Diary for 12th November to 18th November 2009

THURSDAY 12th November - Mouthwatering Christmas Surprise

In anticipation of Christmas the Southbank Centre in London will hold a Christmas Chocolate Festival. The festival will run from 11-8pm daily from the 11th December to 13th December 2009. There will be stalls all celebrating different aspects of chocolate, from eating and drinking chocolate, to artistic creations, and the history of production. The festival will include a range of demonstrations, and workshops where participants get a chance to make chocolate truffles and watch master British chocolatiers such as William Curley, Damian Allsop and Paul Wayne Gregory perform their culinary magic. There have been many anthropologists who have written fantastic books about the history of Chocolate production and the cultural significance of this global commodity. The Centre for Anthropology at the British Museum, has a collection of anthropological books on chocolate.


FRIDAY 13th November - Envisioning a Common Ground

The Aurora Film Festival Weekend takes place in Norwich running from today until the 15th of November. The festival weekend aims to create a 'temporary community' of artists, filmmakers, curators and activists. The theme for this year's festival is 'Common Ground', a theme which explores the interconnections between ecology and social history, myth, anthropology and direct action. Highlights of the Festival Weekend include programmes of work by artists and film makers Jem Cohen (New York) , Milena Gierke (Berlin), as well as rarely seen films, live music and performance. Click here to find out more about the festival programme and price listings.



SATURDAY 14th November- Wartime Evacuees

The University of Reading's Museum of Rural Life (MERL) currently has an exhibition on call 'The children's war: evacuees in the countryside 1939-45'. In September 1939, 1.5million children were evacuated from major cities in Britain and moved to the rural countryside in order to be protected from any future air attacks. They were presented with a new way of life where they had to become acculturate to living and working on farms, helping out in the community, and going to the local school. This exhibition looks at the legacy of this children and their impact on the countryside, 'how much the rural life affected their own lives, both at the time and in the future'. The exhibition was curated by Dr. Martin Parsons, Director of The Research Centre for Evacuee and War Child Studies (ResCEW). The exhibition runs until the 22nd December. Admission is free.



SUNDAY 15th November- At home in Georgia

I've recently stumbled upon a fantastic little restaurant in Hackney called 'Little Georgia Cafe' (87 Goldsmiths Row), London. If you want to try authentic, inexpensive home-style Georgian cooking this is the place to go. They have wonderful pelmeni (little dumplings) and kababi (pastry wraps). If you go, try their famous cheese bread! Approximately £10 per person, byob accepted.





MONDAY 16th November- Mounted but not stuffed

Starting on the 19th November running until the 5th December is an exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery, looking at David Farrer's work called 'Africa Revisited'. David Farrer might best be described as a papermache zoologist. His expertise is making lifelike sculptures out of papermache of animals from all over the world. Over the years as an artist he travelled extensively in South Africa, and was amazed at the contradictions on the one hand, with the country's wildlife protection policies and on the other with the profitable business of animal trophy gathering. He decided to 'bridge the gap' by producing a 'recycled trophy' that would 'satisfy the urge to hang an animal head on the wall but provoke pro-ecological thought'. His animals are made primarily from old magazines, and 'recycled extras' such as horse hair, etc.. for added realism. Take a look here for a full listing of his animal art.




TUESDAY 17th November- Soundscapes

Today I am heading to the SOAS Music Department for their public seminar series held in Room G3 from 17:15-19:00pm. Today's speaker is Dr. Peter Cusak(Senior Lecturer, Sound Arts & Design, London College of Communication). Dr. Cusak is a 'sound artist, musician and environmental recordist with a special interest in environmental sound and acoustic ecology'. He's worked on projects such as 'Your favourite London Sounds' which aimed to discover the sounds that Londoners found positive about their city's landscape, as well as projects which documented the way in which sounds contribute to peoples' sense of place all over the world. His current project is called 'Sounds from dangerous places' and examines the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage, such as Chernobyl, the Azerbaijan oil field and controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems. The seminar is open to all.






WEDNESDAY 18th November- Let them Eat Junk

On 24th November, Dr. Robert Albritton will be speaking at SOAS Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre about his new book Let Them Eat Junk: How capitalism creates hunger and obesity. Dr. Albritton is an Emeritus Professor from York University, who has written extensively on political economic structures. Let them Eat Junk, looks at how the flow of capital, and the economics of our industrial food system has produced a world where obesity and starvation can coexist within and across populations. The talk will start at 6:30pm. Open admission, for more information about the event contact Alex Colas: A.Colas@bbk.ac.uk