In pictures: Chelsea Flower Show

The Chelsea Flower Show is a strange event for strange people in a strange land: a nation obsessed with gardening spends four days glued to the television and their Sunday supplements, cooing over show gardens full of plants plucked from nurseries installed in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea, home of the Chelsea Pensioners.

I spent most of yesterday morning wandering around in a bemused state trying to figure out just what it was about the flower show that attracted so much interest. I get that the English love their gardens, but there's something intensely peculiar about that vast swathes of interest in show gardens that are obsessively planned to look as if they'd been in situ for years, when in reality they only popped up a week ago. 

It seems to me that the flower show is one of those clever marketing tricks: how to take something that (in theory) should be free or cost very little - gardening - and turn it into a multi-million pound industry by selling consumers things they never knew they wanted. I think this is where the spaceship-shaped pergolas or the bejewelled violinists come from. Didn't you always want a matching pair of violinists in your back garden. 

Even while the flowers in the gardens are rather lovely, the event is spoiled by its intense artificiality.  I'd rather have the true wildness of a meadow of wildflowers or the imperious splendour of the gardens at Versailles, gardens that celebrate what they are rather than pretend to be something else altogether. 

When I was taking quick snaps yesterday, I realised something else. The flower show isn't an event for the people who actually go to it; it's an event for all those people watching on TV at home or reading about it in newspapers. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the gardens were designed, planted and then photographed before being redesigned and photographed again, for one thing did surprise me in the end: the show gardens look a lot better in pictures.

El Camino de Santiago

Even though it was over six years ago since I walked the Camino de Santiago, it's still something that people in the UK seem to know very little about. Just a guess, but it's probably something to do with the fact that it's one of the most important Christian pilgrimage routes in the world - Santiago is St James, whose supposed remains are displayed in an ornate little chest in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostella - and the British haven't much cared for pilgrims or pilgramages since good Old Chaucer.

Even though, the year I walked it, I met a scriptwriter and a couple of guys with a camera, I never expected that a film about the Camino would end up coming out of Hollywood. I haven't seen it, but apparently Emilio Estevez wrote it, after his pops and son walked the Camino, whereupon his son promptly fell in love with the daughter of an innkeeper along the route and packed up and moved to Spain. I watched the trailer and could hardly stop laughing because even though every second feels like cinematic cliché, it also closely resembled many of my own experiences: most of the people I met were like stock characters in Hans Christian Andersen fairytales rewritten for twenty-first century life.

Though historically the Camino had a number of traditional starting points, most modern-day pilgrims inexplicably go through all of the trouble in getting to tiny French town, St Jean Pied de Port, which is now generally considered the "starting point", in order to rock up in Santiago de Compostela 800km, or about a month, later.  

When I walked the Camino, I had a bit more time to kill and given that I knew a little bit about the history of the Camino thanks to my mother, I opted to start in one of the medieval starting points, Vézelay, about 180km from Paris. Given that Hollywood had yet to sink its claws into the Camino, there weren't very many websites or guidebooks telling you what to do or where to go, and given that I didn't think medieval accounts would be of much use to me, I simply got a train to Vézelay and started walking. 

Luckily there was a small association dedicated to the Camino and they produced a guidebook type thing with directions, maps and a list of places for pilgrims to stay. Little did I know that it was an altogether entirely rare thing for people to way part of the Camino in France and in the entire month it took me to walk from Vézelay to St Jean Pied de Port, I met less than ten other pilgrims. I had some terrible times, naturally, but for the most part the whole thing was incredible: I walked through beautiful countryside; stayed in an enormous château near Bazas; a monastery near somewhere I can't remember off the top of my head; slept on the floor of a town hall in a tiny hamlet, where the woman who looked after the town church brought me a pail of fresh milk in the morning; talked to myself far too often; got really good at speaking French (I'll never forget the difference between connaître and savoir thanks to two sisters from the convent in Corbigny); and even hitch-hiked with some teens after getting tendinitis in my knee. I also got lost. A lot.

Once I got to St Jean, it was a whole different ballgame. I mean there were people everywhere. I went from spending a month pretty much on my own rambling through the French countryside, to being surrounded my other pilgrims. It wasn't bad, just different. In fact, I'm glad I had that month on my own, because I enjoyed the company of all the other people instead of feeling resentful that there were just so many of them. The reason why I laughed at the trailer for Estevez's flick is because I met people just like that, and given the circumstances, friendships and romances develop like wildfires - very quickly and very intense. I had a three year relationship with someone I met on the Camino and I'm still friends with a handful more. 

A lot of people say it's a life changing experience, but I suppose that depends on what kind of life you were living before you went on the Camino. For me, it was a wonderful experience and one I'll never forget -  I'd like to do it again, but I worry it won't be as instant, as vivid, as surprising if I do it a second time. Having said that, I probably will anyway. I might just wait until The Way fever has died down a bit.

If you want to see more pictures, there are more from France here and from Span here.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

If I thought the days blended together back when I was a student, oh you know, four months ago, then boy was I wrong. Saturday and Sunday mean nothing to the unemployed: every day is a day for work and a day for play. I wouldn't mind, but alas, other people aren't so lucky and Saturday still means a day of no work, all play for most people I know.  

For me, a true Saturday must begin with brunch. Whether one rises at 9am or 3pm, brunch on Saturday is the order of the day. Brunch is no time for experimentation: the FT; a flat white or a pot of earl grey tea; a bloody mary if necessary; eggs florentine, if the institution is reputable, a veggie breakfast, if not. A greasy spoon will not do. Top breakfast spots include The Ambassador in Exmouth Market and The Counter Cafe in Hackney Wick. The Counter has just moved into a new home, three doors down from its old one, and is much better off for it with an excellent view over the canal to the Olympic park.  We devoured our beautiful breakfasts, chuckling at the baby coots chasing after their mama in the canal.



After brunch, we wandered along the canal to Chisenhale Gallery.  I love that no matter how many galleries I've been to in London, there always seem to be more left to visit.  My other half was responsible for planning the afternoon's itinerary, and typically, when he's in charge, we end up at the Aubin gallery on a Thursday evening in search of free (read cheap and disgusting) booze for him and his cohort of recovering alcoholics. So it's no surprise to say that I was completely astonished that of the three galleries we went to on Saturday, I enjoyed all of them.  

Janice Kerbel at Chisenhale was wonderful: a room of theatrical lights on rigs, commissioned by Chinsenhale and described by Kerbel as "a play for theatrical lights".  I sometimes mourn the lack of originality in contemporary art, but Kerbel's play on stage lights as objects with dreams, desires, and stories of their own was both beautiful and original.  Sure, everyone goes on about Duchamps, but all he did was put a urinal in a gallery and call it art; Kerbel put a grip of theatrical lights in a gallery, but was bold enough to give them a life and an identiy outside their original function, without resorting to just whacking them in the space and insisting it was enough to call the lights art.







Post Chisenhale, we headed to Vyner Street for a peek in Matt Roberts and Nettie Horn.  Julie Cockburn's show of found portraits - both photos and paintings - altered with hand embroidered or collaged geometric shapes is also very good. 

Though her techniques are in no way unique and others have created similar works - most notably John Stezaker - Cockburn's show pleases me because it reads like a very good fashion collection; a clear theme with a progression of ideas and techniques all of which create a thoughtful, interesting, and unified body of work.


above photo from The Science of Patterns.

We hopped over to Nettie Horn to check out the latest work by Finnish artist, Antti Laitinen, entitled Bark Boat. It's not altogether difficult to figure out what Bark Boat's all about - a boat made by the artist out of bark which he then attempted to sail across the Baltic sea to Estonia. There are a few videos - one of the artist making the boat, another of the artist sailing the boat across the Baltic - as well as a number of photographs of Laitinen sailing the boat across the Baltic, but best of all is the actual boat, resting in the corner. I know that being made of bark and having seen the videos of it that it does indeed float, but man it looks puny sitting in the corner of the gallery. It's a miracle he made it anywhere, let alone across the Baltic. It's not an exceptional show, but it's definitely worth dropping by.



I dragged TJ, who like most of the rest of the UK thinks of smashed up sawdust when he thinks of tea, to TeaSmith in Spitalfields.  I love tea. Like he loves cricket, I love tea.  TeaSmith is one of my favourite places in London, but if London had a Mariage Frères, I'd be happier still. Alas, this is not to be. Anyway, I was given a lovely voucher for afternoon tea for two by the lovely owner, John, for a piece I wrote on the Underbelly installation by Chairman Kato and Chris Stoneman in the TeaSmith basement, a superbly lovely surprise. I'm a regular visitor to TeaSmith, but I'd never tried their afternoon tea tasting menu and so we spent a very enjoyable few hours tasting white tea and oolong tea and matcha tea and green tea and lots of cakes and chocolates to match.



Post tea, we were feeling the need for refreshments of a more alcoholic nature and headed to the new Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell for cocktails. Despite the fact that the bar is a joint effort between the Zetter and no less than my favourite bar in London, 69 Colebrooke Row, I'm sorry to say that I was rather disappointed.  I'll spare you the details. If you want to know more, read about it on the New London Cocktail Review.

After a quick and delicious bowl of noodles at Pho on St John Street, we headed home replete with food, art, booze, and tea. Now that's how you spend a Saturday in London. Maybe I should start running tours...

Introducing: Wignall and Moore

Like so many good things, I found out about Bradley Moore and James Wignall through Twitter.  Someone tweeted me a link to their King and Minotaur project - an art and architecture installation in a vacant space behind St Pancras Station - and I thought, ah ha, here are kindred spirits.  Along I went to the opening where I was impressed by the project, of course, but also by the convivial and relaxed atmosphere - no Vyner Street art hipsters questing endlessly for free beers, but an enthusiastic and inquisitive bunch who actually looked at the works and seemed happy to be there. Sure, there was Sipsmith gin a plenty but I assure you I was in no way biased by the spirits.

I'd never heard of Wignall and Moore before, but I was intrigued by their installation and I wanted to know more about their work. I got in touch and they very kindly agreed to meet up. We chatted about the King and Minotaur project and the experiences they've had entering (and winning!) competitions, as well as their plans for future projects. And if anyone reading has a spare £3,000, I know an excellent way you might spend it.

We meet up. I've got an old school dictaphone. We talk. A lot. The two are easy conversationalists and by the time we've finished talking - some two hours later - I feel as if I've known them for ages. Maybe it's because we're near in age or because we seem to have a similar ethos, but it later transpires that their friendliness can be entirely accounted for by the fact that they're from Yorkshire. When I ask them how it is working together, the ensuing conversation goes a little something like this:

Bradley: We've got quite different skill sets, but also being from Yorkshire we understand what each other are saying. Like we can just get agitated about something and go like this *crazy hand waving* and the other one understands.

James: It's a Yorkshire thing, primarily.

Bradley: The Yorkshire connection helps.

Despite the "Yorkshire connection", the two met at Nottingham where they both did architecture before Bradley moved on to engineering and James to the RCA for his Part 2.  After the engineering degree, Bradley then "went and built things for a year."  When I ask him what that means, he replies as if it's the most natural thing for a recent grad to do, "I built a house just to see how to do it. It's fun". A friend bought a building site in Brixton and the two designed and built a house there which they lived in briefly before selling.  I'm impressed and say so - most architecture students never get anywhere near a building site, let alone build a house from the ground up. James chips in, "it's a really rare thing to do that for anyone who's trained as an architect. Part of the problem with architecture is that you never get to build anything. People don't even know how to put up shelves if they go to architecture school." 

After experiments with house building, the two came back together to work on a commission for the Royal Albert Hall as part of its Close Encounters Festival last summer. At the project's outset a group of RCA students worked to design an installation, but other commitments meant that by the end of the project only Bradley and James remained.  In a frustrating experience all too regular to most artists and architects, the installation was commissioned but never paid for. The two worked for two months developing the installation, a sculpture created from Ferrofluid - a liquid that has properties of a metal. "It's attracted and repelled by magnetic fields," James explains, "so you can have a pool of this stuff that looks like oil and you put a magnet near it and it move, making these incredible and weird kinetic sculptures." Ever the salesman, Bradley cuts in, "the project was so resolved. I mean we had a cutting list. If we got the budget now, it's all ready to go. So if you know anyone that wants a moving spaceship..."


Room for London competition entry


So they lost out on the RAH commission and spent two months working for free on a project that never came to fruition, but they realised that they enjoyed working together and Wignall and Moore was born.  Both are occupied two days a week with other work: James teaches at Nottingham and Bradley does set design and prop making (he's recently had his first BBC credit with a documentary about particle physics, "Everything and Nothing"). But they did what most young architecture studios do and started entering competitions. They had me in stitches recounting the tales of their unintentional ambition: the first competition they entered was an ideas competition to entirely rethink the Brussels Courthouse. They didn't win, but they took their first site visit as a studio to Brussels and got a taste for the strange and peculiar world of architecture competitions. They also entered the Room for London competition, submitting designs for a four-poster bed in a room that unfolds like an over sized flower. When I ask whether entering these competitions has been worth their while, they emphatically reply yes, absolutely, for it turns out they won one of the three comps they entered - not bad odds - and are currently designing a series of projects to be built by kids at uber summer camp Beam in New Hampshire. 

Inside the King and Minotaur

photo by James Read

photo by Jamie Leme

As for the King and Minotaur project, that emerged from a desire to get back to actually making things instead of drawing up ideas for comps.  They were both very interested in the idea of reusing a vacant space and got lucky when it transpired that their studio landlord had an empty property next door. The two spent a month thinking and planning and then six weeks designing and making before opening to the public. The resulting project is an art gallery where the gallery is as interesting as the art, "in a gallery it's very much all you're looking at is what's in it, and we wanted to do something very different so you're almost as interested in the wall as what's hung on it?", Bradley explains.  Most of the artists - and there are fine artists as well as musicians, dancers, actors, even Oxford fencers - have come from RCA connections or through the London Contemporary Dance School. But James also spoke of something that resonated with me in that they both have active interests in life outside of architecture.  James told of trips to the Edinburgh Festival where he made contact with performers he thought were interesting, some of these people made it into the King and Minotaur roster.  They also put out an open call for artists and performers through the Uni networks. "The nice thing about architecture," James again, "is that you can't do it by yourself." Bradley agrees, "this project has been so nice because we've met so many interesting people. Everyone's been really enthusiastic and everyone we speak to about the project really wants to be involved."


Inverted Urbanism, James' RCA final project, which won a commendation in the RIBA silver medal awards.

And so what's next for these two? They've still got the summer school project to finish off and both plan to keep to their day jobs. They'd like to do another vacant space project and also have their eyes on the Forgotten Spaces competition. They've also got plans for a fantastic Olympic project, but it's all top secret and I'm not allowed to divulge any details. So keep an eye out for these two bright sparks: great things are just around the corner.