Ashton Court

Just a perfect Sunday.
Green spaces, blue skies, winter going on spring, lovely smiley people and some much for later.

A few shots of Ashton Court Mansion and Gardens, Bristol.

X - Still Here - Lazarides Gallery: Ten Years of Exceptional Out-of-the-Box Art

Just another day in London...

But what a great day!

Many memories at many street corners... and many discoveries.

Hightlight:

The 'Still Here - A Decade of Lazarides' exhibition in Central London at the Lazarides Gallery.

3D, JR and Banksy's artworks wrong talented others. 

JR:

3D:

And more:

Banksy's corner:

Recent graffiti:

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Details:

Exhibition
Group Show: Still Here, A Decade Of Lazarides

Lazarides Rathbone

Friday 12th of February 2016 to Thursday 24th of March 2016

Featuring 3D, Aiko, Anthony Lister, Antony Micallef, Banksy, Brett Amory, Chloe Early, David Choe, Doug Foster, Faile, Frank Laws, Gary Taxali, Herbert Baglione, Hush, Ian Francis, Invader, Joe Rush, Jonathan Yeo, JR, Karim Zeriahen, Katrin Fridriks, Know Hope / Addam Y, Lucy McLauchlan, Marcus Jansen, Mark Jenkins, Miaz Brothers, Mode 2, Nina Pandolfo, Oliver Jeffers, Pete Hawkins, Ron English, Sage Vaughn, Scott Campbell, Sickboy, Stanley Donwood, TEACH, Todd James / REAS, Vhils, Xenz, Zevs

In February 2016, Lazarides will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a group exhibition from the gallery's most celebrated and pioneering artists. For the landmark exhibition, the gallery has invited back those artists who have helped shape the gallery to take over their flagship space in the heart of London's Fitzrovia.

Visitors to the gallery will be invited to view unique originals across the three floors of at Lazarides Rathbone by over 30 artists significant to the gallery's legacy: 3D, Aiko, Anthony Lister, Antony Micallef, Banksy, Brett Amory, Chloe Early, David Choe, Doug Foster, FAILE, Frank Laws, Gary Taxali, Herbert Baglione, Hush, Ian Francis, Invader, Joe Rush, Jonathan Yeo, JR, Karim Zeriahen, Katrin Fridriks, Know Hope, Lucy McLauchlan, Marcus Jansen, Mark Jenkins, Miaz Brothers, Mode 2, Nina Pandolfo, Oliver Jeffers, Pete Hawkins, Ron English, Sage Vaughn, Scott Campbell, Sickboy, Stanley Donwood, TEACH, Todd James, Vhils, Xenz and Zevs. These varied artists have formed the backbone of Lazarides' mission, each challenging the norm of what is acceptable within the art world, simultaneously providing art that is free and accessible to an international public without discrimination.

Over the last decade, Lazarides has assumed a pivotal role promoting those artists thriving outside the conventional contemporary art market. Since Steve Lazarides' conception of Lazarides in 2006, the gallery has spanned international territories and undergone myriad transformations that echo its artists' constantly evolving and progressing practice.

Since the inception of the gallery's current space on Rathbone Place, Lazarides has hosted numerous, diverse exhibitions, including JR's Crossing (2015) featuring his latest film ELLIS, and 3D's Fire Sale (2013), a retrospective of imagery paying homage to Massive Attack's visual history. Lazarides continues to be a forerunner in revolutionary off-site projects and immersive art experiences – from Los Angeles to New York, Frankfurt, Moscow and Istanbul – as well as taking part in art fairs and collaborating with museums, partner galleries, art fairs and private collection around the globe.

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Read also here:

Steve Lazarides on His S|2 Show and the Rise of Street Art

http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-blogs/contemporary/2016/03/steve-lazarides-they-would-be-kings-exhibition-street-art.html?cmp=social_hk0686_twitter_s2_kings_30916-32616

Street art, says Steve Lazarides, is “not just about backpacks and spray cans anymore. It’s something bigger.” And he would know. The pioneering London-based dealer first encountered street art growing up in the UK during the 1980s and went on to launch the careers of numerous boldface names, including Invader, JR and, perhaps most famously, Banksy. Now, Lazarides has curated They Would Be Kings, a selling exhibition at Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery that highlights the work of early street artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as contemporary masters like KAWS, Vhils and Os Gemeos. Ahead of the show’s opening on 17 March, we spoke with Lazarides about the rise of street art, his role as a dealer and what he’s looking for in the next wave of artists.

John Akomfrah's 'Tropikos' still at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol

Part of:

JOHN AKOMFRAH: VERTIGO SEA

Saturday 16 January 2016 to Sunday 10 April 2016, 11:00 to 18:00

Free

Details on 'Tropikos':


As part of the exhibition, a new work Tropikos (2016) will also be shown. Set in the sixteenth century and using the writings and memoirs of a number of seafarers as its raw material, this single channel film is a Brechtian costume drama which merges Shakespeare's The Tempest with true accounts of the journeys to and dreams of the 'New World'. Exploring the point in history when Britain’s economic exploitation of Africa began, this work focuses on the waterways of the South West and their relationship to the slave trade, referencing larger themes of colonialism, maritime power and loss.

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On 'Vertigo Sea':

Vertigo Sea, a three-screen film, first seen at the 56th Venice Biennale as part of Okwui Enwezor’s All the World’s Futures exhibition, is a sensual, poetic and cohesive meditation on man's relationship with the sea and exploration of its role in the history of slavery, migration, and conflict. Fusing archival material, readings from classical sources, and newly shot footage, the work explicitly highlights the greed, horror and cruelty of the whaling industry. This material is then juxtaposed with shots of African migrants crossing the ocean in a journey fraught with danger in hopes of ‘better life’ and thus delivering a timely and potent reminder of the current issues around global migration, the refugee crisis, slavery, alongside ecological concerns.

Shot on the Isle of Skye, the Faroe Islands and the Northern regions of Norway, with the BBC’s Bristol based Natural History Unit, Vertigo Sea draws upon two remarkable books: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) and Heathcote Williams’ epic poem Whale Nation (1988), a harrowing and inspiring work which charts the history, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth.

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Shown together, these two lyrical and melancholic films propose a ‘voyage of discovery’, a meditation on water and the unconscious, referring specifically to the passage of migration into the UK. Placed in the context of Bristol, the films connect to this city’s complicated maritime history and its position as port – a point at both the start and end of epic journeys in the past and the present.

Vertigo Sea is presented in Bristol with support awarded to Arnolfini through Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Fund. During 2016 and 2017 Arnolfini will lead a national tour of the work to venues across the UK including Turner Contemporary, Margate and The Whitworth, Manchester.

Tropikos is a 70th Anniversary Commission for the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre London, with the River Tamar Project and Smoking Dogs Films.

Download the Vertigo Sea exhibition guide here.

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John Akomfrah is an artist and filmmaker whose works are characterised by their investigations into personal and collective histories and memory, cultural, ethnic and personal identity, post-colonialism and temporality.  Importantly, his focus is most often on giving voice to the experience of the African diaspora in Europe and the USA.

A founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, his work has been shown in museums and exhibitions around the world including the Liverpool Biennial; Documenta 11, Centre Pompidou, the Serpentine Gallery; Tate; and Southbank Centre, and MoMA, New York. A major retrospective of Akomfrah’s gallery-based work with the Black Audio Film Collective premiered at FACT, Liverpool and Arnolfini, Bristol in 2007. His films have been included in international film festivals such as Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, amongst others. He has recently been shortlisted for the Artes Mundi 7 prize.

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This poem, among other texts, inspired John Akomfrah for the films: 

'Paradise Lost' - extract:

Ah! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh
Your change approaches, when all these delights
Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe—
More woe, the more your taste is now of joy:
Happy, but for so happy ill secured	370
Long to continue, and this high seat, your Heaven,
Ill fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe
As now is entered; yet no purposed foe
To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,
Though I unpitied. League with you I seek,	375
And mutual amity, so strait, so close,
That I with you must dwell, or you with me,
Henceforth. My dwelling, haply, may not please,
Like this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such
Accept your Marker’s work; he gave it me,	380
Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold,
To entertain you two, her widest gates,
And send forth all her kings; there will be room,
Not like these narrow limits, to receive
Your numerous offspring; if no better place,	385
Thank him who puts me, loath, to this revenge
On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged.

Protest in Lesbos

Tuesday March the 8th, the charity and volunteer group

Better Days for Moria will organise a peaceful protest in the Moria camp, in the island of Lesbos, at 3pm, in response to Europe's decision to close the borders for refugees and asylum seekers in the Balkans.

Journalists are very welcome to join and document the march, as well as to interview volunteers and refugees to get their opinions on the situation. 

They are expecting over 1,000 people to attend.

They want to send the message to the world that they do not agree with this European policy and that the refugees are human beings asking for help who should not be pushed aside and ignored.

If you, your colleagues or anyone else you know will be in Lesvos tomorrow, you're welcome to come by:

https://www.facebook.com/events/532541746926053/

Contact:

Ayesha Keller

Better Days for Moria

www.betterdaysformoria.com

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More on Moria:

WELCOME TO MORIA

Moria is a transit camp and registration point for refugees arriving on the island of Lesvos from Turkey. Better Days for Moria is a group of individuals who have come from far and wide to improve the humanitarian situation in the camp. We have set up our own services right next to the official registration camp: a place to make people feel welcome and to give out aid such as dry clothes, food and hot tea. 

We are one of the many grassroots operation groups working in Lesvos where everyone takes the reigns collaboratively. Our progress has been impressive and inspiring - we have come so far since the disastrous situation in October! The common goal among the volunteers is to bring a sense of humanity and care to the difficult journey these people are experiencing. We are always looking for more good souls to join our team. 

You just need to bring some kindness, some love and a hard working attitude with you!

Violence in Calais must stop

PRESS RELEASE - 07 March 2016 - Help Refugee


73% of refugees in Calais have suffered police violence in France



New first-hand field research shows that almost 75% of respondents have experienced first-hand police violence during their time in Calais, including instances of sexual violence. And nearly half have experienced violence by citizens – largely from far-right groups.

The research was carried out by the Refugee Rights Data Project in partnership with Help Refugees, surveying more than 800 people residing in the informal camp in Calais. This makes it the largest independent data collection project to be carried out in Calais to date.

Preliminary results of the study cover 10% of the camp’s population – 86% of these respondents were adults, and 14% children aged under 18.

The results reveal that 74.1% of respondents have experienced health problems during their time in the camp – most due to its ‘unhealthy environment’.

In light of recent media reports citing self-harm and hunger strikes by refugees facing eviction, our study found that 2-3% of respondents cited suicide as an option if they are never allowed to have their asylum claims submitted in Britain and/or if their temporary homes are destroyed.

Having fled some of the most conflict-ridden areas of the world, 86.1% responded that they cannot go back to their country of origin for fear or war, persecution or death.

Please find more preliminary results below. The rest of our data is currently being processed, and a final report collating all 800+ responses will be released shortly.

Marta Welander – Founder, Refugee Rights Data Project – said:

"This data demonstrates that the French and British authorities have so far failed to treat people residing in the Calais camp with dignity and respect. We welcome François Hollande’s recent demand that refugees are treated with dignity and that unaccompanied minors are reunited with family in the UK ‘quickly and in an efficient fashion’. We look forward to seeing him take practical steps to uphold the human rights of vulnerable people at this critical moment in history.”

Lliana Bird & Josephine Naughton – Founders, Help Refugees – added:

"Violence against vulnerable people is wholly unacceptable, and we are grateful to the Refugee Rights Data Project for shining a much needed light on this issue. We remain deeply concerned for the physical and mental wellbeing of the refugees in Calais, in particular the 423 unaccompanied children, and believe that the French and British governments’ continued failure to provide residents with any clear information regarding their rights and options only serves to add to their trauma.”

POLICE VIOLENCE

 73% of respondents have experienced police violence

- 16.7% reported verbal abuse, 41.1% being exposed to tear gas, 28.3% physical violence, and 1% sexual violence

 57% have experienced tear gas ‘every day’ or ‘many times a week’. 17.4% have experienced tear gas ‘once a week’

 69.4% expressed that police treatment of refugees is ‘very bad’ or ‘bad’


NON-POLICE VIOLENCE

 45.4% of respondents have experienced violence by citizens (non-police such as far-right groups)

- 28.9% reported verbal abuse, 27.1% physical violence, and 1.4% sexual violence


HEALTH

 74.1% of respondents have experienced health problems in the camp

 62.9% reported knowledge of at least one refugee death in the camp

- 12.6% responded that the death was due to police violence, 12.4% due to citizen violence, and 5.9% due to health problems in the camp

 2-3% of respondents cited suicide throughout the survey, for instance if they are never allowed to have their asylum claims submitted in Britain or if their homes are destroyed

FUTURE PLANS AND ASPIRATIONS

 82.3% intend to stay in Calais/Dunkirk or ‘don’t know’ what they will do if the camp is demolished

 92.6% of respondents wish to go to the UK

 35.2% have friends and/or family in the UK (including parents and children)

 23.8% would like to live in the UK for language reasons

 86.1% responded that they can’t go back to their country of origin, while 6.4% don’t know if they can go back

 69.7% said they have no access to information about European immigration rules and asylum laws

 74.1% have no information about their rights or opportunities to change their situation


ABOUT THE REFUGEE RIGHTS PROJECT

The Refugee Rights Data Project is a non-profit project established in late 2015. We aim to fill the data gaps relating to refugees and displaced people in Europe by conducting our own independent field research.

Our project is entirely run by volunteers, who have expertise spanning a broad range of sectors. We are independent of any political ideology or religion, and united by our commitment to defend the rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable groups of people.


ABOUT HELP REFUGEES

Help Refugees are a humanitarian organisation and the primary givers of aid in Calais & Dunkirk where they have been active since September 2015. To date Help Refugees has sent over £500,000 worth of aid to Calais, coordinated the building of over 1,000 shelters and run the main distribution warehouse. Help Refugees is also active across Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Athens and Idomeni.

Visit: www.helprefugees.org.uk.

Help Refugees is a charitable fund under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund Charity

Number: 1099682


CONTACT DETAILS

For enquiries, please contact:

Natalie Stanton

Co-coordinator and Media Relations Manager - Refugee Rights Data Project

T: 07817 380 897

E: info@refugeerights.org.uk

Paris: March for refugees rights - Gare Du Nord to Republique

Paris, 10e arrt, 18h, plusieurs centaines de personnes.

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Calais brûle : Liberté pour les migrants !

Manifestation ce vendredi 4 mars à 18H00 à partir de la Gare du Nord.


Ce lundi la police a commencé à détruire le camp de Calais. Nous, réfugiés à Paris, disons qu’il faut laisser les réfugiés décider par eux-mêmes et leur apporter des solutions.

Nous voulons que le gouvernement laisse les réfugiés à Calais, s’ils le veulent, aller en Angleterre. Si les réfugiés veulent rester à Paris pour obtenir l’asile ils devraient avoir leurs droits, ces choses qu’on nous a promises, un logement, des papiers et l’éducation.

Nous, réfugiés, sommes tous ensemble. Les réfugiés qui veulent aller en Angleterre et ceux ici.

Nous sommes désolés, nous n’aimons pas dire cela mais nous dormons dans les rues. Nous ne reculerons jamais sur nos droits.

Nous voulons être traités comme des êtres humains. Nous nous sentons mal parce que nous vivons dans les rues et les parcs. Nous sommes des êtres humains. Est-ce que quelqu’un peut le dire au gouvernement ?

Nous allons faire des manifestations pacifiques sur la situation des réfugiés à Calais.
Nous appelons tout le monde à venir avec nous pour soutenir les réfugiés à Calais et à Paris.

Manifestation ce vendredi 4 mars à 18H00 à partir de la Gare du Nord.




ENGLISH VERSION

Calais is burning : Freedom for migrants !

This monday, the police began to destroy the camp of Calais. We,
refugees in Paris, say that you should let the refugees to decide by
themselves and give them some solutions.

We want the government to let the refugees in Calais, if they want, to go to UK. If they want to stay in Paris to make asylum, they should have their rights, the things that were promised to us, houses, papers and education.

We, refugees, are all together. The refugees that want to go to Britain and the ones, here. We are sorry, we don’t like to tell it but we are sleeping in the streets. We will never move back from our rights.

We want to be treated like human beings. We are feeling badly because we are living in the sreets and parks. We are human beings. Can someone say it to the government ?

We are going to do peaceful protests about the situation of refugees in Calais.

We call everybody to come with us and support the migrants, in Calais and Paris :

Demonstrate on Friday 4 March from Gare du Nord at 18.00.

No Borders

Not much to add...

M.I.A. - Borders

'Borders'

Freedom
I don't need ‘em
Where's your rhythm?
This world needs a brand new rhythm
We done the key
We done them key them to lie
Let’s beat ‘em
We them smartphones done beat ‘em

Borders
What's up with that?
Politics
What's up with that?
Police shots
What's up with that?
Identities
What's up with that?
Your privilege
What's up with that?
Broke people
What's up with that?
Boat people
What's up with that?
The realness
What's up with that?
The new world
What's up with that?
I'm gonna keep up on all that

Guns blow doors to the system
Yeah f*ck 'em when we say we're not with them
We're solid and we don't need to kick them
This is North, South, East and Western

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MIA's Borders: artist braves boats and barbed wire in video crusade for refugees

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/27/mia-borders-video-refugee-crisis-europe

Rap artist releases self-directed video for new track Borders that follows refugees on hazardous journey to Europe, as lyrics chastise governments’ failure to act

Most artists would be incapable of approaching a subject as serious as the refugee crisis in song. Not MIA, however, whose new album is on course to politicise pop once again. “The world I talked about 10 years ago is still the same,” she recently posted on Twitter. “That’s why it’s hard for me to say it again on a new LP.” 

Today, the British artist of Sri Lankan descent premiered Borders, a track that proves she remains unique in her ability to implement ideas about pop culture and important global topics. With it comes a self-directed video, which makes a compelling statement on the continuing migration crisis, chastising the response of European politicians and lamenting the arrival of border fences to keep out migrants. The video mimics the hazardous journeys faced by migrants, showing a flotilla of boats laden with refugees. Other scenes show individuals scaling massive fences topped with barbed wire, a reference to the series of securitised border fences erected by number of countries to keep out refugees.

The track, which sonically fuses eastern and western styles, questions the fabric of modern society – politics, identities, privilege, “being bae”, “breaking the internet” and smartphones – before reducing the world down to its essentials: your values, your beliefs, your families, your power.

Borders is the first track we’ve heard from new album Matahdatah since Swordsback in July. According to a statement from her label, both songs and videos are part of “a truly global and characteristically DIY MIA project. The two pieces will ultimately come together in a larger body of work that explores the concept of Borders, an element of which will be a full-length album and film experience entitled Matahdatah.”

Her fifth record will be released on Interscope Records. Until then, you can watch the video below.

For England, for Motherlands

Just thinking about the links between these two beloved songs... Eight years apart.
They speak about England but it could be about any homeland, really...

I remember listening to the first one massively when I was living in Prague, in 2003, and to the second when in Nairobi, in 2011. 

But I could apply the same words to Paris... 

Sinéad is so powerful in her writing.
And PJ is such a poet.

"A Prayer For England"

In the name of 
And by the power of 
The holy spirit 
May we invoke your 
Intercession for 
The children of england 
Some of whom have seen 
Murder so obscene
Some of whom have been taken 

Let not another child be slain 
Let not another search be made in vain 

Jah forgive us 
For forgetting 
Jah help us 
We need more loving 
See the teachers
Are representing you 
So badly
That not many can see you

Let not another child be slain 
Let not another search be made in vain 

Jah calls the ones who's 
Beliefs kill children to 
Feel the love of you and be healed 
And may we all cry too 
For representing you 
So badly so badly 

Jah forgive us 
For forgetting 
Oh Jah help us 
To be forgiving
The teachers are representing you 
So badly that not many can see you

Let not another search be made in vain 
Let not another child be slain

"England"

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness
Remedies never were within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
Withered vine reaching from the country
That I love
England
You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you, England, I cling
Undaunted, never failing love for you
England