London 2013

I am a bit late on my promise to deliver weekly research on contemporary art practice, but I have been working hard. My research so far is on the wall of my studio, ranging from inspiration from my London trip, to artists found in art journals, to artists suggested  in my mid-year feedback. Firstly to say, London was fun! I had a really good time seeing a very good Australian friend and her entourage, together with another one of my friend's who now lives in London. I got picked on by the Aussies for having a quote 'fake posh Kylie Minogue accent and can I stop putting it on and speak in my real Australian voice now...?!'.  To which my friend responded, 'that is her real Australian voice'. Not sure what to think of that but needless to say I gave as good as I got. Regardless of the 'fake' accent I think my ability to hassle and make wisecracks to Aussies I had only just met did the trick in proving my authentic Australianness! (They were of course, for all their hassling, pretty nice Aussies to hang out with :)).

Okay, so enough of the Australian talk and to serious business... I made it to the Tate Modern with my Aussie friend and I think we were both huge fans of the eight-channel video installation in the Tanks I am not me, the horse is not mine by William Kentridge http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern-tanks/exhibition/william-kentridge-i-am-not-me-horse-not-mine. From the write-up in the Tanks, I understand this was a common saying among Russian peasants who were found stealing a horse (pretty clever don't you think). I also found just now a stop-motion animation of Kentridge's called Tide Table (video below) which is done in a very different way to the one in the Tate exhibition, but is really worth watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-c4N2njwg

I also went to the Natural History Museum, which apparently has an amazing blue whale you should see, but I completely forgot about it because I became ensconced in the bird section and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition www.wildlifephotographeroftheyear.com. The exhibition was truly wonderful and made me quite emotional because of the section on raising awareness of threatened species. I think that sometimes humans, including myself, really can be such lousy and self-centred creatures with respect to looking after what we have been given. But on the other hand, I know that humans can also be pretty caring and wonderful too. Anyway, in order that I didn't sit down and begin to cry at the bad state of the world, I escaped to the Victoria and Albert museum where I completely, absolutely and devotedly fell in love with the Medieval section (to be honest I have always been in love with things Medieval, but this just took it to a new level!). The Illuminated Book of Hours were by far my favourite (if only I could have turned their luscious pages instead of being stuck with one open page behind glass!), but there were also many other enchanting, sparkly, beautiful things in the section http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/m/medieval/. When I got back to College last week I found this website where you can scroll through some Book of Hours that are for sale http://www.medievalbooksofhours.com/. Here is an open page of one of the books: 

Well that is more than enough from me I think. Exciting things on the horizon though in the next couple of weeks....