Sunday 31 October 2010

city brief #3 light and the city...

Interventions and the city, celebrating spaces with light...
national-glasgow radience festival celebrating the city with light.
international-Lyon festival of light
local-http://breadartcollective.co.uk/ bringing together community, spaces and light using handamde paper lanterns and 'flashmob' style events in chorlton, Manchester.




















city brief #2 manchesterisnotnewyork

Thoughts on the city. My work for the last 12 months has circulated the idea of the city. Living in a city, my personal relationship with the city.

"The city is elusive. Especially from our point of view, that of those who are inside it. The tools you need to look at it clearly have to be seen from the outside, you have to keep your distance. Maybe you could try and look down on the metropolitan space from above and imagine taking possession of it. But that would only be a visual conquest." Metropolitiscape, the urban landscape in contemporary art, 2007.

Conquest, Elusive, Distance. With ceramics I have taken this notion of stepping back and looking at the city, peering and noticing what may be overlooked by using colour, illustration and form.

“I would prefer to say ‘street landscape’ or ‘cityscape’, for what it refers to is the actual landscape total image, which is produced by the arrangement and forming of masses in some manner as the natural landscape emerges out of the grouping of mountain masses and vegetation.” Stadtderwelt 1899, as cited in Frisby, 2001 Cityscapes of Modernity.

Stadterwelt here speaks about the city and its urban landscape. the accumulation of buildings over many years produces a unique cityscape

After our conversations with the manchester modernist society and learning about their passions I have looked into how others celebrate the city, the spaces that they live in and the people they live with.

http://mcrnotny.tumblr.com/ a visual study of fire escapes in manchester

'fire escape n. a structure or device, such as an outside stairway attached to a building, erected for emergency exit in the event of fire.' mcrntny.tumblr.com

http://lookupmanchester.blogspot.com/

'Look Up is a collaborative effort between students at the Manchester School of Architecture that hopes to raise awareness of architecture and the built environment of the 'original modern' city - Manchester.'

www.manchesterdailyphoto.com

A blog that does just what it says on the tin. I love looking at how others perceive the city visually, what catches their eye in comparison to my own in the same city.

Friday 29 October 2010

Manchester Canal Walk

A few select images from walking up and down the canal.

I like that the first photo quite clearly shows the inside of the Hilton hotel.

The image from underneath the bridge is great, I like the repetition of strong steel arches and I like that you can see how the masonry changes where the steel goes into the wall.























London Design Festival


Tent London, 'The Whispering Table' invites people to sit down and explore different food ceremonies from Seder, Nauruz, mimouna and Hungary Ghost Festival. It was designer for the exhibition Kosher&Co. On Food and Religion at the jewish Museum, Berlin.

Joana Vasconelos, at the Haunch of Venison.

A nice row of buildings near Spitalfields.

City Brief #1

Words I have picked out from the city brief that I think are important.

Meet and converse, respect, develop, relationships, communities, individuals, companies, explore, communications.

Maureen Ward (http://www.manchestermodernistsociety.org/) spoke of living in Hulme and next to the Mancunian way for years, and living squashed right up next to it. When looking over these images I noticed how even the road lights are tightly packed in, just skimming the underneath of the concrete structure. Why the is there a need to be and to build so very close and cosy with this monolith?

One of four entry points to the underpass/outerpasses under the Mancunian way. On a bright sunny day, it still seems uninviting.





















Summer Research




















Top, Esther Coombs, www.esthercoombs.com
Middle, Melanie Tomlinson, www.melanietomlinson.co.uk
Botton, yoyoceramics collaberation, www.yoyoceramics.com








A few pics from the summer


This summer I finished 3D design at Manchester School of Art /MMU and I tooke part in three shows. Earth and Fire at Rufford Abbey (top 2 pics) , New Designers (bottom 3 pics), Islington and Art in Clay in Hatfield.