Time to Unwind and Return To Blogging – The last 3 weeks have been incredibly busy. At work this is the time when we are preparing students for their art exams. However, for me the biggest task and time consuming activity is the production of the end of year film. There are more details about this in the blog post ‘A Temporary Distraction’. I always enjoy seeing the wide variety of work produced by our students but assembling it all into a coherent narrative can often be quite challenging. After nearly completing the film, luckily I was able to take a break in Barcelona. My students were now on a reading week, so it was the perfect opportunity to get away. This blog is a record from the start of the trip in England, to the return journey and most importantly everything in between. Sunday 14th May – Morning Sunrise The weather started off well enough and as we drove off to Bristol Airport we were greeted by a lovely sunrise. Unfortunately my camera was packed away, but I did manage to capture this iPhone shot. Apologies for the poor resolution. What Greeted us at Bristol Airport Although […]
Summary of the Dean Kenning Lectures Term One Below are short summaries of the Dean Kenning Lectures that began this term Oct 2022. I will document these on a termly basis and include relevant slides. The Art and Politics of Statues 18/10/22 – This was the first lecture at the start of the term. I think that the key takeaway here was that sometimes it isn’t always appropriate to ‘hijack’ someone else’s cause because it could be seen as self serving self promotion. The case in point was the Marc Quinn ‘A Surge of Power’ (Jen Reid) erected 15th July 2020. Anti-racism protesters in England pulled down a statue of a 17th-century slave trader while demonstrating in solidarity with the US Black Lives Matter movement. Quinn surreptitiously erected the statue early on the morning of 15th July 2020. Although this would seem like an act of solidarity on his part as a white male, it raises questions about the true motivation behind it. Was Quinn simply trying to use a political situation in order to further his own career? Would it have been better to have community art erected instead of art from a white male already making a […]
A City of Culture – I’ve visited London on numerous occasions but this time was different because it was with the specific aim of visiting art galleries and museums. My visit to the capital last week was a business trip. This week I was helping my colleagues to escort 30 students around a number of museums and galleries. Following is an account of my time there. I have also documented some of the most amazing artworks at a number of leading galleries. Day 1 Our first day was spent travelling. Just like last week I travelled from Paignton to Paddington with one change at Newton Abbot. However it very nearly didn’t happen because a train broke down near Paignton. This meant that we were almost an hour late. Therefore we had to get a later train from Newton Abbot to Paddington. Sadly because of the delay we lost about 2 hours and arrived around 9.00pm instead of 7.00pm. Above is the view from my hotel room window. Although it was a later than planned arrival, we dumped our bags and headed out to find somewhere to eat. We wound up at a Turkish restaurant near to the Ibis Hotel […]
