Skip to main content

Thursday April 28 2022 Tate Modern and Regent’s Park

 We met up with my cousin Elizabeth this morning at the Tate Modern. Elizabeth is an arts fundraiser, very much involved in community arts. Well, this is her bio from a report she just co-authored on funding for community arts: 

Elizabeth Lynch MBE is an arts advisor and researcher who works with artists and communities. Her experience lies in collaborating with and commissioning artists, especially in community contexts, and producing interdisciplinary projects across art, science, health and education. She established the flagship Roundhouse Studios as Director 2001-8 and now works for a range of arts and culture organisations, including Wellcome, National Trust and LAMDA.

She is an Associate Research Fellow in Contemporary Theatre at Birkbeck University, Chair of Board for Theatre-Rites, Trustee for Arts Catalyst, Critical Friend for Ideas Test and a member of Spitalfields Music Advisory Group. In 2002, London Borough of Tower Hamlets awarded her the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award for an “exceptional contribution to youth and culture in the borough.” In the New Year’s Honours 2020 she was awarded an MBE for services to arts and culture.

Sounds quite grand but Elizabeth is very funny, very down-to-earth and just spending a couple of hours with her going through an exhibit by Lubaina Himid at the Tate Modern, I felt like my mind came open to the experiences of black immigrants to the UK. Here are some photos from the exhibit:





We went to lunch after the exhibit and then posed for photos just outside the Tate. The neon sign is part of another one of Elizabeth’s friends exhibit; I saw her work when I was in England in September, in Covent Garden. All neon lights, so vibrant! These photos will probably be the only photos of us on this trip, I am more used to being behind the camera:




(And yes, I am hanging on to Richard who had to be dragged into the photo ;)

After we parted ways with Elizabeth, we walked over Millennium Footbridge (seen to the right in the photo above), past St. Paul’s and took the Tube to Regent’s Park to enjoy more flowers. And that was pretty much our day yesterday. Today I am going to Bedford to see my other cousin Bill. R is staying in Wimbledon as he says he needs to rest his knee before this weekend’s two days of luggage transferring. We are switching hotels in London for one night because our current hotel’s rates go up by over $100 for Saturday night. So I found a hotel closer to London, in Chelsea. Means some extra shlepping of luggage tomorrow but $100 is $100 when you are on the Richard Ackroyd travel budget ;) Bless him, he’s tried so hard not to be mean but he’s still finding London prices for food difficult to cope with.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 2024 and blogging

  I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most
12 comments
Read more

It’s just another day

  Yesterday was the final day of my 8-day assignment in a 4th grade class; I’ve written something about that assignment in a previous post, “Revolt of the Guinea Pig,” It’s been a challenging 8 days which, as Dickens might have said, brought out the best in me and probably the worst in me as well. But yesterday morning I had that experience that every teacher dreads—shelter in place, also known as possible shooter situation. I had arrived at the school at 7:20 thinking how wonderful it was that our heat had broken a bit. The skies were overcast, we’d had rain the day before, there was a cool breeze. As I walked to my classroom (photos below of what the buildings look like), I waved to the students already gathered on the other side of the gate, who were waiting to rush in, some to the cafeteria for their breakfast, some to the playground to run and hopefully get some of that energy out before the bell rang at 7:55. I unlocked the outside door to our building, walked down the corridor t
2 comments
Read more

And now for something a little different from the substitute teaching lens

  I subbed for my daughter yesterday. I wasn’t sure how I’d cope as I am still somewhat jet lagged but she has a very well behaved fifth grade class: they’re respectful, good humored (most of the time) and willing to learn (most of the time). She warned me the night before that there had been some “issues” this week—kids fighting on the playground, some backtalk in class from a boy who’s normally a very hard worker. With that in mind, I started off my day in the classroom addressing this up front. “I hear it’s been a tough week,” I said and then waited for a response. Some shifting in the chair, some rolling of the eyes, a couple of “Yeah, it really has” emanated from the kiddos. I then sat on the corner of my desk and talked about how I remembered being their age, the emotions, how things seem so very important, so very “raw” in the moment. I shared with them how my own teachers reacted to misbehaviors, after-school detention (Wow, Mrs A, AFTER school? They could DO that?) But then I
1 comment
Read more