he is four faced each one made up of 312 sections of opal glass one hand is 9.2 feet long the other 14 his bell 13.7 tonnes the hammer inside 441 pounds he’s bent at an angle of 0.04 degrees enough for a passer by to clock he is really a she their real name is elizabeth tower James McDermott Alban Low's monument balances on Angel Hill. I look at it. Proud. It’s a proud thing. It pretends to us nothing changes. In real life (I was there last week, gawping up like a tourist) it’s a little prouder (and more stern) than when I first saw it, when I first saw it on the bottles of HP Sauce my mum would put on the table so we could turn the burgers and burned baked beans she made us into something more exotic, more promising, more elsewhere. And yet it’s the same. We hide behind it, you and I, within it, underneath it. It’s us, our misted myth of us. It brings to mind all we both love and hate, holds them there, strong across the river. And it reminds us we’re all Guy Fawkes. I think it might survive, outlive those who want it gone: those on two sides, more. Of course it isn’t democracy, it never was. But it’s hope. Those who shout their pain out and push their pain into others don’t want either, either democracy or hope. I look at it again and I realise how it really is: flaccid. The tower, that is. Not me. Though sometimes I feel unmanned by all the hate and by the shouting and all the pushing and by all the hope. Kevin Acott Alban Low is involved in many creative projects including album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. This year he is working on a walking project about London Musicians from the 1920s-1940s. In 2018 he spent a week at grove with Kevin Acott where they published two chapbooks. Twitter @albanart Instagram @albanartist Facebook Alban Low http://albanlow.com James McDermott is a writer based in East Anglia represented by Independent Talent. He is an Associate Artist at Norwich Theatre Royal and Norwich Arts Centre. His play 'Time and Tide' was nominated for two Off West End Theatre Awards (Offies) including one for Best New Play. James has recently written new plays for a number of regional theatres, and is one of the writers on EastEnders. As a poet, James is widely published in poetry journals and magazines. His debut spoken word poetry collection 'Manatomy' is published by Burning Eye Books and was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2021. James has pamphlets forthcoming from Polari Press and Red Ceilings Press. Twitter @jamesliammcd Instagram @jamesmcdermott1993 Facebook James McDermott https://jamesmcdermottwriter.weebly.com Kevin Acott is a writer, lecturer, whiskey lover, and Spurs sufferer. He’s a sort of left libertarian/sort of anarchist who feels strangely attracted to French chansons, Greenland and Joseph Conrad as he gets older. His publishing, blog and projects can be found at http://www.kevinacott.com/. Twitter @speranza6162 Instagram @speranza6162
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Natural Monument: Earth, Jacquie Campbell, 2021, earth and detritus from fire on the ground in the Bury St Edmunds water meadows This precariously balanced fragile globe is nestled in Looms Lane. A fitting monument this week - I hope someone finds it and cares for it. Crush as if Sisyphus / paused / a moment too long / the perfect boulder / slipping past / his weary shoulders / the world braced for impact // what remains may be enough / a stem or two of other worldly grass / light starved / seeds intact / a scattering breath Sue Burge Jacquie Campbell As someone who is simultaneously baffled and fascinated by the everyday world, my artistic activity allows me to think through the questions that niggle at the back of my mind. I am often absorbed with how we perceive and connect with barely visible and overlooked processes that exist within our surroundings and everyday life. I construct spaces, journeys and sometimes objects that invite ‘noticing’. I am interested in how we can practice ‘deep looking’, beyond the visual, using all our senses. I wonder whether a stronger understanding and better connection with these unexamined processes would lead to different ways of being in the world: a sense of wellness and a new environmental conversation. Instagram @ jaccampbellrojo @flow.east @wildhabits2020 www.jaccampbell.com Sue Burge is a freelance creative writing and film studies tutor based in North Norfolk. Her four poetry collections are: In the Kingdom of Shadows (Live Canon 2018), Lumière (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2018), The Saltwater Diaries (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2020) and Confetti Dancers (Live Canon 2021). www.sueburge.uk Significant/Permanent/Reminder, Amanda Loomes, 2021, vintage ink stamp, ink pad, post-it notes Amanda's monument is on the bar at Oakes Barn and there is an invitation for visitors to stamp their own note and signpost a place in the town centre that is significant to them. It would be great if they photographed their personal signpost and put it on social media #groveprojects The Stamp of Approval ‘Please look left before you cross’ declares the inky finger. It is control and command embossed in the page. Authority never lost and although time fades it away, it keeps its pressure on the paper. Its black and white stencil forces a cage that says you must colour within these lines, ‘look at this, this is what you’ll find attractive, interesting, useful, important’ --- important for us then, so obviously important for you now. The pointing finger talks without a mouth, averts your gaze, diverts your attention, redirects your priorities, saying ‘this, you must see’ but the stamp of approval doesn’t come easy - if the National Art Gallery, why not my local chippy? After all, they’re both doing God’s work. Some crowned and others denied but the insisting inky finger never lies. Come, this is what you’ll find attractive, interesting, useful, important. Faith Falayi Pinch your curiosity to wake it up. Only look for what delights you - Indiscriminately. Now, do you see? There! A print of memory? The stamp of your truth? Told you so. How easily overlooked Is the quotidian, Nesting all the world in its Generous intertwining chaos. So, now show me what you love. Urve Opik Amanda Loomes People at work have always preoccupied me. I am particularly moved by the effort of people whose work goes unnoticed, work that becomes erased or undone, or work that seems out of kilter with our time. In my practice I am drawn to record this labour to see if art can inscribe value or somehow make things fairer. I usually work with the short experimental documentary form, utilising the redemptive power of non-linear video editing in its ability to speed up, reverse, repeat and stop. Amanda has an MA in Fine Art Painting, The Royal College of Art, 2006. Instagram loomesamanda Twitter AmandaLoomes Facebook amanda.loomes.1 https//:www.amandaloomes.net Faith Falayi is a young poet based in Peterborough. In 2020 she was selected the first Peterborough Young Poet Laureate. https://syntaxpoetryfestival.wordpress.com/peterborough-young-poet-laureate-2020/ Urve Opik studied art history at Manchester University and the Courtauld, and worked for many years as an Arts Administrator. She became increasingly interested in the life psychotherapeutic in the late 1990s, retrained, and now practices as a psychotherapist. She retains a deep interest in the visual arts, and has a quiet writing practise running on the side and weaving through her life. David Falkner's limited edition sticker, Pedestal I, can be seen in the window of Sunrise, in St John's Street, Bury St Edmunds. Having found the sticker, visitors can ask inside for one of the edition, along with a groving booklet. www.sunrisedirect.co.uk Hail, o tufted composite glamour-Queen against your chess-board wall. You bouffant Mistress of balance taking a monumental risk, standing there everso slightly askew on your, frankly dodgy, picnic-throne; your altar to impermanence. “Oi! Get down, Bev! He ain’t looking at you. Get down! He can still only see the top of your head!…Honestly! What’s she like!” Lynn Whitehead Your picture’s buried in my garden, Faded image of the people who’ve left, Solitary idols, suburban flies, Underneath my bed, only aspidistra lies. Your name grows restless in the earth, So lay me in the ground at twilight’s rise, Let the grass grow, sorry soul, Death to nostalgia, green totem pole. Ed Arantus David Falkner is an artist and curator. After studying Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design (1988-91), David practiced as an artist, exhibiting throughout Europe, before dedicating himself to interdisciplinary curatorial work in public-sector venues in the UK, initially at Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery and Pump House Gallery London, before becoming Director of Kingston University’s Stanley Picker Gallery in 2004 and also Dorich House Museum in 2015. Also supporting innovative practice outside of the Gallery he sits on the Board of Directors of the Live Art collective Duckie. Lynn Whitehead started life as an actor/musician and worked all over the country for years. Later she side stepped into theatre-education working with the National Theatre, New Wolsey and Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds running youth theatre groups and working with community groups. She fell in love with storytelling and likes to collect and tell traditional stories from all round the world. She has an MA in playwriting. https://www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/meet-artist-lynn-whitehead/ Twitter @LynnyWhitehead Instagram @lynnwhitehead96 Facebook Lynn Whitehead Ed Arantus is a conceptual artist and writer. He published his first work in the Censored Zine in 2010 and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford and the Museum of Futures in Surbiton. https://edarantus.blogspot.com; Instagram @edarantus Kate Murdoch's limited edition medals invite people to acknowledge some of those who work for the good of their community. This idea provoked an immediate and passionate poem from Sue Turbet, who remarked 'I discovered there are 73 statues of Queen Victoria in the UK…probably 69 too many. It’s time other women had their moments'. The medals have been hung on railings, benches and posts in Looms Lane, Lower Baxter Street, Angel Hill, The Great Churchyard, Tuns Lane and Angel Lane. Monuments
Statues should be raised for strong women. Ada / Beryl / Connie / Doris Women who worked the land, drove tractors, trams, rivets, knotted headscarves, made do, kept the home fires burning. Women who said enough’s enough Emmeline / Florence / Gertrude / Harriet rattled teacups, raised eyebrows, scattered censure like uprooted trees; who hurricaned citadels, crushed paper mountains underfoot, made twisters from cigar smoke, unafraid to say I want; stood firm - or sat, like Rosa on her bus - camped at Greenham, marched. And unsung women stitching lives together - Irene /Julie / Kath / Lorraine/ Maggie / Nora / Olive / Pam child-rearers, shelf-stackers, shift-workers, office-cleaners, garment-stitchers, bottom-wipers, toilet-scourers, food-packers, dinner-makers, hand-holders Queenie / Raji / Sonja / Tash Ula / Val / Winnie / Xanthe Yasmina / Zulieka . Praise them. Lynda Turbet Kate Murdoch is interested in objects as clear indicators of the passage of time. Wider themes of loss and remembrance run through her work, reflecting a fascination with the permanence of objects versus the fragility of human existence. The theme of value and worth is central to Murdoch's work and the objects presented open up opportunities for personal and political discussion around class, gender and privilege. She has exhibited as part of the Whitstable Biennale, Deptford X, Frieze Art Fair, and at galleries including Transition, Firstsite, WW and APT. Murdoch was awarded the Shape Open prize in 2016, and her award winning work, selected by Yinka Shonibare, is in the Shape Arts permanent collection.http://www.katemurdochartist.com Twitter @katemurdochart Instagram @katemurdochartist Facebook Kate Murdoch Lynda Turbet observes the world from North Norfolk and tries make sense of it all through writing. |
Barbara DouganI am an artist and the curator for grove and groving. This blog is groving online, and records the artworks placed on the streets of Bury St Edmunds along with responses to the work by commissioned writers. Archives
September 2023
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