This is where you'll find news, reviews and stories from the Manchester Science Festival team.
Friday 25 October 2013
Ice, Art & Urban Farming
Guest Post: Caroline Ward - filmmaker and visual artist
I was thrilled to attend the Festival launch this year. Since I
moved to Manchester in 2010, I've volunteered my skills to the festival by
editing short content for the citizen science projects, last year for Turing's Sunflowers and this year for Hooked.
I also love going to events at the festival - particularly as my
interests in art, architecture, and urban farming - never fail to be excited. At
the launch I was captivated by the approach of David Garcia, one of the architects
in the Ice
Lab exhibition - with a structure made of snow - the idea was to use
materials from the immediate environment which could then, merge back into the
environment. It reminded me of Robert Smithson’s sculpture Spiral
Jetty. The exhibition is fascinating and covered in a previous post. My
inner kid also liked the Star Wars style structures that feature in so many
of the ice labs.
There's so much going on at the festival, here’s my own
navigation through the programme. As an art, film and urban naturalist, my top
picks are:
A special mention goes to the Great White Silence -
its one of my favourite films and fully restored to its original glory by the BFI (where I used to work many moons ago).
It's the poignant story of Captain Scott’s race to the South Pole yet reveals wonderful
moments like penguins captured on film for the first time in this environment.
And finally - to Chasing Ice - a brilliant film that just goes to show the value
of picking up a camera (well several cameras) and persisting against ice
and snow to show the world just what damage we are doing to the planet – I can’t
think of a better way to show climate change in action.
PS my track for the HookedPlaylist is: Violin Phase by Steve Reich (see video)
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