A Visit to Van Gogh Alive at the Birmingham Hippodrome

Van Gogh Alive at the Birmingham Hippodrome Starry Night

This is no ordinary art exhibition…

What has become abundantly clear amidst the chaos and confusion of the last seven months is just how essential the arts are, with many turning to art and culture within their own homes as a form of mental stimulation, creativity and self-care.

While I certainly count my blessings, some of the things I have missed the most during lockdown and COVID-19 restrictions have been the theatre and museums. Seeing a show or an exhibition – usually several times a month – provided an often much-needed opportunity to switch off from the stresses of the day, relax and immerse myself in an amazing performance or stunning piece of artwork by talented performers and creatives.

I’m a huge Van Gogh fan, being lucky enough to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, see The Starry Night at the MOMA in New York and Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London and consequently I was ecstatic when I saw that the world-renowned Van Gogh Alive Experience was being premiered at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Continue reading

Banksy in Birmingham

A new Banksy artwork has appeared in Birmingham, highlighting the plight of rough sleepers in the city in a video that was posted on his Instagram page this afternoon with the message:

God bless Birmingham.

In the 20 minutes we filmed Ryan on this bench passers-by gave him a hot drink, two chocolate bars and a lighter – without him asking for anything.

Being an enormous Banksy (and street art) fan, I immediately jumped in a taxi (after spending twenty minutes trying to figure out the location) and we headed off to the Jewellery Quarter. We were lucky – some news crews had just started to appear but as it was before the point where the school and working day had finished we were able to see it without any issues. The driver got out and came with me to take some photos too!

Banksy in Birmingham

Banksy in Birmingham

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A Haircut, Psychic Powers and a Da Vinci Exhibition

The park was dark and moody in the morning…

I started a dark and moody Wednesday in the hair salon, and ended it in the woods in the glorious sunshine.

As you do.

I got my hair cut for the first time in several years. It’s something I had been meaning to do for quite some time, but the fact that 1. I’m incredibly lazy and 2. I dislike paying large amounts of money for something that inevitably spends most of the time being tied up in a ponytail, meant that it was long overdue. I loved having ridiculously long hair (it hung all the way down to my lower back) when I went out, but during the rest of the time it had become an annoyance.

There’s nothing more horrifying than the moment after you’ve had your hair washed and brushed back and you’re faced with yourself in the mirror while waiting for your stylist. If ever there’s a point where I can see the similarities between my round head and an ageing turtle, then this is it. And there’s nowhere else to go – spinning around and facing away from the mirror would only result in staring directly at somebody else who is experiencing the same thing, so the only option I’m left with is to try not to awkwardly stare at myself and find something interesting on the table in front… Continue reading

An Incredible Street Art Tour of Shoreditch, London

A Street Art Tour of Shoreditch

At the weekend I experienced a street art tour of Shoreditch with Tiffany, the creator of A Girl and Her Passport in London.

She was back in the UK for a little while, and it was the perfect opportunity to catch up as it’s been over a year since she was last here. I  still find it amazing that I get these sorts of opportunities – we connected via the blogging community a few years ago – and she is someone I would never have met otherwise as at the time she lived in Qatar and is from Texas.

She booked the tour through an Airbnb experience and it was something I had been really looking forward to – I’ve seen some of the street art in the Shoreditch area before when The Bloke and I had an inexpensive trip down to London – but I was really interested to find out a little more about the artists and see some of the things I had missed.  Continue reading

The One That Got Away…

The one that got away

In 2010 I was lucky enough to supervise a trip to America. With 58 students and 7 other staff, we visited three cities – New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. and as we were only there for a week our itinerary was jam packed with as many sightseeing opportunities as we could possibly could manage. (We actually ended up being stranded in D.C. for an extra week after the volcanic explosion in Iceland grounded all flights, but that’s another story).

In New York, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, which I was really excited about. During our visit we saw that there was a retrospective taking place, during which Marina Abramović, a Serbian artist performed a thought-provoking piece named ‘The Artist is Present.’ Sitting in silence, she invited viewers to sit directly opposite her at a table. Anyone and everyone could participate, but nothing would be said if they chose to do so. Intruiged, some of our students joined in and sat down for a few minutes. I noticed that after each person left the table she would close her eyes until the next sat down.

A few weeks ago, a story about the performance appeared on Facebook, and I instantly clicked on the video because of the memories I had of it. What I saw moved me very deeply… Continue reading