Anthony Gormley Another Time, Sculpture in Margate

Another Time  is one of Anthony Gormley's solid cast iron figures that has been sited outside the Turner Contemporary Gallery. It  is a part of series of one hundred, solid cast-iron figures produced by Antony Gormley, that have been sited all around the country.

The sculpture is sited on the beach and is submerged at high tide. As the tide goes out the figure is revealed, becoming fully visible a few hours before low tide.

These figures are cast from Anthony Gormleys own body and  Antony Gormley describes these isolated forms, cast from his own body as "an attempt to bear witness to what it is like to be alive and alone in space and time"

Despite the notice not to walk out to the sculpture, many people find it irresistible and want to touch the figure of stand next to it and take photos.

I must admit I did walk out there myself, the walk along some old parts of structure on the beach is slippy with seaweed and shells!

The sculpture is here till the 30th November.
On the Turner Contemporary website you can see  Sarah Martin, head of exhibitions discussing the sculpture and a link to a TED talk where Anthony Gormley talks about his work.

I also worked digitally to place Another Time in other places in Margate.

Dreamland opens for the summer season.

Dreamland on the reopening day

Dreamland has reopened after a  makeover including putting a music stage at the centre of the site .
It's been interesting seeing all the changes happening over the last 5 years. From a first look inside at a derelict site with just the old roller coaster in need of a lot of restoration, and abandoned buildings.

Dreamland with work continuing

Parts of dreamland under constuction

Seeing the plans at that stage for re launch of dreamland as a vintage theme park was exciting.

Dot Dash art installation at Dreamland.

Queuing for the first tickets for Dreamland's opening

There was hope that a lot of local artists could be involved with the project, I put my name down for a number of things, but nothing happened there was no further contact and nothing materialized unfortunately.

One of the temporary rides

Finance problems loomed and changes in ownership, and I think the great pool of local goodwill for Dreamland wasn't utilized sufficiently. But it is still here and financed for the continuation of the venture and further restoration and development.

Many day trippers were arriving from the station this half term week and at the opening Dreamland was packed.
Lots of  new landscaping has been done and the whole site looks good, reminding me of the childhood fairgrounds I visited, with out the smell of diesel!       They just need the plaster dogs and cats as prizes.

A whole series of concerts and events are planned through the year, but the site is free to enter at any other time, you pay for the rides you want. This is a much better idea than the original one of everyone having to pay to get in whether they went on the rides or not.

Dreamland website here                    

New entrance to Dreamland.

A Calming Stone,A Blank Canvas Happening at Turner Contemporary.

Blank Canvas organized a happening at Turner Contemporary last week, called A Calming Stone, as part of the closing day events for their exhibition.
We collected stones and pebbles from local beaches and arranged then in the gallery on one of the benches, over spilling to the floor.

The simple act of arranging them in size, colour and shape, turned an ordinary collection of random stones into something much more interesting and attractive.

Our plan was to invite visitors to select a stone, or rather let a stone select them, they could take their stone with them as they walked around the gallery and then return the stone to a sculpture on the floor, or select a stone and add it to the sculpture straight away.

We also encouraged visitors to think about why they chose their stone and if they wanted to, allow the stone to absorb any thoughts they wanted to leave behind.

We were returning all the stones and pebbles to the sea, and any thoughts left in the stones would be washed away in the sea.


Well a lot of visitors were interested in the event, talked about their choice of stones, love of collecting or memories of collecting from their childhood.

For some, the stones called to them straight away, others took their time. Visitors described things such as the texture of their stone,the patterns and suggested images they could see on the stone, the noise it made, what it reminded them of and qualities like love.

 Some took their stones away with them as they explored the gallery and became quite attached to them. There is something very tactile and soothing about holding a stone or a pebble.

Everyone however wanted to be part of what was a ritual in someways, and added their stone to the growing sculpture on the floor. We had envisaged a spiral but went with what the visitors co created.

After the event we collected all the stones and pebbles together and all took some of them with us to return them to the sea.

Oyster Festival at Whitstable

Whitstable's annual Oyster Festival opened last weekend with the Landing of the Oysters  and their blessing by the  Rev Simon Tillotson from St Peters Church, the seafarers church in Whitstable, which recocnizes St. James of Compostela, the patron saint of Oystermen.

Many thousands of people come to the festival which has a week long programme of events. Festival website here

The tide was in for the landing of the oysters and I was struck by how close the various boats were to the shore. I also had a sense of how lovely it must be  for all the children and youngsters in boats enjoying themselves.

After the blessing of the oysters the cart and clergy and dignitaries joined the parade through the town.  Some great paper mache heads and fish and the two giant figures along with a wonderful steam punkish  metal crustacean vehicle.

Along the harbour were hundreds of stalls, most with food and drink for all the crowds. There were the longest ques at the oyster stalls, which seems right as it was an oyster festival. 

It was very busy  and very hot, I needed to cool off in the small areas of shade  every so often.
But I enjoyed the atmosphere, the parade and seeing the landing of the oysters.

Wingham Wildlife Park

Ruth and I went to visit the Wingham Wildlife Park last week. I always have mixed feelings about seeing the animals in wildlife parks, on the one hand I really enjoy seeing them but on the hand I wish they were not in captivity. There were also a lot of birds like the ducks with their ducklings that were just free to come and go.

Here in the Wingham Wildlife Park the enclosures were all pretty good. They are investing in upgrading all the facilities for people and animals since they took over the site.

Website here

I liked the fact that their two lions were rescued from a French circus and that they are involved in other conservation projects.

There is a little bit of everthing in the park including animals like lions, tigers and meerkats, owls and birds of prey a tropical house, otter enclosure, penguins pool and peacocks wandering the site along with exotic chickens.

I found quite a few feathers on the paths walking around, lovely huge goose feathers I think, an owl feather and some from the tropical birds and others I can't identify.

The peacocks seemed to enjoy showing off their beautiful feathers when not chasing the chickens from potential food.

You could buy food for the meerkats, which we did and you can look over their enclosure and drop the food in. I liked that you could get quite close to some of the animals with warnings of course about putting fingers near them.

They have various experience days including one where you can help feed the tigers or be in with the lemurs and photography sessions too.