Andrew Baldwin’s open air metalworks automaton exhibits are warmly welcomed at a time when everything is in lockdown in London.
The playful sculptures, moving parts and colourful lighting tell fantasy stories, a parallel universe within deep winter’s energy of colourful skies.
Located in Trinity Buoy Wharf, earthbound figures matrix into a melting pot of sensations made in fairy tales.
Winter wonderland materialised.
Ibiza – a beautiful island, full of hidden gems. Sunsets by the lapping water, jumping off the rocks. I would have gone to raves and danced til the morning.
Oman, Malaysia and Myanmar – I should have jumped on a plane in November 2019/January 2020 to see a couple of familiar faces and smell the sweetness in the air.
Friends and parks and parties – could have gathered together more, drunk more together and danced, dropping the pressure of prioritising what we now know are very unimportant things in life.
Philosophy – read more ancient Greeks and a lot more Edward Said, a whole lot more of Said. They are good for the soul and got it all worked out. If everyone spent one hour a week doing this, the world would be much more prepared for this than it is now.
Notting Hill Carnival 2019 – I would have gotten out of bed at 7, arrive by 9 and put that big costume on offer to me to dance the day away. Still got to dance, but not in the band bc couldn’t get there due to overcrowding which also led to soundsystems being switched off early. Hot days in London…my carnival family which I miss so much.
It’s a tough time for everyone looking ahead from 2020.
May all your moments and wishes evolve into your reality.
Love to you all for a peaceful quiet Christmas and a kinder year ahead.
OK guys. You must have had your November pay by now. We are only a few weeks away from the big X and the new year. It’s come around quickly hasn’t it?
We all know this will be a different one. And most importantly it needs to be a meaningful one. So pack away ideas to spend on more tat and cheap stocking fillers made by child labourers god knows where and emerge yourself fully into local vibes, as covid-19 prescribes, with wisdom…
GIFT SHOPPING
Shop gifts from online charity shops. There are loads out there, my favourite ones is RNLI for obvious reasons, but there are loads more. Been watching something that inspired you? Does your local air ambulance have a site? How about your local hospice? Go digging out some local gems or important self-funded services and do your bit. If you can’t get inspired locally, sponsor a small business entrepreneur or plant some tress here or abroad. Make your gift mean something tomorrow and for the next year and the one after too.
FOOD SHOPPING
OK everyone aims to eat senselessly this time of the year, and perhaps drink as much. With lockdown having saved you a few pennies, add a fiver or a tenner to your food shopping budget and buy some extra essentials like dry food, tins, cans, oats, pulses. Go searching again for your local food bank. Come on, it’s not hard to find one within 3-4km of where you are nowdays. They are popping up like never before. And we know why. So do your bit, take a bagful of goodies in person and drop them off. They will thank you and you will feel less selfish for sharing some of your food with someone who you may never meet. Isn’t that kind of super cool?
CLOTHES SHOPPING
You haven’t been out since March and you may have picked a few goodies online or during the time where shops opened for a time. Now you look back at your hoarding ability confused as to how you got to become that person. Slowing down does that to us, gives us time to reflect. You know that jumper you didn’t wear when it was minus 2, or that you wear on every other day. THAT jumper needs to get washed and go. If it has holes, it needs to go to the bin. If it doesn’t put it in the charity donation bank. That and all the other jeans, trainers, boots, unpacked and unwanted gift socks. Go go go. Someone needs them and it will make them think and adopt. Now I bet you there is a charity bank within a couple of kms from where you are too. Go there now, don’t leave it until after Christmas. After all everyone deserves something new or different to what they have and you can help with that as you start unpacking Christmas decor to go up, then pack your never or too much work stuff to go too. And your Christmas decorations if you don’t see a point in putting much up this year or don’t feel you need blink to lift your spirits up. Think that you can buy all new next year or treat yourself to something super local like decorative stuff from your local florist or hand made knik knaks from your local crafts stall, if you really need to shop – shop local. No Amazon for god’s sake!
MERRY CHRISTMAS LOVELIES<STAY COOL<DO GOOD!
Not surprisingly, the works come with heavy political overtones
Art review: Grayson Perry, Hoxton, London
Well here we go again, only this time things are a bit different.
In London, there are noticeably less people out after dark, but shopping malls and cafes are still serving take outs and grocery essentials.
This means the earlier photos from the lockdown in spring bear a significant difference to the way urban landscapes look now.
For example, there are a fair amount of labourers and cleaning staff going out and about their business as usual. Spaces look less derelict and more like Sundays before London got crowded millennium onwards.
In urban green spaces, people don’t consider being in fairly crowded conditions, a threat from covid anymore. Benches are open and cyclists have equal access to parks.
The level of interaction with larger crowds is a personal preference.
On a recent cycle with Simon around trendy Hackney Wick and guardian reader pretentious Hackney on Victoria Park, the crowds were heavily dense in many public play areas and entrances.
Away from the long queues outside to pick up coffees and take outs in places where some think it’s important to be at, our was certaintly picking a fish and chips from a good old reliable affordable local chippy just east of Victoria Park to the Wick.
No queues, no wait, no hassle. After a five minute walk, we were enjoying dinner on a bench in the park.
In my next blog I will write about meaningful ways to spend preparing for Christmas holidays and Christmas day itself.
Many get carried away with meaningless cultural traditions, missing the point. Culture can be as oppressive as American culture’s cultural non existence, when it adds no experiental reflection or mindful rest.
In a time of self reflection I couldn’t be luckier having met four days after landing back from a two month trip away early August 2019. And here we are still are today.
Back in the park, we sat watching the lowering sun introducing the mist, the temperature drop, the sensation of colours struggling to define themselves in this new reality.
I suppose this time, it is also the first time of the year’s season under covid for our urban neighbourhoods too. Well I say, we can only pay homage to this another new reality for the family albums to come.
Really, what’s there to complain about? And why not to?
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There’s a value in trying different lifestyles and disciplines.
Hunting for comfort is an instinctive act.
Refusing to accept the identities we were adopted in this world by, is the ultimate betrayal of oneself. An act of despair.
Self-oppression by transplantation, still foreign despite appropriation.
Faking privilege is the struggle of colonisation over the naked truth.
Criticism behind closed doors.
Narcissism in deep waters.
Withholding the inevitable natural life-cycle of renewal for a little while longer.
Concrete morality. Bourgeoisie locked jaws loosening up.
Like how fulfilled one feels as dinner is being had at the end of a long trip.
And the journey begins again…
30 July 2020 By Tim Koch Tim Koch on coat, badge and facemask. When Thomas Doggett instituted his eponymous race in celebration of the accession of King George I, he stated that it was to be held ‘on the first day of August forever’. More than 300 years later, the exact date has proved to […]
Hoy! News From Watermen’s Hall
Got to share what’s been sent around, that made me chuckle all aloud!
Different vibes, same love.
Enjoy!
His sense of humour rocks
Hope you enjoyed the mindless fun. It is needed more than you’d think.
Neiman Marcus Group reported on Monday that it will file for bankruptcy protection as early as this week, making it the first major department store to collapse under the weight of the COVID-19 coronavirus economy. But that wasn’t all the bad news for the fashion house. On Monday, Sealaska Heritage Institute filed a federal lawsuit […]
Native institute sues Neiman Marcus over this coat design
