Episode 2 – Around the University of Manchester

Sculpture at Whitworth Gallery made from saucepans, metal jugs, spoons etc.

The Whitworth Art Gallery

Castaways, by Virginia Ryan

Since 2003 I have produced more than one thousand Castaways at my studio in Accra, Ghana. Each work is a collage composition created from washed-up materials I collected along four local shorelines: Pram Pram, Jamestown, Labadi and Anomabo. All the works are resonant with the colours of foam and sand, as the waves break on the very shore from where the inhabitants were once taken and enslaved to build the New World.

Castaways are hung close together in rows, as if in a continuous wave, remembering and recording the simple stuff of people’s contemporary needs and desires along the one-time Gold Coast of West Africa. The pieces are constructed from organic and inorganic materials, objects that were once desired and purchased, used and worn, carried and discarded, left to wash out and carried back in.

Anomabo Shoreline, by Steven Feld

When I first saw Virginia Ryan’s Castaways in 2004, I found them quite echoic. In their material tactility, color, volume, and assemblage they were audible to me as a complete sound environment. Viewing some one hundred Castaways on Ryan’s Accra studio floor, I felt as though I was putting my ear to a huge seashell and listening to the detritus of history. In the rows of objects I could hear the washing-up-and-out sounds that deposited Virginia Ryan’s raw data, her signs of multiple human and material pasts, on the shorelines of Ghana in the present. Anomabo Shoreline is a composition that responds to this way of hearing the visual material of Ryan’s Castaways, creating for and with them an acoustic memory of where the Gold Coast becomes the Black Atlantic. Composed from recordings made at several locations along the Anomabo beach, this composition is both a stand-alone listening document and part of a sound installation to accompany exhibition of Castaways.

Information from the Whitworth Gallery site.

More info on the Castaways Project here.

My reflections:

A long white room with a grey concrete floor. Ceiling sloped like a wave. One wall a brick façade. The opposite, a collection of Virginia Ryan’s Castaways. 11 x 51. Shoes, including a child’s Reebok thong. An abandoned teddy. Dolls’ heads and other parts. Combs, toothbrushes, trowels, bottles and other unidentifiable miscellanea. Dirt, sandy objects held in a neat white frame, some restricted by the boundary, some moving beyond. And all the while, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, carrying out and washing back up.

It made me think of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" by T.S. Eliot:

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Jennifer Vickers (b. 1977), Yesterday’s News, 2004

Newspaper coverage of the West’s “War on Terror” stitched into a patchwork “Log Cabin” design quilt. Exploring the subject of war from a female perspective.

The use of the quilt medium throws into contrast the highly ephemeral sentiments of tabloid headlines with the labour-intensive process of producing a family heirloom.

Manchester Museum

Not fussed. Just a typical natural history museum with lots of school kids! Looks like they have lots of interesting science activities for kids, though.


Highlights:

• Wild Britain photography exhibition (a bit like the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” exhibitions at the Australian Museum, but all from the one photographer)
• Live frogs in “natural” habitat
• Bronze sculpture of Jenner’s first inoculation
• Matroushka (not babushka!) dolls in the shop

The Catholic Church of the Holy Name of Jesus



Do I feel closer to God in beautiful ornate churches? I don’t think so. But what does it mean to feel close to God? What does it feel like to experience God’s presence? Ornate cathedrals don’t seem like places God would hang out – he doesn’t dwell in places made by human hands – but he did give specific instructions for the temple to be built by Solomon. Perhaps I need to revisit this part of the Bible.

When do I feel closest to God?

• Experiencing the beauties of nature gives me an appreciation of the might of God, the creator
• Hearing about, or seeing, someone do something loving or totally self-sacrificing gives me a glimpse of the Christ-imitation to which we are all called.
• The depravities of human nature remind me of how fallen we are, of how much we need God, and of how deep and wise his mercy, grace and love are.
• I feel excited when I grasp a theological point or have something explained to me in a way I’ve never thought of, which opens up a whole new way of thinking about God.
• I am amazed when I read in the Bible how God always loved and forgave his people, and how he never gave up on them, no matter how many times they turned away (particularly in the writings of the prophets – the coming judgment but the promise that God would always preserve a remnant of his people) and I rejoice in the truth that God has shown this mercy, grace and love to me as well.

But I’m still not sure about this concept of feeling God’s presence. One thing I do know, is that ornate churches don’t really do it for me, although I do like church bells! I also like the way that these churches are so often open to the public, so people can come in, wander around, admire the architecture, pray, sit and think, light a candle, or whatever they want to do.

Strangely enough, after writing the above, I decided to spend some time in prayer, and I had one of the best prayer times I’ve ever had. Usually I’m not very good at praying – I tend to get distracted – but this time was really good. For some reason, I felt compelled to light a candle (in front of a statue of St Peter, as it happened) and I left the church feeling quite uplifted.