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The Devon Wildlife Trust got in touch with some spiffing details of a photography competition to capture the creatures of the coastlines (uniquely there are two coastlines in Devon donchaknow).
“Wembury Marine Centre and the Plymouth group of the Marine Conservation Society are running a photo competition this month to help promote the weird and wonderful wildlife found off our coasts.
“The competition is open to all and the theme is ‘Marine Conservation - the good, the bad and the ugly’. Entries should illustrate some aspect of British marine conservation. This could include beautiful coastal landscapes worth conserving, people working in conservation, marine or beach pollution, marine related animal or plant species at risk.
“There are four classes in the competition: Underwater Adult, Underwater Junior (under 16), Land Adult and Land Junior (under 16). The deadline for entries is 18 July 08.
“Cat Ridout who runs Wembury Marine Centre said: ‘I’m delighted to be involved with this photographic competition. I hope it will be the first of many and help to promote our marine environment which often gets overlooked. The competition is open to all and is not just for underwater pictures so next time you go for a walk on the beach, take your camera and get snapping!’
“The competition will be judged by Peter Rowlands (underwater photographer), Neil Hope (Deputy Picture Editor, Western Morning News), Paul Naylor (underwater photographer) and a member of staff from Plymouth College of Art and Design.
“The entries will be displayed at Wembury Marine Centre from Saturday 9 August to Sunday 17 August. Prizes will be awarded at an evening event at the Centre in August.
“For more information about the competition and the prizes on offer, visit the competition website or call 01752 862538.”
Pic, a sunset coral, by Keith Hiscock.
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On Saturday Plymouth Arts Centre should get its free bus pass, it celebrates its 60th anniversary afterall. And how to enjoy such a pensionable landmark?
There will be an exhibition of ‘fragments of Plymouth’s past and present through archive material, film footage, radio broadcasts and stories’.
‘In its early years there were exhibitions by Gwen John, Ivor Kenny and Ted Williams, as well as famously offering Beryl Cook her first exhibition,’ says the press release, but Patrick Heron, Peter Blake and Paula Rego were well on their way to international acclaim by the time of their shows in the ’80s and ’90s.
The exhibition will also include a new commission, Reciting the City, by Mike Lawson-Smith – ‘a two-screen video installation that sets the stage for a latent dialogue between Plymouth’s citizens, prompted by film footage extracted from the South West Film and Television Archive’.
Also on show will be Jeremy Deller’s wall drawing The History of the World 1997-2004. An intricate mind map which traces the links between the Acid House scene of the late ‘80s and the traditional brass band.
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He is the Music Man, and he comes from down your way… and he’s been daubing Dartington with what we all think but wouldn’t dream of saying – lest we offend those who could offer us a gig in the illustrious, former grassroots arts establishment.
The Biker Boy (or Cyclist Citizen depending on your view), who goes by the moniker of ‘the Music Man’, has been painting the slogan: “Vapid art from talent free bureaucrats from the vacuous elite,” on the new signage that’s been popping up around the estate.
So popular has the graffiti become that the next management focus group is looking into adopting it as part of the corporate identity for the Dartington Plus brand – the rationale being that it cuts through the confusion over what their core values are.
Alas, we jest - but only about the last bit.
We’re keen to hear from the Music Man - phone call or comment would do. And we’d like to hear what inspires him, and what the rest of you guys think about Dartington. Email info@peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk or fill in the comment box below.
Friends, republicans, countrymen… lend me yer eyeballs. Phig Billy here, the PRSD’s resident gonzo cartoonist, eager to report back on his very first all-day comic book workshop last weekend. The event was supported/enabled by the Farringdon Society of Arts and took place at the village hall in Farringdon on Saturday June 21.
I was blown away by how fantastic the kids were… 10 students in all from as far afield as Newton Abbot, and they were all incredibly polite, enthusiastic, smart, and keen to try out the techniques I was trying to impart. And then at the end, FSA chair Janet Sawyer arrived with two very special guests: Nick Pegg and Barnaby Edwards, who (among other things) sit inside and drive daleks on Doctor Who. Obviously, they sent the kids nuts!
I am keen to expand on this foundation a develop a series of workshop for kids and adults of all ages. I have also been taking my workshops into schools in the Exeter area. I’m not a complete joker: I took my Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the University of Bristol last year, and I’ve taught at both private and comprehensive primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, as well as schools in Japan.
For more information, you can contact me on phigbilly@gmail.com or check out the Phig Billy website.
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A five-part BBC2 series on Russia, with Jonathan Dimbleby as the presenter and the author of a meaty tie-in is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. In Russia, A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People, the authors travels thousands of miles from Murmansk to Vladivostok, immerses himself in modern Russian culture and encounters many different characters along the way.
Russia, Jonathan Dimbleby, BBC, £25
• The Torbay Bookshop is one of the leading independent booksellers - visit it online.
Rudolf Laban is to dance what William Morris is to upholstery. And as part of its 70-year celebration of his shimmy across Dartington’s doorstep (and 50th anniversary of his death) the place is offering a limited number of bursaries to local people on its four-day Laban dance programme.
Apparently, “in keeping with Laban’s core principle that dance is for absolutely everyone, the course is suitable for people of all ages and abilities, including those with restricted movement. Non-residential places – which include entry, participation, refreshments and lunch – cost £200 for the five-days. Dartington is also able to offer a number of limited bursaries to local people, priced £70.”
But what of this Laban fellow? The Austro-Hungarian fled Nazi Germany in 1936, after a run in with the Government Propaganda Ministry and found himself popping along to Dartington in 1938. According to the Laban site, he then ‘worked in industry, introducing work study methods to increase production through humane means’. And in his latter years he ‘concentrated on movement as behaviour, studying the behavioural needs of industrial workers and psychiatric patients’.
The Dartingon programme, Laban: Then & Now, includes a participatory programme of workshops, lectures and debate, performance, exhibition and film, the course will run from Sunday July 6 to Thursday July 10 and has both residential and non-residential places available.
The blurb says: “Each morning and evening participatory activities take place, including movement classes, lecture demonstrations, evening performances and film screenings. Participants can choose to take part in either symposium events – including talks on Laban’s work and his time at Dartington – or creative dance workshops led by expert choreographers and leaders in dance, including Regina Miranda and Rosemary Lee.
You can find out more on the Dartington Laban site, or by by contacting Lara Lloyd on 01803 847078 or l.lloyd@dartington.org
And for more on Laban’s life and his legacy of dance visit the Laban site.
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News has reached us, with a following wind, that our comrades up north, North Devon that is, have an incredibly thriving arts scene, thank you very much. ‘What about our Art Trek? Came the collective creative cry from the North Shore.
The Art Trek is part of the North Devon Festival and featured around 60 artists in 41 venues above the A30. And if you’re looking to head up in the world, there are still parts of the art trek still going. The art trek exhibition runs until July 5, in the Gallery Cafe of the Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple. And the North Devon Hospice Artist Workshops Exhibition, at the Barnstaple library is on until June 28 (that’s Saturday).
Stay tooned for more news from the north, (on occasion), the world doesn’t stop at the 51st parallel, you know.
Picture of the North Devon Art Trek at Beggars Roost by Dave Green.
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Greetings people’s republicans. Phig Billy hereby apologises for the delay writing this up, but I had an extremely eventful weekend including the rip-roaring success of my first all-day comic book workshop. (You know, for kids.) More on that later, but first…
On Friday I was invited to attend the launch night of the first xNorthcult exhibition “The Unknown” in the newly revamped lobby and bar of the Northcott Theatre. Due no doubt to the incomprehensible presence of a small letter “x” in the event’s title, I was expecting some kind of snobbish, super contemporary display of inaccessible installations. Instead, I was confronted with an intriguing range of often surprisingly edgy and genuinely compelling works by a variety of local artists. (My attorney now informs me that the x stands for Exeter and is a Northcott-wide branding thing… apologies Northcult.)
The theme for this event, “The Unknown” didn’t really ring true to be honest, but that’s not important. But yeah, some of the works were surprisingly edgy! I found Rob Portus of Blue Tungsten Photography’s pictures to be bleak but witty and thought-provoking, especially his images of old tyres and electrical appliances falling out of the sky. Rob deserves extra kudos for co-organising the event.
Lawson E. Rudge’s paintings present a series of surreal and spine-tingling images, painted with an incredible vibrancy and energy which belie his 72 years. He displays a healthy obsession with stiletto heels and spooky cyclops-hares, and also spooky cylcops-hares wearing stiletto heels…
I had great fun chatting about mythology and the uses of roadkill with Shane Hahn, one third of the Dartmoor-based artists’ collective Darcane Arts, whose twisted sculptures were terrifying but exquisitely detailed and beautifully made.
Less visceral but equally intriguing were the massive abstract paintings of Lee Godfrey, and the dream-like compositions of Adam Bunce. Musical accompaniment was provided by guitar-maker and musician Andy Manson and his three-piece band. Andy played for us his mermaid guitar [see pic], the craftsmanship of which is simply breath-taking.
The event was organised jointly by Laura Robinson, another third of Darcane Arts and wearer on the night of a most spectacular dress, and Rob Portus, mentioned above, whose photos were included in the exhibition. Rob was also responsible for designing how the artworks were displayed and this was massively successful, particularly upstairs. I did feel that downstairs became a bit of a dead area and I’m sure the artworks down there were consequently neglected, but this is a very minor quibble. I bumped into my former Latin master (wot, me posh?) who really put his finger on it when he said that the installation of the artworks looked so good that it seemed crazy the Northcott had never done anything like this before.
And why hasn’t the Northcott done anything like this before? From chatting to various people, I got the impression that a criticism levelled at the theatre and a reason given for why funding was almost cut [until it won its reprieve earlier in the year] is that traditionally activities at the Northcott have not appealed to people of sufficiently diverse ages. It was specifically to redress this criticism, Laura told me, that the Northcult was conceived. This is reflected in the choice of artists and peripheral Northcult events: in addition to the hob-nobbing launch night on Friday (there were city officials with impressive sparkly medallions), the following day the theatre was hosting children’s workshops during the day and some new-fangled young people’s music (including Laura’s own band) in the evening.
Certainly there’s nothing like staring into the jaws of oblivion for giving you a new perspective on life. Funding crisis well and truly behind it, armed with a new chief executive, refurbished interior, and a gang of exciting new collaborators dubbed the Northcult, the Northcott is clearly aspiring to new heights. Certainly I found the launch party last Friday to be a success and I would whole-heartedly encourage people to drop in and support this free exhibition which is on until the August 29.
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Mounting the Scaffold - The Weaver Twins. Directed by Darren Jones
As Mounting the Scaffold, the lastest Weaver Twins music video, is hot off the press and still a little moist, those film fanatics over at D+CFilm decided to get in touch with the pop video power house that is Monkey Zombie – that’s Mr Monkey Zombie to you (or Darren Jones) to find out what’s what in him movie-making mind.
Frances Osbourne’s great grandmother, Idina Sackville, is the subject of The Bolter, and is the story of her scandalous life in the 1920s. Part of high society at the time, and the inspiration for Nancy Mitford’s character also known as The Bolter, she gained a truly terrible reputation after running off to Africa, living it up amongst the Happy Valley Set, and marrying and divorcing a total of five times. Using family letters and diaries, it is an entertaining and fascinating read. The Bolter, Frances Osborne, Little Brown, £18.99
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Welcome to the People's Republic of South Devon. Your subscription will begin with the next newsletter. Keep up to date by visiting the blog regularly and make sure your voice is heard. Many thanks, The People's Republic of South Devon.
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Welcome to the People's Republic of South Devon. Your subscription will begin with the next newsletter. Keep up to date by visiting the blog regularly and make sure your voice is heard. Many thanks, The People's Republic of South Devon.
Accessibility Options
To adjust the text size of this site please click the icons below.
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