Forgotten Bristol - the grave of Scipio Africanus

During my schooling we learned about the Transatlantic slave trade, and something of Bristol's key role in it. I recall a book of writings by slaves (To be a Slave, edited by Julius Lester), and being taken by my parents to see this grave in the churchyard of St. Mary's in Henbury. amongst other things. Glossed over quickly though were many details about from what and where the city's wealth had been derived.

Visiting again on a roasting day, the church is locked, but the yard is shady. The grave looks, frankly, awful. It was broken in two in 2020 as a counter protest to the felling of the Colston statue during Black Lives Matter. Being Grade II listed, it was repaired in 2021 and given this cheesy paint job. We are in Monkey Christ territory to my eyes. I don't recall it being painted before, but my memory of forty plus year's ago is sketchy and could well be wrong. 

Worse though is the verse on the footstone with its now especially offensive third and fourth lines: 'What tho' my hue was dark my SAVIORS sight/ Shall Change this darkness into radiant light'

Little is known about Scipio. He seems to have been named after the Roman General by his owner, Charles William Howard, 7th Earl of Suffolk, who had a large house in Henbury. He might have been born to a West African slave mother in this household. What is clear is that he died at a mere eighteen years old and his grave is a rare thing in Britain - a contemporaneous memorial to a slave, even if his birth does not appear in the church's records. 

Missing though is any kind of signage of explanation and restorative history. The church would do well to erect such and to supplement its website, along the lines of all the good work that has been done in this area by Bristol Cathedral.  

Lyra Festival - first weekend

Yay! The Bristol Poetry Festival, Lyra, kicked off on Friday 17th April with a panel discussion on why poetry now and the Queer Cabaret. My take aways were on the importance of keeping on writing with hope even in the dark times, and the need to grow poetry audiences to lift us from being the Cinderella art form. Perhaps a change of name as Spoken Word did twenty years ago. I've been mulling this and have come up with Word Shorts. I'm going to start referring to my work like this and see what happens, so we have no more children screaming outside Michel Rosen's set on Saturday 18th that they hate poetry. At the Cabaret Keith Jarrett's performance was awesome and I'm glad I had the chance to tell him so.

Saturday 18th for me was all about the Braid Poetry Walk around Clifton. I had a lot of fun devising the route, researching the writers associated with Clifton and chosing what to read. And with my Braid colleagues we put together great poems from our oeuvres to share with the twenty plus folk who came to enjoy the architecture, history and literature of the part of Bristol I call home. It was enthusiastically received and we've been asked to do it again next year. Hurrah!

The rest of Saturday I admit to being absolutely shattered, but I did manage to enjoy John McCullough, Karen McCarthy-Woolf and Matthew Rice. Even if I did drift off for ten minutes, at least I didn't snore. The readings from Gaza poets were very moving indeed. The notion of going to the beach and looking at the sunset while holding on to the idea that the sea cannot be taken away will stay with me.

Sunday 19th and we missed the start of Inua Ellams' improv reading due to my inability to decipher the programme. We caught most of it and enjoyed his dexterity in finding pieces to read suggested by words from the audience. Interesting too were his comments on writing: how everything starts with a poem, even if it then becomes a play or essay or story. Bravo.

The highlight of Sunday, and probably the whole festival, was the stunning performance of her new book, Maryville, by doyen of Spoken Word and T.S. Eliot superstar, Joelle Taylor. Marvellous. I was moved to tears and the standing ovation she received was never more deserved. Do not miss the chance to see this show. Seriously. 

Cosmos at the RWA

The new group show at the RWA opened last weekend to explore the intersection between art and science in relation to all things spacey. There were some lovely pieces and, of course, some that didn't float my spacecraft. That is to be expected. 

I admired the slice of the moon's in glittering silver and the speculative planetary surfaces in textured paper. 

It was good to be reminded in a series of photographs about the Jaipur Observatory, which I visited almost forty years ago. And I was intrigued, as always, by Cornelia Parker's meteorite burnt maps, as much as looking at a large chunk of said rock.

Less exciting were renderings of Nasa photographs, whereas the closely observed 19th C pastel of the moon from the Royal Astronomical Society was an exemplar of both scientific measurement and artistry. 

Prints of nebulas too held my gaze for a long while. And, being a sucker for ceramics, I really wanted to tuck one the moon jars under my arm.

It's on for several months, so don't be phased, but do pop along. 

Helios redux

Swimming under the sun. 

It was too tempting to miss;  a special moment getting up close and under the heat of Luke Jerram's Helios, currently suspended over the Jubilee Pool in Knowle.

 Installed as a fund raiser for the desperately needed new roof, late night swimming sessions for limited numbers of the curious are a fantastic experience. 

It was on the one hand serene when folk were quiet enough to enable the accompanying music to be heard, and on the other an exuberance of joy. 

I enjoyed my half hour greatly, but could have done without the gale blowing on the hilltop as we made our way home at midnight. 

Luke Jerram - Helios

Just opened in Bristol Cathedral, the monumental Helios by Luke Jerram is a mesmerising work, with a tiny earth nearby to give you a sense of the scale of the sun.

 It's on for the whole of October and is well worth ducking indoors for if you are passing, or even if you have to take a special trip, as the Cathedral itself, and it's commendable and important work on the slave trade counter-narrative is time well spent. Sit and wonder. You'll be glad you did.

Forgotten Bristol - Balloons

Every second weekend in August is the extravaganza that is the balloon festival at Ashton Court. 

Not being one to willingly join a crowd, I prefer to watch the mass ascents from the calm of a relatively secret spot in Clifton. No, I'm not telling you where to go to get a wide uninterrupted view of the balloons traversing the city, assuming, of course, that the not too fierce wind is coming from the right direction, i.e. the west.  Suffice to say it's not the Observatory or anywhere near the Suspension bridge. Buy me a coffee and I might, just might, divulge this useful piece of local knowledge.

This year while the dawn ascents did take place, two of the three evening ones did not as it was just too windy. I prefer the comfort of my bed, so the one and only chance this year was on Sunday evening. A perfectly warm and balmy one. The fifty balloons lifting off and drifting across Bristol were a wonder to behold. One I didn't realise I'd been missing.

Forgotten Bristol - The Sheep Grazing

To remind everyone that The Downs are available to domesticated animals, a sheep grazing event is held every several years. I must say I had in mind a goodly-sized flock of sheep ranging over a large part of The Downs. What it actually turned out to be were four ewes and four lambs in a small pen tucked under the trees. Not quite the assertion of Commons rights I was looking for, but I took consolation from the fact that they were Welsh Blacks and rather gorgeous looking beasts, especially their black lambs.

I hope the school children who were there at the same time as me were not disappointed. There were distractions in the form of a spinning wheel and a spinner demonstrating wool carding, a fleece to run one's fingers through - lanolin is great hand cream - and the Avon wildlife group to explain the special flora of the Downs and Gorge. 

It was worth attending to see one of those oddities of the British countryside that finds it's way into the middle of the city, but I doubt I'll be visiting again.

Forgotten Bristol - Stanton Drew Stone Circles

Just before I went to University my parents moved out of the city to Chew Magna, a small village to the south. During the summer I spent kicking my heels waiting for my exam results, one of the places I liked to hang out were the Stone Circles at Stanton Drew. I visited them again for the first time in 45 years this past weekend. Nothing much has changed except that there were more people than I remember walking through the fields and around the stones, and there was even a family picnicking besides them. Yes, despite the bitter March wind.

It is third largest standing stone complex in England after Stonehenge and Avebury and hardly anyone has ever heard of it. Stanton Drew is a tiny village in the Chew Valley, but it's well worth a detour if all things Neolithic are your bag. 

The Stone Circles cost a mere £1 to visit - coins in the honesty box. They date from 3000-2000 BCE. Many are still standing, some are flat out. They are lichen encrusted and pitted by rainwater erosion. They are lovely things to behold, touch with your palm and wonder about their purpose and the civilisation that put them there. Impressive and mysterious, both. There are some farcical local legends concerning them, which you can safely scoff at. I do.

And there's more - an even older (by another thousand years) group of three enormous dolomite conglomerate stones called The Cove can be found in the garden of the Druid's Arms pub in the village - an excellent spot for refreshments too.

Led by Donkeys Pop Up

Last weekend Bristol had a UK first - a pop up art exhibition by Led by Donkeys, the artivision group responsible for some of the country's most stunning political interventions in recent years, all aimed at calling government(s) to account. 

Think painting the road outside the Russian Embassy with the colours of the Ukrainian flag (right), or all those poster sized tweets throwing politicians quotes back at them, or the projections on the White Cliffs of Dover and so on. The most important of these in my view is the Covid Memorial Wall opposite the Houses of Parliament. 

In a tiny gallery at Midland Road and the rest of which building is usually an Airbnb, the three day event attracted quite a crowd. We queued for over an hour to get in, but it was a good natured wait and was worth it to see the huge Tufton Street plaque up close and personal. Photographs adorned the walls, along with the more recent Truss lettuce poster (left). In the basement the film of children' clothes on a beach (Gaza memorial) was hard to access, but very moving once down there. 

Art it probably isn't, but witty, whilst being clever and serious in intent is most certainly is. The recently published book of the same documents it all for posterity and now has pride of place on my coffee table. Thanks guys, it was an enjoyable afternoon laughing, once again, at the heinous politics of the last decade or so. 

Forgotten Bristol - The Bristol L

I remember as a child a news report about the Bristol L, that particular use of an additional consonant at the end of certain words ending in a vowel, usually an 'a.' Thus if you ask, as the reporter did, a broad Bristolian to read out the following: Carla Rosa Opera Company, they will give you Caral, Rosal, Operal Company. 

You take photographs with your cameral, and an excellent plan is a good ideal. All very amusing to the outsider, but it is unconsciously done, as second nature to the Bristolian as aitch dropping is in Estuary English.

But it created a few problems for my mother trying to teach geography in explaining the difference between an area, as it plot of land, place, and an aerial photograph, as both words are pronounced the same as in 'an aerial photograph of a large areal of woodland.'

I had completely forgotten about the L until we moved back home recently and one of the first conversations I had with a passerby reminded me. It's charming and I've grown to love it again.

Richard Long at the Arnolfini

I state my bias right away: Long is my hometown artist who I most admire.  His word work is poetry pared down to its most simple essence: the significant things we notice along the way.

And moving throughout the landscape is what this work is all about. The walk. Everything else is just recording and documenting. Which makes it rather difficult to mount an exhibition.

Happily the words on the walls work their magic, as do the site specific mud paintings and the slate cross.

New mud thumb prints are charming in their aboriginal patterning.

Meanwhile out of the gallery up on the Downs is Boyhood Line, which is worth finding (one third of the way up Ladies Mile on the right as you leave Clifton, if you want directions, as I had to ask three gallery staff before finding one who could show me, but not furnish me with, a map). The grass is overtaking the white stones and there is a certain amount of public interference going on, as Long expected.

My only quibble, and it's not a small one, is that the Arnolfini does not have anywhere near enough gallery space to do Long's work justice. Not by a long chalk. There simply wasn't enough of on show to make a trip from anywhere other than Bristol worthwhile. Luckily, I was passing, otherwise I would have been sorely disappointed. But if you are local and like your art conceptual and constrained, enjoy this this summer.

Graffiti Project - 4

The famous Banksy at the bottom of Park Street in Bristol after the blue paint incident and its (partial) clean up. Photo by Paul Robinson.

Graffiti

Literary concerns, spotted in Clifton, Bristol. When did poetry last attract such passion I wonder?