We finished up our knickerbocker glorious ice creams and headed out into Hull to see the city of culture. We started at the University of Hull to look at Quaker records from the 1600s. I thought I could decipher hand writing and language from 400 years ago. actually I had not given it enough thought. And this day I found that I could not. So we went for lunch to catch up on the last thirty years and then the few junk shops and charity shops that Hull had to offer. I did manage to buy a sparkly photo frame and a Monster high doll on the way around....and then we headed to the art gallery to see the Turner prize contestants.
A street called Land of Green Ginger? Yes this is a street in Hull.
There once was a land that nobody believed existed. And every day people passed by it or around it or over it or through it, but never once saw it or felt it or heard it or knew any person or thing in it. Until, one day, the land revealed itself…
The land of Green Ginger in Hull contains a pub with the smallest window. It is just a slit used by the gate keeper to check on stage coaches and customers at the George Hotel......
So why is it called the land of Ginger? well there is a story that between 1640 and 1735 it became the land of green ginger because ginger spice was stored there. There is also a novel "land of Green ginger" by Winifred Holtby. 1927.
"Joanna Burton was born in South Africa but sent by her missionary father to be raised in Yorkshire. There she dreams of the far-off lands she will visit and adventures to come. At eighteen, tall and flaxen-haired, she meets Teddy Leigh, a young man on his way to the trenches of the First World War. Joanna has been in love before - with Sir Walter Raleigh, with the Scarlet Pimpernel, with Coriolanus - but this is different. Teddy tells her he's been given the world to wear as a golden ball. Joanna believes him and marries him, but the fabled shores recede into the distance when, after the war, Teddy returns in ill health. The magic land turns out to be the harsh reality of motherhood and life on a Yorkshire farm. Yet still she dares to dream."
(from little. brown book group)
Hull Minster and Trinity square where there is a huge art sculpture installation........
It is huge and designed as a climax of Hull's culture programme. "hall for Hull" features 16, six metre high steel columns placed in a grid outside the Minster.
Each one has space inside for mini exhibitions and displays which are illuminated at night.
They are the work of Chilean based design and architecture practice Pezo Von Ellrichshausen who won a competition .
This is massive......
This is my fave photo that I took of this on the day.........
Then on to Hull art Gallery to see the Turner prize exhibition......a free exhibition which we headed to next.
Andrea Buttner was born in 1972 in Stuttgart, Germany. She studied at Royal college of art, London.
her topics include botony Catholicism, philosophy and art history. she is celebrated for her bold use of woodcut and glass painting. subjects of shame, vulnerability poverty and embarrassment run through out her work.....
Hurvin Anderson. Born in 1965 in Birmingham and studied art at Wimbledon school of art and the Royal college of Art, London. Born to Jamacian parents in Birmingham, he draws his inspiration from his community and identity, his Jamacian heritage, and art. his work pays homige to afro -caribean migrants and explores cultural history.
lubaina Himid....born in 1954 in Zanzibar, Tanania and studied at Wimbledon college of art and Royal college of art. her work celebrates black creativity and references the slave trade and its legacies.
What looks to me like Junk shop finds which are then painted.
I commented that I wish we had thought of this earlier as there was loads of this stuff we saw in the junk shops........
After this we had a quick look at the permanent exhibitions and the shop......
These are some of the pictures I liked .....
Peter Howson. Mr Great Heart (1996) used as an album cover by the band The beautiful South. Quench. "How long does a tear take to dry?"
The reflections in the glass of this picture make it even more weird!
We still had some time left before my train home...so we went to the Maritime museum to see the whales.
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