Geoff brought me a gift from his day volunteering at Oxfam to include in my mining books. It is a pamphlet published in 1990 by Durham Arts Association. It charts encounters by a retired miner, of 40 years work down pits, who was dedicating the time released to his lifelong wanting to produce art with … More Children Processing the Hard Stuff in Dying County Durham Mining Communities
What do you do to be involved in the community? In an article by the American Public Power Association [APPA], called ‘Dissecting the True Meaning of Community’, some things are said about unpacking the meaning of the word ‘community’ from its origins as a word. I have no knowledge of the real politics of APPA, though … More Communication between the diverse: the benefits of modelling conflictual consensus.
This WordPress prompt ought to have been a gift to me – with a long history in LGBTQI+ politics, the word ‘camp’ has always had a history to reclaim. But to say ‘word’ in description of the term ‘camp’ here is not enough. I got stopped in my tracks from answering this question as I … More Maybe the performance of difference need not involve ‘camping’!
‘Only connect’ said E.M. Forster but what madness results. Begin by making connections between these two photographs and then with them. Roland Barthes [trans. This blog reflects on Roland Barthes [trans. Richard Howard] (2000:3) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Vintage Press Edition. Connectivity was always a thing I valued – in the connection for instance … More ‘Only connect’ said E.M. Forster but what madness results. This blog reflects on Roland Barthes [trans. Richard Howard] (2000) ‘Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography’.
The answer is YES. but neither person nor party can give any guarantee of fulfilling any intentions you had in voting for them, even if you had any intentions. Indirect democratic politics is a blunt tool that is barely even a record of popular opinion and few ruling parties receive a majority of votes in … More Voting may not often change anything, but we have to hope it might.
The Art of the Pit Head Bath. Joanna Drew (Arts Council of Great Britain – ACGB), Douglas Gray (art selector & essayist), Norman Siddall (British National Coal Board – NCB), Sir William Rees-Mogg (ACGB) & Dr John Kanefsky (essaysist) (1982: page 81) Coal: British Mining in Art 1680 -1980, London, The Arts Council of Great … More The Art of the Pit Head Bath. Tom McGuinness: metamorphic artist
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most? Why do we watch sport? The question presumes an answer: we watch it for enjoyment, for pleasure! Since, however, I don’t watch sport if I can help it (yes I know that fulfills all the stereotypes of queer men), this must mean that the pleasure sport … More Why do we watch sport?
As I was sorting out my books again, I came across a book I bought at the Laing (pronounced ‘Laine’) Gallery in Newcastle when I visited the wonderful permanent exhibition there. It’s a huge book – the size newspapers used to be and made of a similar kind of paper. But how do you look … More Do Roads answer questions? In honour of a great photographer, Chris Killip
When Alexander Pope warned that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing,’ he was warning that, since error lies everywhere, we need exposure to all the evidence that supports the one and only version of knowledge of the world that is the truth. The real danger is that there are so many statements that claim … More ‘For the Mesopotamians, truth was not contained ….’: was their culture such a one that norms existed alongside happily alongside their contradiction, and repression was unnecessary. This blog reflects on a first reading of Selena Wisnom [2025] ‘The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History’.
Fritz Schein lives entirely in, and on as his means of living, ‘the art world’ of ‘spectacularity’ – a world of apparently random images and appearances that eschews the privacy of inner reflection by being in love with the still surface of mirrors. When the ‘great recluse’ Thomas Haller turns up at a show Schein knows … More Thomas Haller’s resurrection is his ‘lilac renaissance, his violet hour’.
When I were five, I wore a plastic swordTo make my fantasy of Shakie’s ‘DickThe Turd’, heroic tho’ a villain, boredOf bowing to lesser kings, cringing sick-With-fancies sycophants to restrainingRealities. To change the sad bad worldEven then was my aim: rid of feigningWe would, I’d ensure it, red flag unfurledMake level those peaks of false … More ‘When I were five, I wore a plastic sword’: my child hero then, not Hugh MacDiarmid’s hero in his ‘Hymn to Lenin’ [but confused with Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ in my childish brain].
Celebrating the achievements of women through visibility: the means and the content of our celebration in Bishop Auckland Town Hall. Provincial venues continually stretch themselves as media of radical representation of supposedly silenced and supposedly invisible populations. Visibility is promoted as a political object in all kinds of ‘pride’ celebrations, that insist that the fact … More Celebrating the achievements of women through visibility: the means and the content of our celebration in Bishop Auckland Town Hall.
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