London Day 1 Feb 25th:

We visited the Welcome Collection Gallery, I really enjoyed the exhibition Making Nature: How we see Animals, for me the exhibition was reminiscent of the theory subject “Art and Nature”. The Exhibition discussed ideas about how humans classify, order and observe non-human animals, this was shown with historical documents of nature illustration and very old colour theory documentation. The second room was focused on how humans impose ideas onto animals. I liked seeing the taxidermy work of Walter Potter that was disturbing due to it having squirrels playing cards displaying human behaviour and manipulation.

We went to Gallery SO London, firstly we had an artist talk by David Clarke he gave a very interesting and personal discussion. He told us about how he used pewter in detail, the difficulties of outsourcing and the high cost of studio space in London. His work was about a dislike for traditional silver wear products, that his mother owned. When he cast pewter over these it hurt people to see.

After Clarke, we went to the front room and Mah Rana had an exhibition of her brooches that are mostly blue and made from silver. I found the most interesting part of her talk was when she discussed her interest in researching the social aspects of jewellery. She said she was studying more the psychological theory of creating and wearing. And how for years she has been investigating the reasons why people wear jewellery. She has set up and asked people on the street this question, the stories are very personal and the interviews show sentimental choices, colour, and pattern choices for wearing.

(On our way to Gallery SO)