And another ‘thing’

The Generator

Remember that ‘thing’ that Kirkbymoorside Primary School are looking to create? Well I received an e-mail from Rhiannon Ellis at the Theatre Royal in Wakefield last week that began:

“I recently saw that you were interested in a ‘thing’ to explore science and wanted to let you know that we potentially have a ‘thing’ to give away!”

You see – the ‘thing’ word is catching on just as I wanted!!

Rhiannon explains:  “Over the last six months we have been touring round festivals and so on and  so forth with a specially architecturally designed ‘Cultural Generator!’ (which is kind of like a magical shed!). We have done this in conjunction with various cultural organizations in Wakefield but as we have reached the end of the project  the Generator is about to be installed in an exhibition at the Beam Gallery and we are discussing its life beyond the exhibition. It struck me that perhaps it could play a part in your future project?”

What a fantastic offer.

Why not pop along to see it, and let us know what you think. Or if you can’t make it to the exhibition there is a fun film of it being constructed here. (yep still not quite worked out the inserting video into a post bit – next lesson I think!!!)

A ‘thing’ is, well, a ‘thing’

I have just written a brief for artists to work in Kirkbymoorside Primary school. Pupils there love hands on activity and have decided to commission someone to work with them to design and make a ‘thing’ in the school grounds. The ‘thing’ will be some sort of structure/sculpture/happening/’thing’ that helps pupils to explore science, so it might have bits that come from it, it might do something, or in itself it may offer an experience. It sounds great this ‘thing’ even though no-one has any idea yet about how it might look, what it might be made of or how it might be used – because they need to decide that through exploration and experimentation.

Over 15 years ago I remember a Crafts Council conference following which ‘the vessel’ came to be common lingo – gone was the quandary over whether to call something a vase, a sculpture, a jug and so-on. Well today it felt like like ‘a thing’ should become common parlance – what else could it have been called? What better description is there? So that is what I put in the brief – a ‘thing’. Anything else would just have limited it.

I’m curious to see what the response will be.