London's hidden stages: Wilton's Music Hall

Wilton's is the oldest Grand Music Hall in the World. Opened in 1958, after being a warehouse and survived to 2 world wars, it's now running by few fellows and it produces artistic & cultural events of any kinds.( cinema club, ping pong tournament, comedy, magic show, gigs).

I went to see a movie (BIG, 1988) and 3 littles performances (contortionist, magic, humour).

Was part of the London Comedy Film Festival and we all receive Love Da Popcorn. :)

Its soo crummy and cute. The atmosphere is friendly and local and there is a little bar & restaurant inside. Go there! (at the same time you will encourage the building's restoration)

See the website here: www.wiltons.org.uk

Hamster Town

Hamster Town is a little play part of the Camden Fringe about a lonely divorced dad who develop a strange relationship with his hamster, truly missing his daughter and wife.

While Alan Hindle describe it as "both funny and little creepy", the play made me cry! Maybe it's because I suddenly understand why my dad became so close to our hamster, when my twin and me settled down to our mother's flat.

Maybe dad linked that hamster to us in his mind...in either ways, the moment when the little creature collapsed was a painful time in the family and probably my first experience with death.

As the creator of the play, David Ralfe, latest graduate from Jacques Lecoq theatre school in Paris likes to say:"When I was young, I had 2 hamsters and the epic, bloody Grand guignol conclusion of their small lives marked the end of my childhood".*

tickets: 7.5 pounds

Camden's People Theatre

* (source: snipelondon.com)

Marques Toliver

Performing in a park, london.

The Pharmacy of Stories

Coeurs : Cybele-Julie-Gen-Anabelle

The Pharmacy of stories is a little hide workshop in Hackney that we found in an alley on a Saturday afternoon.

Here is my Heart is a project where we were invited to craft an heart and write a little text about it. People can apply for a transplant heart or//and give one.

see more : pharmacyofstories.com

there are the 4 creations we made while drinking fruity tea :) (up)

On a échoué dans ce micro local par hasard comme une chasse aux trésors pas planifiée. Ca ressemblait à un salon de poupée tout en douceur.

Deux gentilles madames nous ont préparé du thé aux fruits pendant que nous on était concentrées à fabriquer des petits cœurs avec de l’argile et du papier à bulles.

Revival des ateliers brico de la maternelle sauf que là, c’est dans Hackney, à Londres, pi que t’as 21 ans. Ton thé chaud tu le bois d’une trette parce ce que t’as trop bu la veille pi que t’es assoiffée.

Ya des petites lumières qui bougent sur les murs pi des gros bols en plastiques remplis d’eau suspendus au plafond. C chill mais tu comprends pas trop. Après t’apprends combien c’est dommage que tu partes lundi pour Montreal. Tu manques le private event de Vendredi. C’est un bash party où tu adoptes une sirène-jouet et tu passes ta soirée à la faire gibelotter dans un des bols d’eau suspendus dans la pièce. Ok..

Un bref instant, le mot pollypocket est venu me faire bobo en assommant ma mémoire. Ils nous ont donné des pilules mais c’était pas de la drogue. C’était des pilules-carte-de-fête.

Finalement, on est reparties avec un peu moins le mal de cœur. C’était comme mettre du sirop aux bananes sur le stress de voyage.

The book Club

New discovery, The book club in Shoreditch. I went to a special event around 3d printing. (don't know why) ..Must say that i'm not really into that stuff (and it cost 10 quids) but the place is cool, good ambiance, good music, food, pingpong table, noisy (but not to much), young (but not to much), artsy, design and interesting special events of any kind. Can be quite packed in the week ends, I prefer in the week days.

100 Leonard Street EC2A4RH

Creativity! haha

This funny little video about creativity was made by the this is it collective based in london.

www.thisisitcollective.com

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared from This Is It on Vimeo.

The Pothole Gardener

The Pothole Gardener is a cute and creative initiative by a "guerilla gardener" in East London.

More infos and pics on his blog : thepotholegardener.com

The full English Breakfast by Wilfrid Wood

See more at : www.wilfridwood.com

The Shape of things to come: New Sculpture

The New North by David Almeid

Saatchi Gallery. Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, London, SW3 4SQ

Despite the hard critique I read about The shape of thing to come: New Sculpture, written by Brian Sewell, I had a good time seeing it.

Many different contemporary artists are showed, a diversity that is also reflected in the sculptures. I wasn’t appeal by all of them but I found a couple interesting and beautiful.

I think about “The New North” the massive sculpture of David Almejd who can be compare to a “Disco Yeti” and make me think about this beautiful videoclip of Grizzly bear. (see below)

Also, the poesy that came out of the work of Berlinde de Bruyckere as you can see ambiguous shapes made with horse’s skins.

If you haven’t seen it, Richard Wilson’s permanent installation "20:50" is the most effective optical illusion I had seen!

You can see it for free until the 16^th October 2011 at Saatchi Gallery.

Knife from Encyclopedia Pictura on Vimeo.

On Narrative

On Narrative was part of the talks series events organized by -it's nice that- this summer. At the front line: Mickey Please, an illustrator and a multi-media animation filmmaker, Studio Weave and Kate Stanners, creator director at Saatchi & Saatchi.

All of them where there to entertain us about the power of narrative in their work of creation. Different and all interesting at the same time, I must say that it's the approach of Studio Weave, london designers working in architecture, that charmed me the most.

Before building or modify something, they personalize houses and buildings, give them feelings and create a story behind each. Therefore, it gives a fluent meaning to each project and it become easier to understand for all a community.

So let's say, if my flat is messy, it's just because he has a Jekyll and Hyde personality since the colds of the mid-terms...

Took place at the Redbull Studio,

Maybe you can be relucted by the price (12£) but knowing that’s a 3 hours open bar (drinks, beers, wine) may convince you.

Read about Studio: Meet Britain's brightest young architects (The Obsrever)

trailer of The Eagleman Stag by Mickey Please ( winner of the Bafta for best short animation)

Brit insurance Designs of the year 2011 -Design Museum

images:

Home made is best, book for IKEA

Margaret Howell plus shirt

The Thin Black Line Chair (doesn't look conformable btw)

What you can see at the Design Museum is not just about Kenneth Grange! You can also see the Brit insurance Designs of the year 2011. “The Design Museum’s annual exploration of the most innovative, interesting and forward-looking new work in design of all kinds, from around the world.”(1) http://www.designsoftheyear.com/about/

The exhibition that surrounds an incredible variety of categories (architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product, transport) is definitely interesting! Among the 100 projects, you can find the Barclays Cycle Hire, little cousins of the Montreal’s Bixis!

One of the projects I found interesting is the E.Chromi project: A strange gathering between synthetic biology and design by undergraduates of Cambridge University. They created bacteria E. Coli that can secrete colors visible to the naked eye. Potentials uses are explained as colored feces for different types of diseases (If it’s red in the toilet your probably have colorectal cancer, if it’s green aids and etc.).

E. chromi from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on Vimeo.

Kenneth Grange- Design Museum of London

Pentagram Kodak

The exhibit about Kenneth Grange, founder of the famous design studio Pentagram, runs until the 30^th October at the Design Museum. It’s presenting a retrospective of the product designer’s work, considerate to have “made Britain modern”.

Born, as he says, in "a bacon and eggs kind of house" of the London’s East End in 1929, he designed over the years a long list of items. Among them, the first Kodak 44A in 1959, the 1997 version of London black cabs, Parker pens, Kenwood fool mixers, the anglepoise spring lamp, the first UK parking meters, Thermos etc. In fact, if you live in England, even for people that Grange’s name still unknown, you definitely already travelled or utilized once his designs in your day-to-day life.

Influenced by his national service and his early jobs as an architects assistant, Kenneth still working. Funny and maybe true, in an interview with The Observer, he said that Mac is overdesigned and some modern furniture might be “absolute icon” but still not comfortable and “designed to make the space look brilliant." Hopefully, according to him, his chairs are “bloody comfortable”. (1)

I enjoyed it but I made it through rapidly. However, British people can find it nostalgic as they recognize objects of their past. The 7£ entry was worth it because of the Brit insurance designs of the year exhibit that you can see at the same time.

(1)Kenneth Grange: half a century at the forefront of british Design, Rachel Cooke, The Observer

Dirt-The Wellcome Collection

Found on http://www.flickr.com/groups/wellcomedirt/

As we fight day to day against bacteria, The Wellcome Collection invites all lovers of hand sanitizer to Dirt, its new exhibition where our complex relation with dirt is explained throughout 5 different locations and times (The Streets in Soho 1854, an Hopital in Glasgow 1867, the museum at Dresden 1930 , the community in New Delhi 2011, The biggest landfill site, Fresh Kills, in 2030).

The exhibition also presents contemporary artists like Serena Korda who makes bricks with the dust she collect from donators and Santiago Sierra’s massive modules made with human faeces.

Even if I expected it to be more disgusting, I enjoyed the vintages amputations pictures (I particularly loved to search in the medical dictionary of my granny when I was little). There is so much to say about dirt, it seems that the exhibition focus on the sanitary history of London and its cholera epidemic in the times the Thame’s waters were called “monster soup”. Therefore, I learned that this incredible diarrhea and vomiting attack that we call cholera was killing you after couple of hours only. A sample of this original “rice milk” that came out of infected people was probably the most scary artifact of the exhibit.

But after all, Dirt isn’t too much repellent and even, the earliest sketches of bacteria could be similar to a pattern founded on the new Marc Jacobs ‘s Dress. It’s finishing at the end of august but have a look; it worth it and it’s free!

Also, The Wellcome Collection planned many events surrounding “dirt” for kids and adults. The café can be fun for lunchtime and it’s located in a good-looking open space with excellent healthy food. You can enjoy a hot meal and go shopping in the boutique where you can find interesting books and funny things. (it’s 5 minutes walk from St Lukes)

It’s not rubbish!

Also see:

Dirt car art in london! (Ok...)

and the The Flickr Group ( Where you can upload photos of dirt in your everyday life)

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The street photography now project

"Street Photography Now Project is a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, London and Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson).

Each week from 1 October 2010, a leading contemporary street photographer will issue a new instruction, written to inspire fresh ways of looking at and documenting the world we live in.

Over the following six days, photographers around the world are invited to upload one photograph in response, to a special Flickr Group. After six days the next instruction will be issued. The Project will run for 52 weeks, and you can join in at any time."

http://streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/