Big bang

We’ll celebrate this blog’s 350th post with a big explosion…

Reconciliation Exhibition

I’ve got a picture in a group exhibition called “Reconciliation” at The Funky Aardvark(!?) 51 Bridge Street Rows East, Chester CH1 1NW. Not my usual sort of image – the face is a photo of a statue I photographed in Washington DC in 1989, the planes are from the font Carta. It was done at the time of the second Iraq War and is based on the Spanish Civil War poster “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next”.

Remade

The only ever re-make that’s better than the original!  A new HD version of my sound installation shown at Blank Media Collective’s 2011 ‘Title Art Prize’ exhibition. 100 Breaths Per Minute is one minute long and features 100 breaths taken from the inhalations of BBC Radio 4 announcers as they draw breath before introducing the next programme. The video was filmed on a Fuji X10 compact camera and thanks are due to Muji for the loan of their wall mounted CD player.

St. George’s Day…

… is not something I usually notice, but here’s a photo of some union jack shorts hanging from a window in Gorton and a link to my art and flag project blog.

Mankind

I’m very pleased to see my CCTV project rear its ugly head in the USA across 16 pages in ’Mankind’ issue 2 of the photography magazine from Hamburger eyes. Its appearance had a very long gestation, as I submitted a CD of photos several years ago. They were lost down the proverbial back of the sofa only to be found a couple of months back, by which time the project had grown. The magazine is available from the website for $17.

Last chance to see

My exhibition ‘A Tree Made of Real Wood’ ends on 6 April. The web site will be kept on-line for the rest of the year. Thanks to the people at Sale’s Waterside Arts Centre and everyone who has been to see it.

277 days ’till Xmas

Wythenshawe Civic Centre – “high street shopping as it used to be” – including poundshops, charity shops and closed shops. Talking of closing, Rogue’s Galleries ends this weekend. And here’s a list of which high street retailers have lost the most.

Bedroom Tax Protest

Manchester was one of 52 places across Britain to see a protest against the governments ‘bedroom tax’. Next month sees a national game of “Who wants to evict a millionaire”.

Video at Chester’s Rogues’ Galleries Festival

I’m showing ‘Trolley Dash’ – a video of 600 photographs of abandoned shopping trolleys - as part of a new festival that sees empty shops turned into pop-up galleries on the theme of shopping. The festival runs for 10 days from the 14 March and the video will be shown at The Hub, 43 Watergate, alongside others exploring the same themes.
Find out more about the event here and
See a 90 second preview of the 15 minute Trolley Dash video here 

Shopping trolleys were invented so customers could buy more than they could carry. Today, particularly in poorer areas, people who do not have the cars that modern supermarkets are designed for sometimes push the trolleys home and leave them. As they cost about £100 each, some supermarkets pay for firms to drive around collecting them. Increasingly though shops fit security devices that lock the trolley wheels to stop them being pushed beyond the car park.

Living things

My urban tree exhibition gets a mention in the current issue of  ’Living Edge‘.