Write out loud

I am speaking at the Spacex Review Group with David Trigg on 9 September 2010, an informal networking opportunity for people interested in talking and writing about art. 6pm - 9pm. Free, no need to book.

Spacex, 45 Preston Street Exeter EX1 1DF

Note to self

Talk to artists in Plymouth and they will tell you Exeter artists have a wealth of resources - what with Spacex, Exeter Phoenix, CCANW etc. However, I'd say Plymouth seems to be booming suddenly, with the Plymouth Visual Arts Consortium leading many new initiatives, two art colleges (PCAD and UoP) feeding its pool of practitioners and audiences, a major new gallery space at Plymouth College of Art, a choice of studio provision and a raft of intelligent, contemporary artist-led activity (see below for a couple of examples). I need to commute more - or even relocate.

http://salonsouthwest.wordpress.com/
http://e-leven.co.uk/

Exeter - Pripyat - Detroit

Hotel Room, 1996. Photo: David McMillan See also photos of Pripyat by Robert Polidori and John Darwell

As part of ongoing Nexus discussions, Felicity Shillingford and I have been sharing images of nature reclaiming the urban environment. (They relate to the exhibition's garden setting.) She brought some wonderful images into the gallery of the ruins of Detroit. They show once-magnificent buildings left to decay as the US motor industry declined.

I dug out some material from Pripyat, the town in Ukraine abandoned in 1986 after the accident at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant (see above). I first sourced these images as part of my degree studies, but I keep revisiting them. Apart from the aesthetics of decay, there's something compelling about looking at the rapidity with which nature reasserts itself. It gives a real sense of humankind's small place in the world.

Perhaps more appropriately to the theme of connections and networks, we also talked about the urban gardening initiatives in Detroit that are helping to rebuild communities and feed local people.

Nexus until 1 September, Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street, Exeter EX4 3LS