Year 2048/9 - Alan Carlyon Smith - #smallworldfutures

Alan Carlyon Smith, #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 2048/9

Sex
Sex. How dare we?
We look back to freedom
And the short years
Of sweet balance.

Sex. Born in 1963.
We leap back to the mornings
We censored nothing
And consent was not funny.

Sex. Died in 2047.
We once walked into minds
Which caressed bodies
With all the hope we had.

No longer.

Sex. Is it possible to fuck without either love or abuse? For years we clung hopelessly to nuance and to complexity and to the kisses of uncertainty. Now we reminisce endlessly about the clothes we wore and the tingles we felt and the laughing and the larking and the love we exchanged before they occupied us from left and from right, filled us with twittering hate and a million selves defined by pitch-forked opposition. Now we yield to the self-theft of freedom from desire and to the absence of bridges that once took us from man to woman and back again.

Once upon a time there was a difference between acceptance and approval.

No longer.

Kevin Acott

Alan Carlyon Smith

You can find Alan Carlyon Smith's Small World Future behind 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 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