Month: July 2019

This blog post is dedicated to Hull and Drunk Animal Creative Studio – both close to my heart.

Drunk Animal Creative Studio had an idea and they brought it to life – we all know not all ideas see daylight, so the fact that this idea brought Hull into spotlight across UK once more, is absolutely AMAZING!

Hull is a city filled with people… and occasionally those people do things. Some of those things are kind of interesting. Some are pretty funny too. Others are actually quite impressive, and others… well, they’re just weird.

The thing is, we think each of these stories is equally important. They are what makes Hull the city it is today. The weird, the wonderful, the obscure, the fascinating stories and facts that permeate every street and every community in the city are now celebrated through our Alternative Heritage plaques.

Source: Drunk Animal Creative Studio

 

Alternative Heritage Plaques was on my radar before I was actually asked to take photographs of them officially. I was interested in its predicted momentum and the hype it created.
And knowing the personality and characteristics of Hull, I was sure that the plaques won’t disappoint.

The story started with a list of plaques spread across Hull – from Orchid Park to Brough [not in Hull really, but the drive there was fantastic].

Legends like Rony Pickering and his moment of fame, the famous pedestrian crossing down Castle Street where poor Clare nearly died waiting for the green man and, former Chip Spice Factory, Hull dialect and Croggy. Some plaques stood long and strong, some where half-taken down and taken, some covered in mud and some admired by seagulls and pigeons.

Can you already see that the paragraph above makes you smirk a bit?
I captured all plaques displayed at the time, two new arrivals where photographed last month and the very, very new one is still to be found.

It was one of a kind job to be asked to do and one reason why I love working with people like Drunk Animal Creative Studio.

Have you seen them all?

2019 is still happening and I am still plodding along. The second culture post of this year is another story of recent happenings in Hull and another “left it too late” kind of a thing.

Not going into too much detail, this year is odd, in a long run the disconnection that I have at the moment with everything photo will be one of the regrets of 2019.

However, I am continuing [in a much slower pace] to follow the cultural activities, mainly focusing on events that I feel close to in some way.

 

There was a moment in May when I was asking myself a question When was the last time I saw an exhibition? When checked my last records of any cultural goings, I didn’t like what I saw, I didn’t like the gap.

It all started again with Ferens Art Gallery and the Microbes exhibition – puffy, floating creatures that inflate and deflate to everyone’s amusement. The exhibition also includes various activities throughout its opening.

The exhibition is an interesting way of exploring the complex world of microbes for young ones, at the same time amusing for the adults. I found my self with my mouth wide open in a surprise when the microbes inflate.

On the other side of Ferens Art Gallery an exhibition IS THIS PLANET EARTH? was happening. I believe it is closed by the time I am posting this, but it was worth a visit. Few glimpses of exciting installations, videos of floating seashells and a young little person showing me how to view an exhibition in her way.

All the installations and art on display only reached 50% of its excitement capacity in my view – we all must remember that we were fed with too much of a good content over the past two years, now the expectations are high. Still, the exhibition was worth a visit.

 

Ferens Art Gallery in general never disappoints and to discover few new bits to the collection was a bonus for the day.

 

End of June brought me a hectic Saturday were I was managing three things at the same time – Dove House Hospice’s IT’S A KNOCKOUT 2019, Friends on Every Street event at the Humber Street and a portion of closing exhibition The Red Dress by Nigel Walker at the HIP Gallery .

In that one day I felt I have achieved weeks worth of work, I absolutely loved it.

IT’S A KNOCKOUT 2019 + 10th Anniversary at Dove House Hospice.
And yes, I am including this in the culture blog, because it is all for good cause, good entertainment and it is a very happy event.

Friends on Every Street Takes over Humber Street

Absolute highlight of the summer so far. Oliver is a legend and it was a pleasure to see his genius slogans, logos and ideas in general in one place. He made Humber Street exciting again.

Nigel Walker is a local photographer that I had a pleasure to co exhibit at the Queens House Showcase back in March 2019, so I ran to the last day of his solo photographic exhibition The Red Dress at the HIP Gallery to celebrate him and his witty approach to photography.

July brought exciting end to the Remote Control Humber Photographic Mentorship Project in a form of an exhibition. I was so lucky to be part of it and to this day I can’t really wrap my head around the greatness of the project. And the fact that we had an exhibition at Brynmore Jones Library. Stewart Baxter AKA Hinterland Creative and Anna Bean AKA Bluebeany are amazing creatives that inspire and encourage. We learned a lot from each other. We made friends and I sure learned a few things myself from the participants.

Here you can see the Remote Control Humber Project in a whole and the exhibition preparation.

Whilst on the grounds at Hull University I was keen to see A Totem For Hull sculpture created by Jason Wilsher-Mills. The University of Hull and Artlink Hull  partnered-up to commission a unique, interactive sculpture aiming to celebrate those in the local community living with a disability. It had a grand opening with a TV star Reece Shearsmith on the 28th June and by the looks of it, was a blooming success.

The sculpture is a way for local disabled people to explore the representation of disability in the region through retelling their personal stories

I was also keen to see the interactive side of the sculpture. Viewers of the sculpture can download an app which will launch them into an augmented reality experience with full stories told through animations, text and audio.

Sadly [and I can forgive] that the app is only available for Apple users, and since I am not on the band wagon for I phones, I had to skip the experience.

Mid July good news came through emails and I was invited to be one of the photographers for a community based project Spring Bank’s True Colours. That was a good reason to see The National Archives of the Republic of Homeless exhibition at Artlink. Artist Vanessa Cardui spent six moths working with Hull homeless community and Artlink on a project that has become an exhibition.

The exhibition also features images from a collection of The Museum of Homelessness, London.

Creating art that links to social issues of our time, especially subjects that are sensitive, is tricky. Artists are under pressure not to offend, do justice, highlight and raise awareness, but also let their talent and personality shine through the work. Does this small collection has the power to do all that? I would need a second visit to answer that question.

 

The last, but not least is the Pride in Hull 2019.
I will let the images tell the story – love, pride, colours, inspiration, freedom, randomness, joy.
This year I was thinking a lot about the other side of the coin – how can I feel part of the community if I wanted to and if I am invited at all. I also wished that the expression of your unique self is truthful and not a fasade for the event only. There was questions this year, for sure, but Pride in Hull for the second year in a row [my second year] put a big photographers grim on my face.

This is another story, another great vision of the city that we share.
I have few bits planned to show off this week before I travel to Latvia for a while. End of August will start another journey, hopefully a better one.

We have great things to look forward to – Humber Street Sesh and Freedom Festival. There are also some interesting exhibitions currently at Humber Street Gallery, HIP Gallery.

To my blog readers – I am off tune this year, invite me to cultural gatherings, I really need a push! Thanks!

 

To continue the story I started this morning… And of course to say that I sadly didn’t attend the private view last night. My heart is bleeding and  I’m jealous, and sad that I wasn’t there to see the first reactions and friendly faces.

Anyway.
In the last few weeks Stewart aka  Hinterland Creative and Anna Bean aka Bluebeany worked hard to plan/curate/select works for the exhibition. From Monday the exhibition started taking place and yesterday before the launch final pieces were put together.

I still can’t believe that the exhibition is at the Brynmore Jones Library. The space is perfect for exhibitions of all types, the space along the years have been in my top three for its versatility and service. It is also on high demand, so that makes Remote Control Humber Photography Project very special.

I was helping with some of the stuff, but nothing compared to Stewart and Anna’s dedication. Cheers to you both!

Prints are from GF Smiths and Ditto4Design – both equally high quality and beautiful. The Newspapers are from Newspaper Club and film created by Flygirl Films.

Yesterday however I popped down before the launch to make sure I see it before it goes “live” and also to surprise someone with the content that I submitted [I’ll talk about that a bit more on my next post about the exhibition].

 

I’m keen to see the finished exhibition, so I will head down there on Thursday this week.
The exhibition is open until 28th July, so you have plenty of time. Make sure you bring friends and family and grab a newspaper with you.

Massive congrats to Stewart and Hinterland Creative for their first curated exhibition and well done with the choice of location for the exhibition – top choice!