Altered perception and patches

Today is the 5th January and it feels like I've been busy doing lots every day so far. I know that will change once I'm back at work next week but John and I have some plans in place for visits to galleries and walks so hopefully the fun will carry on.

Yesterday we visited an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery called Space Shifters but I couldn't post any pictures as they hadn't uploaded from my phone to the cloud. Now they have so here are some of the exhibits. The exhibition looks at perceptions and space. It was fascinating but quite unsettling at times. In the first room there was this large mirror, created by Jeppe Hein, revolving on the wall. There are two large mirror panels at right angles to each other and this created some interesting effects. There were cushions on the floor to lie on and enjoy the way it made the space change. I'm please they had a large area in front of this installation roped off as there were quite a few people who didn't seem to know where they were in relation to others and objects.

Katy and I decided to take pictures when the mirror was at different angles. One or two photos are slightly blurry as the mirrors were moving quite quickly and I'm using my phone camera. Ha that's fun, there are two of me in this photo

Standing on my head was fun

The reflective piece in the middle of this photo was another installation. If you concentrated on the mirror it was most disconcerting as you lost where you were in space.

As it revolved round you got to see the ceiling. This was fun as you often forget to look up and see what is over head. For some reason the view upset a few people.

Katy and I saw that you got a reflection of the wall and we waited for the mirror to come into this position so we could get the top of us taking a photo and the reflection on the wall underneath. It looks like we're in a pit looking up or a window looking out.

The reflective cube by Anish Kapoor gave you all sorts of strange perspectives. It looks like Katy was standing on one leg and her scarf is going off on it's own where as she was standing normally with her scarf hanging down to the same length as the other side. It was really funny watching some of the poses people made 

This one by Alicja Kwade was fun. The frame in places was empty and in others had a mirror or two way mirror. It was arranged so that you quickly became disorientated. As people walked round, they often put their hand out gingerly to check they weren't going to walk into a solid. I found it amusing when people commented on the person at the other end of the room who was wearing the same coat! You really did have to keep your wits about you to remain fully aware of space.

Katy and I called this piece by Ann Veronica Janssens unicorn glass. It consists of a shattered piece of safety glass held between two sheets of intact glass. The intact glass is lined with a filter that allows light to pass through selectively. The reflection of the room is oddly pixelated and blurred. To produce this reflection it must be 'magic unicorn glass'. One little girl agreed with me.

This cast resin work by De Wain Valentine was very black and had a highly polished surface that reflected everything. This exhibition allowed for a lot of photos of our reflections. We were stood behind this piece in the corner of the room to get this photo.

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Here it is from the other side and it looks much darker but also as if it's floating but it was very firmly on the floor. I like the reflections in the surface. The gold sprinkles half way down the piece was actually the reflection of a gold coloured chain link curtain between this and the next room.

This one, Sky Mirror, Blue by Anish Kapoor was outside on the upper sculpture terrace and it bought the sky down to the ground and put the buildings at the top.

At this point we had almost finished the exhibition but there was one piece left to see, a piece by Richard Wilson. To see it click HERE This will take you to the home page of his site which has the installation on the page. He has been making large scale sculpture interventions into architectural space. The whole room is flooded with used engine oil, and only a narrow passageway which is set at a slight incline through the centre is left. The dark dense oil mirrors the space above it and creates the impression of being suspended in an infinite environment. To view this, one person at a time walks out onto the passage way. The queue to see this exhibit was 1 hour and there was also the awful smell of oil. I was finding it difficult to breath and so we made our way to the exit and went and had afternoon tea. As we left the Hayward Gallery I saw this on the wall of the building next door.I really liked this but unfortunately I couldn't get a really clear photo

We went to the Festival Hall next as there was a patchwork I wanted to see. It was a little difficult to photograph as it was very large.

 Here's the information about it.

and here is a close up of a part of it.

This patchwork is there on permanent display and has a patch for each year, The patches include applique, hand embroidery, machine stitching, bead work and surface printing. There may have been other techniques but I couldn't get a clear view of the blocks higher up.

We had a great day out together and when we visited a book shop I made a start on the birthday presents I need to buy. Why do so many of my relatives have birthdays between now and March?

We had a quiet evening at home watching TV and I worked on my cross stitch. I didn't get as far as I would have liked but the programme on TV was very interesting. I also made a few quilting plans as I'm taking part in two blog hops in February and needed to decide on my projects. Having done that I now need to choose my fabrics. I'm hoping to use my stash if possible.

Lyndsey