oxford, here i come!

oxford university museum of natural history

in the early morning, even the sun doesn't come up, i already wake up and dress up for super early coach. (around 7:20!!!!) i feel a bit excited and sleepy on the way to oxford. while sleeping on the coach, i heard other passengers asking why today coach is so full?  because there are a huge amount of art/ design students with YOU LUCKY GUYS!    

when we arrive in oxford, the sun already fully rise. a beautiful nice sunny day, last day of this term!!!!
firstly, we have a lovely introduction with Adrian (?i kinda forgot his name :S), he shows snake skins and bird specimen to explain how miracle natural is. every biological structure has its function. and truly there are a great number of animal, planet, insect specimens, stones,and minerals, etc.

besides, the building is also stunning, with the elegance ceiling, the sunlight through the glass fall in. and each column with different leave, flower and fruit carving.
 

oxford university museurm of natural history

oxford university museum of natural history

oxford university museum of natural history

beautiful pattern

beautiful pattern

beautiful pattern

peacock feather

and afternoon, we go to another museum called pitt rivers, just behind oxford university museum of natural history. they share the main entrance.

pitt rivers is specialize at the archaeological and anthropological items, these exhibits are catagorised by their function. the total number of collections are 500,000! huge! and the space is simple, a rectangle (not sure is square or not), and 3 floors. compare with the oxford university museum of natural  history, the lighting is darker, the space is more crowded.  but the exhibits are amazing as well, no one can finish them in one's life. Peter said this place is famous, all artists and designers come here for endless inspirations. yes, i absolutely agree! you can see the item from various area from different era for distinct use.

pitt rivers museum

   

Step out of London, to Cambridge

Today, Darryl (Course Director) take us, who didn't join the trip to Budapest, to Cambridge. Frankly speaking, i have never been out of London, including the period of my foundation days. So, i'm kinda exciting about that.

We gather in front of college around 10. By the way, the amount of staying-in-London students is bigger than i though. Then get in the coach, start our one day journey. it takes approximately one and half hours to Cambridge. The first place we are going to visit is Kettle's Yard.          

We arrive Cambridge about 11:30, and the current exhibition of Kettle's Yard garllery is AS SO CI ATIONS. The title comes from John Smith's film "Associations", 1975. Fellowing is its introduction taken from John Smith official website

Images from magazines and colour supplements accompany a spoken text taken from ‘Word Associations and Linguistic Theory’ by Herbert H Clark.  By using the ambiguities inherent in the English language, Associations sets language against itself.  Image and word work together/against each other to destroy/create meaning.

"Associations is a straightforward rebus (a game in which words are replaced by pictures).  But the text is so dense (contemporary linguistic theory) and the combination of visual puns so extensive that a simple, unique reading of the film is impossible."  

A.L. Rees, Unpacking 7 Films programme notes.

 

This Artist's other work"The Girl Chewing Gum" is included as well. i have watched this film 4 years ago. Roughly, It films on a busy street corner, and a voice seems to direct the action commandingly , but actually it is just a narrator descibeing what happened in front of the him. 

Other works of this exhibition show how the artists (including Marcel Broodthaers, Pavel Bühler, Matthew Buckingham, Sharon Hayes, Michael Snow ) rearrange the words, the images and its meanings, focus on the relationship between language and history. Majority of these works i quiet enjoyed. However, i seriously consider how to improve my language level. (sigh)

After lunch, we go and visit the house of Kettle's Yard. Kettle's Yard is fomer house of Jim and Helen Ede. Jim was a curator at the Tate  Gallery during 1920s and 1930s. After retiring from the Tate in 1936, Mr. and Mrs. Ede travelled all around the world, due to above-mentioned two reasons, they got not a small amount of art collections. They searched a suitable place to live in and display the art works they owned as well. They found a area, consisted from four small and  dilapidated houses, known as "Kettle's Yard" locally. And Jim designed all the space and rooms, and display their  exquisite collections in it. The couple had lived here for16 years, from 1957 to1973. After many times of extensions , the scale of Kettle's Yard is what we see today. It divides into two parts, one is gallery( where the exhibition is ), the other is House. 


The House only open 2 hours per day ( 2pm ~ 4pm every Tuesday to Sunday). It is very worth to visit, you can find creativities, stimulus and inspirations in all of these rooms, just in the corner, the space, paintings, sculptures, books, furnitures, contemporary artworks, even the light and others objects. I really really like this house, truly provoke thinking. So adorable. They mix different kinds of styles perfectly. Really, i want to live in !

After this lovely house, we walk to the museum called The Fitzwilliam Museum, its scale is bigger than Kettle's Yard, the collections is a little similar to the British Museum ones, antiquities of Egyptian, Greek and Roman, sculptures, but one biggest difference is the former has a huge number of paintings.

We finish the visiting of The Fitzwilliam Museum in a hurry, coz have to catch the coach back to London. And 2 hours later, the Cambridge one day trip ends in front of college, where we get off the coach, with a great mood and satisfaction.