All around Exchange Place studios there are posters with a promise and an apology surrounding an artist’s impression of how this area will soon be transformed. The project has a name: From Grey to Green. It might be one of the last regeneration projects supported by the European Regional Development Fund. Every time I see it the melody from ‘Jerusalem’ comes into my head
Still, artists are also citizens. It would be dishonest to suggest that our art were entirely disconnected from our lives as members of a community …. Our art is shaped by where we come from.
Diagonally across from the house I live, there is the semi-detached terraced house belonging to the Iqbal family. Mr Iqbal is in his 80s and moved to the UK in his late teens or early twenties He does'n’t know his actual date of birth.
An introduced species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem.
So there .... a year and a half of interviewing, researching, discussing, designing, painting, worrying, installing ...... followed by 6 weeks, 24 days, 4 talks, 2 radio interviews and 3 written texts for the At Your Service exhibition.
The NHS belongs to the people. It is there to improve our health and well being, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives.
The last couple of months seem to have flown by. In June I finished the final interview with Yerusalem from Italy and I'm now on my last few paintings, starting to plan the exhibition at Yorkshire Artspace that opens on 27th September.
I have been working on a portrait of a European employee from Russia. Bizarrely, neither of us knew whether Russia was a European country. I initially felt a bit stupid but Bogdana wasn't quite sure herself where Russia belonged. Interesting conversation with a very quiet intelligent woman.
The best thing that happened in the last couple of months was that I was lucky to get a temporary space to work within Yorkshire Artspace - right on the top floor, overlooking the city.
To date I have interviewed 4 Europeans who are all working at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and all 4 of them have been really interesting, kind and very generous with their time.
Yesterday, 29th March 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 in order for the UK to start negotiating its way out of the European Union.
I'm just waiting for my flight back to the UK, sitting in Eindhoven airport watching airplanes landing and taking off and wondering whether this trip has been worthwhile ....
On 1st December many old Dutch veterans who served in Dutch New Guinea will again raise the Morningstar flag to commemorate and support the Papuan rights to self determination.
Waking up this morning with a head ache that only got worse when I heard the news that Donald Trump has become the new President of the United States.
We set our 'What, Where and Who piece up in the Use and Beauty Parlour, currently exhibited on The Moor, Sheffield city centre until 12th August.
The current promise by the UK government to support refugees from Syria and nearby war torn areas in 'safe havens' has, as some critics point out, an underlying reason to 'keep refugees out' of Britain.
Eduard Douwes Dekker kwam in zijn baanbrekend boek ‘Max Havelaar’ op voor het volk van Indonesië, dat door het Nederlands beleid in die kolonie tijdens de 19de eeuw op gruwelijke wijze werd behandeld.
Eduard Douwes Dekker took sides with the Javanese people of colonial Dutch Indonesia in his groundbreaking novel ‘Max Havelaar’, as they had been exploited in the most appalling manner.
