Tag: Spotify
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This week’s Spotify playlist
Each week the blog is accompanied by a playlist of music and sound that reflects the articles. Sometimes the connections are obvious, often not. To listen to the playlist click on the play button on the player above or search for “Music to read a blog by” from within the app. Paying subscribers will hear…
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Melissa Cody
The traditional, ancient craft of Navajo weaving has been the passion and lifework of Melissa Cody. Now showing in New York at MoMA PS1, “Webbed Skies” is the work of the past decade; an exploration of a weaving history from Germantown, Pennsylvania that used reclaimed threads from woollen blankets given to displaced Navajo people by…
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Venice and the Biennale
Since 1895 La Biennale di Venezia has been promoting art in its many forms. This year the theme, Stranieri ovunque/ Foreigners everywhere, has led to prestigious awards for Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. The Golden Lion for the Best Participant in the International Exhibition has been won by Mataaho Collective. This quartet of Māori wāhine…
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Paradise Road
On the 27th April 1994, the first democratic elections in South Africa were held, ultimately leading to Nelson Mandela becoming President. It was a time of hope and positive change was in the air. There was jubilation and joy, and community, much celebrated around the world. Music had supported and helped to lead the way…
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Showing and Telling
Over the past year I have been running a series of events connected with the textile collection. The collection includes costume (the photograph left is a detail from an Adire robe from Nigeria, and the image below is a detail from Heather Barnett’s “Formanifera” curtains. These events have been held (mostly) in the local Regent…
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Of cranberries and kahikatea
Weekends on the West Coast are spent exploring the area and this week that exploration took in cranberry growing and kahikatea forests. Agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand is the largest part of the economy with regards to trade, and is unique in having an unsubsidised agricultural sector as a result of reforms aimed at making…
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Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold spent more than fifty years exploring and explaining. This classically-trained sculptor and painter used her energies to fight inequality through art, in particular “story quilts”, unstretched canvases painted with acrylics and bordered with pieced fabric. These pieces told the stories of Black lives, particularly of women, and celebrate “the human capacity to transcend…
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The seas around us
The textile artist Erik Speer uses waste, old stock and ends of line materials to explore an ocean of possibilities. With a degree in marine biology, it is no surprise that the artist’s work focuses on marine life. By using a variety of techniques and materials, Erik creates sculptures that look like coral reefs, sponges…
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This week’s Spotify playlist
Each week a Spotify list is curated to go along with the blog. Each piece on the list is relevant to the blog entries, with a mix of old and new music and sound from across the globe. Those with a Spotify subscription will be able to listen to the entire playlist without interruption, those…
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The Sony World Photography Awards
The winners of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards have just been announced. To see the images head on over to the BBC website here. The Photographer of the Year is Juliette Pavy with Spiralkampagnen, a documentary series about the forced sterilisation of Inuit women in Greenland. Several thousand girls and women were fitted with…