Er, Banksy

Another example from Bristol's finest of using the simplest of ideas and yet somehow producing work that has comment and humour within it.. Yadda yadda.. you can downland the image here, a gift from the man himself for the more 'ambivalent patriots' amongst us.

Simplistic Dualistic I: Damage or Mend?

Sources: here and here

Oh Yes: Esbjörn Svensson Trio + Cerys Matthews + Marie Colvin

Heard Cerys Matthews recite a poem over this piece of music by Esbjörn Svensson Trio on her radio show. (Evidently she had read it out the day before at journalist Marie Colvin's funeral. Would never have put that bunch together.) It was a stop-what-you're-doing-and-listen-to-the-radio affair. Absolutely beautiful.

There's a video of them performing it live here back in 2006. Goes without saying it's worth watching all the way through, but the last few seconds really are incredible. Looks hard work being so soft, eh.

The whole thing is made even more poignant by finding out that Esbjörn Svensson himself, he of the great faces in this video, died of a scuba diving accident in 2008.

The City of Disco - explanation

From the City of Discovery to The City of Disco. So v-e-r-y simple, so very good. Surely one of the best pieces of design I've seen in a while. Plymouth might not have too much going for it, but it certainly has a good pseudonym now. Well done Low Profile.

Destinations Unclear

Nice to send one of Oli's Destinations postcards to the other side of the world today..

So a certain Mrs King from Glenalta, Australia, wrote a sweet letter to the wonderful house I live in, thinking that the War Memorial Register was based there. Her father died in the war and she thinks his name might be on a memorial somewhere in Plymouth, but she's not sure.. She is coming over in June to find out.

There was no email or phone number on the letter, just a return address, and thus a great opportunity for some snail mail, with Oli's photo being the perfect choice. Let's hope it gets there on time and I'm around when she rocks up in the City of Disco..

Nuclear Unclear

Busy day on the nuclear front, with lots on the new draft energy bill. Interesting article here, here and listening here. It's nice to hear the Councils chief executive Kerry Rickards accused EDF of “putting two fingers up to the community of Sedgemoor.” But the favourite was Dr David Toke, lecturer in Energy Policy at the University of Birmingham, telling the Today programme that 'nuclear energy in the UK is a dead duck that cannot be resurrected'!

White elephants, two fingers and dead ducks. Really makes you think how unclear the future is, and wonderful to think that the 11 stations planned for the UK - including Hinkley Point - are far from certain.

PHOTOGRAPH © STEVEN BOND
A white elephant at the gates of Hinkley Point Power Station. Part of the demonstration back in March.

Stuff and nonsense

There's no other word for it. Well actually there's a few: articles, matter, material, equipment, baggage, things.. plus the loaded belongings and possessions.. what we have in our homes, in our cupboards, under our beds, in our sheds. In a word: stuff.

It might be the informative years cycle touring that have thus informed me, but I have always tried to have less stuff.. always trying to offload as much as I bring on board. Losing the battle of course, but still always aiming to have less. I feel like the less I've got the better I've done. To a point. Off course I still want a Telecaster guitar and amp to sit in the corner of the lounge. Maybe it's more about quality over quantity? Not sure. I guess it's also about selecting, editing, passing on.

Heard this discussion on the radio today (at 08.20 in case you want to listen) about houses not having enough storage. No-one said it was because we had too much stuff! It's like nuclear power - we need it 'cause we using all this energy. Well how about we use less bloody energy!? It's not rocket (or nuclear?) science. It is nonsense/ical.

Reminds me I'm discussing a new project with a lady whose taken a pledge to never by any more clothes but just mend and amend what she has already (she's in her late 30's by the way). I want to photograph every item she has now. Sounds like fun, no? Umm.. odd to concentrate on stuff in work  what I'm trying not to concentrate on stuff in life.

Just to confuse matters, this post is illustrated by a photo of Gordy's bike shop in Barnstable. Certainly one of my heroes and yet certainly someone who has maybe taken on a little more than he's passed on. But as it's bikes it may be different. After all, as we've discussed before, can you have too many bikes?

PHOTOGRAPH © STEVEN BOND / UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Sea Change IV: Warmer

Oh yes: Jeremy Blakeslee _Coast to Coast, Part II

Lots of things merging lately.. nothing hugely left field about any of it, just the usual suspects branching out; or at least me looking harder and finding more. Grain & Gram leading to MAKR leading to Draplin leading to Jonathan Harris's new project, Farmer & Farmer. And let's not forget the Draplin/Patagonia venn diagram. Guess you find good things hanging out with other good things in the same neighbourhoods.

Then, when you're really lucky, you discover something right up your street - like this beauty, the on-going photo essay/road trip of Jeremy Blakeslee, found via the good looking Best Made Company. He's been exploring and documenting America’s industrial past for fifteen years, beginning with his first love, the former Bethlehem Steel Plant in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Has echoes of Nick Hand's trip of course, of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, of our very own Small is Beautiful project, and gives me much food for thought for my upcoming Fiskars residency in Finalnd...

Oh Yes: Mark Ronson

Beltane

'International Workers' Day (also known as May Day) is a celebration of the international labour movement and left-wing movements. It commonly sees organized street demonstrations and marches by working people and their labour unions throughout most of the world. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries. It is also celebrated unofficially in many other countries.'
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'Beltane or Beltaine is the anglicised spelling of Old Irish Bel(l)tain, for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on the first day of May. In Neopaganism, Bealtaine is considered a cross-quarter day, marking the midpoint in the Sun's progress between the spring equinox and summer solstice. The astronomical date for this midpoint is closer to 5 May or 7 May, but this can vary from year to year.'


Seemed a good day to put up this photo by Nick Whalen that Adbusters have been using. I like the fact that as time goes on I'm starting to feel the need and the importance of getting involved in demos, activism etc. Ironic that when I was much more involved, I wasn't really concentrating. Anyway, it's May 1st - so let's shout!

postscript: Good to see my old friends Phil and Ali up to some proper May 1st shenanigans. The former here from Phil makes sense from a photographer; the latter here from Ali, is a little more, shall we say, entertainingly obtuse..

icloudy

The mix of cheesy apple ad rip-off and serious message seem a little awkward don't they? But hey, better than the film I've made to tackle this issue. You can sign a petition here.

Stop Press! This is what it's all about..

Makers, Menders & Materials - IFAS gallery

Clearly I'm biased, but the SiB boat did seem to have had some magic in it's sails..

So, I was charged with doing the artists statement/intro panel for the gallery space. An A1 size print was the idea, mounted on foamboard, usual stuff.. stuck to the wall as you come in the gallery. And yet. As I was doing the captions they became smaller and I found myself putting them in wooden frames, and the intro panel really shrunk, becoming no bigger than a postcard. It seemed apt. And I had a frame in mind that seemed suitable. So, that's what you see on the left of the top photo.

What you see on the right of that photo is Caitlin, aged two, with tool belt on, setting out to mend something with her Auntie in a New York City tenement apartment. Caitlin had bought her framed snap as it informed her talk that she'd be doing at the symposium, and it was one of her favourites. (I didn't know what the talk would be about, but funnily enough it featured my dad - see last photo)

What with the acronym SiB lending itself to the word sibling, we've named all the series likewise: Brothers & Sisters etc. and the whole project has had these familial feelings, like an old family coming together again and a new family being formed.

And here, to sum all that up nicely, were these frame-cousins, the Pacific Ocean unable to provide an obstacle for their coming together. If they were exactly the same it wouldn't be so good, but they're very similar but distinctly different. They're both small. And they're both beautiful. Amen!

Makers, Menders & Materials - Reed Hall

So the exhibition/symposium Makers, Menders and Materials was the culmination of our Small is Beautiful project (though there is now talk of another show in Cornwall sometime in the Summer).

My images were in two areas of the Exeter University campus: Reed Hall, a plush old rambling house, and the Institute for Arabic Studies, a brand new building. For the symposium we split our time between the two, with workshops on the Friday in Reed Hall and a more public view in the IFAS gallery on the Saturday. All of the shop keepers we featured in the project were invited for the Saturday and lots came, some with family and colleagues in tow. Splendid to have them all together in one place.

Putting Gordon Webster (cycle mechanic) and Bill Collett (type writer repair man) in big swept gold picture frames in this swanky old place, at the top of a sweeping stair case - that was excellent. And the Damaged Dancer looked pretty good in the Upper Lounge room, which is where we did most of our talking. Seeing Bill and Gordy mingling with all the other guests with their painterly and distinguished presence on the wall behind them.. a feeling to be treasured, for sure.

Manage

I managed to tell my dad it all started with Thompsons. I managed to talk to Gordy about him being in a gold frame and he loved it. We managed to pull off a pretty good event. And we managed to get a selection of people in one space that would never ever get together: professors, cobblers, writers, book binders, cycle mechanics, typographers, type writer repairers, doctors, electricians, musicians, old friends, family, future friends, future colleagues maybe. 

What I didn't manage to do is to take any photographs of this special day or, more importantly, consider the fact that my mum wouldn't be able to walk up the steps between the two gallery spaces. In fact, she did, fair play to her, but they nearly killed her. They are  beautiful stone stairs that rise up through the grounds of Exeter University campus. I now want to smash them! Lung Cancer and steps don't mix. What does lung cancer mix with? Marde and not much else.

Getting there

Some lovely photos from one of Caitlins PhD students, Rose Ferraby. Good job she was kind enough to help - it's definitely been a 3 person job. Couldn't have done it without her. Odd, isn't it, that you still underestimate how much time and effort and mess-ups and mends you have to do to put on a show. Pretty much there now though, ready for our guests/speakers tomorrow. And so it begins/ends..

A mended hand; some legs; the space

Doing

Definitely one of my favourite parts of the SiB exhibition preparation - putting eyelets into the canvas images. For some reason hugely satisfying. Meant I had to go to a Chandlery as well, which is no bad thing, obviously.

What bank holidays are for

Raging about rage

Raging about seeing the Quantock Hills ANOB mentioned in this splendidly odd montage of budget cut information. Obviously any of the cuts is enraging when you see it in the context of spending 100 billion (£100,000,000,000!) on nuclear bloody weapons - ahh! makes my blood boil.

Excellent bit of interactive graphics – it just gets the message across, doesn't it. Gets one big message and many little messages across in fact. And I love the element in the top right hand corner that shows you how much money has been spent whilst you've been looking at it..

Got to find some time to turn my thoughts to creating work in this area. Must. Will.

What goes around comes around

So, an adventure that has reached it's destination(s). 20 locations, 20 green flags representing our 20 selected shops for the Small is Beautiful Project. We're done. Well, the visits are done. Now to the all important dissemination and celebration of the adventures. Perhaps all the vim and energy stirred up by the Hinkley affair can be channeled into this project - it's my effort at keeping in tow with ol' Thomas..

'What to do? Stay green, never mind the machine, whose fuel is human souls.'      
[He taps on his laptop]

Enraged. Inspired. Zapped.

Notwithstanding the fact the we were told the levels of radiation outside the main gates were twice the safety limit, it was a highly charged affair yesterday. Inspired by Jonathon Porritt who spoke with vigour and wit. Enraged with a new anger towards police - pretty stupid, nothing really to do with them, obviously. Enraged by a huge resentment of EDF and all they're up to. And sort of zapped by meeting a press photographer whose work I've noticed for years. Thought I would like to do more press and editorial work. Got me inspired to take my work camera and press card next time - though not sure I could keep professional enough with my rising anger! (Then again, the phrase 'partial press' came in to my head.. be a good organisation of press people that were completely subjective.)

And I take my words in the last post back - there was around 600 protesters there, much better than I expected. Fair play to all of us and to the organisers. I'm doing my utmost to not miss another demo out there, that's for sure. It has re-fired all my yesteryear passion for getting involved in these sorts of things. What have I been doing instead eh? Come on Bondy.

 If not us then who? If not now then when? EDF off you greedy bastards!
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The Guardian, with images from aforementioned photographer, covers the story here.

Do I need an argument?

Just mulling over the facts and figures to do with tomorrows demo at Hinkley Point. Mombiot banging on again (on BBC Newsnight this time) about how nuclear power must be part of the green agenda. Lots of people spouting lots of statistics and arguing over how we are going to keep 'the lights on'. This is what it's going to be like tomorrow. But does anyone ask the builders EDF what their reasons are? I guess there's no need cause it's unashamedly financial. Obviously they are trying to make money - it's their sole reason in fact. Understandable; business is business.

Well, if that's okay, if it's okay to pursue building a gigantic kettle which creates energy and some jobs but also as a by-product poison that we have to look after for at least 20,000 years, and, if the kettle goes wrong in some way, could create a disaster the like of which would have people all over the world gasping in horror- well, I'm saying it's not okay. I don't want them to do it. Not in my name.

I'm going to try and not spout figures about how UK taxpayers currently subsidise nuclear directly to the tune of more than £1bn per year (1), or that over its lifecycle a nuclear power station produces as much carbon dioxide as a gas-fired power station.[11 Or that the 2003 Energy White Paper said one of the reasons why the then government wasn’t proposing new nuclear was because there were “important issues of nuclear waste to be resolved”. Have they been? No.

How about just that 'this is obviously not the way forward'? That should do in a way, shouldn't it? 'I don't really know much about this topic, I can't get involved'. Argh! What do you need to know? Does it seem like a good idea to make a kettle that lets off lots of steam to power our ridiculously decadent, destructive, unsustainable lifestyles but also generates lots and lots of really poisonous stuff that didn't exist before you built this kettle? Does it feel like a good idea? Come on! 'Keep the lights on?' Do we need them all on?!

Big companies can't just come into communities and build giant kettles that will require huge lorries trundling up and down the road to the site at a rate of 1 ever 16 mins for years. Well, not without at least 24 people (you never know, could be more!) turning up and saying no thanks - however gestural, however ramshackled, however unheard - we will say no thanks.

–


The above image is a snap I took whilst whizzing past of the mystery road out near the power station. It's for the 4 lorries an hour. The road was started years ago when they tried to build the new nuclear power station the last time, 9 years ago. Then it was stopped. So the road just stopped. Now it's fenced off. When I go past it now it seems both ominous and an apt display of idiot humans. We go scrapping up earth and laying hot black goo on the scar and then buggering off. But you never know, maybe it'll just stay that way, and the power station it arches to reach will never exist. It ain't built 'til it's built, after all.

New Clear Blast

A new adventure is afoot. Been busy finishing off the purple book - which ended up a nicer blue thankfully - and getting matters ready for the SiB show in April when we culminate in a 2 day workshop/exhibition.

But there's been a call out from Stop Hinkley for a demo at the power station next Saturday and I'm alight! Chances are surely high that there'll be a raggle-taggle bunch of us, who make a line 53 yards long, as opposed to the aim of circling the plant, which is probably about a mile! But hey ho, guess turning up is the only thing to do that's definitely a good start. Jonathon Porritt and Caroline Lucas coming along evidently. So, it's all hands on deck now to try and make this a worthy demo. Nuclear power? No thanks! Better designed protest websites/press material? Increased amount of well-dressed protesters? Yes please!

 Here's an interesting radio programme on nuclear energy from the World Service to start things going.

Photograph by Steven Bond © 2012 [but taken back in the day. Nice to dig it out]

Sea Change III_Becalelis

The Geography of Silence

Angles and Degrees

You can tell by the angle of his mouth he's not happy.. Dan, sat at the printers, looking at the pages of a book we've designed, just hot off the press. On his right, the 'blue' proofs. On his left the 'purple' printed running pages. Not close enough, surely? The degree of magenta throughout is just too high.

Out of the 8 sections of the book – shown above, printed and folded but not bound – the first 3 are just patently too purple for us to handle. Publisher and printer are now in 'discussions' about who pays for the re-run. Print I tell'e, never, ever, simple.

Silence in Church please

On the campus of Exeter University last week I had 30 mins to wait until a meeting.. went into the Chapel.. and.. peace. Absolute peace. And total silence. And that wonderful feeling that you get in some spaces when your behavior changes, your senses heighten. I was woken and calmed at the same time.

Apart from the feel of the place there was such wonderful features: lettering in the brickwork, old glass bending and softening the light through the huge windows, wonderful rich red - blood red? - drapes and curtains. And there was so much symmetry and precise placement of objects, pictures etc. Made me think how much symmetry can play a part in Christian imagery and buildings; the cross, I suppose, being the most obvious example. More time in religious buildings me thinks.