It’s been a really busy time and I’ve got behind with updating… The Impressions exhibition reception on 12th October felt great. Despite the English Defence League being in town that day, and chaos on the trains from London owing to signal failures, almost all my friends made it up to Bradford in time to see the show and have an afternoon curry at Omar Khan’s. Anti-fascist protestors were out in force, and Bradford stayed cool. Several friends had to stand on the train for 2 hours before they got seats, and spent 10 hours in one day travelling on trains and buses. Heroic stuff, and it felt amazing to have so many friends there and the support of other visitors, Pippa Oldfield, Anne McNeill and all the Impressions team. The show ends on Friday 23rd November, but it will be touring…
with (most of…) the Impressions team after the opening reception on 12 October, left to right: Sophie Powell, Sarah Read, Melanie Friend, Shaila Hamid, Angela Sheard, curator Pippa Oldfield and director Anne McNeill. Photograph by Louise Harman.
The following weekend, the Loughborough seminar (European Borderscapes) where I presented Border Country, was excellent. Afterwards there was a dearth of buses and taxis from the campus and I had to hitchhike to get from the university to Loughborough station to catch my train up to Newcastle/Sunderland in time for the opening reception of The Social. I would have missed the whole evening if it hadn’t been for Peter, an environmental health officer, and his wife, who responded to my flagging down of their car and drove me 15 minutes out of their way to Loughborough station. Amazing. Six of my beach images from The Home Front are in You are The Company in Which You Keep at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. It’s good to be in such an excellent group show.