Very volcanic

If you look at the Extra photo you will see where we were today. Tate St Ives. We caught the train from St Erth to St Ives - a lovely scenic 15 minute journey in a train that hugs the coast and provides views of sandy beaches below. From the station we wandered through the streets of gift shops and cafes, stopping for some great coffee and Danish pastries on the way. 

Impressed with the Tate, especially as we got in at much reduced prices with our Arts Passes. Some really nicely laid out galleries and everyone was on a timed ticket so it was not in the least bit crowded. The Extra photo was taken from one of the galleries which overlooks the lovely Porthmeor Beach and the Atlantic Ocean (a bit misty today). But what it also shows is a huge project that is almost completed - a team of artists/technicians installing Sol Lewitt’s Wall Drawing, following the precise instructions he left after his death in 2007. More here . . .

However, my blip is of the most fascinating and moving installation - Petrit Halilaj’s Very volcanic over this green feather. In 1999 Petrit Haliliaj made thirty eight drawings using coloured felt-tip pens on paper. He was 13 years old and living with his family at a refugee camp in Albania, displaced by the Kosovo War. His drawings reflect a child’s view of the horror of what he had seen and suffered, along with an imaginary world of birds and animals. For this exhibition Petrit revisited his drawings, had them magnified and arranged as monumental cut-outs in the gallery and hoped in this way to make visible the collective trauma of the survivors of violence and conflict and provide some hope for the future. You can see Petrit’s drawing of himself in the middle, looking tiny in the world, as he felt himself to be at the time. You can wander in and around the cut-outs - quite an experience.

It seems as if something is burning inside.
The stress never sleeps, it’s cold outside,
but it is raining warm rain inside.
Very volcanic over this green feather. 

Petrit Halilaj