Engineer's Daughter

the short and difficult life of b of the bang

Sad news for lovers of monumental, potentially dangerous public art: Earlier this month it was announced that Thomas Heatherwick's work B of the Bang would be dismantled by the city of Manchester.  Named after a phrase coined by British sprinter Linford Christie, pictured here with the sculpture, B of the Bang was originally commissioned to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth games, but its construction courted notoriety as it ran over budget and behind schedule.  Then a piece fell off right before it was due to be unveiled, and public safety has been a concern ever since.  Heatherwick actually agreed to pay the Manchester city council almost 2 million pounds in an out-of-court settlement last November, and Jonathan Jones mused on the contradiction inherent therein:

It is the flirtation with risk, the frisson of the truly unpredictable, that makes conceptual art popular. In a world of tedious regulations and rational constraints, art is the last walk on the wild side. Of course, the Heatherwick settlement is a paradox. If you pay someone to create a huge metal image of an explosion, how can you then act as if any hint of physical danger was unacceptable?

Except when someone dies it's not funny at all, as did happen when Maurice Agis's inflatable installation killed two people in 2006.  B of the Bang is a marvelous feat of engineering and never injured anyone, but perhaps it's best that it be remembered in pictures alone.

guess who came to dinner?

Now through the end of February Birmingham's Black British arts and culture center the Drum is hosting an exhibition called Guess Who is Coming to Dinner.  Focusing on some of that city's first mixed-race families, the show was put together by Birmingham native Tracey O'Loughlin, herself the child of a black father and a white mother.  Chris Arnot spoke to her about her memories of growing up mixed-race:

She says of her father, who died 14 years ago: "He was 6ft 4ins and 18 stone, so we didn't get too many comments when he was around." There were plenty of hostile stares, however. As her mother, Sheila, records: "We were considered trash. And you were treated like that, so you felt like that."

The show could not be more timely here at the beginning of the new age of Obama and also at a moment when mixed-race is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK.  You can see some pictures from the exhibit, mostly taken in the '50s and '60s, in the online gallery here.

inequalities in liverpool

All eyes were on Liverpool in 2008 while it enjoyed its year as the European Capital of Culture and hosted everything from a massive Klimt exhibit to a giant mechanical spider.  However, a mere two years earlier a study had found Liverpool's historic ward Everton, perched on a hill that overlooks the city center, to be the poorest area in all of Britain, and it is a part of the city that faces continual closures and general abandonment.  Photographer Christian Petersen has been attempting to draw attention to Everton's plight by capturing its struggling residents and workers on film, and his images are the most melancholy kind of street photography.  They were recently on display in downtown Liverpool in what I hope was an eye-opening exhibit for residents and tourists alike.  You can see some of Peterson's Everton pictures in the gallery here or on his Web site.

john gay retrospective

British photographer John Gay would have turned 100 this year, and to celebrate English Heritage is hosting a retrospective of his 60 years of work at Kenwood House called England Observed.  His casual black-and-white shots of the everyday people and places in Britain are exquisite, whether he's capturing a joyful moment on the Hampstead Heath swingboats or the insane pigeons of Trafalgar Square.  The Guardian has a nice selection of pictures from the exhibition here.

a sense of belonging

The Sense of Belonging exhibition currently on display at the Bonington Gallery in England's East Midlands collects work by artists now local to the region who in the past had to leave their countries of birth to escape war or seek asylum.  Much of the art in the show references the dual consciousness of the refugee experience, the "in between" of the piece pictured here.  The show grew out of the work being done by Making the Connections, a group that is interested in how art and culture can help new arrivals in the East Midlands by fostering a sense of community and also educating the general public about immigrant issues.  The very cool Beyond Borders Web site is related to Making the Connections and provides a virtual space for artists in the region to meet and collaborate.  For more images from the exhibition please click through to the online gallery here.

community in the elephant

Elephant and Castle is one of those names that could only exist in London.  Supposedly named after a vision some (likely soused) individual once had on London Bridge, the district today is set to undergo a massive regeneration project that hopes to clear out the squatters and "less desirable" elements to make way for new buildings and better economic opportunity.  But of course there are people living there right now who will be displaced.  The nearby London College of Communication has been assigning its photography students to document the area and its current residents with the hopes of creating a record for posterity, and they will continue to do so for the next decade as the regeneration really begins to take effect.  The current batch of pictures is themed around the idea of community, and includes Thomas Ball's landscapes such as the one pictured right that seek to give a different perspective of the local high-density housing estates.  I also really like Anna von Stackleberg's "aerial" photos of the estate gardens.  The students' photographs have been collected into a book and are also on display at the Cuming Museum through March, and you can see some images from an earlier iteration of the project, "Home", in the gallery here.

dada award winners

The International Day of Disabled Persons took place earlier this month on December 3, and not coincidentally it was also the day England's North West Disability Arts Forum held their sixth annual DaDa Awards ceremony in Liverpool, hosted by Mat Fraser (pictured right).  The Awards honor deaf and disabled artists, writers and musicians, and recipients this year included the amazing Claire Cunningham for the performance arts award and musician Leigh Stirling for lifetime achievement.  For a gallery of the honorees, please click here.

cartoons to celebrate the nhs at 60

At a time when it is clear the current US employer-based health care system is broken at best (and deadly at worst), Britain's National Health Service is celebrating its 60th anniversary.  While my friends who have gotten sick in England can speak to its faults, the NHS does exist to offer quality, consistent treatment to all.  The last lines of a poem by Michael Rosen speak specifically to the importance of the many health care workers in the Service:

And these are the hands
That stop the leaks
Empty the pan
Wipe the pipes
Carry the can
Clamp the veins
Make the cast
Log the dose
And touch us last.

All I know is that when I got sick during my year in the UK it was glorious to be able to go to a doctor and receive treatment without having to worry that I would have to deal with reams of insurance paperwork afterward.  A number of artists like Nick Sharatt (pictured above) have drawn cartoons that salute the NHS's 60 years, and you can see the rest of them in the gallery here.

world aids day: access to life

World AIDS Day was actually a week ago today on December 1, but it's not too late to call attention to some beautiful pictures taken by Magnum photographers for the Global Fund's Access to Life project.  Eight photographers traveled to nine countries, from Mali to Russian to India, where thanks to the Global Fund and the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief a massive effort is under way to roll out antiretroviral medications to those who need them.  The pictures, taken before and then four months after the subjects began their treatments, are portraits of hope, but they also emphasize how much work still needs to be done.

new londoners

British non-profit PhotoVoice asks the question: What happens when those individuals who are traditionally the subjects of documentary photography are given a camera and the chance to speak for themselves?  For their recent book New Londoners: Reflections on Home PhotoVoice paired young refugees with photographer mentors and asked them to spend three months capturing their experiences on film.  Eleni Stefanou spoke to Mussie Haile, an 18-year-old who fled to the UK from Eritrea:

"I haven't been alone before," says Haile, who lives in Ilford and has secured refugee status for the following five years. While we look through a collection of his selected photographs: an ironing board, a bowl of pasta, a self-portrait conveying a state of pensiveness, he explains: "I wanted to clarify my loneliness and to describe how the way of life changes from time to time or from place to place."

That self-portrait was actually taken after Haile's first run-in with the British police, and can be seen in the gallery here.  The book received an official launch at Tate Modern last month, and photographs from the project were also included in the autumn Affordable Art Fair.  Brave voices, all.