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. 

Year 2118 - Alan Carlyon Smith - #SmallWorldFutures

Alan Carlyon Smith, Snowsfields, London Bridge,

#unsettledgallery No.4

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....Alan Carlyon Smith

The year is 2118

What Can You Do?
Thank you for coming here. Thank you for coming to 2118, I know the cuts and The Terror have messed up Time Travel For London’s services but I have a story to tell you. And I know you’ve been here before but there’s something I need to emphasise before I begin. Here, when you decide to have a baby, you can choose whatever you like. A normal boy, an abnormal girl, an enigmatic and slightly flakey twin-spirit, a grumpy post-identity LGBTQQTGYSTA++ re-born, a saxophonist2B, a lion tamer2B, an Elvis impersonator2B. Just tick a box, pay your Thalers, wait nine months. Well, wait nine months and then another twenty or thirty years in some (2B) cases.

Sometimes, of course, it goes wrong. Our scientists are - how to be put it fairly? - a little distracted at times. The Elite don’t like scientists. We don’t like scientists, but of course we can’t kill them. Not since...you know...

Anyway. After much ‘discussion’ last year, we chose to have a President2B. I already have a minor-celebrity2B, a Spurs-defender2B and a Poet-Laureate2B. My wives both - like so many twin-spirits - wanted a President2B. I pushed against the idea for a while: what if he became a LabTor? What if he hated the Elite? What if he was assassinated? What if he brought about the end of the world? A president was bound to be trouble. Lucrative, OK, but trouble. And he’d have to - *have to* - become President by the age of thirty. Otherwise I’d be deliquesced before it happened - and I need at least a brief surge of pride before I shuffle off and re-enter space.

They changed the law last year, you may have missed it? 55 is the new EOUL. The end of useful life. You have that in your time? EOUL was 60 this time last year. They keep changing it. Which worries me a little, but what can you do? You deliquesce when they decide it’s time.

So, yes: the little one would have had to become President before I reach 55. We saved and saved and finally ordered a President2B. The excitement was palpable, even though Wife 1.0 changed her mind halfway through, said she’d really have preferred an Accountant2B.,

I know. I can see what you’re thinking. That’s no President2B. No, it’s not. What did we get? We got a Messiah. A bloody Messiah. Look at him. Cute, eh? And look at his Mother, 1.0. She’s taken to it like a duck to water. Even wearing all the old blue stuff and beaming beatifically. She looks like a kid again. In public, anyway. Jesus. If you’ll excuse my language. His other mother hasn’t stopped drinking and partying since it happened. She gave birth to half of him but she couldn’t care less. Or she cares too much - who can tell? Either way, it’s leaving me with far too much to do. I hardly have time to play with my abacus anymore.

Hmm. Apparently, there are only three Messiahs on earths. This one here, two in your time, none at all prior to 1932. They’re not - of course - Messiahs2B, they’re actual Messiahs. A Messiah doesn’t become, it just is. Though the two in your time aren’t recognised for what they are yet. May never be.

So. Now I’m the father of a Messiah. I’m a... a sort of Joseph. You never hear much about him, do you? He always took a back-seat to young Mary, sawing and hammering and sanding and being a silently typical man. I don’t intend to be like that. I’m going to say what I want. When I want. The days of the FemiNazis are over. Oh yes.

Could you... um... take him? With you, I mean? Could you take the baby back to your time? The truth is, I don’t want a Messiah for a son. I don’t want a Madonna for a wife. Or a whore, for that matter. I just want to be a scientist. And rid the earths of foreigners whenever I can.

Four hundred and sixty Thalers. Go on. The wives are asleep. Take Him. You’re hesitating? Why? Imagine what He can do for you! It’s win-win.

OK, five hundred. Good. Thank you. You know it makes sense. Best decision you’ve ever made. You’ve made a young man and his father very happy.

Kevin Acott 

You can find Alan Carlyon Smith's Small World Future tied to a wire fence on Snowsfields, London Bridge, next to #unsettledgallery No.4. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Alan Carlyon Smith is an artist and curator currently working from his studio in Wimbledon. He has curated a number of exhibitions at the Shaw Gallery in Croydon, including The Jade Event, Art Jazzed Up and Ballet Russes. The latter involved the London Russian Ballet School performing in the Mitre Theatre. Smith enjoys exhibiting his art in the public domain and regularly contributes work to the Art of Caring at the Rose Theatre (Kingston), St George's Hospital (Tooting) and St Pancras Hospital. In 2015 his work was included in the 70th Anniversary of Korean Liberation International Art Exhibition in Seoul. As a studio artist he works in a range of mediums and has been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery.

www.wimbledonartstudios.co.uk/alan-carlyon-smith/

Kevin Acott

Kevin Acott is a London-based model, cult singer and poet. He divides his creative time between writing, photography and collaborative projects. His stories and poems can be found on the websites Sad Paradise, Londonist, Smoke: A London Peculiar and Ink, Sweat And Tears. In 2017 he dedicated six months to travelling and writing. Starting in North Carolina (USA) he eventually ended his adventures in Limoux, France. Along the way Acott spent a month as writer-in-residence in Qaqortoq (Greenland) where he wrote several short stories. He has released several books with publisher Sampson Low and is currently working toward a one-man show at this year's Crouch End Festival in June 2018.

www.kevinacott.com

Year 2561 - Natalie Low - #smallworldfutures

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....

Natalie Low

The year is 2561.....

Humans Become Fish

We have learned to breathe underwater,
traded our salt-choked lungs for gills,
At first, it was difficult, many died.
But slowly, we trained ourselves
to become elemental,
Our filament fingers,
scraping the seaweed
from foamed faces,
Became fine-feathered fins.
Last of all to go, was the legs,
We were loath to lose them,
but one day, after years of
running along the bottom
of the ocean, we found
we could fly.
We flicked our new-grown tails,
somersaulted bubbles and swam,
Our pellucid eyes bulging,
Mouths an open question,
And made our homes
among the reeds and coral.
Lately, we have lost
all power of speech,
but find ourselves able
instinctively to feel
the shoal’s clamour,
Our sleek armoury
of scales
Streamlined
to the flow.

by Rebecca Lowe

You can find Natalie Low's Small World Future behind the Greenwood Theatre on Snowsfields, London 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.

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. Her small future world uses a mixture of natural and manmade materials that intertwine into an fluid growth.  She lives in Twickenham, UK with her rather charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Rebecca Lowe

Rebecca Lowe is a Wales-based writer, editor and performance poet. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4's Poetry Workshop, and her work has appeared in anthologies including Bristol Poetry Can, Red Poets, Blackheath Countercultural Review, and Three Drops from a Cauldron, an anthology of poetry based on folklore and myth. She also plays hammered dulcimer and zither, which she sometimes incorporates into her performances.

http://www.writerscafe.org/BeckyLowe

http://swanmedia.wix.com/copywriter-cv

https://dizzysheep.livejournal.com/

Year 2091 - Stella Tripp - Small World Futures

Stella Tripp - #unsettledgallery No.2

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....

Stella Tripp

The year is 2091.....

"It was six months after the rains started, when we still had dry memories. My mother said, we will drown down here in the mud, why should it only be the rich who have life. So we did it ourselves: we up-ended the favelas, raising them into the saturated sky. And now we are one of the Mardi Gras giants, swaying, ready to fight."
Natalie Low

Stella Tripp

You can find Stella Tripp's Small World Future at #unsettledgallery No.2, beside a downpipe on Melior Street and next to the Horseshoe Inn. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Born in Somerset, Stella Tripp trained locally before attending Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts where she went on to lecture part-time. At the beginning of the eighties Stella travelled to America, Illinois where she developed much of her over arching themes and work practices, such as the decision to stop using rectangular stretched canvases and instead building makeshift constructions to paint on. These better reflected her situation and state of mind. She wrote a thesis exploring the nature of art by comparing art from different cultures and was excited by the possibilities that surface when exploring the nature of art in the light of cultural and societal conditioning: "things don’t have to be as they are; anything goes; anything is possible". Stella has been a regular contributor to CollectConnect projects and has notched up over 14 shows exhibitions or publications.

www.stellatripp.co.uk/

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She lives in Twickenham, UK with her rather charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Small World Futures - #unsettledgallery

Here at ColllectConnect we're starting 2018 with a fascinating little exhibition. 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 an inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world.

Security Crow - Dean Reddick (#unsettledgallery 2017) 

In the autumn of 2017 Dean Reddick and Alban Low began cultivating a series of public exhibition spaces around London Bridge called the #unsettledgallery. These include flowerbeds, railings and gates, as well as spaces between bricks, in gullies and beside drainpipes - basically anywhere an artwork can rest and be seen by the public. Although these spaces change and evolve on a daily basis, several housed artworks for a longer period of time. The Small World Futures will find their homes in these public spaces. They may stay there for an hour or a week.  Perhaps they will plant a seed of an idea in the people who see them.

#unsettledgallery sites

Artists who have created worlds for the exhibition include: Sara Lerota, Ann Kopka, Bryan Benge, Bethany Murray, Wayne Sleeth, Dean Reddick, Lesley Cartwright, Melanie Ezra, Natalie Low, Stella Tripp, Tracy Boness, Jill Hedges, Jenny Meehan, Francesca Albini, Alan Carlyon Smith and Alban Low. As part of the exhibition we have invited 6 writers to create new works inspired by the worlds. Look out for the words of Kevin Acott, Rebecca Lowe, Natalie Low, Dean Reddick, Ed Arantus and Alban Low.

"Someone else seems to own my future at the moment. Politicians gamble with it, declaring that they speak for me, that they know my hopes and desires. The United Kingdom is in a state of flux as it prepares to leave the European Union. I feel disconnected from the future worlds that are being built in my name. I wanted to ask a group of CollectConnect artists to imagine what the future will look like. To envisage a world that they could call their own."

Alban Low (London, UK, 2018)

RIP Tom Hosmer (1943 - 2013)

Tom Hosmer (left) placing magnetic art on the streets of Concord, NH, USA

It is with a heavy heart that we learnt the news that one of our regular contributing artists, Tom Hosmer, has died at the age of 69. Many of our artists dip in and out of our exhibitions so we don't always keep in regular contact but we started to worry as we hadn't heard from Tom in the last four years. He died on 4th March 2013 in Pennsylvania, USA. Just the day before his death we had been in contact about sending him a copy of the Patternotion book, one of the early CollectConnect publications that he had contributed to.

Tom first exhibited with us for the Brighton Open in 2011, and quickly followed that up by exhibiting magnetic art on the gates of Hastings Pier at Rarities (2011). He was so inspired by this spirit of inclusivity that he organised his own magnet show. In August 2011 he worked with the New Hampshire chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA-NH) to exhibit hundreds of magnets at the Minor Threat Pop-Up Gallery. He also hit the streets of Concord, placing magnets on store facades for the public to pick up. http://artconcord.blogspot.co.uk

He was a man of many talents and loved being creative, he sculpted and was a keen photographer. I shall remember him as a great thinker, a sensitive man, a person who chose his words carefully and cared very much about the world and its children.

Wings by Tom Hosmer

Collectconnect published two books with Tom's work in it. FreedBook was released in 2012 when a group of us visited all the Books For London libraries on the London transport network (80 miles!). Tom submitted one of his poems (see above). Tom was hugely enthusiastic about being part of our modest group of artists, and was very keen to be included in our second book Patternotion. We released Patternotion on the 9th March 2013, unknown to us he had died just a few days before. The book tried to inspire people to make interesting and positive changes in their lives. Here is Tom's contribution.....

Wisdom by Tom Hosmer

"When I was really quite young, I remember browsing through the local Woolworth's Five & Dime.  There was a middle age couple dressed in working class clothes, who were standing silently staring into space not saying anything for some minutes, and then conversing and then silence again.  I stood some distance away from them watching.  They went on for a number of minutes in this manner.  Even in this mime I could imagine the words exchanged and the thoughts which were held in silence.

After a while I moved on, but I realized that they were agonizing over a decision to make a purchase, and that the purchase would impact them in a very deep way financially.  And, as I have walked through life I have seen this same scene play out in differing ways not only across this country but in different nations over the globe.  Even in rich cities and countries, you can see the Invisibles if you just stand in one place long enough and watch."

Tom Hosmer (2013)

Tom Hosmer with his wife Jennifer Van Cor in England (early 1980s)

Thomas Hosmer was born August 21, 1943, to Harold and Mary Hosmer in York, Maine, the middle child of three. He graduated R.W. Traip Academy in Kittery, Maine. Tom was deeply affected by the war in Vietnam and the involvement of the USA. In 1968 he dodged the draft and escaped to Montreal, where he spent months struggling with the personal conflicts that burned inside of him. He was a contemporary of both Mark Lane and Dick Gregory in Canada. Tom was imprisoned upon his return to the US and had a mixed time in New York after his release. With prison fresh on his mind he found it hard to get involved with the esoteric events in the city but it didn't stop all his cultural activities, as he explains....

"I did get to the opening night of the Whitney Biennial when I was there.  Two things opened the door for that.  I painted the walls of the Whitney at night when they were setting up the show.  That gave me a free pass to the Whitney.  But I was also dating the daughter of the head of the sculpture department at the Rhode Island School of Design, and that got me into the opening night."

He worked as a merchant seaman and brought up his two children, Pieter and Sarah Van Cor-Hosmer. In later years he moved to Warner, New Hampshire where he was often to be found in the company of fellow artists and poets. He took great comfort in the beauty of nature, a passion he shared with friends David M Carroll (Macarthur Foundation Fellow) and his wife Laurette.

We will miss Tom, his wisdom and his kindness.

Submissions Open - Art of Caring 2018

Now in its 4th year The Art of Caring is needed more than ever to show support for Nurses, Carers, and the NHS. This is your chance to exhibit an artwork or haiku that demonstrates your passion for this theme. If this is your first time then check out Anna Bowman's documentary film about last year's exhibition HERE.

The Art of Caring is split into two clear exhibitions.
The first is at St George's Hospital (10th-30th May 2018) where printed postcards of your artwork are displayed on the walls of the hospital to help celebrate International Nurses Day. This is an inclusive exhibition.
The second is at St Pancras Hospital (July - October 2018) and uses a mixture of original artworks and printed postcards. Works will be selected by the
Arts Project curators Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay.

It is Free to enter.
Send up to 3 jpeg images at an A6 size to collectconnect4@gmail.com
and/or send a haiku to the same email address

We are looking for artworks/poems about Care and/or Caring but also consider the theme for International Nurses Day this year..... Health is a Human Right.

You will receive a confirmation email within 7 days with your catalogue/exhibition numbers.
Before the exhibition we will print 2 postcards of each of your artworks. One copy will be sent to you and the other will be exhibited at St George's Hospital, Tooting, UK from the 10th-30th May, 2018.

For the full details about how to submit your work visit our SUBMIT page.
Deadline for submissions is 6th April 2017
(We may close early if all 400 exhibition spaces are filled)

Alban Low, Bryan Benge, Dean Reddick and Stuart Simler

The exhibition is once again kindly supported by Supported by Kingston University and St George's, University of London

Small Worlds: Future Lives - Exhibition opportunity

Small Worlds: Future Lives

An exhibition of small sculptures that are inspired by the dwellings, societies and worlds of the future. During February 2018 we will placing small artworks (Maximum size = 5cm wide x 5cm deep x 8cm high) on the streets around London Bridge. The artworks can be picked up by the public for free.

Over the past few months we have been finding and cultivating a series of public art spaces (niches, ledges, railing, flowerbeds etc) called the #unsettledgallery. The artworks will be placed one by one in these spaces during February 2018.

We will be photographing the worlds once they are in place and asking writers to create small written works inspired by these miniature societies. These written pieces will be published alongside photographs of your world on the CollectConnect website/blog. Hopefully we'll produce a small physical catalogue/book too, but I'll ask your permission separately if this comes to fruition.

There are further opportunities available too. Eskild Beck will organising a Small Worlds exhibition in Aabenraa, Denmark in May-June 2018 (Opening 3rd May). He will select some artists from our exhibition (but probably not everyone as he has limited space).

How to get involved
Small Worlds: Future Lives (#unsettledgallery London Bridge)

1) Contact Alban Low at his email address to express an interest.
or email collectconnect4@gmail.com
2) Alban will email you his home address.
3) Send your Small Worlds to this address by 19th January 2018.
4) Your sculptures should not be larger than 5cm wide x 5cm deep x 8cm high. A maximum of 3 artworks per artist.

Don't forget you must be prepared that these artworks will be exhibited on the streets and therefore may be taken by members of the public or destroyed by the weather/animals/refuse collectors etc.

Dazzle High-rise - Alban Low (#unsettledgallery No.8)