Bryan Benge (with Natalie Low) - Sets, Series and Ensembles

Bryan Benge

Welcome to Sets, Series and Ensembles, an exhibition of art in public places. Accompanying each public art placement is a 'First Response' for you to read here on the website. As artists and writers we are constantly collecting ideas, objects, themes, and sentiments. We are often searching for the connections and narratives that help us understand both our lives and our art. 

Bryan Benge

They live among us! We are surrounded by Bryan Benge's art invasion. Bryan has been among us here at CollectConnect since the start of our public art adventure. Today his small art army leave their calling cards on the streets of the UK, watch out, they have arrived! Natalie Low is keeping tabs on their movements, read her story below.

Bryan Benge

Our first missions were to save the pollinators, the clothed and naked snails, and the soft pink serpents. 

At night, the Master prayed and murmured to the silver-framed lithograph of his cloaked hero. 

He mused and philosophised with us. Once he explained the significance of the wine glass made of wood: “A glass made of wood may still be a glass.”

The robot twins (non-identical) and I would have followed Master anywhere. 

But by the last mission, to claim the red tower, he had grown troubled and quiet. No matter how many we saved, the monster-birds would always snatch them up in their mouths and into the sky. Our dwellings were repeatedly demolished by the walking giants, each demolition squashing his heart as well.

We scaled the red tower, with the support of our flotsam flotilla, although I could not plant our flag in its impenetrable shiny surface.

“The tower is ours, Master,” I cried.

But he was looking away from me, and I could not see his face.  “How many more red towers are there? How vast is this world?”

Our night of triumph was instead subdued and despondent.

I lay my head in his lap, curling my tail around his hand.

“You are too good for this world, Master.”

He shook his head. “I am too small for this world.”

“Your ambitions are great.”

“My ambitions are too great for my size.”

The next morning he had gone, the dew of his footprints already disappearing under the warmth of the blue day.

We continue our work, moving paper boulders to the side of the road, claiming new towers and righting inverted bugs.

But in truth our leaderless band of ill-assorts is heartsore and weary, our spirit decapitated. Without the Master, we have grown inch-high and inconsequential.

Each night I howl to the moon: Where are you, Master? 

Master, under you we were mile-high heroes with noble purpose! Return so we can continue our endeavours and change the world! 

Come back, Master! We will be waiting!

Natalie Low

Bryan Benge

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Bryan Benge explores the digital art medium, his work draws upon autobiography, family history and cultural icons from his past to explore visual memory and re-positioning of the past. Walter Benjamin observes in a Berlin Childhood , around 1900 “Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theater.”

https://www.bryanbenge.co.uk/

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Bryan Benge

Bryan Benge

Bryan Benge

Bryan Benge

Bryan Benge - Translocation and Dislocation (words by Ed Arantus)

 Welcome to the Translocation and Dislocation exhibition, a selection of eclectic artworks that have been placed or screened beyond the tradition gallery walls. Alongside the art, you can read written works by our First Responders. We will choose a different location for each artwork, the art might be placed in a complementary location (to add to the narrative) or juxtaposed against a competing backdrop to create new meaning.

Bryan Benge's dark and brooding film Translocation - Dislocation appears across the pages of a book. The blank eyed figure looks back at us from the heart of darkness, and although the narrator's lips don't move, we still hear and see his thoughts as though we are reading them from the page. Ed Arantus provides the words below. 

Bryan Benge

First Responder: Ed Arantus

You haven't looked in the mirror for a long time,

because you don't know if the eyes will ever open.

When you haven't seen the sun for several months,

you dream like you’re drunk in the basement.

When the days slow you to a crawl,

there’s still an answer in the pages.

And you remember dancing in the fog as a child,

when the bushes whispered that anything was possible.

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Bryan Benge explores the digital art medium, his work draws upon autobiography, family history and cultural icons from his past to explore visual memory and re-positioning of the past. Walter Benjamin observes in a Berlin Childhood , around 1900 “Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theater.”

https://www.bryanbenge.co.uk/

Ed Arantus is a conceptual artist and writer. He published his first work in the Censored Zine in 2010 and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford and the Museum of Futures in Surbiton.
https://edarantus.blogspot.com

Alertism - Bryan Benge

Welcome to the Alertism exhibition, featuring artistic and literary works that were inspired by the Emergency Alert test message that was sent to people with a mobile device on Sunday 23rd April at 3pm.

As we near Halloween the dark nights are full of surprises, orange ghouls and ghostly premonitions. True to form, Bryan Benge's artwork gives us everything we fear. The co-founder of CollectConnect, Bryan's work often reaches beyond home shores, from the Reichstag in Germany to the Ewha University in Seoul, he has an eye for the international landscape. Here he sends out a worldwide alert, beware the Bogeyman! For such a big global threat Bryan has been given 2 First Responders, Sophie Darling and Dan Clarke. Read their responses below.

Bryan Benge

First Responder: Sophie Darling
Fear, sadness… eternal panic at what already happened and what’s to come. How do we understand what is danger, what is panic, and according to who? Do these people care about me? I doubt it

First Responder: Dan Clarke
A sense of foreboding dread at the thought of his potential second term, and what that would mean not only terms of his destructive policies, but in terms of the current thinking of US voters

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Bryan Benge explores the digital art medium, his work draws upon autobiography, family history and cultural icons from his past to explore visual memory and re-positioning of the past. Walter Benjamin observes in a Berlin Childhood , around 1900 “Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theater.”
https://www.bryanbenge.co.uk/

Dan Clarke and Sophie Darling are a creative force, their current work includes fashion, design, photography, DJing, music production, radio show presenting and art, plenty of art.

More Impossipebbles in South Devon

We first encounter pebbles in childhood, selecting them, chucking them in the air, stacking them as piles, selecting colour, pattern.

Later in life we select again, look for the flat ones, the right weight ones, the ones that skim across the water, to disappear.

Humans selected Pebbles as tools, they are among the earliest known man-made artefacts, dating from the Palaeolithic period of human history.

Now they have been selected again, to make paintings, sculptures, repurposed images, placed and perhaps rediscovered by others, to hopefully beckon the minds eye, what, how, why.

This will be the last of the impossipebbles for a few weeks but keep a look out for the Art of Caring call out which should go live in the next week or two.

Bryan Benge - Impossipebble 7 / Odin 3

Placed next to a rusty old anchor at Beesands  

Alban Low - Impossipebble 8, 9 and 10
The Cannon at Bayard’s cove quay side Dartmouth

Impossipebble 8

Within Bayard’s Cove Fort Dartmouth , through a doorway just above the sea on a small ledge.

Impossipebble 9

On the rear axle of the Sherman Tank memorial at Start Bay. 

Impossipebble 10

Impossipebbles in Slapton

We continue our art pebble trail through the lanes of South Devon with a visit to Slapton today.

We first encounter pebbles in childhood, selecting them, chucking them in the air, stacking them as piles, selecting colour, pattern.

Later in life we select again, look for the flat ones, the right weight ones, the ones that skim across the water, to disappear.

Humans selected Pebbles as tools, they are among the earliest known man-made artefacts, dating from the Palaeolithic period of human history.

Now they have been selected again, to make paintings, sculptures, repurposed images, placed and perhaps rediscovered by others, to hopefully beckon the minds eye, what, how, why.

Bryan Benge - Impossipebble 4 / Odin 2

In a niche in the old chancery college boundary wall, Slapton Village.  

Dean Reddick - Impossipebble 5

In a wall niche near the ruined Slapton village Tower. This was built in 1347 and formed the western end of the Chancery College founded by Sir Guy De Briene. It is conveniently near the Tower inn pub for thirsty art lovers.

  

Alban Low - Impossipebble 6

On the seat inside the Slapton Ley bus shelter

Impossipebble for 2020

Recently we've been trying out new ways of exhibiting in public spaces. We have had Alban's What If posters on the outside of a railway station, and then an exhibition of brass plaques on benches down Tolworth Broadway. Both of these are ongoing, and with only a handful of contributors to propel them along they'll develop over the coming weeks and months.

For the start of 2020 CollectConnect co-founder Bryan Benge has developed a new public art exhibition for us to try. He may well be inviting new participants or simply developing the idea amongst the CollectConnect diehards. He has written a little bit more about the Impossipebble project below, and you can see the first 3 pebbles are now out in public!

The name Pebbles is of English origin. 

Small stones; size of 2 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. !!!

We encounter those at childhood selecting them, chucking them in the air, stacking them as piles, selecting colour, pattern.

Later in life we select again, look for the flat ones, the right weight ones, the ones that skim across the water, to disappear.

Humans selected Pebbles as tools, they are among the earliest known man-made artefacts, dating from the Palaeolithic period of human history.

Now they have been selected again, to make paintings, sculptures, repurposed images, placed and perhaps rediscovered by others, to hopefully beckon the minds eye, what, how, why.

I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with. 

Plato

Dean Reddick - Impossipebble 1

Location: All Saints Church, Merriott, Somerset.  

Bryan Benge - Impossipebble 2 / Odin 1 

Location: the circular tree bench in Stoke Fleming village  

Alban Low - Impossipebble 3

Slapton Sands D Day war memorial.  

and on the other side of the memorial was this poignant tribute

Bryan Benge - groving / Acts of Resistance

Bryan Benge's second badge is propped uneasily in a window in the disused Cornhill Walk, words by Lynda Turbet.

Notice

This facility is provided by
the British government for
your convenience.

Please dispose of your
unwanted items
carelessly eg:

open borders
free trade
foreign investment
strong sterling
moral leadership
international respect
a United Kingdom
(and democracy)

Flying pigs will remove to
sunlit uplands and/or
uncharted waters
at midnight
31 October 2019

Lynda Turbet

Bryan Benge has exhibited widely, including with the London Group, and recently in In The Dark, The Cello Factory, London; The Art of Caring, St Georges Hospital, London in 2018 and 2019; Penrith Gallery, St Ives; Pulchri Studio, The Hague. He has work in numerous private collections, and in the Tate Gallery Archive. See www.bryanbenge.co.uk

Lynda Turbet observes the world from North Norfolk and tries make sense of it all through writing.

Bryan Benge - Acts of Resistance

Acts of Resistance​, this year's theme for #groving, continues today with the placing of Bryan Benge's badge in the Buttermarket. 

Bringing home the bacon

​What a drag it is,
not just mum and dad

but the whole family,
needing to pull together

in a sterling effort
to bring home the bacon,

while revolution
flourishes in the house

and on the box –
Liberty leading the people.

We’re all right,
we’re all white,

but revolution
is steadfastly going on

beneath our calm exteriors.
And left out in the cold

we’re like a monument
to our own struggle;

taking back control,
taking back ownership

that’s what we voted for,
but it looks like

we’ll just have to
get on with it,

do it on our own,
with incessant argument

going on inside ‘The House’,
between these four walls.

Phil Barrett

Bryan Benge has exhibited widely, including with the London Group, and recently in In The Dark, The Cello Factory, London; The Art of Caring, St Georges Hospital, London in 2018 and 2019; Penrith Gallery, St Ives; Pulchri Studio, The Hague. He has work in numerous private collections, and in the Tate Gallery Archive. See www.bryanbenge.co.uk

​Phil Barrett taught art for 27 years, then retired to his home county of Norfolk where he concentrates on writing. He teaches creative writing, in schools and libraries across North Norfolk. He has won prizes and commendations in national competitions, and has been published in anthologies including In Protest: 150 poems for Human Rights (2013), Word Aid Anthologies Did I Tell You? (2010), and Not Only The Dark (2011), the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine, and Poems in the Waiting Room in 2016 and 2019. In January 2017 he published a book of poems, Writing Me, about growing-up. 

Art of Caring 2019 opens at St George's Hospital

The Art of Caring opened today at St George's Hospital in Tooting, London. It features over 250 artworks and wool words on the subject of Care and Caring. The exhibition, now in its 5th year, helps celebrate International Nurses Day on the 12th May. This year’s theme is ‘Health for All’. 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.

You can find the exhibition on the First Floor, Lanesborough Wing, (Outside Ingredients Restaurant) at St George’s Hospital, London, SW17 0QT. The work will be on the walls from 10th May - 14th June 2019 so please come along and have a look. You can find all the artists exhibiting on our ARTISTS page.

You can view more photos HERE.

This year we asked nursing students at Kingston University and St George's University of London to come up with one word that they felt reflected the inspirational work done by the charity Nurse Reaching Out. They wrote their chosen word in wool, in their chosen language, reflecting the diversity of the students and the charity - reflecting  this years International Nurse Day theme: a truly inclusive “Health For All.”

Nurse Reaching Out founder Michelle Grainger visited Uganda in 2007 with colleagues and was moved to do something more after seeing how pregnant women were unable to access the hospital care they needed unless they bought their own soap, string and a razor - which they couldn’t afford. NRO now provides these items in their maternity packs and the maternal death rate has fallen as a result. They also joined forces with the "Fish and chip baby’ initiative - a term coined after babies born in the poorest areas of Africa were found wrapped in newspaper to keep warm. The mother’s had no clothes for their tiny newborns,  leaving hospital with them still wrapped in the newspaper and with reduced hopes of survival. A network was established by Michelle that utilises the knitting skills of volunteers from around the UK and beyond. NRO now sends these knitted items to Ugandan health care colleagues for those Mum’s and babies in need.  www.nursesreachingout.org

Thank you to Bryan Benge, Alban Low, Dean Reddick and Jackie Belle who helped install the exhibition. Thank you to all the staff at St George's who have already sent us messages of support.

Kindly supported by Kingston University and St George's,  University of London

Bryan Benge - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Bryan Benge - #unsettledgallery in Walthamstow

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Art - Bryan Benge / Words -  Natalie Low

If my heart was a badge, I’d pin it on my sleeve.

Not just through my sleeve, but through my arm-skin too.

Yap! It would hurt. And bleed too probably.

But that would be alright cos I’m doing it for YOU.

If my heart was a trolley token, I'd get out a double-size one,

And we'd never give that baby back.

Checkitout! I'd fill it up to the brim

With forever groceries and stuff for YOU

If my heart was a coin, I’d push it right in your slot,

And choose the best chocolate bar in the machine.

Ker-lunk! I’d reach right up inside if I had to,

And then I would unwrap it and give it to YOU.

If my heart was a button, I’d fasten it up tight,

(there”d be more than one) all the way up to your chin.

Uhuh-uhuh! But I'd undo the top one to let you breathe,

That's the kind of thing I do for YOU.

You don’t ask me to do these things.

I do them in SPITE of you not asking me to

And that’s love!

Bryan Benge

Bryan's Love Token rests gently on a wooden bench in Walthamstow. Perhaps it has slipped out of a pocket or a child has dropped it, has love been lost forever. Or are we looking at it the wrong way round, perhaps someone is going to be lucky enough to find love today. Waltham Forest is currently the London Borough of Culture and many parts of the Borough are undergoing extensive change with rapid housing development and large scale gentrification. 

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.
Bryan's first involvement with CollectConnect was at the Open Fridge Gallery 89 in March 2010. Since then he has enjoyed working alongside his colleagues Alban, Dean and Stuart.
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.
From all the CollectConnect collaborations the one that stands out most for Bryan was CollectConnect’s collaboration with the Foundation students at the University for the Creative Arts, Surrey (UCA). Bryan worked for 15 Years as a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader where he managed the Foundation course at UCA.
During 2013 the students produced artworks  which were reproduced in the Future Bound book. This gave these young students exposure for their artwork for the first time outside academia. To this day some of the students are in contact with his colleague Alban encouraged by that collective experience.
http://bryanbenge.co.uk

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She has published two chapbooks, Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017). She also appears in this exhibition as an artist/maker.

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th

April 2019. More at http://collectconnect.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Bryan Benge - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Bryan Benge - Bad Penny

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Art - Bryan Benge / Words -  Ed Arantus

Bye bye head it’s me ol’ battery boy

Ready to blow into acid style iron

Bye bye ol’ head hear the big boom boy

Life boy

Stand by

Hear your idiot mess rhythm

Sound boy

Shout boy

I don’t want to be your Jedi

War rhymes chew on DC canons

South sound boy with a dirty frock smile

Bolt white I sick out your outage

But your angry firehole swings back into life

Bryan Benge's Bad Penny at the #unsettledgallery

Walthamstow

Bryan's Bad Penny squats on this grand old lamp post in Walthamstow.

Waltham Forest is currently the London Borough of Culture and many parts of the Borough are undergoing extensive change with rapid housing development and large scale gentrification. 

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.
Bryan's first involvement with CollectConnect was at the Open Fridge Gallery 89 in March 2010. Since then he has enjoyed working alongside his colleagues Alban, Dean and Stuart.
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.
From all the CollectConnect collaborations the one that stands out most for Bryan was CollectConnect’s collaboration with the Foundation students at the University for the Creative Arts, Surrey (UCA). Bryan worked for 15 Years as a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader where he managed the Foundation course at UCA.
During 2013 the students produced artworks  which were reproduced in the Future Bound book. This gave these young students exposure for their artwork for the first time outside academia. To this day some of the students are in contact with his colleague Alban encouraged by that collective experience.
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/

Don't forget to submit to our next exhibition. The Art of Caring is accepting submission until the 7th April 2019. More HERE.

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. 

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 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.