The Ragged Optimist 76
It’s Sunday, and I’m in the studio, working on my ARMA Award commission for Fabrica. I worked with young people on Brighton’s Whitehawk estate, and have mapped their experience of the area and their hopes for the future onto a giant map, showing the Isle of Whitehawk adrift in a sea. The map is one of four commissions, and all the works will tour between the partners, opening at Oriel Davies Gallery, and then going to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Dundee Contemporary Arts, and of course Fabrica.
On Thursday, I chaired an event for The Margate Bookshop, talking to James Fox about his book Craftland - and I caught up with artist Kate Malone who I haven’t seen for about ten years while I was at it.
On Friday, we had an incredibly successful First Friday, looking at Tarot - with an exhibition of different decks, some packs on sale via a silent auction, a make-your-own-card collage table, and readings by Froggybones Tarot. With over 50 people in the room, it felt pretty lively - and we showed lots of new people around Marine Studios.
Next up - I’m preparing my studio for East Kent Artists Open Houses this weekend. Love to see you here. I’m planning some time off after that… it’s been an incredibly busy couple of months.
Until next week, then - like, comment, share and all that stuff. Thank you.
“When I tell people what I’m doing here, they think I’m joking,” says Nadine Mitschunas, the UK’s first and only rice-grower. The crops in four small paddy fields are doing well, helped by our hottest summer on record. The trial is trying to answer big questions about how we can produce enough food and protect farmer’s livelihoods in a world being altered by climate change.
An Isle of Sheppey nature reserve has recorded a bumper number of birds this year.
The 25,000-square-metre Schwarzmann Centre unites seven faculties of Oxford University’s Humanities Division in one building, alongside the new Bodleian Humanities Library, and spaces for dance, film and theatre. It’s a wonderful thing.
At the other end of the scale, fabric from hot air balloons, pallets, and sheep’s wool are among the salvaged materials used to create Bouwurk, a temporary venue for Arcadia 2025 festival in the Netherlands. A much smaller budget, but just as wonderful.
A Kent wilding scheme is celebrating a ‘third-generation’ bison.
We’ve got our first female archbish. The 106th Archbishop of Canterbury since Saint Augustine arrived in Kent from Rome in 597, Bishop Sarah Mullally will be the first woman to hold the office.
While the USA’s president declares war on cities in his own country, one has adopted a rather good motto. “Portland isn’t a war zone; it’s a bookstore with a city around it.”
Artist Mike Hewson crafts environments that demand trust, test our ease with uncertainty, and create resilience through play. “You have to have faith in what people do next,” Hewson says about his latest exhibition, “None of us knows what the future is.”
Heavy horses on Tooting Common are helping prepare the ground for wildflowers.
Beavers are set to be legally recognised as a native species in Wales, the Welsh Government has confirmed.