Last month I travelled to Trinidad & Tobago in the Caribbean to witness the original Carnival as research for my position as patron to CAMF (Carnival Arts & Masquerade Foundation). I'll be following this up with my photos of all the costumes from the parades but here is a quick intro to the general vibe of the trip. The place is FULL of colour from the flora & fauna to the way the houses and buildings are painted. We finished our adventure crossing from Trinidad to Tobago for a beach break after the city for Carnival. Here were humming birds in the trees and soca being pumped out of beach bar soundsystems and carried over the thermals of the sand. BLISS
I've discovered a brilliant new platform for finding direct access to international artist's work, like this Mr. Penfold t-shirt. I've admired his graphic style for a long time and now there's a gallery to purchase limited edition t-shirts and prints like his. He's part of an online collective community - "CMMNTY". It's been set up with a socially conscious mission as an active enterprise to support homeless charities. Artists have come together to join their creative output in order to make a difference. 5% of each sale goes to a network such as Emmaus who offer a stable home and work in the community for those who are suffering homelessness. I'm not only pleased to discover this kind of revolutionary fundraising e-commerce but also glad to have learnt that this kind of charity exists. Homelessness is evidently an escalating issue, present as soon as we walk down any street and I wonder how far away we all are from experiencing it. I personally feel immensely effected with sadness on a daily basis and totally useless to help each individual case in my neighbourhood, especially living in a city as divided as London. So its heartwarming that the artists of CMMNTY who feel the same way have invested their own time to engineering this scheme.
Head over to the site to see all of the names involved and check out the exclusive merchandise available. T-shirts are ethical organic cotton and prints are on eco-friendly bamboo paper, produced with green energy. See more on their Instagram here to find out about upcoming events and news.
(Thanks to Mitchell McGillvary for the photos, taken at The Science Museum in the new Zaha Hadid Mathematics Gallery)
"Robots: The 500-year quest to make machines human" is the new nerd-tastic show at The Science Museum. I collect retro toy robots so this section of the exhibition was my personal highlight! This Bladerunner era is sandwiched between the origins of automated clocks, astrobes and armillary spheres all the way thru to the latest human social robots. It's amazing to see the evolution of robotics including amateur enthusiast models made at home from wood, string and chip boards. The future is also up for question and whether human labour will be replaced by mechanical arms. This notion is scary in times of unemployment but a positive flipside is represented with robot "carers" who can assist immobile and infirm patients at home on their own. The collection of machines covers many aspects of research and development in recreating the perfect human ........... go to investigate yourself til 3rd September.
