Neurocomic

Neurocomic by Neuroscientists Dr Matteo Farinella & Dr Hana Ros is published by Nobrow Press.

This book does operate as both a graphic novel and an educational tool... and is an interesting way to convey otherwise scientifically specific and technical information. It did, however, feel like an overly self-conscious effort to 'educate' the reader - a bit insistent. Perhaps more suited to a mode like the 'Introducing' books - that series of heavily illustrated guides to all kinds of philosophical and scientific areas and ideas published by Totem books. But perhaps I just prefer a good story in graphic novels...!

Kara Walker at Camden Arts Centre

Kara Walker at Camden Arts Centre (ended Jan 5th 2014)

Kara Walker’s characters are drawn from American popular literature, culture and history, and she uses them to expose the myths that lie beneath cultural archetypes and the darker aspects of human behaviour. Best known for her cut out installations, her drawings (pictured above) reminded me of drawings from the mid 1990's by artists such as Alice Maher,  Nicola Tyson and Nicole Eisenman.

The video installation of her shadow puppet play 'Fall Frum Grace- Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale' combined the sentiment and mode of storytelling often associated in the West with childhood, and subverted this with a brutal narrative of discrimination and violence.

Picture This: Children's Illustrated Classics

Picture This: Children's Illustrated Classics on until 26 January, The British Library

 This exhibition of 20th century illustrators includes original artwork & rare editions of characters that have become embedded in our collective psyche: including Peter Pan, The Hobbit & Willy Wonka. These beautiful photographic illustrations/dioramas (above) are by Paul Henning - a new discovery for me. They embody a very period  depiction of an anthropomorphised natural world.

A Story of Childhood and Film - Mark Cousins

 Film above: Ten Minutes Older - Herz Frank 
(the section between 1 min 30 secs and 3 mins is almost unbearable)

Mark Cousin's 'A Story of Childhood and Film' mapped out a kind of film 'essay', using personal footage of his nephew and niece as a way into his own favourite scenes of children in the movies. He draws from classics such as Kes, ET, Fanny and Alexander, Great Expectations and Meet Me in St Louis; but also from more unusual works – the 1974 Albanian film The Newest City in the World, for example; or the 1922 film Finlandia by Erkki Karu.

A key work for Cousins was Ten Minutes Older, Herz Frank's deceptively simple 10-minute film from Latvia in which an extraordinary range of emotions play over a boy's face...incredible.

Little Otik

Jan Svankmajer's tale of 'Little Otik' or The Wooden Boy features a childless couple raising a tree stump as a substitute child. Based on a Czech fairy tale, this dark film presents a nightmarish vision of desire.
Part of CineCity Film Festival currently on in Brighton. Screening all of Svankmajer's films - features & shorts. http://www.cine-city.co.uk/cinecity-11th-brighton-film-festival/

Flickr views of Self Made Worlds

Take a virtual tour of the show 'Self Made Worlds':

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wimbledonspace/sets/72157637664329773/

Self Made Worlds, London

Some installation views of the exhibition I've curated for Wimbledon Space, London...
‘Self Made Worlds’ comprises depictions of tableaux, artificial environments and alternative realities, constructed either as sculpture and models, or as subjects for photography, painting and animated film. 
Visitors: "Intricate, highly delicate and very otherworldly";"A really, really beautiful show"; "There's such a lot of wonderful works here, together in one exhibition".

The exhibition includes works that capture and convey states of mind and transform the everyday - Kate Belton, Kim L Pace, Sarah Woodfine, Louise Bristow, Corin Hardy, Nicholas Pace, Russell Webb, Peter McKintosh, Richard Hudson, Christopher Stevens, Barnaby Barford, Cathie Pilkington.