Year 2121 - Bryan Benge - #smallworldfutures

Bryan Benge, Snowsfields, London Bridge, #unsettledgallery No.8

Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these worlds here on the website. A writer will also use the world as inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world. 

Today we discover the Small World Future of....Bryan Benge

The year is 2121

Earth Colony 9, The Expansion Zone.

Extract from the diary of Kemlo Tripster, Fluff machinist 1st Rate.

'The damned turbine got jammed again this morning. The chaff from the last batch of Fluff we picked up from the farms down south is as hard as old oak and dusts up something chronic in the mill. Me and the kids spent all morning cleaning out the gears and radiation relays, sweating like mad on the edge of the Dry Zone.

Still, we have several tons of processed Fluff in store now, enough to spice up half the dandies in the Original Quarter when we get to the Hub. Might make enough this season to set up another rig, perhaps with some traditional vegetables up top this time, some orange carrots and potatoes perhaps.

The 'old earth Apple tree' looks like it might blossom again this season. It will look proper pretty out here in the plains, we might even get some apples if we can keep the bomb-wasps away, vicious little gits that drop down sting first with no warning. If they get at the blossoms they'll most likely infect them with Virus 201-330, what we call 'the creeping dust'. It'll turn the young apples to a fine grey powder and that'll be the end of that.

Me and 'Van drank the last of the cider the other night so it will be a dry time for us both 'till we harvest some apples or we reach Trading Hub 2 on the other side.

I spoke to a Heavy Teamster and her crew as we were finishing up with the mill, you could hear them coming from a good way off. She reckons Fluff was selling for 20 bars a kilo when she set out a couple of cycles ago, a good price to be sure, I hope it holds till we hit the Hub. We traded a cask of purple grade Fluff for some salted Mink Cow ribs. I don't know how those teamster folk stand the noise of a herd of Mink Cows, the constant wheezing of their neck lungs and the slap-flapping of their solar wings drives me crazy. Still, they taste good, it'll make a pleasant change to have a bit of meat on board for the final leg of this season's circuit.

That's about it for today's entry, Van's keen to get rolling before Second Sun hits the sky and we begin to roast out here.'

Kemlo Tripster.

Dean Reddick

Bryan Benge

You can find Bryan Benge's Small World Future tucked beside a pink girder on Snowsfields, London Bridge, behind the Greenwood Theatre at #unsettledgallery No.8. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Bryan Benge is a practising artist, currently exploring digital media in his Fine Art practice.
He has always been an exhibiting artist. In 1992 he became a Member of The London Group.
Benge is co-founder of CollectConnect and exhibited at their first show, Open Fridge, at Gallery 89, Barnet in March 2010. The philosophy of CollectConnect sits alongside his belief that creativity and all its outcomes need to be encouraged and supported for all ages and backgrounds, that is without sanctions of selection or application of a personalised aesthetic.  To enable artists opportunities to exhibit their work, free from barriers and gatekeepers.
http://bryanbenge.co.uk

Dean Reddick

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist and a lecturer. He uses a range of media and enjoys experimenting with casting processes using plaster, metal and resin to explore the tensions between organic and geometric forms, positive and negative space and the distortions that occur in producing casts. As an artist and art therapist Reddick has a keen interest in the role of art as a cultural phenomenon and as a container for inter-personal meaning. He enjoys working collaboratively and has been a regular exhibitor at Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail as well as exhibiting with CollectConnect. Recently he published Art Therapy in the Early Years: Therapeutic Interventions with Infants, Toddlers and Their Families (pub. 2016, Routledge) alongside co-editor Julia Meyerowitz-Katz.