The New Art Exchange and the Monitoring Group in Nottingham, via A-n magazine, asked artists to submit their ideas for a rural digital photography project involving the Portuguese community in and around Boston.
Having been selected, my idea centres around the Portuguese word “saudade” - which has connotations with nostalgia - and uses objects as prompts for reminiscence through a series of workshops with the local community.
Based on the outcomes from the workshops, the artist and participants will exhibit photographs and objects representational of the word “saudade” together with definitions of the word and a ‘precious memory book’.
The project is currently under way and will be exhibited at The Gallery of Justice in Nottingham in October 2007.
The Royal Festival Hall and Age Exchange project inspired over two thousand people to entrust their memory to this living archive, whether it was falling in love, a life-changing experience of London or an unforgettable performance.
Initially working as a volunteer transcribing and categorising memories from postcards and emails, I was later brought in to select memories to be used at the reopening event for the Royal Festival Hall.
A people’s history showing memories from all eras is now on display in Spirit Level in Royal Festival Hall. Entry is free.
Age Exchange interviews about the project on Youtube…
Every year 17 billion plastic bags are handed out to British shoppers, having a significant effect on our carbon footprint. The Butterfly project will be an installation of flowers made from around 90,000 plastic bags and I’ve been acting as one of the workshop facilitators on the project at schools across London.
The project, developed by Lumina, has been funded by the Co-Op and supported by the Children’ s Scrap Project (Hackney).
The recycling Carnival project was devised to encourage higher achievement in Portuguese speaking children within the London Borough of Lambeth. This ethnic minority is one of the most underachieving groups within the borough.
Through the delivery of workshops the participants were able to learn more about the tradition of Carnival and the importance of recycling in the wider community by making costumes from found/collected materials. The project culminated in a Carnival parade.
As part of London Sustainability Weeks I created a life-size polar bear made entirely from recycled materials. The structure is covered in newspaper and magazine headlines about global warming and is constructed of recycled steel rods, wire netting and abandoned newspapers, collected mainly on DLR and bus journeys between Hackney, Bank and Canary Wharf.
The work highlights the plight of polar bears – and the planet – as a result of climate change.
‘Polar Bear’ is an expression of today’s world with its magnificence and beauty as well as its problems and its disputes typical of living organisms that are born, grow, change, evolve, die and are in constant flux.
The Love London Recycled Sculpture Show was launched as part of London Sustainability Weeks.
‘Polar Bear’ can be seen at the Sun and Doves pub, 61-63 Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell London SE5 9NS from June 5th until October 15th 2007.
