THE CHANDELIER OF LOST EARRINGS
A brand new project went live on the people fund it web site. Our idea is to create a very large chandelier using all the single earrings that linger in drawers after people have lost its matching pair. It will take over 5,000 earrings to complete the artwork. The project is a response to the feedback we have had from the staff at Manchester Central Hospital where we have been installing mini exhibitions in the Summerhouse (another artwork of ours). The chandelier will be dedicated to them and to the patients who view the work from the windows.
Over the last year or so Sharon and Lauren have been installing art in the Glass Summer House that they created for a commission in the Manchester Central Hospital Women’s Courtyard.
Sometimes funny, sometimes eccentric, sometimes plain pretty, the art has caused a stir and discussion. Staff and patients have watched us come and go. We have almost become part of the scenery.
So, in February we asked the hospital community what they thought of the exhibits. We listened, we heard and this artwork is our response to what people said. ‘We want colour, light, movement and to able to take part in the making’. This, then, is our gift to them; an antidote to the hospital experience.
Art in hospital is good for people. It is well researched and documented that it improves healing and recovery. Lauren and Sharon want to make sure that art is still made for the hospital environment so that is why we continue to put in these exhibitions.
The Chandelier of Lost Earrings will be our next installation and then we hope to continue to make more.
http://www.peoplefund.it/the-chandelier-of-lost-earrings http://thesummerhouseblog.blogspot.com
IN THE ZONE
For all those of you familiar with the Invest to Save: Arts in Health research and the idea of Flow posited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, you may be interested in this short film by film-maker David Bickerstaff and our friend and collegue Dr Victoria Tischler.This builds a very neat connection between what we in the arts reffer to as flow, but from a sporting perspective. Great work.
WHICH ARTIST HAS JUST SAID THIS...?
"I can't be the only one who's thinking that the present government are using the recession to push through policies that sew it all up for the privileged few. It's like they're kettling the rest of us in every way, closing us in and closing us down – shutting down libraries, restricting access to further education, hacking away at the NHS. I'm not a soapbox merchant but what defines a civilised society for me is that we look after the sick and the elderly, educate our kids, nourish and cherish the next generation and give them ideals that are worth sticking to."
Answer at the footer of next weeks BLOG.
Thanks as ever...C.P.
The Zone from David Bickerstaff on Vimeo.