighted in future versions of the Charter.

Northern Ireland is the second devolved nation in the UK after Scotland to have a Landscape Charter. From the response to date I know this ‘conversation’ can influence future policy about our landscape. Signing up to Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter is a first step in taking seriously our commitment to the European Landscape Convention.

I commend the interest and action of non government environmental groups such as the Northern Ireland Environment Link that has assisted us in getting to this point.  I also acknowledge similar advice from the Ministerial Advisory Group to the DCAL Minister in their recent draft position paper ‘Our Landscape Relationship’ to which I have responded.  I also commend the Landscape Institute for Northern Ireland, whose Policy Officer wrote to me last September also urging me to consider a Landscape Charter for Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter is only a starting point.  The interest and debate that it and today’s conference will generate may lead the way to a National Landscape Strategy for Northern Ireland to define policy to assist councils at a local level post April 2015.  That is my hope.  I note that the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht have reached public consultation stage with their ‘National Landscape Strategy’.  It would make sound economic and environmental sense if we were to develop a Northern Ireland Landscape Strategy to co-ordinate with colleagues there to ensure both are mutually supportive.  On that note I welcome the speaker from Donegal County Council who will be talking about their current experience in providing a Landscape and Seascape Character Assessment for their council area which shares a long common border with Northern Ireland.  Landscape and seascape are not constrained by administrative or national boundaries: something to be remembered as our new council groupings define the boundaries for their new areas.

In conclusion I would like to thank all those involved in preparing this conference and in particular the following from Craigavon Borough Council: Mayor Mark Baxter, Chair of Development Councillor Carla Lockhart and Chief Executive Officer Dr Theresa Donaldson for agreeing to host this event in such an inspiring setting.  
I wish you all a successful day which I know will set us on the right course for the future of Northern Ireland’s landscape.


Saturday 18 January 2014

Symposium: Landscapes: From the Romantic to the Digital Age

Thursday 13 February, 2.30pm - 6.30pm Booking Essential. Tickets £12.50/£10.50 concessions. *Proof of concessions and membership to be presented upon arrival. Choose tickets
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An afternoon exploring common landscapes, both physical and digital. FACT Director Mike Stubbs and artists Rob Gawthrop and Heath Bunting address curating technology and time based media,  while Katrina Sluis, Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery (Digital Programmes) and artist Jon Rafman consider how the romantic figure of the artist and hacker navigates the digital landscape. Also featuring Ian Waites (Senior Lecturer at Lincoln School of
Art and Design), artist Fran Cottell and curator Helen Kaplinsky, curator of the current  contemporary Art Society display. Presentations by students from Hull College of Art and
Design, Sunderland University and Goldsmiths, University of London.
In association with The Contemporary Art Society Members.

Zilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery

(over the road from http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=altab+ali+park)

I had a look round this exhibition and the Grayson Perry photos and pooter stuff left me cold. Grayson is best when he unleashes his inner child - his inner peasant is less than convincing, and 'pooter-stuff is "notart".  I can see the attraction to many - and the relevance of -  the Lord Alfred Tennyson-owned copy of Blake's illustrated book  Illustrations to the Book of Job owned by poet Lord Alfred Tennyson is on show here, complemented by a recording of Tennyson’s written descriptions of the Lincolnshire countryside. Also the Marriage of Heaven and Hell,  From which the title of the exhibition comes ( Damn Braces : Bless relaxes ) .
lf1434_figure_003

But the stuff I liked was the  Early 19th-c Landscapes of our commons, and the first deep mines in the north east, and a real "Enclosure Act"...  Romantic Art was direct - without opportunism - honest. All of which graphically told the narrative, that people had to be coerced into lives shortened by silicosis. Whilst we had common land, a bit of surface coal and smithing could supplement gardens and a cow, we were free and lived longer healthier lives. To make us go down the pit, 1st they had to take our commons. Not only did they steal our land - they stole our sky.


Ralph Hedley Charlton,  Gypsies, Camped on the Beach, near South Shields, 1876, Oil on canvas 41 x 54 cm  South Shields Museum & Art Gallery  © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Ralph Hedley Charlton, Gypsies, Camped on the Beach, near South Shields, 1876, Oil on canvas 41 x 54 cm South Shields Museum & Art Gallery © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

""""""""""""This exhibition focuses on the landscape, mediated by technology and interlaced with the history of art-schools on the East-coast of England.

From the early Norwich Society of Artists (1803-1833), to the progressive Time Based Arts Course at Humberside College of Art in Hull during the 1990s, artists and their students have spoken through their local landscape. Encompassing responses to new technologies and their effect on the landscape one can see a reactionary nostalgia for the rural idyll, visionary prospect in the ports of commerce and playful reverie for the information super-highways.

Over two centuries artists have depicted an English landscape under threat, divided by landowners and industry in the nineteenth century and privatisation during the Thatcher era. Their response makes a case for freedom of movement through use of medieval common land law and more recently open source ‘creative common’ culture online. The artist in both eras is the quintessential Libertarian Romantic, seeking to banish control over territories on and offline. Landscapes are coded, their usage of symbolic and actual ownership traced by walls and paths. These artists taught their students to be both the entrepreneur and the marauder, be led by desire to move through landscape without regard for existing codes.

The works in this show trace both official and unofficial paths. The exhibition focusses on the landscapes of Humberside, Northumbria, Norfolk and Lincolnshire alongside archive material from the Bristol Live Art Archive, relating to Hull Time Based Arts. Important early net art works by Heath Bunting and Simon Poulter and performance by Fran Cottell will be revisited and reanimated in collaboration with students from Hull College of Art and Design."""""""""""""" http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/initiatives/whitechapel-gallery-collection-displays/east-coast-helen-kaplinsky/

OliverLaric, Lincoln 3D Scans, 2013
OliverLaric, Lincoln 3D Scans, 2013
The Norwich School

Norwich born landscape artists, John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) and his son Joseph John Cotman (1814–1878) were members of the artist-led educational group ‘The Norwich Society of Artists’ (1803- 1833). In 1798 Cotman senior came to London and became associated with the circle of artists centred around Dr Thomas Monro, a patron also to DeWint and Turner. On return to his hometown, Cotman became Vice-president of the Norwich Society in 1810 and President in 1811. The Society preceded the establishment of the official Norwich School of Art, which was not formed until the mid-nineteenth century. Cotman kept a library of watercolours which he lent out to students. His artwork also provided an influential educational tool.

Jerimiah James Colman MP (1830-1898), founder of Colman’s – the Norwich-based mustard manufacturers –bequeathed 20 Norwich School paintings in 1898 to Norwich Museum. His son Russell James Colman (1861-1946) bequeathed more than 3,000 works in 1946 and supported a gallery within Norwich Castle Museum to house the collection, which opened in 1951. Mousehold Heath, Norwich (c.1810) displayed here is a facsimile, according to the terms of the bequest  “[the Museum] shall be at liberty to lend any of the pictures and drawings comprised in the Colman Collection (other than and except any pictures or watercolour drawings by John Sell Cotman or John Crome) for exhibition in any other institution or gallery…”  This was done in the spirit of civic pride and the deed specifies that Russell James Colman wished to present his collection “to the Citizens of Norwich as a valuable addition to their existing collection and as a token of his deep affection for the City of his birth”.

Hull Time Based Arts (HTBA)

Hull Time Based Arts (1984-2002) was an artist-led commissioning organisation which focused on artistic practices that incorporated performance and technology. Collective actions such as Throwing Stones in the Town Square, which took place outside Ferens Gallery, Hull (Man Act, Simon Thorne and Philip McKenzie, 1989), referred to earlier anti-establishment, co-produced art movements such as the Situationists and Fluxus and raised issues around access to territory on and offline. These issues were explored through the yearly ROOT (Running Out of Time) festival, which commissioned time-based media works that used performance, visual and sound-based new media, digital technologies and participatory practices; all of which were radical experimentations with materials and delivered statements concerning global politics.

Operating during the Thatcher era, HTBA adopted a punkish attitude; resolutely outside the art market, both in terms of the time-based and ephemeral nature of the work it supported, and its geographically isolated location in Kingston-upon-Hull. Many of the key figures, including Rob Gawthrop and Gillian Dyson were also teachers on a ‘Time Based Media’ BA course at Humberside College, a significant precursor to the later ubiquity of New Media Fine Art courses.

Oliver Laric

In 2012, the Collection and Usher Gallery in Lincoln, working with artist Oliver Laric, were awarded the Contemporary Art Society’s Annual Award for Museums. Laric initiated an ambitious project to 3D scan objects from the collection and make them available as free online file downloads. He will use the files to produce a new sculptural work for the museum collection, acting as both a facilitator and a user of the project. The project both extends and questions the initial inception of the museum.

The Usher Collection from which Laric is scanning objects is the collection of Lincoln-born businessman and jeweller James Ward Usher (1845-1921) who bequeathed to the city of Lincoln his collection and the money to build a gallery to house it. A keen collector of decorative arts, Usher’s fortune was generated through his ownership over the rights of ‘the Lincoln Imp’, a figure from Lincoln Cathedral. Usher utilised this image on a variety of products that his company sold. Whilst the existence and quality of the collection was built upon wealth accumulated through owning rights to intellectual property, Laric brings Usher’s philanthropic intention up to date by allowing audiences to download and use the collection from any location without regard for intellectual property protection. If you happen to find any of these models useful, the artist would be curious to know about it, please contact: thecollection@lincolnshire.gov.uk

The project has been made possible due to the kind support of The Contemporary Art Society, The Sfumato Foundation, Arts Council England, Lincolnshire County Council, Seventeen London, The Collection and Usher Gallery.

Kett’s Castle

Kett’s Castle is the romantic local name for the ruins of St. Michael’s Chapel, named following the rebellion of 1549 led by Robert Kett against private landowners who began to erect fences to delineate property on common land. Robert Kett was a landowner who took the side of the peasants and led the rebellion against the enclosure of land which left the peasants with nowhere to freely graze their livestock or collect firewood as they had for centuries. The rebellion’s headquarters at the ruined chapel became known as Kett’s Castle.

Supressed by government forces, the rebels were defeated and Kett imprisoned at the Tower of London and later hung from the gallows at Norwich Castle. Norwich Castle Museum bears a plaque dedicated to Robert Kett, commemorating him as a hero who fought for access to common usage of land by the citizens of Norwich. The value we attribute to the English landscape and the elevation of Kett from enemy of the state to hero of the people can be attributed to John Sell Cotman and his contemporaries who found a subject in the common heaths and scrublands.

Facsimile of pencil and watercolour drawing of ‘Mousehold Heath, Norwich c.1810’  by John Sell Cotman
Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service (Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery)

The enclosure of Mousehold Heath began in the 1790s. John Sell Cotman (b. 1782) would have only just remembered when the open Heath was owned and worked in common. In the early nineteenth century, Mousehold was still an area of common land to the north-east of Norwich and considered the only place in the vicinity of the city where it was possible to retire ‘from the busy hum of men’. It is joyfully depicted as an open vista of rolling hills and winding paths created by centuries of free movement through the landscape.

There are several views of Mousehold Heath by Cotman, a similar version held in the British Museum, is significantly different in its politics as it includes a small area of enclosure in the lower right corner. On display here is a facsimile of the version held at Norwich Castle in which the artist chose not to include the hedges that indicate private ownership and agriculture.

Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809- 1892)

In Memoriam A.H.H, Manuscript Notebook known as ‘The Butcher’s Book’, 1842-1848
The Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire County Council

Memoriam A.H.H. is a love poem by Tennyson, completed in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet’s beloved Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam. It includes passages on the ‘Wold’ open Heath in Lincolnshire featured in Peter DeWint’s paintings as land which was being turned over to private ownership via parliamentary acts.

I wake, I rise: from end to end
Of all the landskip underneath,
I find no place that does not breathe
some gracious memory of my friend.

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold.

Northern Farmer Old Style, 1864
Read by Edward Campion and recorded in 1969. New recording  produced by The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 2009.
The Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire County Council

This poem was written by Tennyson in the colloquial Lincolnshire dialect, which would have been spoken by the local peasantry.

There is a reference made to the commonly owned and worked heathland as,’Nowt at all but bracken and fuzz’. This suggestion, that the land was not arable, was often given as a defence by those supporting the enclosure and private development of land.

Thomas Harrison Hair (1810-1875)

Pemberton Main Colliery, 1839
Air Shaft,  Wallsend, 1839
Broomside Colliery, 1835
Gosforth Colliery, c. 1835 – 39
Watercolour on paper

Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University (Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums)

42 watercolour and ink drawings, executed between 1828 and 1842, of the landscape in the north east affected by the introduction of coal mining activity were reproduced as etchings for the publication Views of Collieries… of Northumberland and Durham (1844).

Between1931-1933, the watercolours belonged to William Cochran-Carr, President of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. He donated them to the Institute and they were displayed in the Department of Mining, Newcastle University for nearly 60 years until its closure in the 1990s. The works were then transferred to the Hatton Gallery.

Common Land and Enclosures

‘Common’ is collectively owned and worked land. Historically it provided a minimum welfare for the poorest, enabling them to sustain pasturage (grazing livestock), piscary (fishing), tubary (burning turf), estovers (burning or building with wood) and the right to glean after harvest. In Saxon times, all village land was assumed to be commonly owned and worked with the exception of few enclosed areas. After 1066, following the Norman Conquest, land was associated with a local manor and therefore owned by its lord with common rights bestowed to commoners.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, land previously granted as ‘common’ by landlords was gradually enclosed and put to more economically efficient use. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the industrial revolution in full swing, enclosure became government policy.

William Blake (1757-1827)

Illustrations to the Book of Job invented and engraved by William Blake
London: Blake, 1825
On fly-leaf ‘Alfred Tennyson, Farringford, Freshwater, I.W.’ [Isle of Wight]

The Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire County Council

Book of Job is a biblical story in which God allows Satan to remove the material wealth of a man named Job in order to test his faith, prompting believers to question ‘Why do the righteous suffer?’.

This copy of Blake’s illustration belonged to Alfred Lord Tennyson.  ‘Behold now Behemoth which I made with thee’ (Plate 15) depicts God explaining his creation of the material world, represented by two creatures, the hippopotamus, Behemoth (the animal kingdom and land) and the snake, Leviathan (sea-life).  Job is made to experience the value of material wealth, property and ownership. The clouds, in Blake’s illustration, floating outside the ‘material world’ are related to the divine and suggest a freedom beyond property.

Fran Cottell

A Meeting Outside Time
1988
Photographs and colour slides relating to performance in Northumberland National Park

Commissioned by New Work Newcastle ’88 in association with Edge ‘88
Supported by Projects UK, Northumberland National Park, Laing Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear Museum Services, Newcastle City Council, Northern Arts, The Arts Council and Riverside.
b/w photographs: Karen Melvin

Women who collaborated on this project:
Astelle Ablett, Gillian Allnutt, Amanda Ardila, Jenny Attala, Leonie Baldwin, Julie Ballands, Helen Cadwallader, Rachel Chapman, Karen Donovan, Coletta Doutrepont, Debbie Downer, Linda France, Liz Gardner, Janine Garth, Linda Gillespy, Helen Goodwin, Diane Green, Chris Greener, Joanna Greenhill, Tracey Hopper, Nicki Hornby, Pauline Hughes, Catherine Johnston, Susan Jones , Sandra Lathbury, Toni  Lazarus, Marcia Ley, Anji Mackie, Theresa McCue, Jean McNeil, Lynda Mello, Amy Melvin, Karen Melvin, Emma Mills, Janet Moody, Kaye Oliver, Cal Philpott, Vicky Ramshaw, Caroline Taylor, Su Tideswell, Liz Todd, Kate Tregaskis, Eileen Tunney, Heather Wilson, Vicki Winter, Louise Wilson and Alexa Wright

“With all this talk of walls falling, boundaries breaking and free trading, it is sickening to see the rise of fascism across Europe. Until internal perceptive boundaries change along with the physical ones, xenophobia will persist. A limited view of the world will only be challenged through education, stimulation and communication. Bringing together artists from across Europe to make work in Hull as part of ROOT 92 plays a small part in this process.”
Mike Stubbs, Director of Hull Time Based Arts, ‘ROOT 92’ VHS, 1992.

http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/initiatives/whitechapel-gallery-collection-displays/east-coast-helen-kaplinsky/selected-works-context/

Wednesday 15 January 2014

London in Colour, 1927 & 2013


London in 1927 & 2013 from Simon Smith on Vimeo.

Simon Smith says:
During the 1920s, cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene travelled across the UK with his new colour film camera. His trip ended in London, with some of his most stunning images, and these were recently revived and restored by the BFI, and shared across social media and video websites.
Since February I have attempted to capture every one of his shots, standing in his footsteps, and using modern equivalents of his camera and lenses. This has been a personal study, that has revealed how little London has changed

There have been lots of enquiries about the music ... It's Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major", and this recording came from this brilliant website ...
Credit to ...
Canon in D Major, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Also, the BFI manage the rights to the restored versions of Claude Friese-Greene's "The Open Road", of which the London shots are a segment.
http://vimeo.com/81368735

The original film was a big hit in London, when the BFI  re-released it on the web. This new film gives an added layer of interest and is well worth a squint

Monday 13 January 2014

"On Landscape" (Project) Landscape is not a genre but a medium…[it is] a natural scene mediated by culture.....

From   http://londonist.com/2014/01/crowdfunding-london-january.php 

and  http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/on-landscape/?


On Landscape Crowdfunding Video from On Landscape on Vimeo.
>


 






Landscape is not a genre but a medium…[it is] a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package.”
-J.W.T. Mitchell, Landscape and Power

On Landscape # 1

On Landscape # 1, triggered by a series of conversations between artists Minna Kantonen, Dafna Talmor and Emma Wieslander revolves around a shared engagement with pictorial conventions of landscape. Wanting to extend this dialogue into a physical space of enquiry the exhibition will feature the work of the three artists, a display of publications sourced from an open call and a site-specific installation by invited artist Minna Pöllänen. Creating an interactive online presence via a dedicated website and transforming Guest Projects into a dynamic space in which thought-provoking debates can take place between fellow practitioners and a wide-ranging audience is the aim of the project. This project will serve as an ideal opportunity to pilot future versions of On Landscape.
As On Landscape # 1 seeks to instigate a series of discussions, raise questions and incite debate on representations of landscape, a central element of the project will consist of an open call for self-published, handmade or short run books relating to the exhibition framework. The publications, on display throughout the exhibition, will provide a platform for wider debates around landscape whilst presenting an opportunity for emerging practitioners to showcase their work.
On Landscape # 1 will take place at Yinka Shonibare's Guest Projects space in East London throughout the month of March 2014.   http://www.guestprojects.com/contact/
To keep up to date with our project please connect with us though Twitter (@OnLandscape_1) and Facebook where we will be posting news and updates regularly.

Events

Theoreticians and practitioners working in the field of landscape will be invited to contribute to the show through a series of events including an artist talk chaired by Photomonitor editor Christiane Monarchi, a panel discussion and walking crits. The exhibition aims to engage with landscape in its widest sense, extending beyond the physical space of the gallery through a themed local walk led by Minna Pöllänen and a live radio broadcast with contributing artists. Alongside the physical space of enquiry, an interactive social media presence and website will aim to capture public responses and encourage participation.
List of events:
·      An artists’ discussion chaired by Christiane Monarchi, Photomonitor editor 
·      A panel discussion exploring exhibition themes with invited guests
·      Walking crits will be an opportunity to dicuss projects and ideas with the exhibitiing artists
·      A local themed walk led by Minna Pöllänen looking at the biodiversity of the local area
·      A live radio broadcast
·      Curators’ talks for Fine Art/Photography students

Who We Are

Project co-curators and RCA Photography Alumnae Dafna Talmor, Minna Kantonen and Emma Wieslander are London-based artists.
Dafna Talmor’s photographs are included in private and public collections such as Deutsche Bank and Hiscox, featured in publications such as ArtReview, Camera Austria, Hotshoe, and Elephant. Talmor was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Artist Award (2005), received the IV Daniela Chappard Biennale Photography Award (2007), Photofusion Select Bursary Award, a Grants for the Arts Award and selected for the Renaissance Photography Prize, Archisle # 2 Photography Open and the W-CA Contemporary Landscape Photography Open in 2013.
Minna Kantonen received the Research Residency Award at Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness (2005) and an Arts Council of South West Finland Grant for 'A Small Book of Trees’ publication (2005). Recent shows include Photobook Show at Brighton Photo Biennial (2012) and The Jolly (Good) Show, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London (2010). Kantonen’s work has been featured in publications such as Source (IE) and Photographie (DE) and is currently a Principal Lecturer in Photography at the University of East London.
Emma Wieslander’s work has featured in magazines such as BON, Vogue and Harper’s and books such as The Collectors Guide to Emerging Art Photography and deep-north – transmediale 09. Exhibitions include Kaunas Photo Festival, Lithuania (2012), GSK Contemporary; Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy of Art (2010), Internationale Fotografie II: into Landscape at Galerie Helmut Hartman (2009). Wieslander was recently awarded the Culturefund for Sweden and Finland grant for Distracted and Bewildered at Galleri Pictura.
Minna Pöllänen holds an MA with distinction in photography from London College of Communication. Her works have been shown in group and solo shows internationally including FreshFaced+WildEyed 2012 exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, the biannual YOUNG ARTISTS exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Helsinki and Montreal/Brooklyn in Galerie Les Territoires in Montreal and A.I.R. Gallery in New York. Recent site-specific commissions include Observatory I, II and III, built in Brooklyn Bridge Park, downtown Montreal and downtown Helsinki. Pöllänen’s work has been kindly supported by The Kordelin Foundation, Arts Council of Finland, Frame Fund and The Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Your Support

The dedicated website and its contents of texts, images and podcasts will act as a valuable resource during and after the exhibition for anyone interested in the theme of landscape.Your support will specifically go towards producing professional promotional material as well as commissioning a professionally coded website. As our aim is to use the exhibition at Guest Projects as a platform of investigation for future On Landscape exhibitions and events a professional website will help us greatly.

The Pledges

We have tried to come up with a range of pledges so that everyone will find something they like. If you live outside of the UK you can, besides a HUGE THANK YOU and the digital postcard, go for the set of postcards or the specially designed posters, as well as the online portfolio review.
If you want to go for the portfolio review and have a preference on who you would like to meet please state this in your pledge.
A very large THANK YOU for your interest in our project and for your support!
We are looking forward to meeting you at Guest Projects in March 2014!
Dafna Talmor 'Constructed Landscapes'
Dafna Talmor from the 'Constructed Landscapes' series
 Minna Kantonen 'Urban Vistas'
Minna Kantonen from the 'Urban Vistas' series

Emma Wieslander 'Burnt'
Emma Wieslander from the 'Burnt' series


Minna Pöillänen 'Establishing an Average'
Minna Pöllänen 'Establishing an Average' from the Nature Trail series



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Thursday 9 January 2014

More Landscape and Art in London...

Sean Vicary http://www.seanvicary.com/ explores a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borders in a landscape film, in an exhibition at www.standpointlondon.co.uk/

17 January – 15 February 2014
Opening: Thursday 16 January 6–8.30pm
Event with environmental writer and founding editor of the Dark Mountain Project Paul Kingsnorth: Sat 15 February 4pm
“Predatory life under advanced capitalism… a zone where nothing else – not bodies, social life, religion, or aesthetics – matters.” TJ Demos 2012
Discussed sporadically in the current surge of ‘new nature writing’ and continually in the heated debates around ecology, biodiversity and climate change in the press and blogosphere, is an acknowledged global crisis in our relationship to the nonhuman. We must, suggests Timothy Morton among others, come to terms with a radically decentred humanity: our “unbearable intimacy” and interdependence with other species (many of which are now under threat because of our own actions). Responses to this crisis are as diverse as advocating a programme of ‘re-wilding’  (restoring precious habitats to a pre-human state via the re-introduction of vanished native species) to consuming as much fossil fuel as possible to ‘bring on’ the crisis and thus force the governments /corporate behemoths to make the vast and complex global shifts in our capitalist system that is required to make the (impossible?) necessary difference.
Jane Bennett, with her writing on the vitality of matter, contributes greatly to the idea that as humans we must engage deeply and imaginatively with otherness in its many forms to promote a generous, thoughtful ethical response to that which is outside our direct self-interest. 
Edwina fitzPatrick explores what happens when 'grey' and 'green' environments intersect, and how human interactions have, and are, affecting the nature/culture/ecology of a place. Her projects also reflect upon how climate change may affect this delicate balance. Edwina often collaborates with experts across a range of disciplines. These have included horticulturalists, biodiversity experts, engineers, architects, perfumers, foresters, archivists, and composers. Edwina has made a new piece for (Un)natural Narratives that forwards her proposition that the green environment is a landscape-archive. Wood for the Trees embeds miniature forests into an old encyclopaedia - questioning what we consider a natural landscape to be and raising the historically and politically determined nature of most of our supposedly ‘wild’ spaces in the UK. 
In 2010 Eleanor Morgan travelled to Folly Island off South Carolina to create a golden ring from the silk of a local spider. She was following a tale of a soldier stationed there during the American Civil war who discovered the spider, created a machine to spin the silk into jewellery, and sold it as real gold. Eleanor found the spider, collected its silk and made the ring, but the effects of Folly Island continue. (Un)natural Narratives displays just a small selection of her ongoing projects into islands, follies, searching and phantasies, including a lithographed island-table and a video depicting her peculiar transformation into an undersea creature.
Sean Vicary’s extraordinary film Lament interweaves site-specific found objects, animation, spoken word and music to explore a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borderlands. The film incorporates Canu Heledd, a 7th Century Welsh poem cycle dealing with the fall of the Brythonic Kingdom of Pengwern, which referred to, Vicary discovered, the small rural village in Shropshire where he went to school. “I’m fascinated how the land has been shaped by generations of interaction with the environment – the enclosure of the commons, how the field names on old tithe maps are echoed in the remains of cottages and broken pipe stems that appear during ploughing, how everything exists simultaneously on different time scales: 8 bee lifespans to one fieldmouse, 40 mouse lifespans to one human, 4 human lifespans to one oak tree etc.”

Edwina fitzPatrick is based in London, and is currently completing her AHRC funded, practice-based PhD, which has involved working with the Forestry Commission at Grizedale in Cumbria.  Other recent projects include the Reputationsprogramme of sited artworks, in Castlemilk, Glasgow.
<http://www.edwinafitzpatrick.co.uk>
Eleanor Morgan is an artist and researcher based in London. She completed her doctoral studies in 2013 at the Slade School of Fine Art on the human uses of spider silk.  Recent exhibitions and presentations include: The Making of Folly Island (Solo), Slade Research Centre, London; Duet, UCL Art Museum, London, 2013; A Labour of Moles, dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel, 2012; Spinning with Spiders, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2011; Lines of Desire, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, 2010; Fine Things to be Seen, Intervention Gallery, London, 2010.
<http://eleanormorgan.com>
Sean Vicary is a moving image artist based in West Wales. Recent work includes commissions for Animate Projects /Channel 4 Random Acts, Blinc Digital Arts Festival 2013 and Rhôd: Future, Nature, Culture. Recent exhibitions include Welsh Artist of The Year, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Temporary Residence, Aid & Abet, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, OAF International Film Festival, ArKo Art Center, Seoul, Korea.
<http://www.seanvicary.com>
This exhibition has been curated by Fiona MacDonald

Further information: Fiona MacDonald: 0207 739 4921 / standpointgallery@btconnect.com
Venue:   Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD
Gallery Open:  Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm
Web:  www.standpointlondon.com

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Contemporary Art at Whitechapel Art Gallery LANDSCAPES

Contemporary Art Society: Damn braces: Bless relaxes

10 December 2013 - 9 March 2014
Gallery 7

With works ranging from John Constable to Grayson Perry, this exhibition represents scenes of the English east coast from the past 200 years. Artworks consider the influence of technology and local art schools and are drawn from the collections of Contemporary Art Society member museums and galleries in the region.

The display’s title is taken from William Blake’s The Proverbs of Hell, from his illustrated poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c 1789) and a copy of Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job owned by poet Lord Alfred Tennyson is on show here, complemented by a recording of Tennyson’s written descriptions of the Lincolnshire countryside.

 From the early Norwich Society of Artists (1803–1833) to the progressive Time-Based Art course in Hull during the 1990s, artists and students have looked to the local landscape to express their ideas. John Sell Cotman and Peter De Wint see it divided by landowners and industry in the 19th century, while Fran Cottell and Simon Poulter look at the privatisation of land during the Thatcher era. Their responses make a case for freedom of movement through use of medieval common land law and more recently an open source ‘creative commons’ culture online.

This display is part of the Gallery’s programme to open up public and private collections and is made in collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society and Curatorial Fellow Helen Kaplinsky who is hosted by the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. This year-long series of displays is supported by a major grant from Arts Council England. The Contemporary Art Society supports museums and galleries across the UK, through advice, advocacy and gifts for purchasing works of art.
alph Hedley Charlton, Gypsies, Camped on the Beach, near South Shields, 1876, Oil on canvas 41 x 54 cm South Shields Museum & Art Gallery © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/symposium-landscapes-from-romantic-to.html
Ralph Hedley Charlton, Gypsies, Camped on the Beach, near South Shields, 1876, Oil on canvas 41 x 54 cm South Shields Museum & Art Gallery © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums londonlandscapeob...


Admission free

 
The Whitechapel Gallery's programme of collection displays is supported by: 


Contemporary Art Society Winter Events Programme
6 February Gallery Talk: Helen Kaplinsky on the Contemporary Art Society Display
13 February Symposium: Landscapes: From the Romantic to the Digital Age
Image Credit:
Fran Cottell A Meeting Outside Time 1988, performance documentation, courtesy the artist, photo: Karen Melvin.