This week Ania and I met in London for the second installment of our five Socially Engaged Adventures. We visited the Womens Library to see the exhibition: Handmade Tales: Women and Domestic Crafts. The exhibition had some fantastic examples to domestic crafts over the last 200 years or so and was accompanied by amazing personal accounts of the items and of the people who made them by member of the family and friends who had passed the items on. The exhibition was very relevant for a couple of the projects I am working on and was displayed absolutly beautifully.
After that we had lunch at Arts Admin and talked about time management and various other issues. After lunch we visited the Meanwhile Space shop on Whitechapel Road. We met some fantasic participants and staff who were all super engaged with the space and really enthusiastic about what had and could happen there. We saw tables and peace lilies hanging in dusters made by Out of the Ordinary. We talked to a vintage clothing and repurposed jewellry designers who were setting up for a three night show and clothes sale with making workshops alongside. The whole space was buzzing with excitement and potential and you could see that passersby were full of curiousity and intrigue for what the shop was for. Many people wandered in to find out in the 30 minutes we were there.
We then headed to the Tate Modern to view the Weiwei sunflower seeds. We watched the lovely video a couple of times through, telling of the local people who made the seeds and the processes that were involved.
It was a busy, inspiring, talking, sharing, exploring, slightly tiring day. I really enjoyed myself.
Ruthie
