Suneel’s Favourites in Astronomy Photographer of the Year – National Maritime Museum

05.01.2024

https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronomy-photographer-year/exhibition

Since I work in the area, it is quite convenient for me to see the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition during my lunch breaks. So I often go down to see it. I love looking into the sky of stars and look at the universe which envelops us, the larger world that gives us perspective and power. Because we are all part of something larger. We are the consciousness of the universe, if it has one. We are its only known intelligent life forms. And she is our mother.

This is a universe that has been taken away from us through the narrow mindedness of the world, through light pollution, urbanisation and industrialisation. That view of the skies which was us for thousands of years and millions of years when we were not yet quite human has been taken away from us by Them. This exhibition gives us back our continuous inheritance. That is why it is important to me and why I love it.

Here are some of my favourite images from the exhibit and why:

Filip Hrebenda ‘Green Snakes’

A photograph of green aurorae, the coloured lights in the sky. Amongst reflections of water and and stark black lava-esque mountains and ridges. Green is one of my favourite colours and you can see the hazy greens here melting into the skies. The leading lines of the reflecting water lead the eye towards the peak of the mountain, giving an effect of the sublime – overwhelming power that engulfs us. It is a truly awesome and epic shot which leaves us in awe at the beauty and the mystery of nature.

Peter Hoszang ‘The Green Glow’

The same subject as before – the coloured lights in the sky and the mountains. This one has less of a warm feel because there are more blues. And there is also ice in the waters. It is a different vibe, but with the same sublime feeling, since the lights in the sky dwarf the snow-capped mountains.

Monika Deviat ‘Brushstroke’

The aurora – the coloured lights – again green, look more abstract here because they are only seen against the night sky and the stars. The aurora is divorced from the setting. The artist says it looks like a brush stroke. The image is effective because we concentrate on the lights without any distractions in the background. Simple and focused, isolated. The beauty of light, pure and simple.

Vincent Beudez ‘Butterfly’

Purple, white and green aurora in the shape of a butterfly. Amazingly poetic and beautiful. The word butterfly is associated through tradition with the ancient Greek word ‘psyche’, which means soul. Wouldn’t a soul – if such a thing existed – come in the form of a butterfly of light? Radiant, ravishing, roaring.

Katie McGuinness ‘Close Encounters of the Haslingden Kind’

A stunning view of Haslingden’s Halo – a panopticon sculpture – amidst the night sky. The shining structure pictured against the movements of the night sky through a time lapse capture really caught my imagination with the blue and the white hues. It was a moment where you realise that the future that they imagined, the technological future, has actually become a reality for us now. The technology, the art, the structures that we make, seem like something that has come almost from an alien intelligence that is years ahead of us in thought and technology. But it is us that did it. We are the alien intelligence.

Angel An ‘Grand Cosmic Fireworks’
Dancing, fluorescent lights above the Himalaya mountains (atmospheric luminescence made of plasma and electric discharge). What is there not to like? There is something like seaweed about the lights that are almost immersed in the clear water of the skies. It is a scene which I could never have imagined and this is what gives it its power. Things like this are happening beyond our eyes, our comprehension, our ken. They enlarge us when we see them.

Chunlin Liu ‘Autumn Milky Way Arc and an Orion Bolide’

There is something so exceptionally Chinese about this image of the Milky Way arc, something so emblematic of the art. The horizontality of the image for one thing, the delicacy of the skies that have been rendered, the mountain scene which we associate with Chinese ink brush drawings. Amazingly beautiful, delicate and wonderful. A loving homage to the perspective of a culture which has been fostered carefully through thousands of years of an art tradition.

Vikas Chander ‘The Dancing Trees of Sumba’

These mangrove trees are shaped in such a way that people call them the dancing trees. They look as though they are frozen in a dance posture. Against the beautiful sky reflecting in the water which is like a mirror, they are incredibly elegant, a reminder that nature thrives in the universe, it dances in the dance of creation.

Mehmet Ergun ‘The Great Solar Flare’

I think of myself as the Sun (my name is Sun-eel). This amazingly detailed, textured view of the sun and its awesome power is really an iconic image. So bold. The sun fills the frame, giving that air of dominance as the ruler of our galaxy.

Alex Savenok ‘C/2021 A1 (Leonard) in the Sky of Israel’

Above the Negev desert and its picturesque ridges, we see ‘a celestial visitor in the night sky’. The image looks like the covers of science fiction books. It doesn’t seem real. Yet this is our earth at night time, if only we had the opportunity to see it. A taste of what we have had to miss because of the industrialised world and urban living. A taste of what we have had to lose, that connection with the skies and the reality of this planet, this universe, our mother.

Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau ‘Crescent Moon in a Magical Sunset’

A beautiful crescent moon in an orange, yellow and white sky. A sense of the crescent swirling in the clouds, full of movement and dance.

James Baguley ‘The Dark Wolf – Fenrir’

A homage to Norse mythology – Fenrir the wolf caught in red (a molecular cloud surrounded by red hydrogen gas). A reminder of the phrase that ‘Nature is red in tooth and claw’ – a lesson to be learnt from a perusal of this image. If anyone knows the mythology of Fenrir – I used to read mythology books as a child and was obssessed with the myths – this picture would become pregnant with meaning. With the themes of fatherhood, destruction, trickery, imprisonment, the animality of the human…

Steeve Body ‘The Majestic Tarantula Nebula’
Runwei X and Binyu Wang ‘The Running Chicken Nebula’

Both of these are a ‘cosmic ballet’ in glorious and awe-inspiring colour. Showing that human made abstract art can’t rival the play of forces in the universe to create patterns in the universe on a colossal scale as works of art. Full of fire and life.

Microsculpture by Levon Biss (+ My Insect Photography Exhibition)

Microsculpture by Levon Biss (+ My Insect Photography Exhibition)

Fri 12 May – Mon 27 Nov 2023

British Library

12.06.2023

* NOTE: My amateur shots above. All images are copyrighted, but please ask if you want permission to share.

In the time when I had leisure at my command, I spent many happy moments in my garden photographing the microbeasts. I would scour the grass and the leaves, upturn the stones, scrutinise the spider’s webs, look in every nook and cranny. And there! I would find it, a beautiful little minibeast. The camera dangling around my neck would be de-lidded, I would focus the shot several times before I got one good image and I would try out several different angles to try and get the best shot. It would take a good while, the camera would shake because I was focusing on something so tiny, the shooting was basically impossible when the critters were moving around, and I had to take a good many steps to the side before I could get the insect out of the shade for a good, lighted image.

I worked with cheap apparatus (not the cheapest, but fairly close to it). My parents had bought me an entry level digital camera that was on sale as a present and I attached magnifying lens filters to the standard lens. This was the cheapest option instead of paying several hundred pounds for a macro lens. Even the activity itself was cheap – aside from a battery charge, it was basically free (an important consideration for why I did it – I was studying my PhD – which included an analysis of fictional representations of photography – at the time). Even the photo editing was done on free software (at first).

It was with some curiosity as to how a professional approached the task that I went down to the ‘Microsculpture’ exhibit at the British Library (one of my favourite places in the whole world, it must be said, as a bibliophile and a researcher). Levon Biss used the focus stacking technique in which you take multiple photographs from different angles and combine them together in an image that gives consistent depth of field over the whole shot. The results are nothing short of miraculous and awe-inspiring. Yet, for me, the amateur, there was always the thought: it was because he had more money, technology and resources than me that he could produce these photographic masterpieces.

The insects are set against a black background. They glisten like petrol, as though they were doused in the stuff. They are incredibly colourful and one wonders at their ‘fearful symmetry’.

The advances in technology have provided the conditions for these striking images. Biss was able to take thousands of photographs to combine together to give the perfect focus over every aspect of the form of the minibeasts. And there was the wonderful microscope that he had been using as well. All the painstaking labour that it would have taken to get each individual shot and then combine everything was all digitised and done relatively speedily. There was also a massive scientific endeavour which allowed Biss to retrieve such beautiful specimens from the insect archive. Although the exhibition bears his name, there are so many people involved in this contemporary process of photography: scientists, archivists, inventors, businessmen… I’m sure I’m not doing much justice to the list.

What were my impressions of the specimens? I am a lover of nature. I am also a lover of design. The specimens were almost presented like samples of design and this is the intent of the exhibition which emphasises them as microsculpture: a focus on the evolutionary adaptations of the bodies of the insects. There was a cross-fertilisation between product photography and nature photography. I liked the results, but I wonder how less scientific people would think of presenting living bodies as pure function. For me, the functional aspects contribute to the beauty seen. But I believe that we are just bodies and nothing more, machines that think based on the arrangement of matter of which we are composed.

The Western mindset is different to my Indian mindset. The West sees things and bodies as discrete objects. Hence, there is the insect against the black background, a solitary individual. I, the Indian, see things in their context. This is why I photographed in the garden, with real backgrounds. The presentation of the discrete, individualised insect is a reflection of a culture that values ‘independence’ (which is impossible, since we live in a network of dependency and relations). The exhibition is asking us to identify with these creatures as isolated and atomised (dead) objects: a reflection on this contemporary world.

My overall impression of the exhibition is the pure love of the crystal sharp, enhanced, blown up image that I was not able to produce. As an amateur that worked for free for my own amusement, I was nowhere near these productions. They are the result of massive investment, many hands, cutting edge technology. They are an inspiration. But in the history of photography, they are the work of a tiny minority. Us amateurs still rule. And, compared with my own humble shots, these highly finished and sharp images lack something in their presentation of a perfect, direct, ‘straight’ shot. They lack the element of chance, imperfection, technological limitation. Those ingredients created shots with more character and more drama, to my mind (I am talking about photographs that are my memories, my babies, my loved ones, over whom I am possessive). If the exhibition is science, if the exhibition is for the animal lover, the direct vision is what is wanted (let us not pretend it is objective and unmediated however. Selection and arrangement and angle all play their part). If the exhibition is seen as a demonstration of skill rather than technical proficiency, I would query whether it was really better than my potterings about in my back garden with basic equipment. But this, of course, is purely subjective: envious, of course. It is a good, pioneering exhibition and I would like to buy the book.

Terence Conran’s Memories of Dora Batty – Dora Batty as a Person

23.05.2023

MY PREVIOUS REVIEW OF THE DORA BATTY POSTER PARADE AT THE LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM:

https://diaryofaloneman.home.blog/2023/04/07/dora-batty-poster-parade-london-transport-museum/

(note: This analysis has been done for non-profit purposes of education, and makes ‘fair use’ of the publication cited for purposes of analysis and comment in the public domain).

1946 – Sir Terence Conran was a student of Dora Batty’s at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in textile design (he wanted to be a textile designer at first). He mentions her in his autobiography. this is an attempted analysis of the writing – a psychological study of Dora Batty (as artist) through Conran’s recollections.

CONRAN TURNED UP FOR HIS INTERVIEW WITH DORA BATTY WITH ‘repeat-pattern drawings, a book of pressed flowers (Suneel’s note – maybe this is why she liked him so much and gave him a chance – she loved drawing flowers), paintings, a few fuzzy photographs, ceramics, and bits and bobs of metalwork and woodwork.’ (26)

Source: Sir Terence Conran, Terence Conran: My Life in Design (Conran Octopus, 2016) – ALL REFERENCES IN BRACKETS REFER TO THIS SOURCE.

(NOTE) GOOGLE BOOKS: (Sir Terence Conran) founded the Habitat chain of stores in England. Starting in 1977, his U.S.-based Conran’s stores helped launch the home furnishings retail boom. He is the author of thirteen books and was knighted in 1983 for his service to British industry and design. He lives in London, England.

DORA AS ‘WONDERFUL’ AND WARM-HEARTED

Conran describes Dora as ‘wonderful’ (26). She stands out as a unique (and warm-hearted) person in contrast to ‘a bunch of stern middle-aged ladies’. Dora gives Conran a chance and lets him pass the interview even though he didn’t have much knowledge of textiles (26). This reveals various aspects of Dora’s personality:

Conran remembers Dora fondly. He has no reason to lie about what she was like. This indicates that she had a welcoming and friendly, nurturing aura as a teacher
She was good at recognising talent in someone like Conran who would become a famous designer
She would nurture promise if given a chance – even in an unconventional way – Conran says he was actually surprised to have passed the interview (26). The lack of conventionality and following strict rules of ‘objective’ assessment shows that Dora had good intuition, flexibility and discretion and judgement (reminder – look at how influential Conran is)
Not everyone gives people a chance in life – Dora was a good, generous person
Dora was compassionate to the young and inexperienced – and patient enough to teach such students even if they didn’t know that much
Conran says he was shy (26) – Dora looked beyond social conventionalities and was impartial enough to give Conran a chance on his art, rather than judging him as a person
GENDER: After he passed the interview, Conran was the only boy in a class of 33 women. Just like the London Underground gave Dora a chance as a woman in a male-dominated industry, she gave Conran a chance as a man in a female dominated industry. She was fair and inclusive and challenged the social norms in favour of meritocracy and giving someone a chance (to change the status quo).

STRICT AND CAPABLE
‘Dora Batty was very strict but she ran the course superbly. She saw that her students really had something to do at every moment they were there…’ (26).
Why was she strict? Maybe because she cared about art and design so much. But this also indicates a controlling side to Dora. If you look at her art, it is all very controlled and restrained and ordered.
Dora as overachiever student? She piled on work on the students – maybe this is because she worked very hard herself (ceramics, textiles, posters, etc. – it takes a lot of work, effort and learning to master all these different disciplines).

MULTICULTURAL, RESOURCEFUL AND HISTORICAL – THE MUSEUM-GOER

‘One of the most fascinating things she arranged was a twice-a-week, behind-the-scenes visit to the historic textiles collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, where there are vast halls with hundreds of thousands of prints and textiles from all over the world…’ (26)

Dora was an avid museum-goer – it’s fitting that she is in a museum through her art
Conran was there at the school in 1946 – Dora had negotiated the teaching at the V & A in the immediate post-war period when there were limited opportunities – she was incredibly resourceful
The first poster with Persephone and Hermes reveals her interest in historical costume and textiles, as well as her multiculturalism (ancient Greece)
Dora had good connections – she was a people person. Imagine how hard it would be to arrange a behind-the-scenes at a museum today, especially such a prestigious one – people wanted to help Dora. Remember, she was a woman in a man’s world, too… Even more of an achievement
The initiative of Dora: this is quite a creative solution to education – to share world-class resources that most people don’t have access to for her students and to give them a multicultural and global education

THE INSPIRER/THE MUSE/THE GOOD TEACHER

‘Dora brought in a whole raft of young designers and artists to broaden our horizons and inspire us.’ (26)

Dora is interested in contemporary art – see her Art Deco influences in posters such as the RAF poster. She kept up with everything that was happening (to improve the craft – conscientiousness, awareness).
Dora likes the energy of the young and encourages them. Not only did she teach youngsters, give inexperienced youngsters like Conran a chance, but also, she promoted the work of young designers and artists. Compare this to the current climate: she used her power for good and for a meritocracy. She challenged the status quo in favour of the new and change (all the while also giving her students a historical, world culture with the V & A). She is generous, embracing, inclusive, creates a stimulating intellectual environment of like minded souls.
Remember, she is choosing these new artists and designers because they could inspire – great artistic discretion and knowledge of people.

Some Thoughts on Medusa in the Painted Hall Ceiling at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich

Some Thoughts on Medusa in the Painted Hall Ceiling at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich

17.03.2023 (amended 07.05.2023)

There is an obvious theme of mirroring in the Painted Ceiling, which you can see in the mirroring of the arches or balustrades and in the mirroring of defeated sea vessels. THE MIRROR OF PRUDENCE – important for royal authority to control the mirror and mirror images. I am looking at this around the figure of Medusa.

The Facts are that the severed head of Medusa is depicted on Athena’s shield as in ancient Greek myth. Perseus the hero slew Medusa while looking at her reflection in his own shield so that he could avoid being turned to stone through her gaze.

– Wikipedia: “Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion”.

Medusa means ‘guardian’ or ‘protectress’ in Ancient Greek (Wikipedia). Possibly why she is on the shield. Athena is wisdom/protectress of the city of Athens. So, there is a doubling between Athena and Medusa in the role of protectress. Because Perseus looked in the mirror to slay Medusa, there is a role for doubling in the original myth – I will argue that Medusa is associated with doubling that gets out of control later (as she is associated with the Hydra, which also doubles). (DEFINITION – Doubling means produces copies, reflections, doppelgangers, etc.)

– The most obvious Double: There is another Gorgon depicted right of the shield and to the right of Hercules who is clubbing away at the Vices with Athena. While it may be that this Gorgon is a sister of Athena (and it has been suggested that the gorgon is ‘Envy’ amongst the vices stamped out by William and Mary), there is an uncanny, visual doubling between the gorgon and Medusa at least. The uninitiated would not know that it is not another Medusa. The Vices also included the snake-like many headed Hydra – Hydra is a water monster (like Medusa – see below about her links to water). I AM ARGUING THAT THE WATER LINK IS CONNECTED TO THE THEME OF DOUBLING – WATER HAS A REFLECTION WHICH DOUBLES THE INDIVIDUAL LOOKING INTO IT.

– DOUBLING AROUND THE ROYAL CREST: Queen Mary as Athena at least

– MEDUSA’S LINKS TO THE SEA/NAVAL PENSIONERS – ILLEGITIMATE RELATIONSHIPS TO THE GOD OF THE SEA AND NAVAL POWER:

The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were all children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys (or “Phorkys”) and his sister Ceto (or “Keto”), chthonic monsters from an archaic world (Wikipedia).
In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.794–803), Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune/Poseidon (THE GOD OF THE SEA) had sex with her in Minerva/Athena‘s temple,[7] Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes.
When Perseus slayed Medusa, she was pregnant by Poseidon. SHE WAS ABOUT to Reproduce/Double as the bad mother, dark mother (Jung), produce an alternative sea god, naval power, etc.

Subjective Facts

– We note that the Gorgon next to Hercules (THE ONE THAT DOUBLES AS MEDUSA VISUALLY IF NOT LITERALLY) has escaped the goddess and demi-god casting the Vices out of the kingdom. Instead of being under their feet and being trampled on, she is actually equal with them, as though she is divine herself (doubling the divinity of the gods).

– THE ROYAL CREST – Look at the gilding on the royal crest and compare it with the shield of Athena and Medusa’s head on it. The gold of Medusa’s head mirrors the royal crest of Queen Mary. However, the inclusion of Queen Mary as Athena on the right of the crest (doubling) creates a good double as opposed to a bad double (like Medusa). Let us remember the doubling of the idea of ‘protrectress’ (‘Medusa’ in Ancient Greek). Queen Mary was the ‘protectress’ of the Naval Pensioners…

– (The gorgon that visually doubles as Medusa is possibly Envy.) However, if it turns out the Gorgon that visually doubles as Medusa is Euryale, one of Medusa’s two sisters, this might mean ‘the wide sea’ (as a daughter of the sea gods) (Greek and Roman Mythology, A to Z, Kathleen N. Daly, Marian Rengel, 2009, 54). AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE, THE SEA REFLECTS – IT IS A MIRROR… Her mouth is open on the painted ceiling: she was known for an agonised, piercing shriek after Medusa was killed, which was turned into a lamenting song and music for humans (ibid.)

– Athena actually directs the shield with Medusa’s head on it at Hercules, not at the Vices – against men (Medusa is associated with feminism in modern scholarship – is this a coincidence?)

– Hydra kept on spouting two heads when one was cut off (doubling), similarly the Gorgons are repeating in the painting, or doubling. Doubling between Athena and Medusa as protectress. Deduction – there is a theme of doubling going on.

– Apollo killed the Python (snake/chaos) – snakes at bottom to illustrate their lowliness, killer of snakes at top as God of reason, light (enlightenment) etc. Is Apollo being badly doubled by Louis IV ‘the Sun King’ that is being trampled by King William? (depends on if this is Louis IV or not). Certainly, Truth is holding is a miniature sun in her hand – the doubling of Apollo with light (truth).

– Medusa was killed through doubling – in the mirror, when she was to give birth to the god of the sea’s son. Wikipedia: “In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus’s mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena, sandals with gold wings from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades‘s helm of invisibility. Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon”.

– Woman as animal nature – is this is link to the sea and the power of nature in the water? That woman/nature can’t be controlled, but controls (as in Queen Mary controlling the kingdom of men?) Is this why the Gorgon escapes the casting out of the vices in the kingdom and mimics the power of the gods?

INTERPRETATION (Psychoanalysis, mirroring)

– Does Medusa and the other Gorgon represent a male artist’s misogynistic response to Queen Mary’s rule (as ‘Queen of the Sea) [part of the general expectation that only men rule and women’s rule leads to monstrosity and chaos – chaos as the snake which Apollo defeated]? This is a CONTROL OF DOUBLING – IF ONE WOMAN’S RULE IS ACCEPTED, OTHER WOMEN WILL RULE AS HER ‘DOUBLES’. Is this an example of the attitude to the daughter that usurped her father’s throne? We know that Athena is also doubling as Queen Mary from the arch. The whole game is about doubling: the ‘good’ double and the ‘bad’ double. On the one hand, Mary can double as the goddess, the good double. On the other hand, is she doubling as Medusa the monster, with illegitimate power, producing Hydra like monsters in the kingdom as the Vices? Is she the reverse of Apollo the Sun King?

– Between Hercules and the Gorgon, there is a V sign (largely empty, representing lack, something to be filled in as per misogynistic constructions) – if we look in terms of psychoanalysis, does this represent the vagina (and therefore female power?) Snake as phallic symbol – women seizing phallic power illegitimately in the form of Athena with the shield and with forming Hydra type monsters (i.e. more women that rule – Mary led to Queen Anne and no male heirs)?

Dora Batty Poster Parade – London Transport Museum

07.04.2023

You can see all of the posters in the Poster Parade here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection

1^st Floor, London Transport Museum

Adult ticket: 24 pounds, Concessions including students: 23 pounds (ANNUAL PASS)

REVIEW

While I have many interests in life, there is one game that has always captivated my attention. My friends, it is THE Game. The game of interpretation: finding meaning, making connections, excavating the context, trying to understand what others are trying to express underneath a rigmarole of deceptive diversions. I have played this game quite seriously, having studied for an English Literature degree and then having pursued doctoral studies in the subject (then publishing books and articles). The game is all-consuming and unending. I lie in bed at nights replaying conversations, working over sentences for half an hour at a time if they are important enough to warrant it in the conversations I have during the day. To play the game, I have studied all these subjects at university level: legal studies, English literature, history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology, criminology, sociology, psychology, the history of photography, feminism, Marxism, deconstruction, Postcolonialism – and now – art history. Besides forays in my spare time into mythology, archaeology, cryptography and the decoding of languages, language learning, politics, animal intelligence, evolutionary psychology, biology, and the physical sciences which reveal how humankind attempts to fathom the cosmos.

Why do I mention The Game? I survey the posters in the London Transport Museum Poster Parade because I love to play it. And above all, the most enticing thing is a mystery, a puzzle, a seeming dead-end, what first comes as a blank wall. As I have admitted so much, it will now do to admit more. It was a genuinely exciting moment to encounter an unknown female artist who has not received much critical attention and about whom I could make a big contribution towards understanding. The subject was the enigmatic Dora Batty…

Little is known about Dora’s life. She is known only for her professional roles and her output. Like other women artists, she has been neglected, never achieved the fame of her male compatriots… As a result, one cannot bring biography to a study of her artwork. Neither can one be misled by what others have written, which seems to be a particularly abhorrent current practice of the scholar, the interpretor and the guide. One imagines a woman that never made much of an impression. One cannot even visualise her appearance because a photograph has not even been recovered. For a moment, I had a fantasy of tracing her family genealogy so that I could try and contact any living descendants that might have a diary, a photograph, written records or objects of some description so that I could have something else than the art. In the game, it is permitted to cheat… What a delicious daydream: an expedition, an adventure, new people to meet, new avenues to pursue, a quest of interpretation…

But I am left to just looking at the work and thinking. Justice demands a scrutiny of the woman artist’s works, a redressing of her dismissal by (White) Man. Let us begin.

The first exhibit that meets us in the Poster Parade is ‘The Underground brings all things nearer’. We are in the conventional grounds of Greek Myth. As it clearly states, the poster celebrates ‘The Return of Persephone’. She is being rescued from the underground by Hermes. Dora loves to tease. The obvious play is upon the concept of the ‘underground’. While it signifies Hades and hell, it is also obviously referencing the Tube. For a poster commissioned by London Transport, this is clearly a subtle bite at the hand that feeds her, the delicious tease of a mocking and ego-defeating woman. From the Underground, hell and the tube, Persephone is emerging. The concept of the poster is that from the Underground, which we imagine as the realm of the dead, life and fertility is emerging in the form of Persephone. But there is a moment of feminism in that period of emerging women’s rights and the Suffragette movement – Persephone (woman oppressed, captured, imprisoned) is rescued from her controlling husband (the LAW, Death, Sovereignty, POWER…) Now, there is the question. What is the biographical aspect, what is the women’s movement? The Suffragettes were around at this time and they were fighting against the patriarchal laws of marriage, with its enclosure of the woman in the domestic realm. But is there something else in Dora’s life? Bearing the hallmarks of its time, Persephone is rescued by Hermes, a man… There isn’t total emancipation of the woman. Is there a new man in Dora’s life at this time, an extra-marital affair…? However, one also remembers that Hermes is the protector of travellers, the god of roads… He is dressed as a traveller, of course, with winged sandals. There are subtle resonances for the highly educated and the classicists in this poster about travel. Dora is clearly classically educated… The game, my friends. One has to learn the mythology of the world to play it…

The tragedy with the poster is that Persephone still had to spend months of the year in the Underworld – there is no ultimate freedom from MAN AS KING AND DEATH… Ambiguity and despair is always there in the background. Is this a realistic assessment of women’s politics at the time (and still now?) Or is it the acceptance that Dora cannot release herself from her marriage (was she married, or is the poster simply about a fantasy of emancipation)?

Now, let us talk about the flowers. Flowers flood the posters. Persephone is also holding a flower. Is the flower sex (the flower is a sexual organ which is ‘penetrated’)? Are we witnessing sexual liberation in Dora’s psyche? The implicit love triangle in the first poster – Hermes, Persephone, Hades. Travel itself as sex (a holiday romance, perhaps?). The fantasy of sex rather than its achievement from a repressed woman? Dear Dora, why do you not write what is the case? If the hypothesis that the flowers are sex is right, can it be confirmed by some of the other posters? [It is worthwhile to mention here that there are other suggestions. Not only have female artists painted flowers throughout art history, as a ‘woman’s genre’, but also that women themselves have been described as flowers throughout history and particularly guilty were the Victorians and those around at the start of the twentieth century – flower as woman herself in this art, or rather her sexual body and her body as a body of desire…)

In ‘Bluebells are out’, an anonymous female caresses the flowers lovingly. Her lips are upon them, her hand clenches them. Her senses are engaged. She smells them. So we have touch, the sexuality of a kiss, intoxication with the scent. Full sensory engagement. She also looks directly into the flowers. Is this look at the flower and sex what the viewer is expected to understand and echo? Woman playing with her own sex and sexuality? Is this the revealing mirror of subjectivity at the heart of the image? Let us be Freudian and make an insinuation about how the hand is holding the phallic bunch of stalks of flowers at the bottom of the image…

In ‘Crocuses are out’, woman swoons over the flowers which she caresses again with her hands. With her eyes shut in ecstasy and Lacanian jouissance… The flower she smells is pinkish red – the colour of sex…

So, perhaps we have an exhibition of a woman artist that is pursuing liberation, including sexual liberation. Perhaps we are seeing a woman fighting against the Law and the figure of the King for a new tomorrow and for ownership over her own body and desires… Perhaps we see Dora the fighter. But a jaded fighter. After all, what is the fight of the artist? It is true that many of the Suffragettes were artists, a disproportionate amount. Was the main fight in the visual arts and against the visual culture of the Law and the King, Oppressor Man?

Let us leave identity politics for a moment. Let us talk about Dora as she is in my favourite works of hers. I will write first about the interesting pattern in ‘Whitsuntide by Underground’. The artist has woven together many moments of leisure into almost a textile pattern (she worked in textiles). The composition is crowded and flooded with energy. People are joined in small communities by their pursuits, families, friends, athletes. They are also integrated in nature and the countryside through trees, fields and water, animals. There is a harmony of leisure and nature, life and the world, an inter-connected and unbreakable pattern. And let us not forget the female body’s interaction with the flowers in the early posters – nature is a body that unites with woman’s body. Woman is nature, humankind is nature – the celebration of the animal self that we have come from that lived in trees…

Similarly, ‘There is still the country’ shows the woman’s body wedded to the (phallic, it must be said) tree. The whole scene is blown about from a strong wind and enriched with the sun which seems to emanate from the woman’s head, her creative force and mind. There is pure energy, enlightenment (emancipation)… The leaves fall from the trees – there is transformation, the relentless but cyclical turning of the time as in Hindu thought… What is dead and dying is to be shed to make space for what is living….

So is this Dora? Or is this merely Suneel’s Dora? One makes an argument. One seeks to persuade. But more than that, one seeks to know. In the absence of clues, one looks to a Suffragette context. In the absence of a photograph, one tries to plumb a mind. The Dora exhibit is interesting and important because it brings these thoughts to mind. It asks why a woman of such talent has no place in thought. It seeks to rectify this wrong. Dora’s art is stylistically very Art Deco. I do not know if she followed the movement, or how much she contributed. I do not know how important she is in the history of Women’s Rights for making art that explores women’s issues and attempts to rescue them from the ills of sexual repression (if sex is the theme that I have not invented for our Dora). And finally, one makes an admission. The interest, the thread that I have followed is that Dora is Modern Woman. Someone that I do not understand – if anyone does. To understand the mind of this challenging and reticent creature, one often has to gaze at the expressions that she leaves about her in the world. And to form an opinion, one has to dare a conjecture, even as a man – which might wholly be wrong and is entirely contestable, of course…

You can see all of the posters in the Poster Parade here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection

List of Posters:

Dora Batty, 1923 – The Underground brings all things nearer
Dora Batty, 1925 – From country to the heart of town
Dora Batty, 1924 – Foxgloves, Kew Gardens
Dora Batty, 1925 – From town to open country
Dora Batty, 1921 – Travel with the children
Dora Batty, 1930 – Season ticket, travel cheaply, save money
Dora Batty, 1927 – Bluebells are out
Dora Batty, 1927 – Blackberry time
Dora Batty, 1935 – Special shows of tulips
Dora Batty, 1927 – Crocuses are out
Dora Batty, 1927 – Daffodils are blooming
Dora Batty, 1932 – Regents Park to see the rose garden
Dora Batty, 1928 – Buy a season ticket
Dora Batty, 1924 – Survivals of the past, Painted Hall
Dora Batty, 1932 – RAF display, Colindale station
Dora Batty, 1936 – Trooping the colour
Dora Batty, 1924 – Survivals of the past, Yeoman Warders
Dora Batty, 1934 – Easter
Dora Batty, 1938 – Out and about by London Transport
Dora Batty, 1926 – Make yours a General holiday
Dora Batty, 1931 – Whitsuntide by Underground
Dora Batty, 1926 – Hampton Court by tram
Dora Batty, 1926 – There is still the country

Hallyu the Korean Wave Review – Victoria & Albert Museum Exhibition

01.04.2023

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/hallyu-the-korean-wave

At home, they sit in a neglected and increasingly dusty pile – with my other language learning books picked up mainly from charity shops – or the internet when the owners lost their interest in learning them (14 languages in total and building). Untouched, they are marked out for future study when my life is not just about work and academia, carefully compiled: a set of Korean language books. I picked them up in a free hotel book sharing point in a country where they have many Korean workers (it is not Korea, my friends).

Although I never got onto the Korea loving bandwagon with ‘Gangham Style’ or ‘Squid Games’, and I didn’t watch the film that won the Oscars (‘Parasite’), I have taught several Korean people when I used to volunteer to teach English to refugees and migrants over five years. I watch some K-Pop, although it is just one band called (G)-IDLE as I like watching the young women dance and perform and I enjoy the cinematography of the music videos. So it was with this light acquaintance in need of improvement and because I wanted to see the Friday Late at the V & A that I meandered my way at the end of the night into the ‘Hallyu the Korean Wave’ exhibit.

The exhibit is exciting, eclectic and vibrant and speaks to the young. Inundated with interest, the walls showcase Korean film, music, beauty and fashion. All of the senses are awakened and rejuvenated by an immersion into a colourful Korean cultural life.

When you go in, you are confronted with several screens showing ‘Gangham Style’ and its parodies. Of course, this song is synonymous with K-Pop and is probably one of the only contemporary songs that everyone in cities around the world probably knows. We get to see the audacious pink suit that Psy wore for the music video. But the surprising thing to learn is that the song and the suit mock South Korea’s ‘hyper-consumerism and material pursuit’, using the district of Gangham as an example. The suit is a sneer at what the elites wear in that area and the iconic dance moves are snipes at posers and wannabes that emulate that kind of lifestyle.

If Korean culture is currently chic, then the next section of the exhibit makes us reflect on the historical miracle of how a colonised, war-torn country which was ravaged by the Cold War and also ‘one of the most violent conflicts in modern history’ in the Korean War of 1950 has followed a ‘remarkable trajectory’ to become a ‘leading cultural powerhouse by the early 2000s’. The formula seems to be ‘governmental control, daring strategies and IT innovation’, alongside quick hands and quick minds.

I will write about the parts that excited me the most in what followed on the journey through the massive space that the exhibition enfolded. A long term fan of athletics and gymnastics, I was entranced by the Volunteer guide uniform for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The clothing draws inspiration from the national costume which is called hanbok. The outfit is beautiful, graceful, an accomplishment of functional style inter-weaved with the Olympic spirit and colours. It is the perfect metaphor of endurance, of a people that have kept their traditions while becoming truly international, even though enmity and colonisation attempted to destroy their way of life. Here, as elsewhere in the exhibition, I was reminded of the affinities of Korea’s history with India’s. In fact, there was even a Hindi film poster which showed a pirated (‘adapted’) Korean film, which influenced my finding of affinities with my motherland even more.

It was also a surreal experience to see the wig worn by Choi Min-sik in ‘Oldboy’. This is probably the most memorable Korean film I have watched. When I was immersed in this filmic universe, I just assumed that the wig was the actor’s real hair. In the exhibit, removed from the face, the wig was patently, even insolently artificial. Yet it still teemed with an energy, almost like that of life. The make up and hair director of the film, Song Jong-hee intended to infuse the wig with wildness to convey the ‘feral emotions’ and the effect of the years of incarceration on the protagonist of the film. To me, raised in Hinduism and Sikhism, where hair is sacred and the god Shiva is known for the strength of his hair, the hairstyle raised the resonance of India, religion, power, feelings hard to express or even describe.

A particularly interesting section of the exhibition was the exploration of beauty standards in Korean culture, since the nation is a ‘global trendsetter’ in this area. The historical background until the 1910s (perhaps longer?) is seven hundred years of maintaining beauty as a ‘moral obligation’ as attractiveness symbolises not only social status, but also virtue.

Where did I spend the most time in the exhibition? I sat before a big screen watching a compilation of snippets from K-Pop videos, admiring the crystal sharpness of today’s video cameras, the lightning flashes of Korean dance moves and the stunning physical beauty of the people. It was intoxicating. Yet, as I watched, the critical part of my mind kept on turning over the question of whether what I was watching was something authentic and organic, something different, or just indoctrination and influence from the Western world, a parroting of the Western music video. I am still not sure.

Surely, ‘Hallyu the Korean Wave’ is one of the most memorable exhibitions that I have been to. I was also pleased to see that the exhibition seems to have been put together from Korean descent people, which seems to give it the authenticity that is lacking from Orientalising Western depictions of Asian people such as Indians. I learned a general history of modern Korea, was amused, inspired to learn more, ever more determined to one day make a serious foray into the language. I felt the unity of Asian culture as a man of Indian descent, almost a sense of belonging. Out of the three exhibitions I went to in the V & A that day, the exhibition was my personal favourite. I never felt even a moment of boredom in it and my attention was focused entirely on the exhibits.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/hallyu-the-korean-wave

‘Green Travel’, London Transport Museum: Poster Parade Review

(Poster Parade lasts for approx. 3 months before it is changed)

1^st Floor, London Transport Museum, Covent Garden

Entry to the London Transport Museum: £21 for an annual pass (£20 students and concessions)

08.02.2023

All the posters listed at the bottom in the Poster Parade can be searched for and viewed here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections

I don’t think it is any exaggeration to say that the most important and constant preoccupation of our times is the environment and how we can save the world from the damage that we have done to it. Following the recent, successful, ‘Green Journeys’ exhibition in the Transportorium of the London Transport Museum (LTM), the site is now hosting a ‘Green Travel’ Poster Parade on the first floor. The Museum’s consistent championing of the environmentalist cause has genuinely inspired many youngsters and I remember a visitor telling me how much her daughter missed the ‘Green Journeys’ exhibition when it was gone. She said it had been her daughter’s favourite space in the whole museum because of its educative power.

Public transport has been hailed as one of the solutions that can help to minimise environmental damage to the planet through the economical use of energy and resources. As the title and introduction of the exhibition suggests, there has been much investment in the tube to ‘make London cleaner and greener’. As Londoners know, there has been a historical practice of encouraging commuters to use their cars less, the advertisement of journeys to clean, green spaces of countryside outside of London, as well as a promotion of walking and cycling so as to ease congestion and keep the air breathable. While many of the strategies have borne fruit, such as in the reduction of coal burning and industrial pollution, the public transport infrastructure still has problems to face in reducing pollution and creating a zone with clean air. The saving of the world is still very much a work in process.

The historical range of the images in the Poster Parade is from the early twentieth century in the 1910s to the twenty-first century and the 2010s. The styles and subject matter range from realistic landscapes, to illustrations of space and the planets, edited photographs, games of text and image, visual animalistic metaphors of transport as taxis are literalised as snails, and the conversion of the London landscape into bicycle parts. Quirkiness, comedy, creativity – even horror as the effects of smoke pollution are made evident in the imagined future of a child’s photographed face – all these collide together in the exhibition, whose one sure strength is variety.

The quirkiest image is probably the one of the taxis as snails by Nick Hardcastle, ‘Or take the Tube’. The black cabs of London are famous throughout the world, as is ‘the Knowledge’ that their cab drivers boast after years of learning, but these instantly recognisable facts are given a surprising visual metamorphosis. The familiar is manufactured into the unfamiliar, even the Freudian uncanny. The snail shells add to this impression as Freud called the uncanny the ‘unhomely’ and the shells are their homes. Faintly sickening, the snail taxis glisten with a disgusting mucus which symbolises the dirtiness left by the motor car as its imprint on the world and its journey. The clustered ranks of molluscs, an identical parade, suggest a dreary and unthinking conformism.

I have two favourite images. The first is ‘Good for you green for London’ (2010) by Rachel Lillie. This is the winning illustration in ‘The best of contemporary illustrators’. The illustration depicts London’s journeys through the experience of the cyclists and the message is the promotion of ‘the benefits of cycling for our health and the environment’. The display notice adds that ‘TFL cycling initiatives such as free and tailored cycle skills sessions are teaching safer ways of navigating the city’. The space is imagined as a leaf unfurling through time, with its veins as pathways to famous London landmarks. I liked the image for two reasons. First of all, this seems to be the only illustration by a woman in the collection, if one assumes that the other illustrations and posters are all by men (they may not be, many of them were presented with ‘Artist Unknown’, which was a slightly frustrating experience). Diversity is still a real challenge in illustration, as I know from my own experience as a digital artist, and it is good to support those of us who are examples of diversity and have got a little recognition. Secondly, like the artist, as she says on her website, I am also interested in the depiction and conceptualisation of space, especially London. An interesting connection is drawn in the illustration between the red bus and the cyclists who are shaped in a blood red. The cyclist moves in the same ethical space as the public transport vehicle, as a being that creates a cleaner and greener city. The famous London landmarks are shrouded in the night as black outlines while the cyclists are illuminated by a light that blesses the good. Perhaps the suggestion is that the conventional vision of the city has to change and the things that were once considered important have to yield to the renewed experience of stewardship we face in the age of environmental calamity.

My second favourite poster is ‘Carfree Carefree’ by Abram Games (1967) which is given a renewed life in this contemporary exhibition in this contemporary world. The poster and the title are the same, white letters shaped like a bus against a background of purple, red and orange tiles. Typography is one of my own preoccupations as a digital artist and letters shaped like images act upon my senses with an unrivalled seductive power. The letter bus in the poster hurtles past a small car in the background. The demonstration is of the strength of the bus in relation to the individualised, little car: public transport versus the individual, social and public civic responsibility in the age of environmentalism versus the selfish fixation with the material possession of the car and its solitary amusements. As with the other posters, the interest is in how a public transport corporation converts its competition with private forms of transport into an ethical mission to save the entire planet and the people and life within it. Financial competition does not always have to be selfish after all, it can be of the people and for the people, against the luxury and convenience of the individuals that won’t participate in the group.

The two messages that hit hardest were ‘One full bus equals forty empty cars’ and ‘Each year we cover nearly 1 billion miles in the car on journeys of less than a mile’ (1998). It is always facts that can hit hardest. These facts also contextualise the aim of London transport to get people fitter and get out there walking and cycling. Of course, some have mobility issues, but for the majority of people, it is laziness and the convenience and instant gratification culture that is choking the planet.

My overall impression of the Poster Parade is that it is successful artistically and in terms of its content and importance. And in terms of inspiration for change. The historical sweep is illuminating because it reminds us that people in London have always cared about its clean air and to eliminate the pernicious effects of pollution. Yes, we are facing an environmental disaster. But the good have always fought against this with technology and with the right morals. There is hope and no need for despair. They, the good, will always fight for a better world. Yet, there is no ‘triumphialism’. The Poster Parade acknowledges that there is still much to do and much to fight for. That elusive dream of ‘Green Travel’ is still a work for the making, even though it is the most alluring and important dream of our times.

List of Posters in the Exhibition (all searchable at: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections)

Anonymous, ‘Golder’s Green’ (1911)
Maxwell Ashby Armfield, ‘By Underground to fresh air’ (1915)
Gwynedd M Hudson, ‘Spring Beckons You’ (1929)
Alfred Leete, ‘Nightwatchmen’ (1928)
Anonymous, ‘Clear the Air’ (1938)
Charles Sharland, ‘Light, Power and Speed’ (1910)
Anonymous, ‘London’s Tramways’ (1929)
F Gregory Brown, ‘By Trolleybus to Kingston’ (1933)
Abram Games, ‘Carfree Carefree’ (1967)
Nick Hardcastle, ‘Or take the Tube’ (1987)
Austin Cooper, ‘Bicyclism – the art of wheeling’ (1928)
Transport for London, ‘London – made for cycling’ (2007)
Anonymous, ‘Get ready for Prudential Ride London’ (2015)
Rachel Lillie, ‘Good for you green for London’ (2010)
Easy Tiger Creative, ‘Cycling for Pleasure’ (2016)
Anonymous, ‘Don’t Choke London’ (2001)
Anonymous, ‘London Car Free Day’ (2002)
London Transport, ‘One full bus equals forty empty cars’ (1998)
London Transport, ‘1 billion miles in the car’ (1998)
Anonymous, ‘Cleaner Air for Greater London’ (2007)
Anonymous, ‘Hydrogen powers rockets’ (2014)

Winter Wonderland Poster Parade. London Transport Museum.

Winter Wonderland Poster Parade.

London Transport Museum, 1^st floor.

Entry: 21 pounds for an adult yearly entry. 20 pound student yearly entry.

05.12.2022

You can see all the posters here via a search of terms for your own virtual exhibition (Full Searchable Exhibition Catalogue given at the end of this short outline of my impressions as a viewer):

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection?f%5B0%5D=collection_type%3APosters

If I cast about in my mind for my most immediately accessible winter memories, there are images of Christmas and snowballs (with flashes of pain in some cases), hot chocolate in an ice skating park, women in smart, expensive coats on the London streets, lavish adverts on television, frenzied shopping during New Year’s sales, and an annoying range of mediocre songs that are played, unaccountably, every single year.

Many, if not all, of these topics are to be found in the Winter Wonderland Poster Parade on the first floor of the London Transport Museum. Certainly, shopping plays a major role in the collection, including a depiction of the Winter sales. For both critics of capitalism and its supporters, there is something for everyone – anonymous subjects wandering around in a state of anomie in between the stores, a cornucopia of street signs arranged artistically to show a virtual map of the sales in London, depictions of women consumers done in a futuristic style (make of that what you will).

The introduction to the poster parade proclaims that there is a focus on ice skating, country walks, shopping and the exploration of historic landmarks during the winter months. The parade emphasises the practical purpose of the posters which encouraged passengers to take off-peak journeys or appealed to our comfort-loving nature by persuading us that it was warmer to travel by public transport in London.

I have fond memories of ice skating, including watching my female companion surreptitiously distancing herself from me and laughing maniacally as I desperately clutched and groped at an innocent female bystander so I didn’t fall down on my first try. So I particularly enjoyed looking at the portrayals of ice skating. The poster that stood out most to me was ‘Ice Skating’ by Charles Pears, printed in 1928. It shows a beautiful woman engaged in a graceful movement across the ice, her face obscured in shadow, her scarf elegantly billowing against the pure snow behind her. She is entranced in the flow of the figure, lost in her skill to the world and its impurities… Such is the beauty of this season and of ice skating itself, one of the most beautiful of pastimes.

The other poster that I quite liked was ‘Winter’s Discontent Made Glorious’. Against an ominous, sublime, inhumane cloudscape, we see a train in which the windows are filled with scenes from dining, shopping and the theatre, spaces crowded with fashionable people. On one level, the poster reminds us that some of our liveliest and happiest scenes have been in winter. On the other hand, the fact that the train and its illuminated scenes are to plunge into the dark abyss of a tunnel which would extinguish all light seems to refer to the depression that can come upon us in sun-starved winter. It is a conceptually balanced design.

My overall impression of the poster parade is that it contains striking works of art and a good range of different artistic styles. I was interested in how optimistic the collection is about winter. We all know that winter can bring on sadness, and the posters all try to counter this impulse with a positive, upbeat message of hope and happiness. The posters have also inspired me to take a few winter walks, when traditionally, I have avoided long walks out in the cold in the countryside. The posters are intriguing as they show us the emotional appeal of Christmas and winter shopping in the recent past, how they act as a psychological booster during what can be very trying months and also because of the beauty and complexity of the designs and messages that they convey. As such, the poster parade really is what it says it is: a winter wonderland to which all of our senses and feelings are invited.

Exhibition Catalogue

Winter’s Discontent Made Glorious – Anonymous, 1909
Brightest London is Best Reached by Underground – Horace Taylor, 1924
Winter Cavalcade – Margaret Barnard, 1938
Empress Hall – Earls Court – Walter Goetz, 1937
Winter in the Country – Harry Stevens, 1965
Winter Sales – Quickly Reached – Compton Bennett, 1926
Winter Fun – Skating – Anna Hymas, 2016
Winter Sales – Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1924
It is Warmer Below – Frederick Charles Herrick, 1927
Winter Country Walks – Hans Unger, 1958
Hampton Court – Hanna Well, 1963
Ice Skating – Charles Pears, 1928
Winter Walks – Laura Knight, 1957
Keep Warm – travel Underground – Kathleen Stenning, 1925
Out and about in Winter – Molly Moss, 1950
Shop in Town – Leith, 1928
Winter Sales – Artist Unknown, 1920
Winter in London – John Burningham, 1965
Winter – Paul Catherall, 2006
Winter Visitors – Clifford Ellis and Rosemary Ellis, 1937
Brighter London for Winter Sales – Harold Sandys Williamson, 1924