Future You: 21st Century Skills Exhibition

London Transport Museum

19-22 April 2024

These are my own personal views of the exhibition and do not represent any of the views at any of the organisations I am working in.

This exhibition is a triumph of energy and imaginative problem solving from the children, the future. It is a reaffirmation of the fact that the human race has always solved any problems that have come into its path and will do so again. That we do not lack inventiveness and ways of thinking around and through things. Even with problems that we have created for ourselves. It is a reaffirmation of optimism in the world and in the future of our children and the species. This world which we have spoilt can be fixed. That is the message of the exhibition.

Six primary schools were set an imaginative task in collaboration with the London Transport Museum – they had to find solutions for the climate change crisis. Aliens had told them that their planet was no longer liveable and they needed to start over again in an environmentally friendly way. The inspiration for their planet-friendly technology was to come from animals and plants.

As I walked around the masses of reclaimed cardboard boxes and lollipop sticks, the resourcefulness of the children was in abundant evidence. These cast away objects had been magically transformed. They had become something again. They had become the visions of the future. The tinkering of the children, with the artistic designs, showed their enviable creativity and collaboration skills.

Inventions were strewn about everywhere like a mad scientist’s frenzied laboratory:

‘The Helpful Bumblebee cleans the air and rubbish. The Earthly trees stop flooding and pollution as well as cleaning the Earth and so prevents coughing and sneezing. The Legendary Pigeon sucks in pollution through its nose.’ (Exhibition Text).

The models for each of the animal inspired inventions were cute and beautiful in their way – the innocent and sweet and simple beauty of children’s art and the infantile imagination.

The young artists and inventors had become curators too, and told us about the most interesting and important facts about the exhibits in the museum. It was beautiful to see what they had learnt and what had inspired them to share.

A nice touch was to show an old poster that imagined the future in London as a skyline with skyscrapers and flying vehicles. The idea that we have always dreamed of a better future for transport, that we have always had dreams which have changed this world that we live in for the better, that allow us to make a fantasy world that we live in in reality. The strength and far seeing sight of our mind’s eye.

This was a beautiful exhibition – full of dynamism, an adventure into a mad scientist’s laboratory. An excursion into possibility and the resilience of the children’s mind that can respond to the death of a world to create new life and new beginnings, to build a world entire, the world of the imagination. The desire for a better world from the innocent that have not been corrupted by dismay and stagnation in the selfishness and greed that is around us. But which rejuvenates itself in animal and plant life, in caring and positive change.

Echoes of the Blitz: Underground shelters in Ukraine and London

London Transport Museum in Covent Garden

Dr. Suneel Mehmi

01.04.2024

All views in this article represent my personal views as a private and political individual and do not represent the views of any of the organisations I work at. My expertise? My PhD involved the early history and reception of photography in its political and legal contexts.

‘Don’t survive it. Live it.’ These were the words that someone said to me recently. Survival is the most important thing for us as a species. In the field of psychology, they tell us that the human mind is geared towards survival. That’s where we get our intelligence from: evolutionary adaptations for surviving. But with survival, you have to live it too. You have to experience the fight.

The new photographic display ‘Echoes of the Blitz’ shows how we have to live through our survival. The exhibition ‘explores how Underground stations and metro systems provide shelter to citizens during periods of war – now and in the past’ [1]. How, when you are confronted with death and mortality, when you look death in the eyes, you fight for breath, sense and security. How you find shelter in unexpected places in extreme circumstances and still make a life for yourself. How throughout history and its rivers of blood, throughout the modern period and the supposedly ‘civilised’ Western world, people have hidden in fear to preserve their life, children, culture and heritage.

In total, the photography gallery displays:

‘70 striking images, including historical images from the Museum collection alongside 38 contemporary photographs by six renowned, mainly Ukrainian, documentary photographers.’ [2]

Some of the most recognisable images of the war have been of people sheltering in the London Underground shelters and these icons of memory are given an update and a new relevance through a juxtaposition of the scenes in the Underground shelters in Ukraine.

According to the London Transport Museum, what we are seeing is:

recent photography of ordinary Ukrainian citizens in extraordinary circumstances. They are shown sleeping, waiting, cooking, washing clothes, caring for their pets and creating temporary make-shift homes in Metro stations in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and its second largest city Kharkiv. These scenes are ‘echoed’ in the black and white archive images of Londoners taking refuge in Tube stations during the Second World War. [3]

The aim of the exhibition is to:

present strong parallels of human experience across different locations and conflicts. This exhibition documents the resilience of people in Ukraine and London during times of war and the reality of having to escape from aerial bombardment. [4]

Other comments have been made about the aims of the exhibition. Matt Brosnan, Head Curator, London Transport Museum, said that the photographs ‘show the resilience and tragic reality of war’ [5]. Stefan Günther, Project Manager, Photo, n-ost, said that the exhibition is ‘an opportunity to perceive the current war in Ukraine on a very personal level, away from the wider political and media glare’. [6]

I think that the exhibit makes concrete the idea of Ukrainians rather than Ukraine. All nations are fictions. It is the people there that are real. And in these photographs, we see the people directly and how they are having to live. And it is photography and its truth that allows us to see the reality behind the abstractions of the newspapers. It is photography that allows us to see them face to face and come directly into their lives. As a matter of fact, the frames of the exhibition invite us to do this. The black and white World War photographs have black frames. These photographs are framed and closed off to us – because as we know, the past is a foreign country. However, the photographs of the Ukrainians are not framed. We are in direct contact with them through our eyes and our perspectives. We are immersed into their world. There is no separation from us through the device of the frame. What is happening there is spilling out into our world, including us. Asking us to contemplate, sympathise.

Some historical details taken from the London Transport Museum website allow us to see the facts behind what is being portrayed:

London’s air raid sirens sounded almost every day for eight months from September 1940 to May 1941 and again between June 1944 and March 1945. Sheltering in Tube stations overnight became a routine. There were special admission tickets, bunk beds on the platforms, refreshments and, at some stations, libraries, music and live entertainment.

In Kyiv, sheltering in the Metro peaked at around 40,000 people at the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Some stayed overnight, others for days or weeks, returning to the surface only for groceries or to wash. Those who lost their homes lived underground for months.

Kharkiv, close to the border with Russia, experiences more frequent shelling. People spent more time in the Metro there, creating comfortable homely spaces with bedding, tents, carpets, decorations and toys. [7]

After you have read the blurb of the exhibition, the first photograph that dominates is ‘Woman in tent at Dorohozhychi station’ by Maxim Dondyuk, 2 March 2022. The woman defensively has her hand held to her shoulder, covering her chest: a striking image of someone in need of protection, someone that has to defend themselves from an unjust attack. She has to comfort herself with that hand on her shoulder. The woman stands out isolated from the crowd behind her that is not visible, vulnerable and isolated, perhaps like the situation of Ukraine itself – a country that has been left to fend for itself by the ‘civilised’ world of modernity which has disappeared when it is needed. She looks directly at the camera: she implores us to look upon her as the fate of her people, the innocent civilians subjected to the imperialism of the modern day state and its brutality, to their unjust greed and their uncontrolled and obscene desire for control, domination, land and resources. She asks us to acknowledge our role, the roles of our countries that have left her in this position. Does she ask us why? Her face is touched with sadness and suffering. She is in – through the connotations of the opening of the tent – in the dark den of despair, half-eaten by the hole, the absence.

In terms of its historical importance, the exhibition features one of the first ever photographs that were taken when the war broke out and the Ukranians sheltered in the underground stations. Viacheslav Ratynkyi, that on the very first day of the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022 he went down into the Metro and brought a camera so that he could document the situation. [8] The people have used the edges of the stairs along the walls as seats to create a clearing in the middle so that others can move up and down. They have been resourceful to give themselves make-shift seats that would be extremely uncomfortable to sit upon for long periods of time. They have had to adapt for survival and protection as a group, a group and species bound together by necessity and the cruel games of the politicians and the modern day states that are supposed to serve and protect them, the states that are supposed to be bound by the laws and justice. In response to the unjust throne of the state and its modern day king, who cannot sit as he should, the people sit heroically and patiently, in solidarity and suffering. They begin the long wait for peace, the desire of every thinking and feeling human being. These people are the human contrast to the inhuman face of power and brutality, the fascism of the modern-day state.

When I say I am Indian and come from India, it is the India of the people, not the India of the politicians or the intolerant and oppressive citizenship that they want to create. The state that they create is not India. What they create is corruption. We, we the people, we are India. And here, in this photography exhibit, we have the Ukrainians and Ukraine. These people are not defined by the war. In this exhibit, we see them doing the things that we all do every day: listening to music, learning, reading, dying their hair. Holding each other for comfort. They are victims of the state and the politicians. But they have organised themselves. They have created a space away from the brutal games of the state and its quest for total domination. Across world history, across the suffering that man has created, we look at the victims of the politicians and how they have tried to carve out another space and another reality beyond what the unimaginative and corrupt state has imagined. People who live through their struggle for survival. With resilience. As I look at these photographs, I know that one day, the modern-day state with its evils will fall. It has to. Because the spirit of the people will one day overcome the absurd egotistical limitations of geographical and racial boundaries. You can see this in the people and the photographs. You can feel the power of pure being. The desire to move out of the control of others. The spirit of resistance. The spirit of overcoming. Because these people are not trying to create a nation state down there in the underground shelters. They are trying to create a human community: a sphere of protection and life. It is a world meant to foster life – the world that we are trying to create by countering domination with the philosophy of live and let live, by countering selfishness with the desire for preservation, by countering the desire for destruction and death with the desire for life and the future.

If you want to see what a real hero looks like, don’t look at the soldier with blood on his hands, the killer for the state. Look at the everyday hero that fights for survival in an oppressive world and the games of control around them by trying to create another reality – the reality of peace and life. Freedom from death, envy, killing, exploitation. Freedom from the state and its obscenity and blood lust. The people that have created history, tradition and culture by surviving – by fighting to survive and live through that survival – and not by dying and killing in war.

[1] https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/news/new-echoes-blitz-underground-shelters-ukraine-and-london-photography-exhibition-now-open#:~:text=A%20new%20photography%20exhibition%3A%20Echoes,now%20and%20in%20the%20past.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

Design Heaven: London College of Communication Shows 2023

13.06.2023

Show Two – Design and Screen: 14-17 June

I sauntered down to the London College of Communication Shows 2023 to see the animation videos. I sat in a packed theatre for a while recalling what it was like to be in that space and at a physical university again. However, after about two hours I wandered out and immediately outside there was a delight that I hadn’t expected – books and design projects created by the students. So I decided to have a look and to pick out some of the projects that I especially enjoyed. All of the projects were beautifully presented, lovely to look at, all stimulating. The students in this country’s university are blessed with great creativity and inspiration, as well as dedication and hard work.

Ananya Dalmia – Maachis

https://www.ananyadalmia.org/

A project by a fellow Indian from Delhi about the visual designs on Indian matchboxes. Ananya collects the matchboxes and has a considerably sized archive of the things. The matchboxes have to communicate visually because India is a visual culture and also because it has a high proportion of illiterates and people that have very different languages from each other, so any text-based message becomes problematic. My favourite in the show, for obvious reasons. I loved her drawings of the goddess Kali and the eyes with the bindi in the middle – it is an obvious fact that a lot of these matchboxes would be in a religious area for lighting incense. Ananya writes ‘these pocket-sized time capsules not only document historical and cultural themes but also embody the kitsch style of India’ and that they embody ‘a visual language that celebrates culture, uniqueness and vibrancy’.

Kate Ruscher – The Game of Life: America Edition

https://www.kateruscher.com/

On her website, Kate writes that she began her creative journey at just two years old. The design she put forward was dark, unique and thought-provoking. Her board game design is based on the premise that life is precarious in America because of guns, so ‘what do you want to do IF you grow up?’ The scenarios in the game are based on real tragedies. As she writes ‘While the board is full of colorful tiles, the black background reflects the dark reality of this uniquely American problem beneath the surface’. This was perhaps one of the most political of the designs and the one that tackled social problems the most (although, in fairness, there was another design about how beauty standards affect women, too). As a transformative message that brings the lived reality of gun crime immediately to the viewer and reader, this was a very successful piece.

Helen Greenwood – This is time for us

Instagram – helen.greenwood_design

This project explored how time could be represented through depictions of the motions of the solar system, but also how Helen’s ‘personal time has been shaped by love and loss’. The book that she presented was done in black with very ordered and controlled illustrations dominated by geometry. This was an interesting project because, of course, for aeons, humans have charted their passage through life with reference to celestial bodies, astrology being one of the main examples. Of particular interest was how a modern-day individual was trying to make a relationship to the wider cosmos through a frame of reference that was non-mythological and non-religious, that was scientific in scope and intent. Can we only relate to the whole of the existence of time and matter through such a rational lens? Or was the non-rational (and rebellious) part the inspired creation linking text and image, which relies on imagination and the linking of things that modern day, secular society has deemed as largely non-related?

Tung Dang – Bloom

https://www.behance.net/songsongtung

A beautiful book full of botanical illustrations by a designer originally from Vietnam. The book is based on the 5 stages of grief theory and is intended as a ‘spiritual friend’. The style struck me as quite restrained, subtle and sophisticated. However, there was substance, since Tung says that the flowers represent resilience: ‘not matter how damaged they are, they will grow and bloom again’. This design is interesting because we live in an an age of environmental disaster, with an ‘instability and uncertainty’ that Tung references when he talks about the survival power of the flowers. Yet we can always look to the power of nature for inspiration and, yes, healing. Anyone that has felt the healing power of trees, plants and animals will love this design and feel an emotional connection with the human being connected with earth, his home. This was one of the most universal and enduring messages in the exhibition, a message of survival against the odds.

Tszka Auyeung – Technology Sobriety

Instagram – @_ousansui

Beautiful designs of furniture, resplendent with all the colours of the rainbow, which contrasts with the transparency of glass. Perhaps we should call it ‘prismatic furniture’ for it reminds me of Newton’s discovery that a transparent prism contained within it all the colours in the spectrum. This project combined AI to create home environments, so it is very current and demonstrates how a responsible and controlled use of AI can transform design possibilities, and ‘lead to more creative and innovative designs’ as Tszka writes (and demonstrates so wonderfully). The future of AI must be that it is subject to human control and inspiration. It is a tool, not a substitute for what makes us uniquely us.

Jingjing Lu – Visual Horizon of Life Philosophy

https://julielu720.wixsite.com/atalanta-jing

This design was intended to make philosophy more comprehensible by presenting it in visual form, a departure from verbal and text-based communication styles. We often use visual presentation in the form of pie charts and bar graphs for maths to help us more readily understand what is abstract, so why not apply the same principle to philosophy, which is also abstract and complicated? What made this project unique for me, was not only its brave originality, but also the fact that it combined Oriental and Western philosophy, so it had that global frame of reference which is so attractive to me. The book and materials were beautifully presented in pink and also relied on a subtle and sophisticated aesthetic.

Michelle Liu – Shapes of Fortunes

http://www.michellelnt.com/

Michelle’s design is ‘a brand that provides a range of shapes that are associated with different types of good fortune’. As form, each shape was unique and visually interesting – they are formed out of plastic, I believe, and are models or sculptures. The contemplation of each shape should be interesting. Michelle studied in Hong Kong and is influenced by Chinese art, which makes me think that the shapes draw a resonance in the long historical tradition of the Chinese looking at oracle bones and their shapes in order to determine the future and success, a message of comfort for the human from the non-human. Why is it that a shape – or any inanimate thing for that matter – can be associated with the idea of luck? Luck exists – we see it all around us (call it fate or what you will). Can it be materialised in concrete form and how? The shapes show us why someone would think this is the case and why they believe that they can capture the fleeting and elusive forms of luck (or fate).

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.

Kumihimo – Japanese Silk Braiding by Domyo Exhibition

Kumihimo – Japanese Silk Braiding by Domyo Exhibition

Japan House (Free, book in advance)

Only until 11 June 2023

07.06.23

Silk is splendour. Silk is shine. Silk is skill. This wonderful material comes from the East and is one of its most remarkable achievements, the mode in which it has produced masterpiece after masterpiece, all of them wearable. The world of fashion is surely indebted beyond measure to the smooth, radiant designs that have been produced in the medium. For me, the beauty of the East is conveyed in the four letters of the name ‘silk’.

It was then with some big expectations today – as a lover of silk (and art, craft, fashion, Asia and the Japanese, as well as the art gallery and the art museum) – that I made my way down to Japan house for the very first time to view the Japanese Silk Braiding (Kumihimo) exhibition. As I came in, I received smile after smile and received a friendly, first class reception from the staff that were on. I was also handed a pile of goodies to take – a beautiful bookmark featuring the coloured silk braids in a rainbow of hues, a wonderfully designed and informative guide, and also a strikingly designed poster (or flyer) for the next exhibition that is coming up (WAVE – Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts, 6 July to 22 October 2023).

Japan house gleams with a minimalist white interior design. It reminded me somewhat of an oyster shell which contains the precious pearl. I was in a hurry after work so I could not take in everything but I got the general impression of painstaking cleanliness and the inspired arrangement of things and interiors that is the hallmark of the modern Japanese aesthetic.

The exhibition ‘explores the history, techniques and potential of kumihimo silk braiding’, with some focus on the craftspeople of the Domyo workshop which has been in business since 1652 CE and is in its tenth generation of artists (guide).

What is a great source of pride to Asian people (Indian) like me is the fact that our civilisation has been around in continuous form for several thousand years, unlike other ‘great’ civilisations that have fallen. So, I was glad that it was a similar story here with the Kumihimo. The silk braids have endured in some form in Japan since the time of the Jōmon people and early pre-history (if not in silk). We are seeing old knowledge extending into the present and into the future with technological advances in this exhibition, as new worlds of geometry and mathematical genius are being created with continuous forms throughout the greater part of post-ancient human history.

However, the Japan exhibition is not parochial. There is a global dimension to the braids because they have been shared across cultures across the world, which the curator was careful to show. There are examples from Tibet and Peru, for instance.

I was mesmerised by the videos showing the making of the silk braids. The one where the cords were dyed purple and washed in a vessel of water was a piece of art in itself, a metaphor for the act of creation out of the waters that have given humankind birth and belonging on this planet.

It was fascinating to see the use of the silk braids on armour as well as in religious sutras or scrolls and for such uses as the ‘internal organs placed inside a sculpture’. The designs were wonderful, a real virtuoso exhibition of the combination of skill, maths and technology to create beauty. My absolute favourites were, firstly, the ornamental braid from the Buddhist temple Hōryū-ji. It is a majestic piece in red and gold, with diagonals like the third eye of the Hindu god Shiva (to me). There are golden beads interlaced in the design which remind me of the organic shape of seeds. Secondly, I loved the other ‘multiple diamond’ designs done in brown and creme, achingly wonderful. Again, I particularly enjoyed the deconstruction of historical costumes such as a Victorian dolman which the workshop has used to recreate these splendours of the Japanese people.

Of great interest to me (science is another one of my hobbies) was the use of Kumihimo to create new mathematical structures and experimentations in concrete geometry. The model that had been created was an amazing piece of design innovation and a contribution to our shared knowledge as a species. Such is the influence and intellectual power of the Japanese people, all based on traditional knowledge and its reworking into modern day life – an example and a contrast for the countries in Asia that have been colonised and want to forgot their customs and local knowledges in favour of economic servitude to their erstwhile colonisers and their knowledges (or rather, complex of power/knowledge).

This silk braid exhibition is an experience that I will never forget. It had everything: a beautiful setting, beautiful people, beautiful things, a beautiful philosophy, a beautiful lesson. I have always admired the creativity, discipline and historical stewardship of the Japanese people and they never disappoint me with their arts and crafts. Japan house is a testament to the radiance of the people of the rising sun, and so is this exhibition. And to Japan’s generosity to the world. For as I made my way out of the exhibition, the smiling lady on the counter offered me a crane made out of origami which I had admired. It is just another of the gifts that the Japanese have given me in this life, this glorious culture that adopted our Indian religion of Buddhism and became our brothers and sisters.

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)?

The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope – The Spaces In-Between, Tottenham Court Road

The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope – The Spaces In-Between, Tottenham Court Road

08.04.23

FREE ENTRY

Art by Rupert Newman (light artist) and PixelArtworks

It happened unexpectedly. A fine example of serendipity, the right place at the right moment. I had just spent a few hours browsing in Foyle’s and a small independent second-hand bookshop and was just making myself towards Tottenham Court Road. I was musing over the books I had seen and I was thinking to myself that I certainly wasn’t rich enough to have all the books that I wanted to read and to have to keep in my own personal library and to share with my kids. That privilege was reserved for the billionaire or the British Museum.

And there it was. The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope… An awe-struck mass of bodies within a space carved out by futuristic light, right next to the station.

The space is described as a ‘digital portal’ and we are meant to ‘discover a prismatic new experience’. The location of the site is important because it is ‘In-Between’ spaces. One of the installations (or ‘spaces’) reacts to your body as you stand before it. The display is in front of you, above, around four walls. It is a type of immersive, interactive art (four dimensional, they sometimes call it). The experience is touted as semi-religious and the installation is described on a panel as a crystalline cathedral of light’.

So this is why I call it ‘The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope ‘. Light, of course, is associated with Christianity, with enlightenment, progress and truth, things that capitalists like to give lip service to when they put us out of work because of computers and technology (it is always right to rail against the so-called technological progress of the capitalists, since this is the weapon of their hubris). I was in a Chapel service recently and they called the Christian God’s kingdom a place of ‘infinite light’. Art is akin to the Christian religion in our age, perhaps its best substitute. When you go to an art gallery, there is a hush like there is in the chapel. There is a reverent lowering of the eyes before the icons of the age, just as they gaze up at the icons in a religious setting. All the visual display is impregnated with a colossal and sublime meaning, with divine beauty that is not of this earth… For art is considered to be of the spirit for some (not for me, it is still earthly and profane).

As I moved within this computer generated, geometric space, encased in the ingenuity of man and machine, within light, art, animation, music, the energy of the crowd, I was certainly impressed. It was a novel experience. It was a beautiful experience. Yes, it was even a beautiful experience.

Yet where was the meaning behind it all? I read the panels for each of the three different spaces. There were the described themes. Firstly, ‘A Step Beyond’, the immersion in another digital world. Yet how different was it from the contemporary enveloping of the subject in the age of the computer? Was the artwork just priming us as digital subjects, a repetition of what was happening in our technologically mediated reality? Secondly, ‘Transcendence’. Yes, the art is beautiful. The beautiful forms of nature are rejuvenated in an encounter with geometry. The translation of the subtle mathematics of the world into the mathematical language of geometry. But what does the viewer get from this? A strict regularisation and stylisation of the beauty of what is for what can be imagined is the staple of most art, which is abstract at heart (even within supposed realism). But what is the status of this new abstraction for us now and why are we being placed within it in this space? Is awe for nature to be replaced for the awe of what man and machine in unity can now do, what imagination and computer code can achieve? ‘Tessellations’ was more of the same thing: animated geometric patterns filled with light. A world of code that surrounds us, like the Matrix, changing, transforming, not sending out any obvious message, not allowing any thought but awe…

Perhaps the difficulty is not the lack of the message but the lack of the training we have to try and understand abstract art and the elusiveness of meaning in abstract, geometric art itself. Perhaps I do not understand the proposed religiosity behind the installation. Certainly, geometric art figures in Islam in Mosque designs and calligraphy as an expression of faith. Perhaps there is a feeling of endless harmony and connection with things that the piece is supposed to evoke. I did not get this feeling. I got the beauty. I did not get the sense of the digital sublime which all the spaces were meant to evoke. I did not feel engulfed, threatened (perhaps the wonders of the technology are supposed to threaten to usurp man). I lack fear – Punjabi men are afraid of nothing and no-one. Especially not code or geometry filled with light. For me, the exhibit was a good waste of time just before I got onto the Tube, but not an inspirational experience or one which provoked much thought, except for the vague idea that I could get together a venue for something like it and make a bit of money off it… To be really honest, it was like being in a screensaver.

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