Just like last year, I’ll be taking a break over the next four or five issues, so this is a shorter issue than would normally drop into your inbox. I hope that you enjoy this selection of links and pics, feel free to get in touch, and look forward to catching up later in the summer.
I am in Cardigan, Ceredigion, finally reunited in Wales with the rest of the family after a busy week up in the North East. I hope that you enjoyed last week’s trip up through the spine of England where I’ve been spending a few days with colleagues at the University of Durham before heading back. I suppose this is part two of a loose travel diary up to the North and back down again. If you want to see a route of the whole trip, I’ve saved a google map.
After a few days driving up from Leicester, through Yorkshire and then into County Durham, I finally landed in this beautiful castle and cathedral city, with world renown university. I was there by invitation of the team at DCAP - Durham Centre for Academic Development, who are also exploring opportunities for using immersive technologies for teaching and learning.
It was a fascinating couple of days, I had the chance to look around the center, meet colleagues and talk ideas. It was great to have the opportunity to reconnect with university life in the UK, in conversation I felt relatively comfortable talking through the current landscape, thinking about challenges affecting the sector. I have made a transition from professional support to teaching professor, with courses and research projects, working more independently, but this is still an area that I’m very interested in, I really love what I do and the opportunities that I’m afforded through the room, the department and the wider community at Carnegie Mellon.
I want to thank the staff at DCAP, especially Professors Sam Nolan and Nicola Whitton for the opportunity to spend some time with them, this is an innovative and interesting team, doing a great deal and clearly making a difference. Teaching and Learning development and providing support for technology enhanced learning in such a historic and traditional institution, can be challenging to say the least. There are many within these places ready to question change, who find the notion of collaborative, multidisciplinary working a bit messy and inadequate. I wanted to share how wonderful collaboration can be, how new courses can flourish through the connections between departments, instructors and practitioners. I’m looking forward to future conversations and exploring ways we can work together and share practice. This is a wonderful place, so much great work and I feel very privileged to have this relationship.
On Wednesday morning this week I set off on my trip to Wales, to be reunited with family after a week away.
Having visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park traveling up to Durham, and at the suggestion of my aunt Sally, I drove ten minutes north to Gateshead to see one of the most successful and impressive pieces of public art in the country; The Angel of the North. It was the first time seeing the sculpture, taking a slip road off the motorway and parking up just beside it. It is enormous, the scale is incredibly difficult to conceive without being there, it speaks to the landscape, built on top of a coal mine, resonating with the deep industrial heritage of the Northeast, a kind of superhero, archangel, an iron giant.
There was a group of school kids drawing pictures, scratching charcoal drawings on vast sheets of paper and taking photos with phones and classroom issue SLR cameras. I did a few sketches of my own and took some pics, I walked around and up to its feet, every angle giving something new, imposing, silent, stoic and heroic.
Looking at the map, I’d arranged to meet old friends for lunch, crossing the country from east to west across the Pennines and realizing that I would be able to take a trip through Liverpool, crossing the River Mersey through the Birkenhead tunnel and down to the Welsh border. It was nice to catch up with Andrew and Emma, otherwise known by their company Miscellaneous Adventures, a project exploring nature, design and outdoors. Having recently moved to the Lake District, I was keen to see how they were settling in and pleased to report that they were enjoying their new home and enjoying visiting new places, taking dips in mountain top lakes and hiking through forests and following streams. They are super talented and dedicated people, the move has been emotional, and I wish them every success on their new adventure. Here’s a link to their excellent podcast.
We parted after a hearty lunch at the Derby Arms near Witherslack and I drove for another few hours down the M6 and M58 until I reached the town of Crosby on the west coast, just a few minutes north of Liverpool.
I’m not sure how many people have driven from The Angel of the North to Gormley’s second most famous piece, Another Place, in one day but I imagine it’s not that many. This was another ambition fulfilled and worth the extra time put into the trip.
Another Place is an installation of 100 sculptures based on casts of Anthony Gormley’s body, these figures are placed in the landscape across the beach looking out to sea. Are they waiting? Are they guarding the beach, in a similar way to The Angel of the North, they are vessels, resonating with our thoughts, memories, connections to place, past and present. As the tide ebbs and flows, the water covers and uncovers these figures, and over the years the sand, salt and sea have weathered them, worn their features, smoothed surfaces, cracked others, some are covered in barnacles and encrusted in shells. Each individually worn and aged, some will be lost and others will survive for many decades more.
I found a space to park along the sea front and walked through the dunes onto the beach, timing my stroll so that I could meet three or four sculptures and take some photos. I left my sketchbook in the car, but will spend some time looking through my camera roll and see what I can relive. Again there is something intimate about these sculptures, they are human, they are us.
Thank You
It’s been a busy few weeks, but arriving in Cardigan was a wonderful relief. This is such a lovely part of the world, there is a calmness and levelheadedness here that I need, at least for a few days. I’m tying this in the garden seated at a wooden picnic bench under the parasol. It suppose to reach record temperatures in the next days, I hope that you’re looking out for yourself and looking in on neighbors to make sure that they’re okay.
I have to tell you that it was a long trip down and tiredness got the better of me at some point. Waking up on Thursday morning I couldn’t find my wallet and traced my steps remembering that I’d stopped off for water on the road into Cardigan. To cut a long story short, we eventually found my wallet in one of the rubbish bags in the skip at the back of the garage shop. I’d dropped it in with some trash from the car on my way in. I couldn’t believe it, a bit of luck, containing my bank cards, driving license and a few notes, everything was there, the wallet was a bit gunky so I bought a new one.
These last few days I’ve been writing up my notes, sending a few emails but also kicking back and catching up with the boys, heading to the beach and spending a bit of time as a family.
This morning we enjoyed a cup of coffee and donuts from Crwst after our swim on Poppit Beach. It is sunny and warm, the sea is clear and freezing, and I love it here.
Take care, see you next week and thank you for reading.