Day 111/353 (Winter Break 1/3)

The bus travel from London to Paris was 10 hour long and included a ferry trip from the port of Dover in England to Calais in France. I arrived at Quai de Bercy around 6 on the morning exhausted and starving, but so were most of the other passengers.

However my tiredness quickly faded to the excitement of discovering a new city, thanks to the beautiful sight of The Seine at dawn, as I was walking to the tube station. I took a nap at a friend’s place later in the morning.

We went together to the Pompidou Centre where we spent hours visiting the galleries. I was particularly enthusiastic to finally see with my own almond eyes some iconic artist’s works such as Beuys’, Malevitch’s and the unmissable Duchamp’s Urinoir.

The next day, on December 20th, I went to Soissons by train and stayed at a relative’s for a few days. This small town was quite the antithesis of the busy capital city I was in the day before, which was perfect to rest before my return to Paris on December 23rd.

Back to Paris, I met a friend from high school with whom I cleared some of my tourist goals: Montmartre, the Eiffel Tower, the Christmas market and les Champs-Elysées. My partner arrived in France the next day. We made a quick stop at Notre-Dame then spent most of the day on the road leading to Vittel.

Vittel is a town in the east of France where mineral water is bottled under the brand of the same name and it’s also where my partner grew up. The streets were emptied by the Christmas holiday, giving us more freedom to wander, like ghosts in an abandoned town. We went to the woods to recover from the previous trip.

Yesterday, we crossed the boundary between France and Germany.

Day 107/353

On December 9th Zoé, Emily and I went to London where we had to meet with Jilly and our course leader the day after to visit Ai Wei Wei’s exhibition in the Royal Academy of Art.

We visited Camden town where we also booked a room in a youth hostel for the night. This part of London is my favorite because people there don’t look like they are rushing for the tube or to work. They have time (and money) to spend in the wide variety of shops. I guess most of them were tourists though, just as we were, in a way.

Still in Camden, we found a shop which apparently was an artist’s studio. It belonged to a man named Faizal Lulat who made some impressive plays using words we picked for him.

After Camden, we visited other parts of London including Whitechapel, ’China Town’ and Soho. We went back to the hostel after a tiring night and a few drinks.

On the 10th Zoé and I went through Oxford Street to Hyde Park where we approached squirrels, gulls, swans and some other animals. We met the others at the Royal Academy of Art around noon.

The Ai Wei Wei exhibition was far more interesting than I expected. It was a perfect demonstration of how an engaged artist’s work can be monumental without being too literal and even rather subtle.

I stayed in London for one more night, which was enough to visit Tate Modern and some other iconic places in the city such as London Eye, Tower Bridge and Big Ben.

Next to the Tower Bridge tube station, I met a man who was selling very simple drawings of a house, signed with his own name: B. Mafa M. He told me people loved his art and requested him to produce more but were complaining of too high prices, so he let me decide how much I would spend for one of his drawings. I got one for a pound. Later I found out the ‘artwork’ was a mere photocopy.

Back to Nottingham for a few days, I went to MFA 2nd year Ellen’s first exhibition in Bohung Institute gallery. I also met one of Emily’s friend, a french artist who will be part of an exhibition in Primary in February.

On December 19th, I took the train back to London where I had to wait a few hours before taking the bus to France. I used this spare time to visit Tate Britain.

Then at 8 P.M. from Victoria Coach Station I departed for Paris.

Oxygen in a can

Pollution is one of the major issues resulting from China’s accelerated growth, and last week, air pollution has reached the maximum level of alert set by the authorities, making it an even more imperative concern.

In response to the rarefaction of “good quality” air, a new lucrative market has emerged, and through media and social networks we get stories to laugh about such as a restaurant in Zhangjiagang charging customers for breathing the establishment’s filtered air or a Chinese multimillionaire who started selling fresh air in cans two years ago. More recently, a Canadian start-up was in the spotlight for being successfully and massively selling bottled air for about 20$ each.

As funny and absurd as it may sound, this scenario is not extracted from a pessimistic futuristic novel and should rather be worrying.

We already know that “unlimited” access to drinkable water is something only a relatively small part of the world population can boast having, but fresh air shouldn’t be an issue for it appears to be abundant. Actually, as it is a natural ressource like any other, we shouldn’t totally take it for granted, especially because they are altered by our own activities. In the case of China, air pollution is mostly caused by the coil industry and in return it causes 4,400 deaths every day according to a study.

For this reason, I wouldn’t categorically blame people for selling or buying bottled fresh air: this market subsists as a supply to a demand that is driven by a real necessity (health), and the prices are partly justified by the costs of bottling and shipping. This is however a short-term and very limited way to counter the effects of a long-lasting air pollution and it is only affordable to the wealthiest, as usual.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/world/asia/beijing-pollution-red-alert.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35091784
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271690/Bottled-AIR-Chinese-multimillionaire-sells-EIGHT-MILLION-cans-fresh-air-TEN-DAYS-pollution-levels-climb-record-high.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/15/asia/china-canadian-company-selling-clean-air/
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5604-How-did-China-s-air-pollution-get-this-bad-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/air-pollution-china-deaths_55cd9a62e4b0ab468d9cefa9

Day 92/353

This is the beginning of winter. The sun goes down so early that I only have a few hours of sunlight per day, when the sun is not covered by rain clouds. It’s getting a bit colder and I saw snow for the first time and for a short time early in the morning of the 21st of November.

I’m spending more time in the studio, maybe even the whole week. As Zoé and Emily are always there as well, we chat, play, eat and drink more than doing actual work. But having fun will make us live longer.

We are going to art exhibitions and openings as often as we can, especially when there are free drinks.

Bonnington was hosting In place of architecture and Photography Dialogues. The latter involved Architecture students from the University and offered the visitors to answer to it directly onto the walls with chalk.

We went to an opening in a gallery somewhere in the City Center (Lace Market Gallery I think) where there was free wine again and stuffed olives that apparently were delicious. We went to Rough Trade afterwards for a Drink & Draw event we over-expected. It would have been a disappointing night if we hadn’t ended up in The Rescue Room for more drinks and good music.

We didn’t get any free tapas from the opening event of the Hockley Arts Club, where everything was too expensive for the students we are and the only art-related content was the overall bourgeois atmosphere. At least that night we had fun swinging our double-bladed lightsabers in the streets and pubs.

We organized a party in our studio and invited the MA Photography students and the MA Textile, Knitwear and Fashion Design with whom we share the floor. It was good to see our space so much populated.

In a few hours we are going to London.

Day 68/353