We went to mima to look for working [wo]men

Last Friday we took a trip to Middlesborough [Steve, Me, Alice, Tim and Natalie]. We'd asked Natalie to organise a visit - she arranged for us to meet Alistair Hudson: mima Director [ex Grizedale, current Turner Prize judge and best mate of Assemble] and Judith Hills from University of Sunderland. Alistair has written a vision for mima that chimes with us and what we are interested in, and importantly he is looking at how a gallery/museum can become useful to a town and its residents or as he says - users . Judith has been central to Artworks which has been looking at pragmatic support for artists working in participatory settings and notion of quality around that work.
Alice took some photos during the visit. Here are a few, i particularly like the balloon one - i took a similar one.


Tim thought about stuff and has since written some words which he is further editing before i can post - watch this space:

Steve and I cooked up a plan to get the people involved in the day to write us a letter that answered our question, on the letterpress piece currently in the Ruskin Gallery Sheffield,  Arts not doing enough, so what are we going to do about it? We have been invited to be in a show for the end of Ruskin in Sheffield at Millennium Galleries opening last Friday. We decided that some responses to the question would be a good compliment - a sister piece for a neighbouring gallery. Also because we were going to Sunderland we were inspired by Ruskin's 25 letters to A Working Man of Sunderland, about the state of things and possible alternatives. The fact we were also meeting/travelling with people interested in the state of things and change or at least asking what art could do, was an opportunity not to be missed.


Also just heard this today on Radio 4 which seems to link - a programme about Thomas Horsefall, who was mentored by Ruskin, and savour of souls in Manchester. And guess who's talking on it  - no other than Alistair, mentioned above.