Margaret Sharrow

2011-01-22T18:57:00.011Z

This blog is being gradually converted to hosting news about Margaret Sharrow, and her reviews of exhibitions. Her current portfolio is at www.wix.com/sharrowart/margaretsharrow

Image © Margaret Sharrow 2011

All images and text this site copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008-2012, unless otherwise noted

Greenland blog 14: arts centre med kaffemik

2011-01-22T17:57:00.006Z

Folk dancing, Nuuk arts centre, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I always like to check out galleries and arts centres when I travel, not just because I’m an artist (although that is the main draw), but also because they often have good places to eat with an interesting atmosphere. I must admit to being spoiled, living as I do with the Aberystwyth Arts Centre on my doorstep, with three galleries, an excellent and ﬁlling salad bar in the main café, and even better treats in the Piazza Café downstairs, such as the salmon and cream cheese wraps and tasty pizza. And no visit to the Tate is complete without either shooting up the elevator to the fabulous views of the Thames over a mocha at Tate Modern, or, ideally, savouring devilled kidneys on toast with a glass of wine at the Rex Whistler Restaurant at Tate Britain (to say nothing of the possibilities of a drink on the sunny terrace overlooking Porthmeor Beach at Tate St Ives!) So naturally, when I stumbled on the ultramodern arts centre in Nuuk, with its distinctive exterior, undulating waves of smooth wood simulating the face of a glacier, I had to investigate.

And boy was I rewarded: the interior atrium, with its soaring ceiling and glass walls, was as funky as its exterior. There seemed to be a full programme of cinema, mixing popular releases with a few more arthouse offerings. However I never made it upstairs in search of galleries because I was detained by the cafe. I chose something from the tempting array of cakes, a moist carrot cake I think, but the star of the show was deﬁnitely the hot chocolate. Served in a tall glass, heaped with whipped cream, the chocolate was rich, the cream was the excellent Danish silky dairy, and there was more than a note of nutmeg. I honestly have never had such excellent hot chocolate in my life, thick as a sweet soup without being in the least cloying.

The next day I was back, late in the afternoon, wondering what cake to choose to accompany other glass of heaven. In the kind of dumb luck that is often a tourist’s serendipity, I didn’t have to choose: it turned out to be a demonstration of Greenlandic folk dancing, accompanied by that wonderful Greenlandic tradition of the kaffemik, the coffee-chat, usually taking place in people’s homes and thus difficult for the foreigner to encounter without tourist office mediation. But here was something obviously laid on for families and friends who had come to see the dozen or so dancers, ranging in age from about thirteen to retirement. And what a spread! Tables groaning with the full range of the cafe’s best cakes, accompanied by endless ﬂasks of strong dark coffee. Here was a blessed chance to compare the fruit tarts, the rich chocolate cake frosted with dark chocolate, and the light heaven that was the raspberry pavlova (probably my personal favourite).

I just had time to settle myself into a corner with a good view of the action when the dancing started. The music was not dissimilar to what you would hear at a Scottish reel, a lot of jigs and toe-tappers in 3/4 or 6/8 time. They jumped, they jigged, they do-si-doed, they did a variant on strip the willow, they stamped, the held hands and galloped in a circle. And me? My hands ﬂew over my shutter and zoom, quickly rejecting freeze frames that captured people in the uninteresting junctions between movements in favour of an evocative blur. I’m still thinking of how to weave them together in a video. I know, it’s been over two years, I should just get on with it. But ﬁrst, I’ll need to track down suitable music. Luckily I know just the person to write to... but that will have to wait for another posting.

29 August 2008 16:37 recalled 18 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE! http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

2011-01-09T21:01:00.003Z

Please vote for me to become the official blogger / artist for an expedition to the North Pole!

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Image: Greenland iceberg, © Margaret Sharrow 2008

All images and text this site copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008-2011, unless otherwise noted

Greenland blog 03: aerial perspectives

2011-01-09T20:51:00.004Z

River estuary, west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I am always fascinated with what landscapes look like from above, which reveals so much more than what we can see from our day-to-day perspective on the ground. The rivers that I saw were not places seen from a bobbing boat, or from the shore while scanning for abundant trout, or glimpsed indifferently from a bridge while sailing on to somewhere else by coach. (There is very little travel by coach in Greenland, as none of the settlements are connected to each other by road.) No, the rivers I saw on that first descent were unencumbered by boats or bridges or fishing-folk, but grand free silver bands, winding and braiding and unbraiding themselves as they slipped through a brown rainbow of silt towards the sea. It was the first of many occasions when I wished I had some knowledge, any knowledge, of geology, but somehow knowing whether or not this was an example of a terminal moraine would probably have detracted from the experience of pure joy at the colours, the shapes, the fluidity of it all.

26 August 2008 09:39 recalled 7 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE!

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

Greenland blog archive

2011-01-02T20:53:00.005Z

Please vote for me to become the official blogger / artist for an expedition to the North Pole!

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Image: Greenland iceberg, © Margaret Sharrow 2008

All images this site copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008-2010, unless otherwise noted

'Making Sense of the Turner Prize': Margaret Sharrow's latest 'Exploring Art' talk

2011-01-02T20:34:00.004Z

Image: Outside the Turner Prize exhibition, Tate Britain, London. Photo copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010.

It's all over now, bar the shouting, and maybe you didn't even get to see it. The Turner Prize exhibition, Britain's most prestigious art award, is always controversial, but then it was designed that way. The work shown is praised and pilloried, met with puzzlement, indifference or incomprehension. So what's it all about?

Artist Margaret Sharrow will attempt to unravel a little of the workings of this annual event in 'Making Sense of the Turner Prize', the latest in her series of Exploring Art talks. The presentation will be illustrated with examples of work by all the previous Turner Prize winners, as well as the 2010 contenders.

The talk will take place on Wednesday 12 January 2011 at Lampeter's Women's Workshop, at St James Hall, Cwmann. The day begins at 10am with relaxation and discussion, a shared lunch, followed by Margaret's talk. The charge of £2.50 includes lunch. All women aged 16 and over are welcome.

Can't attend? Read Margaret Sharrow's reviews:

Turner Prize review

Dexter Dalwood talk review

View 'Footfall', a video response to Turner Prize 2010 winner Susan Philipsz's 'Lowlands Away'

2 January 2011

Margaret Sharrow

2010-12-17T14:04:00.005Z

Please vote for me to become the official blogger / artist for an expedition to the North Pole!

statement .

biography .

portfolio .

exhibitions .

news .

work for sale .

reviews .

links .

contact .

Image: Lampeter lantern festival, © Margaret Sharrow 2010

All images this site copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008-2010, unless otherwise noted

Hot off the press: blog entries from Margaret Sharrow in Greenland!

2010-12-17T14:01:00.051Z

Greenland ice sheet and glacier, image copyright Margaret Sharrow 2008

I have entered an online contest to create a work of art I'm calling ULTIMATE STILLNESS at the North Pole and I need votes from the public to be one of the finalists. As a way of saying thank you, and to show how much I really, really want to go to the North Pole and to be the official blogger / artist on the wonderful expedition (via Helsinki, Murmansk and the remote islands of Franz Josef Land), I thought I’d do a little delayed blogging about my most recent Arctic expedition, to Greenland in 2008. (After all, the main purpose of that trip was photography and art - I did not become a blogger until after I was back at art school so most of my stories have been waiting patiently in storage since then.) Last night I sat down and got the ball rolling by looking at a few photographs, and, without any particular plan, had penned (or, rather, keyboarded) two thousand words in two hours. The plan is to deliver one installment of my Greenland adventures per day between now and the final day to vote for me in the contest - let’s call it the 14th of February, to avoid any issues of time differences for those having to calculate their local time versus Eastern Standard Time lest they accidentally vote too late on the last day.

So, vote for me, then sit back and enjoy the traveller’s tales (or better yet, forward them to your friends and ask them to vote for me as well!) I am not, like Scheherezade, asking for my life - though going to the North Pole would certainly be a turning point in my life - just for your vote. And in exchange, I’ll give you my stories. That seems fair enough, doesn’t it?

Please vote for me to be the official artist / blogger on an expedition to the North Pole!

http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

Here's the archive of stories

Goldsmiths MA degree show 2010: a quick dip

2010-12-17T14:01:00.033Z

Image: Goldsmiths' swimming baths, work/exhibition spaces for MFA students. Photo copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010.

The famous swimming baths at Goldsmiths were the setting for the annual degree show in June 2010 (as well as the stylish undergraduate tower). As always there's a lot to see, and I never made it to the smaller swimming bath (former swimming bath, I should say - there's no water except in Joey Holder's fishtank installation). What follows is a selection of some of the work I enjoyed, found challenging or inspiring.

Noam Enbar, installation

Noam Enbar, animation

Ji-Yen Lee, video installation

Ji-Yen Lee, photographic collage

Hee Seung Sung, painting

Hee Seung Sung, painting (detail)

Olivia Lori, photograph on textile

Jinhee Park, installation

Pedro Lasch, painting

Elena Damiani, photographic collage

Elena Damiani, photographic book

Birgit Renate Deubner, photograph

Thomas Johnson, installation

Joey Holder, installation

Joey Holder, painting

Teng Chu Chun, installation

Rowena Harris, sculpture

Amir Chasson, painting

Iva Kontic, video installation

Kiwoun Shin, video

Maria José Argenzio, slide projection

Please vote for me to be the official artist/blogger on an expedition to the North Pole!

Margaret Sharrow's Lampeter Lantern Festival photos

2010-12-17T12:28:00.006Z

All photos copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010

A child's Christmas in Wales took the form of a lantern festival, to celebrate Lampeter's status as a Transition Town. The children had made lanterns representing windmills, water wheels, the sun, the earth, a giant sunflower, etc. It was part of Lampeter's Christmas festival on 10 December 2010, with many businesses opening late offering mince pies, and one of the banks even serving up drams of whiskey (standing room only there!)

No snow then but it's looking mighty festive now, with six inches falling overnight / this morning. Valiant hand loading of deliveries to one of the supermarkets, a wifi-enabled cafe bravely open...

Best holiday wishes to all my blog readers, and thank you for looking at my pages so often this past year. I hope to bring you loads more news and reviews in the new year (and hopefully before then, too!) So wishing you all joyful experiences this holiday season... merry Christmas, Nadolig llawen, joyeux Noel, feliz Navidad, and best wishes too in Danish, Korean, Russian, Chinese, Faroese, Dutch, German, Italian, Armenian, Swedish, Hebrew and all the other languages you speak...

Please vote for me to become the official blogger / artist for an expedition to the North Pole!

Margaret Sharrow

2010-05-29T12:47:00.054+01:00

statement .

biography .

portfolio .

exhibitions .

news .

work for sale .

reviews .

links .

contact .

Image: Guggenheim intervention (exterior), © Margaret Sharrow 2010

All images this site copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008-2010, unless otherwise noted

Margaret Sharrow - artist statement

2010-05-29T12:46:00.016+01:00

Art can be a place of spirituality in the secular culture as well as the religious.

Margaret Sharrow is an artist using lens-based media and alternative photographic processes in combination with sculpture, installation and performance.

Her work attempts to represent the numinous, the unseeable spiritual essence of things, through representations of the higher self and spiritual transformations.

She is also the founder of Gwasg Oriel Press, publisher of fine art and fine art photography books.

on photography

While many photographers' work is about presenting things in the prosaic as-they-are, often almost aggressively ugly at times, my work has always attempted to represent the beautiful. Not 'the beautiful' in an idealised sense - I do not enhance my landscapes with Photoshop, or retouch my portraits - not in choosing to represent this rather than that because it is judged to be more beautiful (though I could be accused of this in terms of my landscapes). But beautiful in the sense that, it exists, here it is, let us find the beauty that there is in it, though that may be hidden by its exterior. My 'softening' techniques, photographing with various in-camera distortions, is a way to help the viewer along towards seeing the spiritual. So much contemporary art photography is about the pristine luminosity of 'true' colour and sharp edges. This aesthetic leaves many viewers believing that they are somehow viewing 'the thing itself' in a mediumless way - perhaps this is part of the intent. This literal focus on 'reality' slips away from the truth that all photographs are selective representations. But the 'sharp focus' school of photography also abandons the viewer in the physical reality, and rarely suggests the deeper reality, the spiritual reality, behind what is portrayed. How could it do otherwise, when its perfection as an image makes it look so much like the thing itself, as we would encounter it in what we ordinarily perceive as reality? My 'softened' edges are just a way of helping people along towards perceiving that deeper reality. After all, for many people a profound experience of beauty is equated with spiritual transformation, indeed is spiritual transformation. While religion continues to provide this type of experience for many, there are increasing numbers of people for whom this is no longer relevant. Many people are seeking spiritual upliftment in other ways, including nature, music and art. I suppose it is at this point that I see my work, attempting to meet some part of the spiritual needs of the viewer. And I suppose it is this that ultimately drives me on, often subconsciously, beyond the satisfaction of inspiration and manifestation, the pleasure of making of the work.

Image: Soul portrait, mixed media, 2008

Margaret Sharrow - portfolio

2010-05-29T12:45:00.033+01:00

Shrouded car (bird), 2010

cyanotype, silk, car

performance / installation piece currently being photographed around Wales and the UK

Gwasg Oriel Press publication forthcoming

dimensions 300 x 250 x 150 cm approx

Right: Shrouded car (bird), Ynyslas, C-type print, 2010

Shrouded forms, 2010

Ongoing series of mixed media; shown with current photographic and video work at Town Hall Café-Deli, 1-30 April 2010

Above: Shrouded hands (hair straightener), 2010

Guggenheim intervention, 2010

project for Re: Considering the Void, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Right: Guggenheim intervention, interior view, C-type print, 2010

Walking London, 2010

Ongoing photographic series exploring the fluid softness of apparently hard surfaces

Above: Walking London (Apollo Victoria Theatre), C-type print, 2010

Road trip, 2008 - present

Ongoing photographic series exploring the idea of the journey metaphor and time.

Above: Road trip, Llangybi, C-type print, 2009

Greenland, 2008

August - September 2008

Selected images exhibited at Greenland and Wales, Erwood Station Craft Centre and Gallery, Powys, UK, June 2009 and Shrouded forms, Town Hall Café-Deli, April 2010, and published in Qaqortoq, Gwasg Oriel Press 2010.

Above: Narsarssuaq Museum, Greenland, cyanotype, 2008

Eyes, 2008

silver gelatin prints

Exhibited Imaging the Bible, Aberystwyth University School of Art, May 2008

Above: Iwan, 2008, silver gelatin print

Time based media, 1990 - present

Above: Retrograde, video still, 1999

home statement exhibitions books biography links contact archive

Margaret Sharrow - current exhibitions

2010-05-29T12:44:00.024+01:00

'Footfall' video to accompany Susan Philipsz's 'Lowlands Away'

View on your mobile phone, with or without the memory of her Turner Prize-winning exhibition at Tate Britain

'Soul group' screening and photographic prints for sale

Winter show, St Dogmaels Gallery, near Cardigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales

30 October until February 2011

Intervention at the Albert Dock, Liverpool

Friday 26 November

'Soul group'

Video screening at FACT, Liverpool (cafe)
Friday 26 November, 5-9 pm

'Exploring contemporary art'
Talk and discussion, Wednesday 3 November, Lampeter Women's Workshop.

EMERGENCY WORDS

Performance, 9 September, Lampeter; 1 October, greenroom, Manchester; Liverpool Biennial, November date TBC.

What words would you want to have with you in an emergency, to comfort you, to save you? Audience volunteers write their chosen words on cards which are then attached to a life ring. A brief ceremony and an anonymous reading aloud of the words accompanies the displaying of the life ring.

Shrouded artist

Performance art, 10 June, Lampeter.

Mechanical things, electronic things - if they were to sleep, to dream, to die, what would they want to return as?

Shrouded car (bird)

Currently being photographed at random locations around Wales and further afield.

The car that dreamed of being a bird, and flying to many places.

Margaret Sharrow - books and publications

2010-05-29T12:43:00.016+01:00

All of the following are available to purchase from the Gwasg Oriel page on Blurb.

Shrouded forms by Margaret Sharrow

Shrouded forms

Catalogue

Exhibited Town Hall Café-Deli, Lampeter, UK

1-30 April 2010

Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010

Soul Matters by Margaret Sharrow

Soul Matters

Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010

Qaqortoq by Margaret Sharrow

Qaqortoq

Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010

All available for purchase at the Gwasg Oriel Press page on Blurb: http://wp01.blurb.com/user/store/GwasgOriel

Margaret Sharrow - biography

2010-05-29T12:28:00.053+01:00

Born in Buffalo, New York, United States

Lives and works in west Wales, United Kingdom

Education

2007-2009

B.A. Fine Art (hons, first class), Aberystwyth University School of Art.

2006-2007

PGCE Secondary (English), Aberystwyth University.

2000-2001

Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship, University of Wales, Lampeter.

Exhibitions

2011

'Holy Ghost: The Collection' at New Gallery London (group)

http://hgcollection.blogspot.com/search/label/DAY%206.

Fragile: global performance chain journey, Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes, Firenze (group) http://www.fragile-global-performance.net/FRAGILE/HOME.html.

Ultimate Stillness (curator and collaborator with participants) http://ultimatestillness.blogspot.com/.

2010

EMERGENCY WORDS, performances in Lampeter, 9 September (solo); 'emergency', greenroom, Manchester, 1 October (group) http://emergencymcr.posterous.com/ and http://www.greenroomarts.org/archive/events/emergency-2010/.

sooner or later, participant in collaboration with Artic (Pete Judge & Reuben Knutson), 29 July (group) http://www.artic.org.uk/sooner.htm.

Shrouded artist, performance art, 10 June, Poets and Peasants, Lampeter (solo).

Shrouded car (bird), ongoing tour of Wales and UK (solo).

Shrouded forms, Town Hall Café-Deli, Lampeter, Ceredigion (solo).

Art Bin, Michael Landy, South London Gallery (group) http://www.southlondongallery.org/page/144/Michael+Landy+Art+Bin/85.

Re: Contemplating the Void, Guggenheim Museum Flickr group, New York (group) http://www.flickr.com/groups/recontemplating/pool/.

Tate Modern is 10, Tate Modern Flickr group (group) http://www.flickr.com/groups/tatemodern10/pool/.

Exposed, Tate Modern online group (group) http://apps.facebook.com/tate-exposed/?ref=bookmarks.

Documenting Contemporary London, Royal Academy Flickr group (group) http://www.flickr.com/groups/documentingcontemporarylondon/pool/page10/, http://www.flickr.com/groups/documentingcontemporarylondon/pool/page11/ and http://www.flickr.com/groups/documentingcontemporarylondon/pool/page12/.

Great British Art Debate, Facebook group (group).

Life in a Day, dir. Ridley Scott http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3aPoD-zJZw and http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday (group).

2009

Greenland and Wales, Erwood Station Gallery and Craft Centre, Powys (solo).

Aberystwyth University School of Art Degree Show (group).

Niagara, Tea With Warriors, background paintings on CD cover, http://www.teawithwarriors.com/niagara.htm (collaboration with Tea With Warriors).

2008

Current work, Café Print, Lampeter, Ceredigion (solo).

St Dogmaels Gallery Christmas Show, St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire (group).

Salon des Refuses, @ the Gallery, Rhayader, Powys (group).

Christmas Open Art Fair, Oriel Cambria Gallery, Tregaron, Ceredigion (group).

Free, Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth (group).

Aberystwyth Art Society Spring Show, Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth (group).

Imaging the Bible, Aberystwyth University School of Art (group).

2003-2006

Various exhibitions with Cambria Arts, Tregaron, and Lampeter Festival, Ceredigion, UK (group).

1998

Traces, with Petra Kuppers of the Olimpias, various venues in Swansea and the south Wales valleys, UK. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~petra/animatedtraces.htm (collaboration with the Olimpias).

1992

A Hell of Our Own Making, Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, USA (group).

Online

Margaret Sharrow (main portfolio and blog) margaretsharrow.blogspot.com

Portfolio 2009. sharrow.mosaicglobe.com

Current photographs. www.flickr.com/photos/margaretsharrow/

News and current photographs. www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-Sharrow/48770277575

News, links and observations. twitter.com/sharrowart

Greenland travel 2008, and Arctic-related news. margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

UK travel articles and photographs. aroundbritainwithsharrow.blogspot.com/

Fine art books. gwasgorielpress.blogspot.com/

Fine art books sales. www.blurb.com/user/GwasgOriel/

Bibliography

'Margaret's saving words.' Cambrian News, 16 September 2010.

Klopfenstein, Karly. 'Guggenheim holds online competition to Re: Contemplate the Void.' artcritical 9 June 2010. http://artcritical.com/2010/06/09/guggenheim-competition/

‘This woman’s car is literally a work of art’, Cambrian News, 15 April 2010.

'Artist's career moving up a gear with car sculpture', This is South Wales, 14 April 2010. http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/news/article-2009215-detail/article.html

‘Lampeter artist turns car into sculpture’, BBC Midwales, April 2010, news.bbc.co.uk/local/midwales/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8609000/8609184.stm

Anna Holmes, ‘Give a Toss’, Jezebel. jezebel.com/5493472/give-a-toss

India Times, iplextra.indiatimes.com/photo/0cUieWa97Vaxo?q=London

‘Give a Toss [Snap Judgement]’, Had News. 15 March 2010. us.hadnews.com/tag/margaret-sharrow

Treehugger. topics.treehugger.com/photo/07l615EdEB3ck?q=artist+OR+painter+OR+sculptor+OR+illustrator

Ben Hoyle, ‘Michael Landy: make it, break it? Love it’, The Times, 11 March 2010. entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article7057249.ece

Petra Kuppers, Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge, Routledge, 2003.

Publications and reviews

Shrouded forms. Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010.

Soul Matters. Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010.

Qaqortoq. Gwasg Oriel Press, 2010.

In response to Michael Glover, ‘Hot metal: Anthony Caro's sculpture is showing a wonderful late flowering of creativity and spirituality’, The Independent 15 April 2010.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/hot-metal-anthony-caros-sculpture-is-showing-a-wonderful-late-flowering-of-creativity-and-spirituality-1945242.html

Margaret Sharrow. margaretsharrow.blogspot.com. Numerous reviews of UK exhibitions: Mirosław Bałka, Francis Bacon, Colour Chart at Tate Liverpool, Nadav Kandar, Per Kirkeby, Michael Landy, Cildo Miereles, Mark Rothko, Stimulation for the Nation at Bicha/gallery@oxo; various at Aberystwyth University School of Art

Margaret Sharrow in Greenland. http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

Talks

2010-2011

'Exploring art', series of illustrated lectures for Women's Workshop, Lampeter, September 2010 - present.

2009
'Greenland', Aberystwyth University School of Art, March.

Awards

Geoffrey Crawshay Memorial Travel Scholarship, University of Wales, 2008. £2000 award.

Aberystwyth University award, 2008.

S4C award, Founders’ Library video, National Eisteddfod, Builth Wells, 1993.

home . statement . portfolio . exhibitions . books . biography . links . contact . archive

Margaret Sharrow - links

2010-05-29T12:27:00.012+01:00

Margaret Sharrow's work online

Margaret Sharrow (main portfolio and blog) margaretsharrow.blogspot.com

Portfolio 2009. sharrow.mosaicglobe.com

Current photographs. www.flickr.com/photos/margaretsharrow/

News and current photographs. www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-Sharrow/48770277575

News, links and observations. twitter.com/sharrowart

Greenland travel 2008, and Arctic-related news. margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

UK travel articles and photographs. aroundbritainwithsharrow.blogspot.com/

Fine art books. gwasgorielpress.blogspot.com/

Fine art books sales. www.blurb.com/user/GwasgOriel/

Contact Margaret Sharrow

2010-05-29T12:26:00.005+01:00

sharrow.art@hotmail.co.uk

Margaret Sharrow: archive

2010-05-29T11:57:00.074+01:00

Margaret news archive

Lampeter lantern festival photos, December 2010

Announcing book of Margaret Sharrow's exhibition reviews, December 2010

'Footfall' video to accompany Susan Philipsz's 'Lowlands Away' downloadable to mobile phones from YouTube, December 2010

Albert Dock intervention, Liverpool, November 2010

'Soul group' at FACT, Liverpool, October 2010

'Soul group' at St Dogmaels Gallery Winter Show, Pembrokeshire, October 2010

Margaret Sharrow explores contemporary art, 3 November, October 2010

EMERGENCY WORDS: Margaret Sharrow performs at Lampeter, Manchester, Liverpool Biennial, September 2010

Margaret Sharrow's talk, 'Looking at art - or how did we get to contemporary art?', September 2010

Margaret Sharrow v. Fiona Banner: or why it's not safe to let me into the Tate, part 2, July 2010

FRAGILE: I'd better not drop it, July 2010

Current collage work, July 2010

'Shrouded artist' performance art, 10 June 2010

Degree show stars of Wales, June 2010

'12 Random Things About My Art' (February 2009), June 2010

Books and publications, May 2010

Qaqortoq published, May 2010

Shrouded car (bird) on BBC Mid Wales, April 2010

Shrouded forms news, April 2010

Shrouded forms announcement 2, April 2010

Shrouded forms announcement, April 2010

Shrouded forms announcement, March 2010

Shrouded forms announcement, February 2010

More news from Margaret, August 2009

Margaret news, July 2009

Degree show preparation, May 2009

Numinous Family announcement, May 2009

Degree show podcast interviews with artists, May 2009

Degree show announcement, May 2009

Greenland and Wales announcement, April 2009

Directions to Aberystwyth University School of Art, March 2009

Greenland talk, March 2009

Road Trip: Lacock Abbey (photographs), March 2009

Fashion icon? February 2009

Research and process presentation part 2, February 2009

Margaret's work on Tea With Warriors' Niagara album cover, February 2009

Research and process presentation part 1, January 2009

Winter walks (photographs), January 2009

Why it's not safe to let me into the Tate, December 2008

Margaret's work in St Dogmaels Gallery, near Cardigan, November 2008

Off to Wrexham! November 2008

Margaret's work at Free, Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth, November 2008

Margaret's piece from audio workshop, November 2008

Welcome to Margaret's blog, November 2008

Reviews archive

home . statement . portfolio . exhibitions . books . biography . links . contact

Margaret Sharrow's Greenland blog archive

2010-05-29T11:56:00.042+01:00

Photo: Iceberg, north of Aasiaat, Greenland. Copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Vote for Margaret Sharrow to be the official blogger / artist on an expedition to Greenland

Hot off the press (or, why I'm blogging about Greenland)

01: Flying high to Greenland

02: How my art took me to Greenland, and a Danish tongue twister

03: Aerial perspectives

04: Scrum in the fjord

05: On Greenlandic airports, or, what to do in an emergency

06: The inland icecap

07: Colonial legacies

08: Housing old and new

09: Time in Timerlia

10: Humanity and nature

11: A fascination with cemeteries

12: Experiencing Ultima Thule via the telephone directory

13: Frantic construction and quiet hygge in Nuuk

14: Arts centre med kaffemik

15: Dawn on deck

16: Maniitsoq - life on the edge

17: A snapshot of industry

18: Happy in Hamborgerland

19: A tale of one ferry

Margaret Sharrow's reviews archive

2010-05-29T11:56:00.039+01:00

listed by artist or group exhibition title

Aberystwyth University CCP course midyear exhibition, December 2008

Aberystwyth University degree show, June 2010

Aberystwyth University degree show, June 2009

Aberration, Proud Central Gallery, London, April 2010 and March 2010

Ai Weiwei, Tate Modern, October 2010

Francis Alÿs, Tate Modern, September 2010

Francis Bacon (article with Mark Rothko), Tate Britain, December 2008

Mirosław Bałka, Tate Modern, April 2010

Kyle Bean, Selfridges, London, September 2010

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan, October 2010

Colour Chart, Tate Liverpool, August 2009

Peter Coviello, St Dogmaels Gallery, July 2010

Edward Gordon Craig, Aberystwyth University School of Art Gallery, January 2011

Dexter Dalwood, Turner Prize talk, November 2010

Anne Desmet, December 2008

Adam Dix, Haunch of Venison (London), November 2010

Zac Dutton, untitled installation, December 2008

Anna Evans, Caffi Clonc, December 2008

Alice Farnworth, January 2009

Fforma, Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth, July 2010

Doug Fishbone, Tate Britain, November 2010

Jenny Francis, installation reviews part 1, December 2008

Jenny Francis, installation review part 2, December 2008

Futurism, Tate Modern, September 2009

Goldsmiths MFA degree show, July 2010

Arshile Gorky, Tate Modern, April 2010

Per Kirkeby, Tate Modern, September 2009

Lacock Abbey, March 2009

Michael Landy, Art Bin, South London Gallery, March 2010

Michael Landy compared to Kyle Bean, September 2010

Richard Long, Tate Britain, September 2009

Cildo Meireles, Tate Modern, December 2008 (also in combined article with Francis Bacon)

Marianna Mørkøre, Liverpool Biennial, November 2010

Newport degree show, June 2010

John O'Rourke, 'Chambers of the Self', Newcastle, September 2009

Otolith Group, Tate Britain, November 2010

Katie Paterson, Haunch of Venison London, November 2010

Simon Pierse, lecture-demonstration on oil paints, March 2009

Simon Pierse, lecture-demonstration on how to stretch a canvas, February 2009

Rammatik, Liverpool Biennial, November 2010

Rannvá Káradóttir, Liverpool Biennial, November 2010

RCA degree shows, July 2010

Michael Roberts, Aberystwyth University School of Art Gallery, January 2011

Mark Rothko, Tate Modern, December 2008

Mark Rothko (reviewed with Francis Bacon), Tate Modern, December 2008

Stimulation for the Nation, Bicha at Oxo Gallery, London, April 2010

Trinity College Carmarthen degree show, June 2010

Turner Prize 2010, November 2010

Van Gogh, Royal Academy, April 2010

Rachel Whiteread, Drawings, Tate Britain, November 2010

[previous reviews index, December 2008]

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Hamish Fulton's 'Slowalk (for Ai Weiwei)', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern 30 April 2011 - a participant's perspective

2010-05-29T11:21:00.012+01:00

Hamish Fulton, 'Slowalk (for Ai Weiwei)', photo copyright Tate, 2011

I didn't think I'd be writing a third review in connection with Ai Weiwei, but events have overtaken me, and more relevantly, him. In response to Ai Weiwei's disappearance and presumed detention by the Chinese authorities, Tate Modern asked artist Hamish Fulton to create a work of art based on the walk (his only medium), to coincide with the last weekend of Ai's installation Sunflower Seeds in the Turbine Hall. Fulton asked members of the public to volunteer to realise the work: I was one of around a hundred who participated.

The point of the walk was to remember Ai and draw attention to his plight; to create a work that would fill the enormous space of the Turbine Hall not already occupied by Ai's installation; and to offer a private experience of a journey to each of the participants. As far as I could tell these were the prime intentions of Fulton, or at least of the Tate: when I asked Fulton afterwards whether we had collectively realised his intentions as he expected, he said that he 'didn't deal in expectations'. Still, I felt that the way the event was structured would inevitably create a certain kind of form within the hall, through time, and also certain range of experiences for the participants.

The directions from Tate asked us to arrive early so that we could meet with Fulton and be briefed. We had been instructed to wear dark clothes, so that the piece would 'look good': to the same end, we were to start the walk precisely at 12 noon - 'not at one minute past twelve or one minute before, but all of us at exactly the same time,' said Fulton, who would be doing the walk with us. We were asked to choose starting points for the walk, so that we were evenly distributed, a line of us at each end of the hall, and a line along each of the two sides, forming a large rectangle of dark-clad humanity, like rows of little sunflower seeds if seen from the balconies above. At noon each of us would begin walking, very slowly, towards the opposite side of the hall, never stopping, never going backwards, arriving at the other side thirty minutes later. Then we were to turn around and reverse our journey, arriving back where we started an hour later. Two more crossings were to take us to two o'clock, whereupon we were all to stop at exactly the same moment. A further complication was that we were somehow to avoid colliding with people moving in the opposite direction, or at right angles to ourselves. Finally, the whole was to be performed in complete silence. No phones (except to use as modern pocket watches to check the time occasionally). No talking, to each other, or to members of the public who might walk among us or ask questions. Just looking ahead, remaining silent, and moving... slowly... slowly...

Although it has taken a paragraph to explain the rules, they seemed pretty simple... except when it came to executing them. Fulton said that we were not trained dancers (oops, he hadn't reckoned on me being there!) and that he really didn't know what would happen. People were trying to get their heads round the not-colliding-with-others idea and I suggested that it was like a giant traffic crossing, but without any signals. 'Exactly,' said Fulton. I had been thinking of something I'd seen on television some years ago - an intersection of two wide streets in Saigon, crammed with hundreds of people on tiny motorbikes passing through each other without anyone stopping, interlacing like a motorised tapestry with clockwork perfection, despite no signals, lights or traffic wardens of any kind. (OK, I have to fess up that my TV memory was of Jeremy Clarkson's World, not the sort of place one would expect a profound moment - but there he was, saying 'There are very few cars here now, but it's changing. Imagine what this scene would look like if every motor scooter was replaced by a Mercedes.') And that memory of people effortlessly passing each other was exactly what we were like during the piece, scattered around like barely moving terra cotta warriors in some sort of hyper-slow rush hour. You could see people coming, but the impending 'crash' was in such slow motion that it was ridiculously easy to take subtle evasive action. A lesson for drivers everywhere...

One of the most important aspects of the piece for the participants, however, was the time-distance structure imposed by Fulton. It would be simple enough to walk very slowly, back and forth four times, but to do each section in exactly half an hour? How fast (or slowly) would you actually have to move? Being of a practical/scientific bent (and a trained dancer) I did something Fulton probably hadn't anticipated - I measured the width of the Turbine Hall in terms of the length of my own feet. Fifty-six lengths, as it happens. Hmm, half an hour is 30 minutes times 60 seconds per minute, or 1800 seconds. Divide that by 56 foot lengths and I had approximately 32 seconds to travel each foot length. I devised a way of counting cycles of thirty-two in four sections: eight slow counts to lift a foot, eight slow counts to place it heel to toe in front of the other foot, eight slow counts to transfer my weight from the back foot to the front foot, and eight slow counts to place the back foot next to the foot now in front. This worked to establish a pace but I had trouble counting how many complete cycles of thirty-two I had done - I would get distracted by avoiding a collision, or watching people watching us, or my own breathing, and always lost count around sixteen. Still, all this counting meant that I was completely focused - on the counting, on my feet, on looking where I was going, and on my breathing (and generally trying not to slouch, fall over, etc.) In a word, all my conscious mind chatter was completely turned off. It was a meditation, which is what I'd hoped it would be, and why I volunteered to participate. It was a very good meditation, for me. For the entire second hour I was lightheaded, probably because I was breathing properly for the first time in days. And I was entirely focused in the present moment. No planning what I was going to do, no reliving some episode from the past week, or last year. No commentary on what I was seeing, no judgment. Just putting one foot in front of the other, counting, and breathing.

Other people had different approaches to the walk. The man opposite me had a very easygoing gentle rock from one foot to the other, each time taking an infinitesimal step forward (about a quarter of an inch), listening the whole time to music on headphones - not a purely silent meditation, but I have done plenty of meditations in my time to music. There was a woman traveling the length of the hall who was making a soft shuffling noise, dragging her sandaled feet over the floor. A woman near me was picking up her feet quite high in a sort of cycling motion. She got ahead of herself during the second crossing and a sort of gentle panic registered in her movements three quarters of the way across, with fifteen minutes to go. She spent the last five minutes of the half hour cycling in place with her face to the wall. Another woman told me she had been carrying on quite happily until she came within sight of Hamish Fulton, whereupon she began to worry that she wasn't 'doing it right', saying, 'It was like having Teacher watching.' Some people walked carrying photos of Ai Weiwei. One person made the crossings in a wheelchair, propelling her wheels in tiny arc segments. One person was even spotted reading a book (really! I thought, lapsing briefly into judgment. But what book? It could have been an appropriate one, by Thich Naht Hahn, for example...) Most people took slow, thoughtful, tiny steps, less than an inch long. The need to go anywhere, to rush, to get somewhere, was removed. It wasn't about the arrival, it was about the journey.

And it was very, very quiet, even when people passed amongst us, avoiding us like speeded up anxious pinballs, or joined us for a while, but without the evenness bestowed by knowing that there was a full half hour allowed to get to the other side, and no stopping, just even motion - it was easy to spot the 'joiners'. And the crowd of spectators was completely silent, even approaching two o'clock when every available space was filled at either end of the hall, on the balconies, or in the breakout areas with a window view overlooking the hall from the higher floors, echoing the rows we formed as we resumed our positions at the side of the hall, except for a handful of the superslow, last of all the Chinese man in the black robe holding a photocopied portrait of Ai before him like an icon. And then the silence shattered at the end as we began, with a blow to a gong that echoed powerfully round the immense volume of the hall, the volume barely filled by the sunflower seeds or us, scattered seeds realigned in rows, my spirit shattered out of wherever it was back into my body as I stood, back to the wall.

Then a very long, still silence, totally unexpected but very contagious. It felt long as time had slowed down on the walk, for me at least, but I reckon it was at least twenty seconds, maybe thirty (it has of course been edited down on the Tate video). And then, spontaneous applause, first from us, and then from the watching public, filling the Turbine Hall with little bursting seeds of sound.

Ai Weiwei, 'Sunflower Seeds', Tate Modern: a second look

2010-05-29T11:20:00.017+01:00

Photo: Margaret Sharrow, 2011

Six months on, the hundred thousand sit, wait patiently. Only the ones on top are seen, and a few at the edges are all that can be examined in any detail. The rest are invisible, but known, present.

I have already reviewed this installation close to its opening, and now, having revisited it, I continue my tradition of reviewing exhibitions near their closing dates.

The seeds extend over a huge area, like a grey carpet when seen from a distance. It is possible to walk along one side, for the length of the installation. This is the compromise. After the first few euphoric days of the installation when the public walked over the seeds and could pick them up, as Ai intended, the gallery, in consultation with Ai, decided to keep the public off the installation because of the lead dust rising up. Of course the workers making the seeds, although some wore face masks, must have been exposed to far more dust.

On this visit, having more time, I was able to learn more about these workers. Adjacent to the installation are a video documentary with seating area, and a room of touch screens where you can post a video question or answer to Ai Weiwei, in either English or Chinese.

Photo of Tate documentary, Margaret Sharrow, 2011

The documentary shows the stages of production of the sunflower seeds, in the Chinese town of Jingdezhen, which has for seventeen hundred year been producing porcelain for Chinese emperors. First the kaolin is mined: men are shown pushing rail carts filled with huge chunks of the stuff out of the earth by hand, as if Welsh coal miners of the nineteenth century. Then the rocks are ground by log spikes powered by a waterwheel, again reminiscent of nineteenth century Wales. After a mechanical mixing process, the porcelain is poured into moulds that produce around two dozen seeds at once, growing like berries off a central stalk. Removed from their stalks, fired in the glorious sunset light of a large kiln, and sorted, they are ready for the ladies who paint the stripes, either in factories with groups of women at a number of tables, or production at home, with families working for short time periods in between childcare and cooking. A bit of tumbling, to give a more natural finish, then the seeds are packed in enormous sacks ready for shipping to the gallery, where they are spread around on the floor by facemasked assistants with rakes, as if tending a Japanese wabi sabi style garden. Throughout Ai is shown overseeing, photo documenting, chatting, interacting, and generally hanging around. He says that the Chinese workers, though delighted to have the work, really didn't understand what the seeds were for, and couldn't conceive of them as forming an art installation. Does it matter if the workers making the piece don't understand what it is for? Does it matter if people looking at the installation don't understand it? Does it matter if they understand it, but don't like it? Ai accepts the incomprehension of the porcelain workers, who, unlike Tate visitors, are not living in a local culture with a place for contemporary art. He says in the documentary, 'I always think art is a tool to set up new questions. To create a basic structure which can be open to possibilities is the most interesting part of my work. I want people who don't understand art to understand what I'm doing.' Here he trails off into a wordless reverie. Most of us wandering Tate Modern won't have memories of Mao represented as the sun to whom all the people, seen as sunflowers, turn for sustenance, or even of sharing unshelled sunflower seeds as a snack. But most of the visitors to Tate Modern would have the experience of crossing the Millennium Bridge, swept along in a never ending current of people, or of cramming themselves into the last possible space on a full Tube, ducking head to avoid decapitation by the slam of impersonal curved doors. One of many, many, many... yet each individual. Handcrafted, you might even say. I was distressed to hear on the radio this morning (4 April 2011) that Ai has again run into difficulties with the Chinese authorities, this time being stopped as he attempted to fly to Hong Kong. He may be unable to respond to tweets and video postings for a while.

Ai Weiwei, 'Sunflower Seeds', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, 12 October 2010 – 2 May 2011

More photographs of the exhibition and its interpretation on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-Sharrow/48770277575

You can view the documentary at the Tate website, http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unileverseries2010/room3.shtm

Ai Weiwei answers the public’s questions, and asks some of his own http://aiweiwei.tate.org.uk/

Ai Weiwei news link: PBS Newshour, 4 April 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFDtMVlJCHI

Guardian video interview with Ai Weiwei, 'Life is never guaranteed to be safe', 18 March 2010 http://gu.com/p/2fgav

Greenland blog 19: A tale of one ferry

2010-05-29T11:20:00.008+01:00

Town just south of Sisimiut, Greenland. Image © Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Once past Hamborgerland, we stopped at or passed a few more settlements on the way to Sisimiut. Again, photographs show settlements clinging to an edge between steep mountains and the sea.

The ferry was gradually losing its tourists here and there, one man wearing army fatigues having gone ashore with a massive pack that probably weighed as much as I did. He was clearly equipped for wild camping. At each stop we collected an increasingly Greenlandic clientele, bearing enormous amounts of luggage including large electrical appliances and oversized children’s toys. By the time the ship turned southward on 31 August, it was clearly the end of the tourist season, as the only non-Greenlanders remaining on board were myself, a Danish woman who was having a tour of the country at the end of her time working in the Home Rule government in Nuuk, and, briefly, the man who had been wild camping. The ferry service used to extend further south, to Nanortalik, but now goes only as far as Narsaq and Qaqortoq; it also used to go much further north, to Upernavik, 72 degrees 50 north, beyond which there are hardly any settlements except Qaanaaq and its few satellites. And there are no ferries at all linking the few isolated settlements and the massive national park on the east coast; aside from flights from Reykjavík to Kulusuk (including a mad day-tripper service), all east Greenlandic transport is pretty well by helicopter, private boat, or, in season, dogsled. There are limits even for the mighty cargo ships; in Greenland, the weather ultimately determines everything.

What do people do if they want to move white goods in winter? Insanely, flying is the only answer. And yes, they do have refrigerators in Greenland.

30 August 2008 17:43 recalled 22 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE! http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

send an image of ULTIMATE STILLNESS to my exhibition http://www.wooloo.org/open-call/entry/182907

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

Greenland blog 18: Happy in Hamborgerland

2010-05-29T11:15:00.009+01:00

Cruising through Hamborgerland, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I soon realised that the next leg of my trip could easily qualify as one of the world’s greatest cruises. The route passes through a sheltered area between offshore islands and the Greenland mainland, Hamborgerland. The retention of a European rather than Greenlandic placename is unusual: most Greenlandic towns have replaced the old Danish names, so that Godthåb is now Nuuk, Søndre Strømfjord is known as Kangerlussuaq, and Holsteinborg has been renamed Sisimiut.

Hamborgerland, however unmodern in name, is timeless in rugged yet peaceful beauty. It was my first encounter with glaciers, tumbling like frosting through the bundt peaks rising up on either side of us. Breakfast over, tourists tumbled onto the decks to enjoy the spectacle - which inevitably means the frantic urge to preserve the moment in photographs. (I of course was doing more of this than anyone, although it was my raison d’etre.) An Italian couple asked me to take their portrait against the backdrop of peaks. I was, as always, happy to oblige, and then the man offered to take a photo of me. (This is not the photo I’m using on my contest entry page http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166, which is a self-portrait, but another image slipped in amongst my 35mm contact sheets.) I wondered what other tourists might make of the scenery. As the sun rose higher it became increasingly warm, and people took over every available sun lounger. I really couldn’t get over the idea of Italians travelling to the Arctic Circle, to sit and catch the rays as if at a beach on the Venetian Lagoon.

30 August 2008 10:04 recalled 18 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE! http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

send an image of ULTIMATE STILLNESS to my exhibition http://www.wooloo.org/open-call/entry/182907

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

Greenland blog 17: a snapshot of industry

2010-05-29T11:15:00.005+01:00

These storage tanks on the edge of Maniitsoq held oil and or diesel, I assume, vital resources that like so much else in Greenland, must be imported. (I didn’t know at the time, but Maniitsoq is the operational base for Polaroil.) The cost of food, especially fresh fruit and vegetables, was astronomical, and being a shoestring budget traveller required careful shopping. However, one surprise was the price of petrol and diesel, which was far less than in Britain, more on a par with the United States. Either it was little taxed, or state subsidised. In any event there wasn’t very far to drive, even in Nuuk, though it is true that people tended to leave their motors running during short stops. During the winter this is essential, because it takes such an effort to start a motor when the temperature is well below zero. However, it is a habit that carries over into the summer months, as I saw in Nanortalik.

Industry in Greenland is in the process of changing as new prospects open with global warming. This may be an unexpected statement in the light of global warming generally presented by the media as being nothing but a disaster for arctic regions. However, it was apparent from Suluk, Air Greenland’s trilingual inflight magazine, that new opportunities are presented by possibilities for Arctic Sea shipping routes from Siberia to Canada, which will inevitably dock at Greenland. Furthermore, new developments in mining in Greenland are on the cards, with new mines opened or projected to open to exploit resources such as lead and zinc. There are also possibilities for offshore oil drilling, though after BP’s experiences in the Gulf of Mexico, it will pose a huge technical challenge and must be approached with great caution.

Aside from fishing, there are other smaller industries in Greenland such as production of high-end fashion, particularly using local materials such as seal fur, and book publishing. And, of course, there is a substantial income from tourism, which I was contributing to in my small way.

30 August 2008 08:27 recalled 21 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE! http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

send an entry for my NEW exhibition, 'ULTIMATE STILLNESS' http://www.wooloo.org/open-call/entry/182907

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

Edward Gordon Craig 1872-1966: Treasures of a theatre designer

2010-05-29T11:14:00.008+01:00

1 'La Procession Nocturne (Liszt)', wood engraving, 1927

Edward Gordon Craig 1872-1966
Avant-garde Theatre Designer & Artist
Stage Designs & Photographs, Drawings, Engravings, Woodcuts & Etchings
Aberystwyth University School of Art Gallery
29 November - 28 January
A Monnow Valley Arts Centre touring exhibition

An exhibition crammed with a cornucopia of small prints, drawings, photographs and ephemera. Of particular interest to students of literature, theatre, stage design, printmaking and illustration.

All photographs of installation views Margaret Sharrow, 2011

2 For King Lear, 1925

3 'La Commedia', woodcut, 1911

4 'Odysseus Arrives at Crete'

5 'Ophelia'

6 Photograph of set model

7 'Weep you no more sad fountains', 1906

Open call: send your images of ULTIMATE STILLNESS

2010-05-29T11:13:00.031+01:00

What does stillness mean to you? How can you represent silence?

Margaret Sharrow is an artist exploring these questions and has an online proposal to create ULTIMATE STILLNESS at the North Pole (to read more, see http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166). As a prelude to heading to the Arctic, she is organising an online exhibition of images of stillness and silence that is open to all - full details at http://ultimatestillness.blogspot.com

Open to: any medium that can be reproduced as a digital photograph (.jpg) or short .mp4 video. Full details at http://ultimatestillness.blogspot.com

Deadline NOW EXTENDED: 1 March 2011

Review: Michael Roberts - a close encounter with the face

2010-05-29T11:13:00.029+01:00

Detail of 'Face X', painting by Michael Roberts, copyright Michael Roberts 2010. All photographs this page by Margaret Sharrow, 2011.

Imaging the Face

PhD exhibition

Aberystwyth University School of Art Gallery

29 November - 28 January

Larger and closer than life, a series of faces loom up to the imaginary windows of a short series of canvases. This is 'Imaging the Face' by Michael Roberts, a select study of a few persons rendered in such detail and yet in a way that would make it difficult to identify them, even if they were known personally to the viewer. Roberts has been exploring this theme since his MA, slowly producing a series of paintings all titled Face and differentiated by Roman numerals. The most recent work, Face X took 18 months to complete, between 2009 and 2010.

Roberts, who describes his oeuvre as 'hyperrealist representation of the human face', has an almost scientific procedure he follows as a working method, appropriate enough for one who always works dressed in an immaculately clean white laboratory coat. The paintings originate from one digital photo, which is drawn on canvas. Roberts then reshoots details of key elements of the face using macro photography at a scale of 1:1 to 1:6, which are then the basis for painting. For Face X, he further used microscopic photography to a magnification of between twenty and four hundred times life size. This third layer of photography was presumably also taken directly from the face, rather than enlarging the first photograph. The notes on the exhibition panel suggest that details such as translucent hairs may be lit differently at different times.

It is inevitable that the work will be compared with other photorealist painters such as Chuck Close. However, while Close's famous hyper-enlargements of the 1970's were larger than most photographic reproduction technology could produce at the time, Roberts is working at a time when the only limits on printing size seem to be the width of the paper roll. Roberts emphasises the 'handmade' quality of his images, produced over the course of months, the opposite of speedy digital printing. Close's work also mimicked the limitations of the camera, particularly that of depth of field, so that features of his sitter's faces are 'in focus' while hair and clothing slightly further back in the picture plane are blurred. Roberts, in contrast, has invested features in different parts of the picture plane with equal levels of detail, detail beyond the level that could be achieved by a single photographic image encompassing the entire face. In assembling details from a mosaic of microphotographs, he has actually flattened the perspective of the face. While wide angle lenses emphasise the distance between close and distant objects, zoom lenses compress that apparent distance, making a row of buildings on a street appear to pile on top of each other. Macro lenses are essentially zoom lenses, and so a series of details of a nose shot with extreme, even mircroscopic macro lenses, when set side by side will make the nose appear more flattened against the face than we are used to, our 'normal' naked eye vision being equivalent to a 55mm camera lens, and most portrait photography shot around a familiar 80mm.

The effect of the flattening, combined with the close cropping removing all hairstyles, clothing and other signifiers of gender, social status, etc. is disconcerting. As is the detailed rendering of blemishes, bloodshot eyes, moles, even fine hairs we don't normally see. The effect is rather like staring into a magnifier makeup mirror my grandmother used to have: it had a set of glamourous lights down both sides, which could be set to 'evening' or 'day', in which case a ghoulish fluorescent green light illuminated every pore to garish proportions. Roberts is forcing us to confront the aspects of skin that we dwell on obsessively in the mirror, when it is our own skin, and yet that we politely ignore or recoil from in others. He has crafted images that are the opposite of those in Photoshop-filtered glossy magazines. The obsessive attention to detail, ironically bringing beauty to overlooked and sometimes (to put it bluntly) repulsive minutiae, is at its best when Roberts lets go a little, leaving the paint to make its own contribution to the rich texture of the human surface.

Installation views and details of paintings from the exhibition, below.

Greenland blog 16: Maniitsoq - life on the edge

2010-05-29T11:13:00.019+01:00

My original plan was to spend a few days in Nuuk, take the ferry overnight to Maniitsoq, and spend two nights there until the ferry returned on its southward journey. However, once again I had a problem because I hadn’t prebooked my accommodation. No hostel beds were available, and the cheapest hotel single room that the helpful woman in the Nuuk tourist office could find cost £90 (about $140 US). At that price, I thought I might as well change my ferry ticket, spend two extra nights on board, and have the chance to make stops at Sisimiut, Aasiaat, and the elusive Ilulissat. Actually there is nothing elusive about Ilulissat, except in my previous budgeting, as it is the most likely place for reporters to be filmed ranting about climate change while standing in front of the glacier, which is less than a kilometer’s easy drive from the airport.

And so I found myself having an early morning glimpse of Maniitsoq dock for twenty minutes, not long enough to risk taking a walk. So what was I missing? Aside from being yet another beautiful sunny day...

Maniitsoq is a settlement on a small island quite close to the main landmass of Greenland. It is a top destination for fishing, snowmobiling, hiking and skiing. As with all outdoor pursuits in Greenland, a greater degree of preparedness is required than when venturing into the ‘wild’ areas closer to human infrastructures, such as many of the national parks in Europe or the United States. Venturing out without knowledge of, and respect for nature, is ill advised.

Maniitsoq itself, like many Greenlandic settlements, is perched on the edge between rocky cliffs and the sea. The bridge in the photograph leads to a road that winds perilously along this edge, cars and trucks parked along its length, before winding back to a higher level of houses, apartments and industrial buildings. It gave the simultaneous impression of nowhere to go, and limitless space, highlighting how much our modern sense of being able to move depends on human infrastructures, such as roads and rail (there are no trains anywhere in Greenland). It was natural to wonder what it would be like to live in such a place. Of course, from the perspective of having a small boat, horizons expand. And as we set sail past Maniitsoq, there was ample evidence of this in the form of several isolated houses scattered a few miles along the coast, fishing/hunting lodges with no other connection to the main settlement except these private boats. Places without neighbours, roads, electricity, running water, and possibly telephone signal. Just one or two people, tiny in the vast sweep of nature.

30 August 2008 08:15 recalled 20 January 2011

Want more? Then please VOTE FOR ME TO BE THE OFFICIAL BLOGGER & ARTIST ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE! http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

then lope over to my Greenland blog http://margaretsharrowgreenland.blogspot.com/

or enter my open call for an exhibition - send me your images of ULTIMATE STILLNESS http://www.wooloo.org/open-call/entry/182907

and stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!

Greenland blog 15: Dawn on deck

2010-05-29T11:13:00.018+01:00

Arctic Umiaq Line ferry heading north, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

After four days in Nuuk I bid my landlady a fond farewell and bundled into a taxi to catch the night ferry north. Actually it was the only ferry going north that week, so if you’re planning to get round Greenland’s west coast by sea, careful planning is in order.

I had amassed a pretty hefty amount of luggage by this time. Sizing up the angle of the gangplank, I began to regret that in addition to my seriously unoutdoorsy large wheelie luggage and daypack (holding seven cameras, fifty rolls of film, battery charger, useless Danish primer, and all the extra thermal clothes I hadn’t needed) I was now cutting my wrist (enough to draw blood, as I discovered later) with several bags of shopping. I had spent the previous evening cruising one of Nuuk’s two large supermarkets, stocking up on food that required no cooking and didn’t necessitate taking out a bank loan. I was now toting tinned fish, heavy thin sliced rye bread, a little pricey fruit, two one-litre cartons of yogurt, a packet of the yummy mushroom spread I’d developed a taste for at my landlady’s, salami, and boxes of vacuum packed chocolate milk and orange juice. Oh, and the bottle of duty free white wine, and some caribou lasagne I’d gotten from the deli. No point in missing the local delicacies.

Some kind soul from the ship’s crew negotiated my wheelie luggage down a flight of stairs to the couchettes. At last, I was settled, with another four days of not needing to move my luggage, and not needing to spend precious docking time shopping. Yes, I was planning on staying on board for the journey to the furthest northern point of the route, and after a four hour stop, returning to the ship as it steamed (or rather dieseled) to its furthest point south. And why the food? I was determined to save my kroner, and not knowing how exorbitant the prices might be at the on-board cafeteria (quite reasonable by Greenlandic standards, as it turns out), I was taking no chances.

And so to couchette. The cheapest option with AUL (Arctic Umiaq Line, the ferry company) is an eight-berth single sex room, though a curtain separates the space into two sections with two sets of bunks each. I was grateful to be very close to the centre of the ship, to minimise movement, and not to be assigned a bed to the extreme fore, which was right by a fruit machine. I spread my sleeping bag, and in the womblike warmth and darkness was soon asleep.

And so it was that I awoke at 5 am, way too hot. Quite frankly this was not what I had been prepared for in Greenland. I pulled on a fleece over t-shirt and quick dry trousers, and went exploring on deck. After a couple of minutes this outift was not really sufficient to keep out the stiff breeze generated by our steady progress.

By then, I had made a discovery that made me wonder if I was still dreaming. In the surreal light of dawn, earlier than ever as we headed towards the Arctic circle, the bright orange deck sported a series of navy blue sun loungers.

30 August 2008 05:31 recalled 19 January 2011

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Greenland blog 13: frantic construction and quiet hygge in Nuuk

2010-05-29T11:12:00.017+01:00

Candles, Timerlia, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Still enjoying lazy mornings in my landlady’s flat-cum-B&B in Nuuk’s trendiest suburb, I luxuriated in the views out all the large triple-glazed windows, looking at the ragged mountain overseeing the ‘motorway’ and the colourful scattering of apartment blocks, marvelled at the plethora of cranes, busy construction that reminded me of living in Toronto in the late 1980’s, when every day saw new bank and hotel towers springing up like bamboo. I sat on the sofa with its seal fur cushions, admired her collection of Greenlandic naive paintings of moonlit snowscapes with polar bears, peered at family photos taken at swimming pools in tropical places, and a single black and white photo of what was probably my landlady as a toddler, being held by her mother in front of a wooden house.

And everywhere, there were candles, on the tables, the window sills, the cabinets. In shops everywhere in Greenland, there were extensive displays of candles, with ample stocks even in the smallest settlements. This is a Scandinavian thing, best summarised by the Danish word hygge, which translates roughly as ‘cosy’. Hygge means that though the nights are long and the winters cold, inside it is warm, with plenty of food, and plenty of golden light from loads of candles. So there they were in Timerlia, waiting patiently through this end of the summer, for the nights to draw in so they could cast their healing glow again.

29 August 2008 09:26 recalled 17 January 2011

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Greenland blog 12: experiencing Ultima Thule via the telephone directory

2010-05-29T11:12:00.013+01:00

Complete listing for Siorapaluk, Greenland telephone directory. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

In a place where there aren’t a huge number of entertainments, everything available becomes interesting. The most extreme example of this phenomenon I have yet encountered was not in Greenland but in Shetland, where some years ago I stayed for several days on the remote island of Foula, where there were no public buildings aside from the shed that is the airport, and a brand new school-cum-community centre, which served two pupils and some thirty other year-round residents as well as a trickle of bird watchers and archaeologists. Each field, farmhouse, raggedly unshorn sheep, horse, child, angry bonxie (great skua) defending its oversized teenage young, puffin, waterfall and rainbow became precious, as did my domestic arrangements (an unrennovated summer hut where I spent most of my time drying my clothes, and eating the food I’d brought on the gut-wrenching two hour rough crossing). And I needed to have brought all my food: the island had no shop at all, except for one house that sold knitwear. It was there that I bought the beret you see me wearing in the photo that adorns my North Pole competition entry (http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166). I took that photo on the Greenlandic coastal ferry, proving that the hat travelled with me round Greenland.

This digression should help explain, not just why I sported a tan mohair/wool beret on the ferry through Greenland’s coastal fairyland, known as Hamborgerland, but also why I found it interesting to look at the Greenland telephone directory at my landlady’s flat in Nuuk. Yes, the entire country’s telephone numbers are contained in one slim volume (the population is around 56,000 - that’s the population not of Nuuk, but of the whole country). And yes, Greenland (and the world’s) most northerly civilian town, Siorapaluk (population 68), boasts a listing that can be encompassed by a third of a column. That includes around ten business numbers, as well as residential numbers. I have a feeling that not everyone needs to have a land line. After all, if there was an emergency, one could always knock on a neighbour’s door... If I had been able to go to Qaanaaq, the town created when the US military displaced the population en masse from Thule so that a base could be built, Siorapaluk would have been a short dogsled ride, or, considering that it was summer, a fifteen-minute helicopter ride away. And why would I have wanted to do this? People in Nuuk, and points further south, all raved about the far north every time it was mentioned. Nuuk was not the real Greenland, I was told. ‘What are you doing staying here?’ said the bus driver who took me into town from the airport, peering puzzled through his reflective sunglasses, cool in his Manchester United shirt with short sleeves while I stood bundled in two pairs of thermal trousers and a mock-fur down lined jacket purchased in Wyoming. ‘You want to go to Ilulissat, go dog sledding.’ And another man in the hostel in Narsarsuaq went into a rapture of nostalgia, speaking the name like that of a lover, ‘Ah, Thule’, pronounced like a lapping brook, ‘TOOL ah’.

So, unable to journey to the Ultima, I had to content myself with seeing the telephone numbers of the people I might have encountered in near round-the-clock daylight, eager to talk to any unlikely visitor, offering hot dogs and sled dogs that were not packaged for tourists but part of daily life. And, yes, it also meant that although I would be achieving a new ‘personal north’, I would not have that feeling of having gone as far as I could go, before turning around with a feeling of satisfaction that I had seen all there was to see. Is it any wonder that I want so much to stand on the North Pole and feel the entire earth turning beneath me?

29 August 2008 08:11 recalled 16 January 2011

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Greenland blog 11: a fascination with cemeteries

2010-05-29T11:12:00.008+01:00

During my time in Greenland, I became fascinated, rather unexpectedly, with cemeteries. For an island with almost no trees, there was a surprising preference for wooden crosses rather than stone (which Greenland is full of) to mark the graves. Many of the crosses were very old, and in any case the wood was certainly imported. And there is always the fascination of the stories contained in cemeteries: even without being able to read, it was interesting to see the mix of Danish and Greenlandic inscriptions, or no inscriptions at all (not as much of a priority in a place where everyone knows everyone). Also the preponderance of Danish rather than Greenlandic names: it is very common for ethnic Greenlanders to have Danish rather than Greenlandic first names, and often surnames. I do not know whether this custom began with the missionaries in earlier centuries, or whether it is more to do with trying to fit in to a society where many of the top jobs were being held by expat Danes - I am just speculating here.

Whatever the names of the people buried within the wooden fences that enclosed the cemeteries, I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere there, both in the one squeezed between industrial warehouses and across from the internet cafe in the centre of Nuuk, or the one by the Moravian church overlooking yet another of Nuuk’s jagged sunset-facing bays.

27 August 2008 20:27 recalled 15 January 2011

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Greenland blog 10: Humanity and nature

2010-05-29T11:11:00.016+01:00

Here is an image that, for me, shows the relationship between humanity and nature in Greenland. We are tolerated, but on the edge, nearly invisible against an overwhelmingly enormous landscape. A short walk down a street branching off the main road through Nuuk brought me to the hospital, an enormous two or three storey building, buttercup yellow with dark red trim, three wings extending off the main structure in an E-shape. A large number of rooms faced the beach, the view extending into the bay with studded with small rocky islands, framed by distant mountains, occasional icebergs and fishing boats drifting by, a spectacular view of blue skies during the day and golden syrupy sunsets in the evening. If I am ever hospitalised, I want to come here. The views alone, even when covered with snow as they are for much of the year, are enough to make anyone feel better.

27 August 2008 13:51 recalled 14 January 2011

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Greenland blog 09: Time in Timerlia

2010-05-29T11:11:00.012+01:00

Greenland’s only ‘motorway’, Timerlia, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Yes, that’s right: Greenland’s only road with more than two lanes is right here, running from Nuuk’s town centre out to the airport and back, a distance of less than two miles. The airport bus runs the same route, back and forth and looping round the town centre, all day long. Number 3, I think. Of five (one of which is a school bus, and I never saw number 4). It is very hard to get lost in Nuuk, though the distances are greater than in other settlements.

On arrival I discovered that there was a flaw in my meticulous planning: although all my transport was booked, most of my accommodation was not, as I had figured it would be easier to deal face to face with the tourist office on arrival. What I hadn’t bargained on was a huge circumpolar conference that had booked out most of the hotels in Nuuk, as well as the hostel. I spent quite a while in the tourist office (the staff were excellent, and spoke fluent English) and had to come back later - the plan being to contact a lady who offered bed and breakfast, but it was necessary to get through to her at work, or to wait for her to come home, or something like that. So it was that I ended up in an ultramodern flat in the suburb of Timerlia, with a view out one side of the living room, through triple glazed fully insulated windows, as seen in the photograph. Mine hostess’ English was far better than my Danish, or my French even, and she was very generous and welcoming. I had the run of the fridge for my breakfast, which I got round to eventually after a slight hiccup that first morning.

Still on British time and excited after tumbling early to bed the night before, I woke up extremely early (well before six). Having watched the dawn light touch down from the summit of the mountain presiding over Timerlia, I crept round, desperate to figure out which door was the bathroom but not daring to try any. I even tried the door of what turned out to be a utility shed on the balcony outside the flat, as if a place blessed with underfloor heating would have some sort of Victorian British outside loo. I couldn’t remember if she’d said what time she had to go to work, but there was no sound from her bedroom. Finally I knocked, and she had indeed overslept. Needing a taxi to get work instead of the bus, she gave me a lift into town. In the coming days I came to realise just how much Greenlanders value their sleep - certainly this woman did. She spoke about how much she enjoyed weekends, when she could sleep as much as she wanted. (A woman after my own heart!) She could sleep for Greenland, I remembered thinking. So for each of my remaining mornings with her, I made sure she was up in plenty of time.

27 August 2008 08:17 recalled 13 January 2011

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Greenland blog 08: Housing old and new

2010-05-29T11:11:00.007+01:00

1960’s apartment blocks, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I spoke a bit yesterday about Denmark’s early colonial period in Greenland. One legacy of Danish colonialism, still very evident in Nuuk, is the apartment blocks that were built in the 1960’s, which are now increasingly run down. Again, the intention behind them was probably well meant: in the 1960’s many Greenlanders were still living in sod huts, often without plumbing or any modern conveniences. While perhaps more ecologically sound, they were certainly not as comfortable as the apartment blocks when they were new. Yet the traditional ways of life persisted, despite mass transplantation to ‘modernised’ dwellings: in this photo the balcony is transformed into a curing ‘shed’ for caribou antlers and an array of drying fish, bones, etc. However, bringing people together in single large dwellings was also a means of social control. Living in a place with mains services such as electricity and water requires paid employment, rather than a hunting and fishing economy, and in Greenland many jobs have an apartment included in the contract. This is why local newspapers frequently print photographs of employees who have worked for the post office, etc. for over twenty years - quite young people who have obviously had the same job since they were teenagers. When I was there it was appeared to be people with better jobs, such as my landlady (an administrative assistant) who were living in flats in the new suburbs such as Timerlia - her building was less than three years old and obviously a model of energy efficiency. Those who are unemployed, in lesser jobs and/or succumbed to alcoholism (endemic in Nuuk) have been left in the crumbling blocks in the town centre. And yet there is no sense of danger for the visitor - the few drunks I encountered were harmless and just wanted to chat. In fact the only thing approaching harassment I had on the entire trip was from a Norwegian pan-Arctic conference goer who had obviously been celebrating with large quantities of Tuborg on a boat outing. After I declined an invitation to join him at a party that evening his Marlene Dietrich-soundalike colleague actually said, without a trace of irony, ‘She vants to be alone.’

26 August 2008 15:47 recalled 12 January 2011

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Greenland blog 07: colonial legacies

2010-05-29T11:10:00.028+01:00

Statue of Hans Egede, old harbour, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I mentioned about Greenland’s relationship with Denmark. Having lived much as they had for five thousand years (although there were several different native Arctic cultures over this period), the Greenlanders encountered various Norse and Scandinavian attempts at settlement, beginning around the tenth century, one of which failed spectacularly. However by the 1800’s the Danish had established successful trading, whaling and even farming settlements in a number of places. Denmark claimed Greenland as a part of the Kingdom of Denmark in 1814, having built up the colony under the leadership of such persons as Hans Egede, depicted here in a statue overlooking the old harbour of Nuuk, which he founded and named Godhåb. Denmark’s empire also extended to the Faroe Islands, which explains why both Greenland and the Faroes have characteristically Scandinavian architecture, Danish as an official language, and the kroner as currency. On the whole being colonised by Denmark was about as well-meaning a situation as possible under the circumstances, but Greenland has been in a process of growing independence since the 1970’s. Although it is still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is now an autonomous country administered by a Danish home rule government - a situation roughly parallel to the process of devolution taking place in Wales and Scotland. Greenland is even the only country to have voted itself out of the European Union. And shortly after my visit, they voted for further steps towards self rule. Seeing the posture of Hans Egede thrusting his staff in gesture of progress and Protestant sobriety, I can’t help thinking there must have been reasons for the desire for home rule. Not everyone could have been so willing to accept Greenlandic culture on its own terms as the famous explorer Knud Rasmussen, known affectionately by the Greenlanders as ‘our little Knud’.

26 August 2008 14:40 recalled 11 January 2011

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Greenland blog 05: On Greenlandic airports, or, what to do in an emergency

2010-05-29T11:10:00.026+01:00

Dash-7 propeller, Kangerlussuaq airport, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I should say here that my change of planes was necessitated not just by the convenience of the Air Greenland network, but by geography: the reason that international flights do not go directly to the capital, Nuuk, is because of an almost complete lack of flat land in Greenland. There are only two places on the entire west coast with enough flat land to create a runway long enough to accommodate modern jumbo passenger craft: the deep fjords at Narsarsuaq and Kangerlussuaq. Thus anyone wishing to travel to Nuuk from abroad must first land at Kangerlussuaq, then transfer to a smaller plane that can land at Nuuk’s smaller airstrip. Said airstrip, blasted out of four billion year old rock, is the largest that can be built at Nuuk, not because there isn’t more land (a new suburb is springing up beyond the airport), but because there isn’t any more flat land. Like all the towns in Greenland that I visited, the mountains rise up pretty sharpish behind the last rows of houses.

The prospect of the next leg of my journey was made a little odd by the abrupt termination of my view of the interior of the plane by a wall, two rows in front of my seat. Somehow on a plane seating only around sixty I had been expecting to see the flight deck, to have some sense of where we were going. My unease was compounded by the on board safety cards. These depicted fabulous scenes of what would happen in the event of a crash, how one was to be bundled up, Michelin man-like, and await rescue sitting on plane seat cushions in the middle of a glacier.

The engines started, the propellers buzzed into action, and I prepared my 35mm camera, one of my medium format cameras, and my digital. There was no time for panic or disappointment. Like an understudy thrust into the spotlight, I was on!

26 August 2008 10:11 recalled 9 January 2011

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Greenland blog 06: the inland icecap

2010-05-29T11:10:00.024+01:00

Inland glacier/icecap, between Kangerlussuaq and Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Flying again over the icecap, I was struck with the present moment, as I would be for so much of my time in Greenland. And the present moment said: Greenland is big. Greenland is enormous. Before I had even boarded the plane in Copenhagen, I knew that Scotland had a far bigger feeling, space-wise, than Wales, and that Shetland had a far more remote feel than highland Scotland, each place having a feeling of bigness or remoteness about ten times more than the previous place. So if every landscape in Scotland felt ten times bigger than a similar landscape in Wales, I figured that the emotional impact of Greenland would be about ten times that of Scotland.

Flying over a white expanse that seemed to press right up to the window, an undulating sea of snow broken by dark peaks of mountains breaking through like rocky froth, I revised my scale of bigness. It was Scotland, times a hundred.

26 August 2008 10:39 recalled 10 January 2011

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Greenland blog 01: flying high to Greenland

2010-05-29T11:10:00.020+01:00

Air Greenland wing, flying over the west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I decided early on that the Air Greenland fleet was the handsomest fleet of airplanes I'd ever seen. They were all candy apple red, with a ski for a wheel (no, not that, I'm thinking of the Beach Boys) and just as lusciously shiny as a childhood treat, sprinkled with a logo of white dots forming a snowflake. In a rebranding that was the stamp of the dashing new CEO, the airline bent over backwards to give its passengers a first-class experience, which helped in a great measure to offset the first-class prices. In an ideal world I would have flown as far north as it was possible to go, Qaanaaq, but my entire grant wouldn't have covered the airfare. As it was, for the cost of the flight from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, and from Narsarsuaq back to Copenhagen was more than a round the world ticket. But they were very generous with the food (quality, quantity, cutlery), the wine, the film (a Swedish drama that climaxed on the massive bridge spanning the Baltic from Malmö to Copenhagen), the courtesy. And overgenerous with the views on descent. Having come through rather unnerving turbulence over the icecap, the parting of the clouds alone would have resulted in joy. However, the ever-changing views of the rocky coast resulted in a sort of photographic ecstasy, of which more tomorrow.

26 August 2008 12:32 GMT -3 recalled 5 January 2011

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Greenland blog 04: scrum in the fjord

2010-05-29T11:09:00.025+01:00

Kangerlussuaq airport, looking down the fjord, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Having landed, my perspective changed back to that of a land-dweller, and I was dealt my first and only disappointment in Greenland: it suddenly looked all too much like the Scottish highlands. Why had I bothered to come so far, at such expense, I thought peevishly, when I could have stayed in the country I love and call home, and seen much the same scenery? Now this narrative is not meant to be about my own psychological blips and foibles, but forgetting that I’d spent a less-than-luxurious night on a bench in the food court at Copenhagen airport, my perspective was a little skewed at the sight of ruddy snow-capped mountains rising up on either side of the airstrip, a fjord stretching away very much like a sea-loch in Wester Ross. What wasn’t obvious from my perspective was just how long the fjord was (190 km, nearly three times as long as 65 km Loch Fyne, Scotland's longest sea loch), which accounts for the climate in Kangerlussuaq being somewhat warmer and more stable than almost anywhere else on the west coast, except for the similar fjord at Narsarsuaq, which is much further south.

There wasn’t much time for negative thinking, as action was called for: we emerged down a staircase directly onto the tarmac (ah, this was what flying was like in the 1960’s) and walked less than a hundred metres to the terminal, passing a sign with fingerposts giving the distances to Moscow, London, Washington, etc. Once inside the claustrophobically tiny terminal there was no attempt at customs but an immediate scrum inside the duty free. Toblerones, cigarettes and especially alcohol flew off the shelves while staff at two tills stoically coped with queues bursting in and out the turnstiles. I was worried about my luggage in the hold, or missing my next plane, but needn’t have been; by the time I emerged clutching a single bottle of white wine (encased in some ingenious Scandinavian fishing-net type plastic mesh to prevent breakage) my bag had been magically transferred and it was time for a gentle stroll back onto the tarmac, and to board a Dash-7 standing ready, bound for Nuuk.

26 August 2008 09:49 recalled 8 January 2011

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Greenland blog 02: How my art took me to Greenland, and a Danish tongue twister

2010-05-29T11:09:00.021+01:00

Parting clouds, west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I mentioned yesterday about the grant that allowed me to travel to Greenland, generously provided by the University of Wales, on condition that I was engaged in some sort of creative project (drama, cinema, creative writing, or in this case, fine art) with a further outcome to enhance my educational experience. I was at the time pursuing a BA at the Aberystwyth University School of Art, having hurried straight into the second year and begun experimenting with alternative photographic processes. This means that although I started out making some digital work, my main focus was in the darkroom, first doing traditional prints, and gradually moving into different techniques and chemical processes until it became photography, Jim, but not as we know it. By the end of the year I was cheerfully pouring bleach over multiple-exposure prints then wailing when I discovered that Sigmar Polke had already done exactly the same thing in 1971. To cap it all I’d been awarded a massive travel scholarship, which made for an interesting summer. After I finished marking a million media studies A level papers I had flown straight into preparations: daily study of Danish, in hopes of being able to speak Greenland’s colonial language, if not Greenlandic itself, which is difficult to find recordings for the essential comic attempts at mimicry. Now Danish can be difficult for the English speaker because of its range of guttural sounds produced at the back of the palette. Though Danish is reasonably similar to English in terms of word order, linguistic roots, etc., and I’d spent hours making vocabulary flashcards in my favourite cafe, I found that when confronted with actual Greenlanders speaking their colonial tongue I had my usual reaction - I froze (metaphorically, as it was still summer) and forgot everything I’d ever learned. There was one exception - I was able to amuse people by reciting the never-to-be-forgotten tongue twister taught to me years ago in Toronto by a Danish-Canadian friend. It employed a string of the guttural sounds, and provided guaranteed hilarity, by dint of my pronunciation: rød grød med flød på - which is red pudding with cream, as I remember.

Somehow I have diverged onto Danish tongue twisters and puddings, which throws up the whole question of Greenland’s relationship to Denmark. But more political thinking would leave us both up in the air, ignoring the spectacular views unfolding out the window of the descending plane. I can assure you unreservedly that at the time I took the photograph shown here, I was as fully present as I have ever been in my life, allowing for the fact that a certain detachment is inevitable when taking photographs at a furious rate. By the time we landed I was convinced that if I never took another picture over the next three weeks, I would still have enough material for an exhibition. The land was chiseled out of the green-blue sea, its elaphantine wrinkles washed with rusty red. And here I must say something about the colours I experienced, and have passed on to you. As with all my digital photos from this trip, I have made no alterations to saturation, contrast, density, etc., avoiding the current fashion in advertising and on Flickr for playing with these mechanics in Photoshop, producing supersaturated landscapes that anyone who has been to the place will recognise as overhyped, and setting up anyone who has not been for disappointment. Suffice it to say that with my photographs, as far as colour goes, what you see is what you get. Unless of course I have rendered the whole scene blue, by printing it as a cyanotype...

26 August 2008 09:32 (Greenlandic time) recalled 6 January 2011

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'Soul group' screening at FACT in Liverpool: thanks to all who helped me put my foot in the door of the Biennial

2010-05-29T11:08:00.035+01:00

Well, the title just about sums it up: on 26 November the sliding doors at FACT opened, thanks to curator Heather Corcoran, I slid in, set up my screening at the cafe, and spent an enjoyable evening showing my video 'Soul group' to the public, and chatting with many of you. Thanks to everyone who took the time to stop by (special thanks and astonishment go to the man and his wife who spotted me absorbed in my mocha and oversized chocolate chip cookie at the Brighton Museum on 4 December, recognised me, and came over to say hello again). Special thanks also to the member of the FACT team in the upstairs offices who offered me tea while I waited to 'go on', and to Tariq and Dave who looked after me so well downstairs (more tea!), and were so welcoming. And a big thanks to Heather for being so welcoming, discussing my work, her work, and the vagaries of being transplanted across the pond, however long ago.

If you missed it, don't worry, I'll be having lots of other screenings of 'Soul group' and other work - as soon as I have firm dates and locations, I'll post them here, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Just a reminder that if you are in West Wales, 'Soul group' is currently screening at St Dogmaels Gallery near Cardigan, as part of the Winter Show.

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'Rothko in a thunderstorm on acid': Margaret Sharrow at Brighton for UNRAVEL: the longest hand painted film in Britain

2010-05-29T11:08:00.034+01:00

Some of Margaret Sharrow's work for UNRAVEL, copyright Margaret Sharrow and UNRAVEL, 2010

'Like Rothko in a thunderstorm on acid!' A certain hat-wearing scribbler on celluloid was heard describing her work thus... now who could that be?

On 4 December I participated in a workshop for UNRAVEL: the longest hand painted film in Britain, held at the Brighton Museum and Gallery. Recent Royal College of Art graduates Maria Anastassiou and Chris Paul Daniels, along with Kelvin Brown (audio meister from Manchester) were enthusiastically drawing in members of the public to draw on their film. Children and adults alike were persuaded: 'You don't need to know what you're doing! Just give it a go!' And they did, all day long. Thanks to Deutsche Bank funding, the project is being toured all over Britain, and aims to produce a film that echoes the distance from Land's End to John O'Groats - each metre of the distance between those two places will be represented by one frame of film.Without doing all the maths, it works out to well over sixteen hours of film, to be screened at venues TBA next year. In the meantime they're looking to add venues and dates, and I was happy to oblige with some contacts in Wales...

The best part of the day was the screening at the end. It was electrifying to see two dimensional work transformed into the vibrancy of 4D. Mine was particularly explosive as I'd managed to paint over the soundtrack area at the edge of the film, hence my assessment of it as 'Rothko in a thunderstorm on acid'... though I thought the best work was done by a child not more than five, who evolved a totally different way of working to the rest of us.

Check the UNRAVEL blog for upcoming dates and venues.

Below: an example of work by members of the Brighton public (installation view)

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Vote for Margaret Sharrow to create ULTIMATE STILLNESS at the North Pole!

2010-05-29T11:08:00.033+01:00

Vote for me to win a competition to make my proposed work ULTIMATE STILLNESS at the North Pole! Photos, blogs, books and opportunities for global participation will follow... I need as many votes as possible to be chosen as a finalist, so I'm counting on the generosity of the hundreds of people who read my pages every month!

Read the full proposal and vote at http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166

Thanks!

Announcing book - Exploring contemporary art: essays by Margaret Sharrow

2010-05-29T11:08:00.014+01:00

NEW FOR 2011

Exploring contemporary art: essays by Margaret Sharrow

If you would be interested in purchasing a book with a selection of my art reviews (approximately forty pages, including new essays not published here), please contact me. Please state a price you think is fair, and tell me what your local currency is.

The book will be published by Gwasg Oriel Press in 2011.

I am also considering publishing some of the longer reviews individually as pamphlets, with additional educational material aimed at schools, galleries, etc. - if this idea appeals, let me know.

My current publications are available now at Gwasg Oriel Press, including the catalogue from my 2010 exhibition Shrouded forms.

Magma by Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir: abstract forms in the Faroes

2010-05-29T11:07:00.034+01:00

Installation photographs from 'Magma' by Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir, 2010. Still images copyright Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir, photographs by Margaret Sharrow, 2010

Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir
Magma
super 8 film transferred to DVPAL

3 min

There was one thing that, for me, made it worth going to the Liverpool Biennial 2010. The fact that it was from the Nordic Pavillion at CUC (the Contemporary Urban Centre, appropriately situated on Greenland Street), will come as no surprise to those familiar with my affinity for all things circumpolar. It was the short film 'Magma', by Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication fashion studies graduate Marianna Mørkøre and London Contemporary Dance School graduate Rannvá Káradóttir: two Faroese artists who came to study in London, and who are now collectively known as Rammatik. The Faroes are a little-visited series of islands, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark dropped between Norway, Shetland and Iceland, said to be the toenail clippings of a Nordic giant. They have the remoteness of Foula, or St Kilda, but more so. Some of the remoter islands in the group have only had their remotest villages connected by road and tunnel within living memory. Green, green, bright green billiard tables of islands with jagged peaks and plunging sea cliffs, uniformly chilly all year round. Bird sanctuaries and brilliant jewel-coloured Danish houses. The island of the birds, where one might have to hole up for a week before a brilliant hour's sun transforms everything beyond compare.

Into this surreal and all-dominating landscape and weather come a series of black-clad dancers in curious long black caps, with swimming-cap chinstraps, hovering somewhere between Breton lace and bullets. They chop their blackened palms before their faces. They walk in a line up the hill, and run down in a hasty group. They stand in a pair and cross and uncross, open and close arms in staccato gestures. One lies, eyes closed, on the blackened rock, a ring of twirling hands draws back from the centre. They stare at the viewer, blankly, knowingly, slyly.

The editing is as abrupt as the choreography and the contrast between the black figures and the jagged green mountain that peers through the mist. Short shots accentuated by the dissonant soundtrack by Jens L. Thomsen. Pieces of end-of-reel flash. A figure stands alone against the hill. The synthesizers dive slowly towards bass, sliding from one tone fluidly to the next as a man grabs the grass to the side in great arm gulps, pushes up, and crablike moves towards camera. A yellow spot remains immobile at the centre of the otherwise green and black screen. It may be apparent by now that I have longed to go to the Faroes for many years. This film was far more than imaginative transport, however. It seemed not to posit an impossible relationship between the people and the landscape; instead the black-clad figures became high-speed embodiments of the geological ultraslow dance of the land itself, the magma.

Marianna Mørkøre's website

Magma trailer

Rammatik blog with more about the cycle of films, of which 'Magma' is the first

a-n review of Magma by Ruth Denton

NICE Nordic Inter-Cultural Events

CUC (Contemporary Urban Centre), Liverpool

link to Liverpool Biennial 2010 website

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'Footfall' by Margaret Sharrow - a video response to Susan Philipsz's 'Lowlands Away'

2010-05-29T11:07:00.033+01:00

'Footfall' copyright Margaret Sharrow 2010

'Footfall' by Margaret Sharrow is a response to 'Lowlands Away' by Susan Philipsz, a work of sound art shown at the Turner Prize 2010 exhibition at Tate Britain in London, 5 October 2010 - 2 January 2011. The video is designed to be viewed on mobile phones in the gallery, or elsewhere with or without the memory of Philipsz's piece.

(Phones set to silent, please.)

'Footfall' on YouTube

Other videos by Margaret Sharrow

Self portrait diptych, 2010

Soul group, 2010, currently showing at St Dogmaels Gallery

Portfolio

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Margaret Sharrow: Albert Dock intervention, Liverpool

2010-05-29T11:07:00.021+01:00

EMERGENCY WORDS intervention, Albert Dock, Liverpool, 26 November 2010. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010

What happens when an object that is apparently perfectly in context (a life ring at a harbour) is taken out of context (walked around the harbour as if it was an oversized handbag)?

Not a performance as such, but an intervention. Walking by the National Maritime Museum. No public interaction requested, though plenty of people noticed, commented, wondered. Assumptions of purloining. A stunt? Official business? Improbably dressed harbour staff? A souvenir of Liverpool? Crime in progress? When standing still checking camera batteries, I was even mistaken for a museum wax model. Upon moving, startled teenagers concluded that perhaps I was a costumed museum interpreter/performer.

As I explained to the apologetic and very polite dock security man, the life ring was provided by me on loan from the Harbourmaster at Aberaeron, i.e. NOT NICKED from the docks!