February, month of many family birthdays, began with the discovery of a wee sea-inspired gallery in Suffolk’s smallest town and wound its merry way via the Design Museum and its exploration of old age in the modern age.
Then continued via a Luisa Omielan's award-winning comedy wonderings on what’s what; past a child’s unintended wandering (resulting in an adult rediscovery). Before wending its way through the artistic process at the Margate-based Entangled exhibition; culminating in a Bowie-backed approach to creativity...
“Why don’t you cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with coloured thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?”
Old age redesigned
The new old Design Museum now in Kensington featured a free exhibition in February - New Old - which explored “...the potential for design and designers to enhance the experience of our later lives.” The challenge: a rapidly ageing society. The aim: a healthier, fuller, more rewarding old age. The ideas: everything from “robotic clothing to driverless cars”.
Stumbling upon seascapes in Clare
Speaking of age, a visit to my poorly nan over her 80-something birthday weekend saw an impromptu stop at the Sea Pictures Gallery, a small contemporary venue situated in a jewel-box of a Georgian building in Suffolk’s smallest town. Specialising in maritime-inspired art from artists across the globe working in a variety of media this venue is a gem.
Tales of the unexpected - SEVEN artists did some Dada poetry
A way to uncover the creative. You need: some text and some scissors. Then: cut up and randomly rearrange. The result? A rejection of the irrationality of WWI according to the Dadaists. Or the embracing of chaos and it’s resultant creativity as demonstrated by Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs and later David Bowie, who said:
“You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.”
Lion - found in translation
Remember that chilling childhood moment when you realise your mum is nowhere to be seen in the supermarket aisle then times it by a million million. Which is nearly the amount of train stations and tiny towns Saroo Brierley has to unpick to find his way home. This eerily Dickensian tale has a fantastical fairytale quality to it starring Google Earth as the breadcrumbs, the labyrinthine thread, the identifying locket.
Entangled: Threads & Making at Turner Contemporary
In Greek myth the Fates spun, measured and cut the thread of life. Over centuries spinning, weaving and other crafts came to be belittled as just women’s work - which as we know is never done. Cue an exhibition focusing on “the handmade and the processes of making itself” which “brings together more than 100 works by 40 women artists of 19 nationalities” all challenging “established categories of craft, design and fine art”.
The BBC airs Luisa Omielan's award-winning comedy show #WhatWouldBeyonceDo
What else is a heartbroken Single Lady navigating the wonky world relationships - where women are still told to wait for his call - in all-too figure-hugging lycra and an au faux spray tan to do when she finds that despite a first class degree she’s a 30-something Independent Woman living with her mamma? Make comedy Lemonade of course! The thrusting, squatting, panting dancing alone does it.
