The Story of Gelert || How to make a tent

Initially the group began with the idea of Welsh folk stories, which we were interested in because of the way that they are communicated. These stories were only passed by word of mouth, and have only been recorded in modern times.

 

  

Buying fabric, and constructing the tent in Gallery 1, Arnolfini

 

The group explored these stories, becoming attached to ‘The story of Gelert’ and the Welsh language, mainly its translation and mistranslation into English and other languages. This lead us to explore translation, which became the centre of the project.

The group wanted to create a den or tent like space to present the story, as we felt that this was the perfect storytelling environment.

After we had decided on creating a tent space, we were given found footage of a family putting up a tent. This coincidence re-affirmed our tent concept, and became a really important part of the work.

 

The story of Gelert continues to be an integral part of the work and its creation.

Interview: Lee Mc Donald

Lee Mc Donald is a Plymouth based artist who uses sound and movement to make kinetic, sonic and often public sculptures out of recycled or reclaimed objects. Describing his work as quasi scientific Lee’s practice is based in experimentation and testing. I first met Lee when he turned the courtyard of Baggator Community Centre in Easton into an art installation for the 2014 Bristol Biennial.

Interview: Jen Howarth

I caught up with Jen Howarth just after she’d dropped her work off for an exhibition she’s currently in with Synecdoche Art Collective – a group show by recent graduates and current students of Drawing and Applied Arts at UWE – at the Christmas Steps Gallery. (It’s pronounced si-nek-duh-kee in case you were wondering). In the gallery Jen is exhibiting Jetty [above] (and the original etching print inc. metallic spray paint water is every bit as beautiful in the flesh), while in the Synecdoche pop up shop area Jen has prints, badges and t-shirts for sale. I kind of want to own all of her work.

Interview: Gareth Brookes

I remember finding Gareth Brookes’ work on my first visit to a Bristol Zine Fair when I had just moved here to start Uni. I’m not sure if I was struck first by Gareth’s fascinating drawings moving fluidly from lino print to embroidery, or by the macabre storyline of his graphic novel The Black Project.

Tell us about your background, how did you get into illustration and start making graphic novels?

What is Architecture and why should I care?

I’m Co-curating an exhibition at The Architecture Centre aiming to get young people involved with architecture. This is hard, because to lots of young people, the world of architecture seems completely alien. Even to me, it conjures up images of middle class white men in their 40’s discussing buildings in an office. It feels like it’s a world that you can only unlock after 7 years of training, and it’s only then that you can begin to grasp what it’s about. So let’s find out what architecture is.

I started by googling it and came up with this definition:

Architecture
noun
“the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.”

Okay. That’s true. Architecture IS the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings, but it’s also so much more than that.

It’s about places. It’s about the spaces in between the buildings. It’s about the communities and interactions that take place in them. Architecture is as much about the buildings as it is the people inside.

Architecture plays a huge part in our lives and in ways that we don’t even realise. Walking down a street seems like a completely simple moment in our day, but we don’t realise that this street has been designed to be like that. Those lamp posts have been placed exactly where they are. Those trees were planted exactly there. It’s all been designed to look the way it does. It is the reason why small music venues feel intimate and personal, whilst massive arenas feel impressive and inspiring. Each of those was designed to evoke those feelings.

This is why architecture – in my opinion – is the most important art form there is.

But why should we care? I mean – sure, these spaces were designed like that and to make us feel certain ways, but why does it matter?

At the end of the day, we – as young people – can live our lives in a city content with the architecture around us, letting other people decide what it is that we want.

Except we don’t have to. Okay – to design a building you might need a seven year degree or something like that, but you don’t need a degree to have your say.

Throughout my experience with Shape My City,  where I got to work with experts and professionals from the world of architecture; the one thing that they told me is to just “go for it” and to do whatever it is I want to do, and those are words to live by.

We have spent far too long letting the middle class white men decide what it is that young people want from a city. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to young people, and I’ve realised that we do have opinions about architecture – we just don’t realise that they’re opinions about architecture.

Young people have a voice and opinion about this. I want to challenge you. What do you want from a city?What do you like or not like about Bristol?

Why should you care? Because you have an opinion about it, even if you don’t think you do!

To share your thoughts, visit the Shape My City blog or send an e-mail to amy.harrison@architecturecentre.co.uk with your pitch.

Children and creativity

After creating my last post on who art is for, it got me thinking about children and art – or more specifically, creativity. I was drawing with my sister, when I realised she actually had a lot of really creative thoughts. I already knew that children are often more creative than their older counterparts, but it was then that I actually experienced it.

My sister and our Artwork

She took one look at the random squiggles and doodles I had drawn for her to colour in and she proclaimed “its a chicken!” At first, I had no idea what she was talking about, but then she explained. “Look, there’s the beak!” “and that’s the dangly bit!” and suddenly, I could see it! I mean, it was a bit surreal, and in no way accurate, but there was a rooster.

Her work next to mine

We carried on drawing – me with the pen adding the lines, her with the colours adding the well, colours – and we came up with our finished drawing (which looked nothing like a chicken in the end, might I add). But drawing with her made me realise that kids are incredibly creative and its something that should be encouraged. Its something that I touched upon in my last post, but children should be encouraged to be a part of the art world.

My parents have always encouraged me to go along to cultural and artistic related things and places. They even took me to the Tate in St Ives when I was young! I think that its because of experiences like these that I feel so much more comfortable in artistic institutions now than I might have otherwise. That is something that I’m so glad of.

Me visiting the Tate in St Ives and exploring what looks like some of Barbara Hepworth’s work

Getting children involved with art is something that I feel needs to happen. This is for a variety of reasons, but mainly, just because children are already so creative and their thoughts can sometimes be more interesting than the artwork itself. Wasn’t it Pablo Picasso that said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Thanks for reading
Cai

Who is art for?

Jon Aitken recently wrote an article for Rife magazine sharing his thoughts on artist Jake Chapman’s statement that taking children to art galleries is a “waste of time“. Young Arnolfini – in case you hadn’t guessed – is a group associated closely with Arnolfini, and one of the points in our manifesto is that we aim to bridge the gap between young people and contemporary art. Statements like Jake Chapman’s are exactly the opposite of what we are aiming to do. 

Here We Go Again

It’s cheeky how fast this time of the year comes around. If you’ve been lucky like myself the terror from the mere mention of exams has long gone, a distant memory, a thing of the past. No more night-before panic attacks or fretful post-exam stress because you have now been blessed with too much freedom to be conscious of the August cloud looming ahead. But just as I became settled in my own glorious laissez-faire state of mind, I forgot to take note of the quick return to start A2. Thrusted back in the deep end I’m back to square one: figuring out how to turn my craving for summer into academic motivation.

Then came along Daria Khoroshavina, the Russian photographer my friend recently introduced me to, and the fabulous Ignacio Torres.

We Are All Made Of Stars, Daria Khoroshavina

In Khoroshavina’s We Are All Made Of Stars collection she uses glowing body paint in black (UV) lighting as the only source of light to resemble space and sky. Similarly, Torres’s Stellar project depicts the cosmic theory that, as a result of a star’s death, humans are then made of the cosmic matter by devising galaxies using reflective confetti, where our celestial creation is emphasised by the posture and demeanour of the subjects. My favourite part of all of this is the use of gifs to create three-dimensional movement serving ‘as a visual metaphor to the spatial link we share with stars as well as their separateness through time’, which further accentuates the relationship between space and time.

Stellar, Ignacio Torres

Stellar, Ignacio Torres

Stellar, Ignacio Torres

Stellar, Ignacio Torres

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, my astrology is beyond poor and I could not date the zodiac signs if my life depended on it, but as a nocturnal soul there’s something about the beauty of the night that I’ve never been able to express or explain until now, by showing these projects. Even now I still can’t quite explain how it makes me feel; and maybe that is because I am writing in midday with no visible stars to ponder on; but the response I feel when I look at these give me that extraordinary chill of awe and wonder that not many other things do. So of course it’s only fitting my new photography project is Alchemy.

Instead of wistfully looking back on my short post-exam and pre-A2 freedom I am beginning to channel my summer cravings into my fine art and photography courses. The more I think about it the more it makes sense. Technically, drawing inspiration from these photographers can do nothing but enhance my summer with a newfound excuse to get messy and delve into the unknown with all sorts of glowing paint, inks, confetti, glitter and bright lights.

And hopefully by the time summer gets here I’ll have mastered my DIY smoke bombs for the best kind of dramalchemic exit.

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When: Wed 18th of June 2014

Time: 5:45pm – 8pm

Where: Watershed – 1 Canon’s Road, Harbourside, BS1 5TX Bristol, United Kingdom

 

Since February I’ve been part of Talent Lab, a Bristol-based group of 23 creatives formed by the collaboration of Watershed and award-winning creative agency, Latimer. We were commissioned by Bristol Youth Links in partnership with Bristol City Council to shape an online platform for Bristol’s youth with an eagerness to create content for the youth by the youth. Thankfully this meant goodbye to all things stereotypically appeasing to us, the youth, like the horrid cliché that was the Go Places Do Things graffiti font. Bless their souls, they kind of tried.

So where did we go from there? Rife, baby. Well, a nameless Rife magazine. We knew exactly what we wanted but it took much longer to finally figure out a name. How does ‘rife’ feel on your tongue? Kind of funny? It takes a few attempts getting used to it but it’s a grower. After months of hard work building up content by the core Rife team, as a digital phoenix our baby has risen out of the cliché ashes with some stories going viral and over 10,000 unique site views in less than a month …and we are not even officially launched yet!

With just over 24 hours to go before the Rife Live Launch excitement and anxiety seems to have dangerously merged.

The excitement for wed night is building in the office #RifeLaunch https://t.co/qP1OKZXBFJ

— Rife magazine (@rifemag) June 16, 2014

But that’s not stopping us because Rife is yours – all you bloggers, vloggers, photographers, writers, budding journalists, aspiring editors, ranters, reviewers, tweeters, Facebook fanatics, Tumblr scrollers, filmmakers, comedians, storytellers, cartoonists, graphic designers or simply good at generating good ideas. With so much to offer on the night; from making your own gifs, telling us what Grinds Your Gears, pitching ideas for Rife to our team, networking with industry professionals (Latimer, Clockwise Media amongst others) and listening to acclaimed creator of The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, Akala; all we ask is that you RSVP to editor@rifemagazine.co.uk to confirm your place*.

AND if that’s still not exciting enough, through getting involved you can get media training, mentoring, access to equipment, industry links and profile. So even if you can’t make the 18th Rife magazine still wants you! Check out http://www.rifemagazine.co.uk/get-involved/ to find out how you can still get involved.

I hope I’ll be seeing you there – look out for the girl with the R-shaped earrings!

 

*doors open at 5:45 to those who have RSVP’d and by 5:50/55pm any unclaimed RSVP’d spaces are then opened up to the public with a first come first serve system.

Get In The Know

Clothing from Seven, Bristol. Image: Emma Blake Morsi

Particularly interested in everything, the idea of Nocturnal, my Gold Arts Award magazine, came from my uncomfortableness towards the future and my inability to say no. I wanted a way to do everything I love – writing, designing, producing – without having to compromise myself in a society where we allow the media to dictate what we care about. Therefore, with my Gold Arts Award opportunity I wanted to produce something that could be an authentic voice and platform for people to showcase their obsessions with a two-way support. ‘Nocturnal’ came from my love and desire of becoming intimate with the unknown and holding it up like ‘hey, check this out, get in the know’ so others could see all the beauty, passion, and authenticity also. I’m a sucker for community and if you’ve got a passion for something, don’t be a stranger.

Check it out!

Clothing from Shop Dutty. Image: Emma Blake Morsi

Clothing from Shop Dutty. Image: Emma Blake Morsi