Following on from my recent article about the UCE -> BCU rebrand, an enterprising chap named Ronald Iguana (did a Deed Poll come into that?) has gone and compiled a logography of my university’s various logos since its inception in 1971. Worth a look!
Archive for October, 2007Hear ye, hear ye, I am thereby claiming ownership of this fair blog! Via this link: This will be deleted soon as it’s done, so don’t bother blogging about it.
07
10
2007
 
Lost And Found at the FXB, a retrospectivePosted by Christopher in Behind Brum, Events, Oddities, Uncategorized, Upyerbrum
I’ve been lazy recently – must update more! I’ve been sitting on this stuff for a while now, and I thought it’d be time to blog about this (especially considering I told them I would!) If you were watching the local events calendar recently, you might have noticed that the 2007 Birmingham Festival of Xtreme Building (now finished, sadly) had an events space where guest shows could come and exhibit. I was just walking past, walking down to take some photos of the area around the TIC in Millennium Point for a future blog, when I noticed this exhibition going on, so I dropped by - admission was free. I was amazed to find what I did; a cornucopia of little mysteries (and one copy of Great Mysteries), all with their own stories to tell. The exhibition was entitled “Belongings”, an exhibition (and indirect celebration) of all things Lost and Found.
Put on by two UCE graduates, Natalie Wilson and Katharine Kavanagh (under the moniker of Kipipeo Arts), the exhibition’s sole purpose was to bring to the surface all those things people discard or lose, and give you a little food for thought, to take a minute to just wonder the situations and circumstances that resulted in the items being where they were. All of the items were tagged with the date of, and where, they were found (or discovered), plus any backstory if there was any. The majority of items were completely anonymous, which lent them a definite air of curiosity (and I like curious mysteries!) When I asked Katharine about where they’d collected their items, she explained to me how she’s a bit of a hoarder (like me!) and that she and Nat had either found items at random or gone to public places (libraries, railway stations, the main Birmingham bus terminuses, etc) and just used their eyes. They had a trunk with some ‘Restricted Items’ in (things that might be dangerous for little kiddies to get their mitts on -good idea) but they also had some rather curious finds like a woman’s handbag (left in Birmingham Central Library about 3 years ago) which had not just her purse in, but her cards, her passport (!), her various forms of identification, a Visa (which had expired a while back) and some letters from what I guessed were her sponsors. You can see the handbag, and the trunk, in the photo of Kat to the right. I totally clicked with Kat’s mindset – I’m a serial hoarder too, I love collecting things and never throwing anything away, because you never quite know when that oddly-shaped screw or collection of elastic bands might just come in handy. This festival was as much a celebration of not throwing anything away as it was discovering items which would otherwise remain locked away in windowless back rooms in public buildings (only to see the light of day when they were either discarded into a bin or tossed away into a dump). To recycle all these curios in the way they did meant a lot of legwork and effort on their behalf (they apparently spent many months collecting before the exhibition began), but it was most definitely worth it. For the identifiable items (like the handbag with the passport in), Kat said that they were going to do their best to return those items to their original owner, which was a nice touch. There were some items I would’ve loved to take away for myself (and she said that if I wanted to take something I was more than welcome). I wanted all the 78s! However Kat professed to have claimed them herself because the 78 player was hers Here’s the best (imho) photos I took (there’s more available, including shots of the most important pages from their explanatory Portfolio) on my Flickr page): Photo details:
All in all? A very worthwhile afternoon, even if it was a bit overcast. Can’t blame them for the weather, it didn’t rain though. The event was on all weekend, but I never even knew about it until I walked past on the Sunday (I left just after the exhibition closed). I had a great time, and it was an enjoyable morsel of brain food. So, the moral of all this? Always be prepared to deviate from your original plan when out in a city, and keep your eyes peeled because you never know what you might stumble upon and have a great time exploring.
03
10
2007
The new UCE name? …never mindPosted by Christopher in Creative Industries, General News, Major News, Oddities, UncategorizedYou may have traveled to this corner of the Web expecting to see my scribblings about the new UCE logo and how I was concurring with what many other people had already roundly described as a big waste of money and a poorly-implemented rebranding. You’ve just got the short version, but if you’re looking for the long version – sorry, you’ll be disappointed – I was strongly advised to remove this from my site (more on this later). So, this post has automagically gone into hiding for the time being, as some people in high places feel it may be sufficient cause for me to receive an official telling off or maybe even removal from my course. I’m opinionated, but I’m not an idiot, so this post will most likely stay in hiding until UCE have stamped my degree. (And you can count on the fact that I’m quite surprised about this happening now of all times, and I won’t be letting this lie when I have a proper chance to sit back and consider all of this and argue properly in my defence, but now is not the time.) |
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