Back in the real world

I've been pretty holed up in my house recently, almost exclusively writing and felting. I feel that I've lost a little of my connection to the city and what's going on in it - I somehow missed much of the M'cr International Festival, even though I'd wanted to see the Marina Abramovic show for ages. I got to be part of the festival at the very end, with the Book Market, but everything else passed me by.

I'm wanting to get back into things - experiencing all the art that's on offer in Manchester, and I've just come across a site to help me with that. It's apparently aimed at the 'Creative Tourist', but it has info on loads of great stuff that I want to go and see/do that I don't have to be a tourist to be interested in. I'm especially keen on the new show at the Cube called City as Gymnasium, which is on until Oct 3rd. That's a pretty plainly descriptive title, but from what I've read the show sounds interesting.

One thing I have seen recently that I've found very inspiring and engaging is Gustav Metzger's Flailing Trees, which I saw in the Peace Gardens. There's an interesting recording of the artist describing the work on the Guardian website. There are a few other people on the recording giving their reactions to the work, and I was intrigued to hear them commenting on the relation of the work to the environment and conservation. I really didn't perceive the piece as having any relation to that in such a raw and direct sense. To me, it seemed to be much more about forcing observation through a perception shift, and it made me feel more aware of the world around me and the natural components of that. I felt that it wasn't really 'save the environment' as much as it was simply and honestly saying 'notice the environment'.

I really liked it, and not just because it's made of willow trees. One thing I found slightly distracting about it is that I didn't know how the trees were being kept alive. The piece is meant to be transferred to the Whitworth, but I didn't see how the trees could be maintained when they're kept upside down in concrete. I know that's quite a petty concern, I knew that even when I thought it while standing in front of the trees. But I thought it, and I couldn't help myself. When I got back I looked it up and found out that nothing is being done to keep the trees alive, so while they're very green and healthy-looking now (apart from the upside-down in concrete thing), they will die and dry out, and that is also part of the sculpture - it's a dying, rather than a living sculpture.

I've been out and about all week gathering lots of inspiration from a wide variety of Manchestery cultural things. As well as the reading on tuesday I've been to the Cube gallery and the Whitworth. Not sure I can cope with all the excitement, I think I'm going to just keep my head under the duvet all weekend.

The Cube was yesterday, I went to the preview of their Capture Manchester exhibition. It was about 600 different people's views of Manchester. Naturally there were lots of images that were virtually the same, but there were also some amazing photos that made me want to find the part of town they're taken in. In the main part of the gallery as you walk in there's also an exhibition by John Davies of his spectacular landscape shots, including some around Manchester. Davies has convinced me that it actually is grim up north, but I still love it.

The Whitworth was the day before. I went with a photographer friend who wanted to visit the Subversive Spaces exhibition, I didn't really know what to expect but I was totally floored. It is really inspiring to look at the work of the surrealists and see how they focused their ideas into what they felt was the essence of what was important and then put that into their art. It really made me want to just sit down and think about what I'm doing with my writing and why. It features a really interesting piece by Gregor Schneider called Kinderzimmer which I don't want to say too much about because I think it's best experienced with no expectations. I loved it, my photographer friend hated it and the third person with us was somewhere in between. We all agreed that no matter if you liked it or not it really made you think.


Well it has been a busy week so now I'm off to relax with some Marxist literary theory and be lulled into a sense of gentle indignation about how bourgeois everything is, apparently even historical fiction.