First bus ride on top
I can't quite remember where I left off, But on Thursday we went to the Design Museum. We saw another architecture show, my two favorite things were the Bordeaux Law buildings. They were these gorgeous wooden pods (kind of like giant nuts or seeds) all connected by hallways and glass, it was really beautiful. The other thing, was a conceptual city in Japan that was created to be self sustained, containing and efficient. The cool part was that the model was clear plastic and it lit up to identify the different parts of the city, residential, green space, commercial space etc. It also showed the sun cycle. There was also a really inspiring photo show of Tim Walker's work, mostly for British Vogue I think. The photos played off of childhood stories and fantasy. It was the most interesting photo show I have ever seen, and by far one of my favorite things since I have been here. He makes these huge props for the models to interact with, and every photo was so playful. They also had a little ID show going on, with funny little things, like airline barf bags that doubled as film drop off bags, and portable urinals.
http://www.designmuseum.org/
That night we went to The Barbican (a really interesting place) to see a fashion exhibition of Viktor and Rolf, two crazy dutch designers. They had a giant doll house, and a traditional doll maker make a model of pieces from each of their Haute Couture collections for each of their strange dolls. They were so stiff.
You could also watch each runway show, and see examples from each collection. Thier work is all about reacting and commenting on the fashion world, and I found it to be very thoughtful and beautiful. A few pieces I thought were really nice were these dresses that drew from danish traditions (apparently they do that a lot) paired with a lighting/sound system that was attached to the model and that also held up the dress in a theatrical way around the model's body. They wore these metal structures with lights and speakers around/over their heads and carried their set with them. Another was a coat lavishly embroidered with all sorts of little bells. The runway was dark so you heard her before you saw her. They made a whole collection of blue screen clothing--they used blue screen technology to project onto the clothing, so the models appeared as moving pieces of video, wherever the fabric swished, the image swished. They also had the Babuska Piece. The Flowerbomb show was nice too, because the models danced down the runway. Something I particularly liked across the board was the music they chose. One show has Tori Amos performing live an adaptation of the Song of Solomon, another was Frank Sinatra, some had original music with chants and repetition of phrases paired with strange droning noises, the Beatles, What the World Needs Now...is love sweet love.
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=7272&gclid=CNLdn8SdhZQCFRpUEAodezX0Vw
Friday we went to the Tate Modern, which is a really neat building and saw a photo show that was ok...the one at the Design Museum was more interesting to me. This one really looked at the history of photography, the relationship between photographer and subject, and questioned the validity of taking someone's photo. There were some interesting parts, there was a piece by Cindy Sherman (I think) where she took people's photos and then photographed herself as her subjects. I wandered around a bit, but wasn't really able to take a lot in from the other galleries, there wasn't much time, so I'll need to go back
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
Borough market, raclette smothered potatoes!
In the afternoon we met with Morag Myerscough, and along with the architecture talk, this is one of my favorites. Her personality was great, the talk wasn't overly structured and I find what she does to be really interesting. She is a graphic designer that started her own practice because not many women run their own practice. She takes on work she wants to do, is very hands on and has a lot of confidence. Her studio ranges in numbers, when we saw here, it was her and another women, doing an incredible amount of work. She primarily does exhibition design (she did the new signage for Barbican). I really enjoyed seeing design in 3D, that deals more with space, the senses, objects, information, narrative and sort of planning how people will process and move through the space. I responded to it because I feel like I think better in 3d than 2D and I'm interested in the shift from one perspective to the other. She also gets to work a lot with architects. One of the pieces she showed us was a train car that she turned into a coffee shop. The train was in Deptford, what she described as a sort of depressing, run down area. The train project was created to give the community a lift...and I'm sure it worked because the outside is painted with funny sayings about tea, it seemed like a good gathering place, encouraged conversation...
She really stressed understanding the context of whatever you are doing, and she was very honest and the talk was personal, and less didactic than others which was nice.
In her old house, she had a gallery called "her house", and she had a similar setup her her new building (which was a great space, lots of light) When we were there, she had a show of all her mothers embroidery up. They were really beautiful, and it was interesting to see that sort of background for her life. Embroidery being a sort of traditional craft, coming before Morag's bold designs. Her mother's work was abstract, and full of stories.
The other day we saw the calligrapher Semi Satwinder, I had sort of mixed feelings, and a talk by Wendy Scott, a writer who focuses on fashion/culture, and stressed simplicity. did I already talk about this?
Last night Julianne and I went to another run-riot party...BIRTHDAY PARTY (sort of familiar) there was cake, and a pinata, pass the parcel, party dresses and lots of dancing to oldies. oh, and a dashing lady jumped out of a cake.
Something I really like about here is that you don't have to walk very far to find a park, and people love sitting in parks, did they invent picnics? because they picnic a lot
oh and Nick Bell the other morning was cool. They designed the Churchill museum, which is such a huge amount of information it seems crazy, he documented every part of his life really well. I haven't seen the actual museum yet, but I plan to go before I leave
http://www.nickbelldesign.co.uk/
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