A trip to the Arctic - kind of

So, we managed one cultural outing during half term a couple of weeks ago when we went to see that Arctic: Culture and Climate exhibition at the British Museum. It was fascinating to learn about how the four million people who live there live and have lived for thousands of years. It’s also depressing to see how their surroundings are changing beyond recognition due to climate change. Their and all of our lives will look very different in the coming decades, but I guess ultimately everything is constantly changing on our planet, and always has done, but the difference now is that we’re to blame. Sigh. Stupid humans! It’s crazy how we can be so clever but also so incredibly ignorant. Anyway… it was quite dark and busy in exhibition (no social distancing but lots of face masks) so I didn’t manage to take many pictures. This map made out of seal skin was amazing. The indigenous people of the Arctic Circle made/make use of every part of animals that they hunted for food, so a seal skin could end up being a map or waterproofs among other things.

It was one of those exhibitions where there was quite a bit to read about every piece, which of course was very good and informative, but I find that if I read too much I then don’t end up looking properly. I should always remember to look first and then read. I have no memory of what this little dude was, but all I know is that he’s very cool.

The bead work on this apron made up of some sort of skin (reindeer? caribou?) was mind-blowing. I wonder how many months it would’ve taken to make.

This jacket made out of caribou fur was also pretty amazing. Love the design. All hand sewn.

There were prints made by artists scattered through the exhibition.

And sculptures out of soap stone.

As well as engravings done on walrus tusks.

I went through the exhibition slower than Oomoo and Mr Famapa, so they were finishing up as I was half-way through. They asked me to guess what Oomoo’s choice was if he could take one thing home with him, and as soon as I saw these masks I knew straight away that these were it.

My take-home would’ve been this soapstone printing block, such a beautiful object, don’t you think? Even with the cracks.

And this is how the print looked from the above block. So cool! If you want find out a bit more you can read more about the Artic here on the British Museum blog. Once a year the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics takes place, where people from the circumpolar areas in the world compete in sporting categories that are designed to preserve cultural practices and traditional survival skills. I found a little clip on youTube from one of them here. Some categories look really painful, others really fun, and some seriously impressive. It was such an interesting exhibition and I’m so grateful we got the chance to go before everything closed up again.

An arty November Sunday

Let’s continue with back tracking through my 2019, shall we? On a Sunday back in November, we went with a couple of friends to see the Antony Gormley exhibition at the Royal Academy. I’m lucky enough to be able to go to exhibitions on weekdays when it’s less busy, but we this time we went on what must be the busiest day in the week. It was actually quite nice to feel more collectively that we were sharing an experience with a lot of people at the same time.

Our friend’s daughter mimicked the statues throughout the exhibition which made us chuckle.

Most of the rooms were so busy that you had to simply walk behind each other in a circle to have a look at whatever was in the middle, like some sort of circle dance.

I have no idea how they managed to fix most of the art works into the spaces without wrecking the place, and I must say I enjoyed the contrast between his modern sculptures placed within the very classical Royal Academy.

Here we had to squeeze our way through, walking around the perimeter of it, in a neat little line.

This room could only be seen though a door opening, the whole floor was filled with water. Would have been fun if you could wade your way through it :)

We couldn’t figure out how they’d installed these thin metal rods that would span across four rooms or so, without them bending at all. So much of Gormley’s stuff makes you wonder “What the?! How the?!”.

I think this was hand drawn with chalk. Made your eyes hurt.

My favourite parts of the exhibition were his early watercolour work, as well as his notebooks. If I was to steal one thing from the show it would have been this last rusty coloured painting. Ha - just realised that it’s yet another painting with someone facing away, and here in silhouette, which reminds me a lot of a certain someone’s photographs… hmmmm.