Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Underwhelming Shimmy

The Wimbledon Studio's Summer Show was part of the Wandsworth Art Festival when wrapped up today with the Shimmy between Putney and Wandsworth Park.

Previous years there has been installations including Underscore, an aural underwater voyage along the Thames, and Track, in which you lay on a cart and was pulled along looking at the sky above.

Both were pretty good so I was interested to see what this year's installation would be.

Alas I found it and the rest of the Shimmy rather underwhelming, particularly as what little there was seemed to be aimed at 6 year olds.

The only event that was aimed at adults went over my head. It was called Lachrymae and related to Greek myth involving transformation of tears into amber (or something).

Basically you had to put on these masks with coloured plastic that turned the world into Instagram. Then there were musicians playing violins (that bit was ok so thumbs up to composer Helen Ottaway) while some of the trees had tear like amber things hanging from them (see above taken through the filter and this video of them being made).

There was more about Ted Hughes and Ovid's Metamorphoses, neither of which I know about, so whoosh over my head.

Bit of a shame given the sun was out and the odd bit of sky was blue.

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