Love Tokens and Bad Pennies exhibition

After the success of the Small World Futures exhibition in 2018, we are returning with a new inclusive art project Love Tokens and Bad Pennies at the #unsettledgallery in 2019. We will be placing one artwork on the London streets during each day of February. Artworks will be accompanied by a new written work by a poet or author here on the CollectConnect blog. The artworks will be placed in or beside fountains and sacred waterways in London. The public can view them or pick them up for free and take them home. 

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turns up?

Both the Love Token and the Bad Penny are part of the currency of life, two sides of the same coin. These everyday objects are defaced or distinguished to help us remember those who we hold dear and those who we would rather forget. 

Love Tokens are part of our heritage but live on today as symbols of courtship and love. The most common tokens are coins smoothed flat on one or both sides.  They can then be engraved, either with initials, messages of love or even drawings; or embellished with stones, jewels or punched-out designs. In the past such tokens were exchanged between lovers, but this exhibition reaches beyond these traditional boundaries. In an age of virtual friendships, tokens are a tangible memento of time spent together which equally capture the poignancy of loss. In the UK the history of tokens includes ones for prisoners or convicts (engraved by those being deported to the penal colonies in Australia) and pilgrims. Tokens were often kept close to a loved one's heart and body.  So as not to be mistaken for other coins and objects they were bent and manipulated: you can still find “benders” (a coin bent twice, one side up and the other side down) in the muddy banks of the River Thames.

The phrase 'A Bad Penny always turns up' may come from the fact that historically coins could be 'bad', that is, forged or debased in some way.  In the Middle Ages, people might 'clip' coins to remove some of the precious metal they were made from. As early as the 14th Century the term 'bad penny' was being used to describe a person or thing which is unpleasant, disreputable, or otherwise unwanted, especially one which repeatedly appears at inopportune times. What made people link bad pennies with the notion of something unwelcome returning is not known. Perhaps it was the sense that, if you clip or pass on a bad penny, it won't be long before it comes back to you in your change. 

Artists and writers

Lesley Cartwright
Stella Tripp
Tracy Boness
Francesca Albini
Melanie Honebone
Eskild Beck
Debbie Chessell
Alban Low
Dean Reddick
Ed Arantus
Bryan Benge
Simon Brewster
Barbara Dougan
Natalie Low
SJ Fowler
Ginny Reddick
Rebecca Lowe
Chopsticks Nelson
Astra Papachristodoulou
Chris Brown
Susie Mendelsson

1-28 February 2019
#unsettledgallery
LONDON

Art of Caring documentary film 2018

Thank you to everyone who made this year's Art of Caring such a success. We closed the exhibition last week at St Pancras Hospital with a screening of Anna Bowman's wonderful film. The Art of Caring is a special exhibition, its inclusive ideals represent the special contribution that artists, nurses, carers and the NHS bring to our communities.

The film includes Interviews with artists and music and entertainment from the Opening Night of The Art of Caring exhibition at St Pancras Hospital's Gallery. For the last three years Peter Herbert, the Gallery's Curator and Manager, and his team have worked with artist and curator Alban Low to create a unique exhibition celebrating nursing and the NHS. The St Pancras exhibition builds on Alban Low's open submission and exhibition of postcards of art work, shown at St George's Hospital, Tooting. Artists interviewed in the film include Chris Bird, Sara Bowman, Peter Herbert, Alban Low, Chloe Wing, Susie Mendelsson, Elaine Harper-Gay, residents at Stacey Street Nursing Home, Danny Mooney and Lily Mooney. Opening Night music by Bee Ororo, Camden and Islington NHS Choir and Lucinda Sieger

Art of Caring at St Pancras Hospital (until 18th October 2018)

The ART OF CARING exhibition opened with strength and passion with more than 150 guests greeting the unveiling of consistently strong artworks at St Pancras Hospital. On show was original work from 30 artists as well as postcard art from around 100 worldwide artists.

The Art of Caring has grown over its 3 years at St Pancras and is now one of the cornerstones of the gallery's exciting yearly schedule. 2018 offered us a glimpse of political awareness and tender moments of reflection. Elaine Harper Gay's triptych of pencil drawings reflecting on the powerful faces of the men who shape our global health. Contrasts this with the work of our youngest artist Lily Mooney who drew inspiration from the power of mermaids, and you'll understand what a brilliantly eclectic exhibition this is. 

On the stage we heard the voices of the C&I NHS Choir who sung beautiful songs including the seminal Lean On Me. Our guest singers Lucinda Sieger and Bee Ororo  wowed the audience with songs of love and hope including a rousing Tom Waites cover song. Guest speakers were Caroline Harris-Birtles, Andrew Machin and Paul Newcombe. Another lively, entertaining and inspired opening night in the gallery. 

Please do visit this wonderful collection of art. The exhibition runs Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm until Thursday 18/10/18 when the evening will include the premiere screening of Anna Bowman's new short film about the Art Of Caring. And remember to check out our suspended and mobile tennis installation Anyone for tennis? with sketches of players by Alban Low. You'll want to pick up a racquet and throw a ball or two in the air.

For more photos please click HERE.

NHS 70th Birthday Art Exhibition at St George's Hospital

The National Health Service is turning 70 on 5 July 2018. We want to celebrate the achievements of one of the nation’s most loved institutions, to show our appreciation of the vital role the service plays in our lives, and to recognise and thank the extraordinary NHS staff – the everyday heroes – who are there to guide, support and care for us, day in, day out. 

St George's Hospital in London have asked us to put on a special Art of Caring exhibition in their gallery space to help celebrate the 70th birthday of the NHS. The exhibition charts the history of the Art of Caring throughout its brief history (only 4 years!) and showcases some of the written and pictorial contributions from artists in 2018. Come and see for yourself from the 5th - 22nd July in the gallery space in Ingredients Restaurant, Lanesborough Wing, St George Hospital, London, SW17 0QT.

This year for the Art of Caring we wanted to mark the NHS' birthday with awards for both Art and Writing. The prizes for these awards have been generously donated by the staff at the Faculty of Health, Social Care, and Education at Kingston University and St George's, University of London. We're excited to announce that Danny Mooney is the winner of the Art Prize and Latoya Igbinosun the Writing Prize. 

Danny Mooney is a highly respected artist living and working Hastings, http://www.dannymooney.pictures/. Although Danny has prosopagnosia (facial blindness), in the studio he draws and paints people. "Making images of people helps me remember them," he says. "Making images that other people can recognise increases the level of interest and difficulty." He recognises people by how they move. "I can only make a recognisable image of someone if they are animated." Mooney sees his work as wall mounted sculpture, with paint as the medium. The physicality and texture of the paint is key. For the last five years he has been painting every day on his iPad. These are always from life, and usually of the sea. "I love technology and painting on the iPad is like having my sketch book and all my colours with me all the time." Danny Mooney studied at Goldsmiths and London Guildhall University in London. Mooney’s work has been exhibited in the UK and America and is represented in collections in the UK, America, Switzerland, Japan and China

Latoya Igbinosun is currently studying Adult Nursing at Kingston University and St George's, University of London.

Here at the Art of Caring we are also publishing a new book to accompany our bestselling 2016 chapbook Resilience. Health is a Human Right is 16 page colouring book published by Sampson Low Ltd. Over 200 nursing students from Kingston University and St George’s University of London tapped into their creative juices to produce inspirational writing on the 2018 International Nurses’ Day theme ‘A Voice to Lead: Health is a Human Right’.

Visiting Professor Karen Norman introduced this year’s Art of Caring writing competition by inviting participants to create an ‘aphorism' on the IND theme. An ‘aphorism’ historically refers to the medical rules written by Hippocrates. Nowadays, it’s defined as ‘a concise expression of doctrine or principle of any generally accepted truth conveyed in a pithy, memorable statement.’ A good example is Florence Nightingale’s famous aphorism: ‘Hospitals should do the sick no harm.’ Here we present 27 written works chosen by the Kingston University Nursing Society in this special chapbook. Buy your copy at https://sampsonlow.co/

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The Art of Caring is an inclusive art exhibition that celebrates the role of nurses and carers on International Nurses’ Day (12th May) each year. The first Art of Caring was held at The Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames in 2015 and featured 252 artworks from 133 artists. The exhibition was the idea of Kingston University Nursing Society, faculty staff members, visiting professors, the faculty’s artist-in-residence Alban Low and the Head of Nursing at Kingston and St George’s, University of London Dr Julia Gale.

Each year artists of all ages, skills and backgrounds are invited to submit work on the International Nurses’ Day theme and to consider the exhibition’s recurring concepts of Caring and Care. Submission is free, and no work is rejected. Each artwork is printed as a postcard and displayed on the wall. A copy of the postcard is sent to each artist wherever they live around the world.

In 2016 the exhibition expanded to include written submissions in the form of a three line poem in the tradition of Japanese haikus. These were printed onto prescription sheets and displayed once again at The Rose Theatre gallery. The Art of Caring was also exhibited at St Pancras Hospital in 2016 with a mixture of original and postcard art on display. Each year since then the exhibition has travelled to St Pancras Hospital under the guidance of curators Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay. It is a fabulous opportunity to see the work afresh amongst this vibrant artistic community.

St George’s Hospital became a new home for the Art of Caring in 2017. For two weeks a busy corridor in the Atkinson Morley Wing was transformed into an art gallery. The exhibition was visited by the Chief Nursing Officer for England and Executive Director at NHS England Professor Jane Cummings. It proved to be very popular with nurses and service users alike. Over 4 years the Art of Caring has exhibited over 1180 paintings, drawings, collages, photographs, haikus, poems, aphorisms and sculptures. In the year of the NHS’ 70th birthday the Art of Caring still retains its popularity and inclusive ideals.

The Art of Caring celebrates International Nurses Day 2018

Today we celebrated International Nurses Day at the Art of Caring exhibition in St George's Hospital, Tooting, London, UK. The exhibition looked fabulous on the walls, and we had plenty of visitors stop to take a look. The postcard artworks have been exhibited together in small groups at eye level. The haikus and aphorisms are written on placards carried by small figures underneath. 

The Art of Caring received 330 submissions on the subject of Care and Caring from more than 170 artists. Much of the work was influenced by this year’s International Nurses Day theme ‘Health is a Human Right’.

Today the Chief Nursing Officer for England, Professor Jane Cummings, thanked all nurses for their significant contribution in providing safe, effective, compassionate care for patients and those they care for.

"It fills me with pride when I see the fantastic work and world class care provided by nurses across the country and International Nurses Day (IND) is the perfect opportunity to recognise their amazing contribution to health and care globally."

You can see the Art of Caring exhibition outside Ingredients Restaurant, First Floor, Lanesborough Wing, St George's Hospital until the 30th May 2018. The restaurant has over 12,000 visitors a week so I'm sure you'll be rubbing shoulders with nurses, doctors, porters, and patients as you view the artwork.

A portfolio of images from the Art of Caring exhibition at St George's Hospital can be viewed HERE.

Bryan Benge

Thank you Bryan Benge, Alban Low and Anna Bowman for setting up the exhibition on the 10th May. 

The Art of Caring 2018 at St George's Hospital

We're back! The Art of Caring is just days away and we've got a fine array of art and pithy wordplay to help celebrate International Nurses Day. This year we'll be exhibiting over 200 artworks and 100+ poems/aphorisms from the 10th - 30th May 2018. Come and view the exhibition on the First Floor (outside Ingredients Restaurant), Lanesborough Wing, St George's Hospital, Tooting, UK.

Now in its fourth year the Art of Caring received over 320 submissions on the subject of Care and Caring. The exhibition celebrates International Nurses Day on the 12th May 2018, and this year’s theme is ‘Health is a Human Right’. It includes the work of creative people of all ages, from artists to nurses, and from people who have experience of being a carer and/or a service user.

All the artworks are exhibited as postcard sized images. After the exhibition closes at St George's Hospital (on the 30th May) it will travel to St Pancras Hospital where we exhibit original art in different sizes, formats, and materials alongside some of the postcards. The Private View at St Pancras will be on the 19th July 2018 and will be a fantastic affair, hosted by curators Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay.

Two prizes have been very generously donated by staff at the Faculty of Health, Social Care, and Education at Kingston University and St George's University, London. We will be announcing the winners of the Art prize and the Aphorism prize in a few weeks time.

Considering the theme of the Art of Caring exhibition and the great feedback we received from people last year, the Arts department at St George’s Hospital have selected some of their favourite postcard sized artworks to be included in the exhibition celebrating the NHS 70th at St George’s Hospital. The exhibition starts at the end of June 2018, more info to follow.

A list of the all the artists exhibiting can be found on the AOC artists page.

The poster image from Danny Mooney ('Say no to hidden suffering') was selected by members of the Kingston University Nursing Society. Thank you to Paul Newcombe, Dr Karen Norman, Dr Julia Gale, and Kingston University & St George's, University of London for supporting the exhibition.

Small World Futures - Last Day

Thank you to everyone who has visited the Small World Futures exhibition on the streets or who has joined us online throughout February. The exhibition draws to a close today amongst the melting snow around London Bridge. Many of the mini sculptures have already been picked up but we'll try and visit all the locations in the #unsettledgallery over the next month to find if any still remain. You can see a full portfolio of the street placements HERE.

As this is the last day of the exhibition we're placing all the sculptures that we couldn't quite fit into the 28 days of February. That means no imagined worlds from the writers but some fantastic treasures to find around London Bridge. Thank you to Kevin Acott, Dean Reddick, Natalie Low, Rebecca Lowe, Ed Arantus and Alban Low for your diverse and evocative writing throughout the month.

#unsettledgallery locations

The artists have given us a real insight into what future worlds could look like. The project has been a genuine success and a joy to organise, it is one that we would like to develop in the future. The next chance to see these miniature dioramas is in Aabenraa, Denmark from the 3rd May until June 2018. Eskild Beck will be organising this Small World exhibition and we'll post up some images when the time comes.

Thank you finally to all the artists involved - 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.

Below are today's Small World Futures.......

Bethany Murray at unsettledgallery No.3

As an artist Bethany Murray takes seemingly empty space, juxtaposing it with physical matter in an attempt to make the intangible tangible. Through the use of cast space, poetry and found objects she attempt to describe a sense of ‘otherness’. Exploring the distinction between the known and unknown that is directly linked to her research of the ‘sacred’. These mere encounters with material and language sit in the hinterland between that which is considered earthly and the ethereal.

http://bethanymurray-artist.blogspot.co.uk/

Bethany Murray

You can find Bethany Murray's Small World Future where the pavement meets a brick wall on Melior Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.3.

Dean Reddick - #unsettledgallery No.7

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.

Dean Reddick

You can find Dean Reddick's Small World Future at the bottom of a brick gully on Magdalen Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.7.

Wayne Sleeth - #unsettledgallery No.8

In his mature work since moving to the Lorraine region of France in 2001, Wayne Sleeth reiterates and re-explores the source and schema of his more formative sensations; the big skies above the flat lands of both the Lincolnshire coast of his father and the polders of maternal Flanders, where he also spent his childhood. The Lorraine region for this confirmed European is not only geographically strategic, but offers an echo of that very play of horizontality and verticality where the artist draws freely on “l’espace” as he knows and feels it, as far as the canvas edge…

http://www.waynesleeth.com/

Wayne Sleeth

You can find Wayne Sleeth's Small World Future behind a pick pillar at the back of the Greenwood Theatre on Snowsfields (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.8.

Lesley Cartwright - #unsettledgallery No.1

Lesley Cartwright was born in Liverpool but later moved to Essex to run a Hostel for homeless teenagers. She made her name in the commercial graphic field and music photography until she developed MS and now paints portraits from her Billericay studio. Cartwright is a multitalented artist who is not bound by genre nor convention. The work you see here is an extension of a fabulous Pokémon Go project where she knitted small versions of Pokémon characters and left them in public places for collectors to find. Cartwright has been exhibiting with CollectConnect since the Cardboard City exhibition in 2013.
https://twitter.com/ley9

Lesley Cartwright

You can find Lesley Cartwright's Small World Future between two concrete bollards where Weston Street meets St Thomas Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.1.

Ann Kopka - #unsettledgallery No.4

Ann Kopka studied Fine Art at Central St Martins College of Art and Design and the City Lit. She has studied The Practices and Debates of Modern Art and graduated with a First Class Honours degree from The Open University. She has also studied Museum Curating at Tate Modern. Kopka has exhibited in London, the UK and USA. Her work is held in private collections in France, Spain, UK, Australia and Australia. Her experimental work engages with the research, process and transformation of discarded everyday ephemera and disposable objects of little or no intrinsic value. Through the concept of ‘making something out of nothing’ Kopka seeks to draw attention to the throwaway nature of consumer society and question our perception of its value systems.
http://www.artcontemporary.co.uk/

Ann Kopka

You can find Ann Kopka's Small World Future inside the orange dispenser on Snowsfields (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.4.

Melanie Ezra - #unsettledgallery No.1

Melanie Ezra is a Wales-based fine artist who works using her own original photographs to create beautiful and intricate collages. She often works in series, providing visual responses to external stimuli such as literature, science, and music. She considers herself a specialist in the deconstruction of time and the extension of the moment. Recent works have evolved her practice to include three dimensional mixed media art forms based on dolls, mannequins, and the human form. The theme is always deconstruction and reconstruction, whether this is through a photograph or through her mixed-media works. Ezra openly describes herself as a ‘renegade arts experimentalist’ and is happy dabbling in anything that pushes her work to the limit and broadens her own potential.
https://melanieezra.com/

Melanie Ezra

You can find Melanie Ezra's Small World Future sandwiched between a corrugated wall along Weston Street where it meets St Thomas Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.1.

Goodbye everyone, and see you in the future.

Don't forget to send us your images for the Art of Caring exhibition (deadline 6th April) - More details HERE.

Year 2164 - Tracy Boness - Small World Futures

Tracy Boness - #unsettledgallerr No.7

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.... Tracy Boness
The year is 2164

There was a survivor who sighed

"All the people around me have died,
But I'll grow moss and lichen
To make my home striking,
Alone but at least prettified."

Ed Arantus

Tracy Boness

You can find Tracy Boness Small World Future located at the bottom of a brick indentation on Magdalen Street, London Bridge at #unsettledgallery No.7. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Tracy Boness (b. Canningtown, East London) studied for a BTEC National Diploma in Art & Design at East Ham Community College then a BA Hons Degree Fine Art at West Surrey Institute of Art & Design. She consistently exhibits her work, undertaking commissions and taking part in community based workshops. Painting and drawing are essential to her work practice. Recent black and white drawings take inspiration from 18th Century engravings and botanical drawings of the era. Boness also likes to experiment with new materials, sometimes sewing and layering surfaces to create tactile pieces of work.

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/craftylittlehouse100/

Ed Arantus is no stranger to art and writing, he first published his work in the Censored Zine (July 2010) and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford (2014). Last year he exhibited his poem 'Google If' at the Museum of Futures as part of the Enemies Project.

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Year 2525 - Alan Carlyon Smith - #smallworldfutures

Alan Carlyon Smith, Weston Street, London Bridge. #unsettledgallery No.1

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 2525

Two by one hands. Sliver sliver sliver, thin like flying seeds. Can cut. Can't eat. More slivers than fingers and toes. Pictures of us, but clean, with teeth, covered. I think these are their gods.

Natalie Low

You can find Alan Carlyon Smith's Small World Future beside the Greenwood Theatre on Weston Street, just south of #unsettledgallery No.1. 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/

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).

Year 2059 - Bryan Benge - Small World Futures

Bryan Benge, Weston St, London Bridge.

Small World Futures is a collection of 36 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.

Bryan Benge, Weston St, London Bridge.

Today we discover the Small World Future of....Bryan Benge
The year is 2059

DD231248
My name means nothing to you now.
My world a dial nearing empty.
Once, I was a politico. A warrior. A man searching for a righteous cause.
As our world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy... me... or the people who cast their lot with me.

I run now from both the living and the dead. Hunted by scavengers, haunted by those I could not protect. So I exist here in the emptiness of a ruined isle, reduced to one instinct: survive.

Yet I am the chosen one, the mighty hand of vengeance... ... sent down to strike the unroadworthy!
The nightrider... ...hotter than a rolling dice..... .. letters of desire scrawled across my bus.

Ed Arantus

Bryan Benge

You can find Bryan Benge's Small World Future beside the Greenwood Theatre on Weston Street. Between #unsettledgallery No.1 and 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

Ed Arantus is no stranger to art and writing, he first published his work in the Censored Zine (July 2010) and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford (2014). Last year he exhibited his poem 'Google If' at the Museum of Futures as part of the Enemies Project.

http://edarantus.blogspot.co.uk/

Year 2035 - Bethany Murray - #smallworldfutures

Bethany Murray, Snowsfields, London, UK, #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.... Bethany Murray
The year is 2035....

The Point

He wandered the earth for a few weeks after The Great Comeback. He met up with old mates, his parents, his disciples. Well, eleven of them, anyway. Everyone who met him felt calmer, surer. Everyone felt a little less angry. He seemed, for a while, like a bit of a force for good. A mate of mine - a PA to Pontius Pilate - said even The Prefect spoke well of him.

We weren’t all so impressed though. Some of us wondered why he didn’t do more. He could have done anything he wanted - anything. He could’ve made a real difference. But no. He had A Cunning Plan, apparently. And one afternoon - forty days after - he gathered a few of us together on a hill and we watched him Ascend. Just like that. That grief-stricken night, he called me and I followed him Upstairs: what else could I do? I was a little flattered, to be honest. And a little scared. And a little ecstatic. He was so, so lonely. Always had been. I think the sharp, dark anomie he’d always carried with him like a sack of rocks finally got to him. What do you do after you’re Resurrected? After you’ve made your point? After you’ve made The Point? I knew what I’d done, what we’d all done. That too helped me make the decision to join him.

Time nodded past us. Years, decades, centuries. We sat, the two of us, in his father’s place and talked and sang and watched what was happening down there and reminisced. I apologised. I apologised so much.

Together, we watched acts of kindness, of sweetness. We watched The Inquisition. We watched games of Scrabble and stand-up comedy. We watched The Holocaust. We watched love-making and cheese-eating. We watched The Trump War. And then, one day - October, 2035 - He announced he was going to go back. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. But it felt wrong. ‘I’d rather not,’ I said.

I watched him. I watched him Descend and announce Himself. Some laughed when they met him. After a week or so wandering, chatting and sunbathing in The Secular State Of Israel, he took The SpaceHopper, for some reason, to The Free And Proud Kingdom Of England (c) (TM). And people there told him to go back to where he came from.

And then he went to Greater Russia - to Moscow and to Krakow and to Ljubljana - and to the Beneath-The-Wall Southern States - to Texas and to Louisiana and to Mexico. He spoke to people, performed miracles, started delivering speeches, sermons - in ShopMalls, on the MindWeb and in Insert.

I think I saw what was happening before he did. They were interpreting. They were twisting. They were skewing his words. All dully predictable, of course. They started to wrench his words to fit their ideas, their hates, their desires. Some said He was the reincarnation of The Great Boris. Some that he was the new Martin Luther King. A group in France said that he was Johnny Hallyday.

He stuck with the stuff that had always (sort of) worked: be kind, be nice. But I watched him getting older, tireder. He did a lot of bathing of sinners, men and women, boys and girls, and he was soon ‘exposed’ as a sex pest (#Christperv). They started a campaign to have him banned from universities.

I wondered for a while if I should - if I could - go Downstairs and help. But I knew that what was happening was all part - consciously or unconsciously - of his plan. One night - after an expose on BBC MindWeb’s ‘CrushACeleb’- he spoke to me from a motel room in Carolina. ‘Too much. Time to die,’ was all he said. In Aramaic. And I watched him open a bottle of whiskey and I watched him open a bottle of pills and I watched him die a second human death and I watched them bury him, bury him as one of them. I cried. I cried for days.

There was no Ascension this time. I gradually realised he knew all of this would happen, knew the message this time would be so much more powerful without the party tricks. And I decided then: I needed to go down there. I knew what I had to do.

I think you do too.

Kevin Acott

Bethany Murray

You can find Bethany Murray's Small World Future between two concrete bollards where Weston Street meets St Thomas Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.1. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

As an artist Bethany Murray takes seemingly empty space, juxtaposing it with physical matter in an attempt to make the intangible tangible. Through the use of cast space, poetry and found objects she attempt to describe a sense of ‘otherness’. Exploring the distinction between the known and unknown that is directly linked to her research of the ‘sacred’. These mere encounters with material and language sit in the hinterland between that which is considered earthly and the ethereal.
http://bethanymurray-artist.blogspot.co.uk/

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