Art & Culture: Getty Images and Canon present Sue Flood’s first solo exhibition Cold Places – From Pole to Pole

Canon UK is hosting polar photographer Sue Flood’s first solo exhibition Cold Places – From Pole to Pole from 17th March to 9th April 2011 at Getty Images Gallery in London.

Award winning photographer Sue Flood has spent 15 years travelling to the Arctic and Antarctic documenting these fragile ecosystems.  Sue has always used Canon’s professional cameras, most recently using the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, and previously the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II. The new collection will showcase 50 images printed on Canon’s large format printers to bring to life the beauty & fragility of the polar regions.

Sue Flood said “My first solo exhibition is the culmination of years spent photographing the wildlife, people and landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic – each in their own way are very challenging to shoot. Through the power of image, I’ve been able to document animal behaviour, from the Arctic’s top predator, the polar bear, to the Antarctic’s most charismatic creature, the Emperor Penguin. I’m so excited Canon and Getty Images are helping me present the beauty of these visually stunning landscapes and wildlife to the public.”

Sue will also be launching her first book Cold Places at the exhibition. This will showcase an award-winning selection of her favourite Arctic and Antarctic photographs. Sue has outstanding experience working with polar wildlife and indigenous communities, including over 15 years of experience working with the BBC on series such as Planet Earth and The Blue Planet, as well as Disneynature’s movie Earth. Sue has won many awards for her work including International Photographer of the Year - Special Award in 2009.

Canon is a longstanding supporter of Sue Flood, hosting an exclusive IMAX lecture in support of WWF, Freeze Frame’... Living on Thin Ice in 2008, to raise awareness of the plight of the polar bear and the impact climate change is having on its fragile habitat.

Canon has been working with Getty Images Gallery for three years, recently hosting 100 Years of Hollywood. Canon and Getty also launched the Ambassadors Programme in 2008, bringing together some of the world’s best photographers in the fields of news, sport, nature, fashion, portrait and wildlife to share their own passion for the power of image. Canon and Getty Images Gallery are currently featuring a collection of favourite and recent work from the 12 Canon Ambassadors entitled We Speak Image - A comment on the world by Canon Ambassadors.

Cold Places –From Pole to Pole runs at the Getty Images Gallery in Eastcastle Street in central London from 17th March to  9th April 2011. Admission is free.

Sue’s book, Cold Places, is available from www.amazon.co.uk and www.sueflood.com priced at £25.

Rachel

Art & Culture: 100 Days of Active Resistance

Vivienne Westwood Anglomania + Lee are launching an online installation entitled ‘100 Days of Active Resistance’ (www.ar100days.com) on the 8th of September. We are asking the public to participate by submitting an artwork or photograph that best represents Vivienne’s principle idea of Active Resistance and everyday one artwork will be featured on the website for the next 100 days, finishing with an exhibition displaying the best selection of artworks we’ve received.

Art & Culture: UK DESIGN CONTEST IN PARTNERSHIP WITH DESIGN WEEK

Curious Story contest provides a brilliant opportunity for artists and designers to showcase their work.

Arjowiggins Creative Papers, the world’s leading manufacturer of creative eco-sustainable papers, has launched a new design contest in partnership with premium design publication Design Week. The Curious Story contest will encourage and promote new talent within the UK design community by providing a platform to showcase work inspired by the world’s leading range of creative papers – the Curious Collection.

The brief asks designers to create their own visual representation of a Curious Story, where the paper is the hero. This can be done in any discipline from illustration to printed artworks, 2D computer generated graphics to 3D sculptures and models.

Designs need to be created using papers from the Curious Collection, or featuring them as the centre of the story, and must be submitted via www.yourcuriousstory.com - where a picture of the design work will be posted. In order to receive samples, designers will be required to contact their local distributors or send an email to an address indicated on the website, including a brief description of their planned submission. The deadline for submissions is September 30th, 2010.

Art & Culture: The Genius of Design by Penny Sparke

The Genius of Design, based on the BBC series illuminates what design is, how it works, and how it has shaped the world we live in. The book shows how design reflects the political, cultural and economic themes of our times, how it connects both to the macro forces of history (industrialisation, consumerism, technology) and the micro forces (taste, money, desire) and how it manifests itself everywhere, from battlefield and boardroom to supermarket and schoolroom. More than anything, though, the book tells the stories that lie behind the iconic designs of our times. It celebrates the heroes of design and the lesser know people responsible for some of the everyday objects we take for granted. And it examines the role of the consumer and the issues of taste - what really is good or bad design? Provocative, absorbing and packed with images, this enthralling book reveals what design means to us - the trivial and the mundane, the life-saving and the world-changing.

Art & Culture: ‘Home’ exhibition launches Rodhus

The ‘Home’ exhibition celebrates the launch of Rodhus, a design resource centre and professional environment for designers. Set up by Richard Ainsworth, with the help of Abbi Kiki, Rodhus is a creative hub, offering workspace and professional services all under one roof.  

As part of the ‘Rodhus’ launch, the ‘Home’ exhibition showcases the work of talented designers and makers; from artwork and home accessories to lighting and furniture. The combination of the designers work all in one space creates an exciting and quirky show with an air of urban chic about it. Many of the pieces on display wouldn’t look out of place in the glossy pages of Elle Decoration, proving that local talent is thriving.

The highlights for me were Sylph Baier’s handthrown earthenware ceramics, Rachel Eardley’s quirky original drawings and Elsy and Vine’s knitted lambswool cushions, all vying to be in my home!

The ‘Home’ exhibition takes place from 21^st June until 25^th July at the Rodhus Gallery, Brighton. Check it out!

Carly Gordon

Art & Culture: Get creative with a new Niki Jones Notebook

For those of you who love journaling, writing or just doodling and like somewhere really special to do it, check out these beautiful note books from Niki Jones. The selection of great colours and patterns of the silkscreen printed covers gives them their beauty and the textured pages of the recycled paper gives them a rustic and vintage feel. They are handmade, stitched and bound in India, so each one is unique.

They are 20 x 17 cm, perfect for slotting in your handbag and carrying with you where ever you go and they have 100 pages, so lots of space for really getting stuck in.

These notebooks will surely ignite your creativity and inspire you to do your best work.

Lydia Vine

Art & Culture: The Art of Conversation

The Art of Conversation is visual play on the game of  ‘Chinese whispers’ between the Bank studios in Berlin and the Inventory studio in London . The exhibition calls upon the talents of some of the most exciting new designers in Europe. Over 90 days the two studios will collaborate to create  20 new and original works each in response to the other.  Their piece can take any form; from sculpture to performance, photograph to text. The resulting show will demonstrate that creativity is never predictable and infinitely varied.

To kick off the process, the first design team were gifted a hot air balloon flight by the curators, setting a precedent and giving the studio "space to think". Their online conversation and those that come after will be held and recorded using Skype technology and displayed at the exhibitions. These creative exchanges, from the straightforward to the left field, show the huge impact that communication technology has had on our ability to exchange information. A website charting the development of the project will trace the creative network being built between these design communities.

INVENTORY is a London based Studio founded in 2008 by Robert Boon & David Lane after an extended period of collaboration between the two. Their broad output now includes design for print, publications, websites, branding and identities, advertising, events and exhibitions, and they also consult brands on strategy.

BANK is a young but well established French/German design studio based in Berlin. They plan, develop and realise a wide range of design projects for cultural, institutional and commercial clients. Their approach is unique and original relying heavily on concept, creative typography and well art directed imagery. They are also interested in designing own typefaces.

The Art of Conversation; London-Berlin running at Idea Generation Gallery, London, 11th - 24th May and at Program Gallery, Berlin, 12th
June - 3rd July.
www.theartofconversation.org

Neil Batho