Visual Arts at Brighton Festival, May 2015

Brighton is a constantly evolving city, absorbing people and ideas from around the world, therefore it seems apt that this year's festival theme is 'migration'. The HOUSE 2015 programme, which runs parallel to the festival and fringe has a similarly appropriate theme of 'edge and shift'.

After sampling several of the art shows I short-listed them for my very own set of awards! Here's my pick of the best, most bizarre and most thought-provoking exhibitions:

Most thought-provoking: Nathan Coley, Portraits of Dissension at The Regency Town House.

The unfurnished rooms and bare walls of The Regency Town House provide a well-matched backdrop for Nathan Coley's new commission. From a distance his works look like architectural models, but upon closer inspection they reveal the effects of political unrest and the aftermath of conflict. Leaning at different angles, metal sculptures (see photograph above) expose the scars of bombs on civilian housing blocks - casualties of a non-specific war. Brighton's own Grand Hotel is portrayed as an empty shell - the physical impact of explosion laid bare. Coley also displays a model of St Paul's Cathedral containing books that allude to the social debates and protests that have taken place there. His intention is to provoke thought and discussion around past events, rather than produce historically accurate depictions of them.

Fans of this Turner Prize shortlisted artist may also wish to see his work inside the oldest surviving building in Brighton. St. Nicholas of Myra church is the temporary home of a light installation by Coley. Here large illuminated letters spell out my favourite quote of the day: "You Imagine What You Desire" (George Bernard Shaw).

Most bizarre: Marcus Coates, Dawn Chorus at Fabrica.

A 14-screen film installation, Dawn Chorus attempts to "explore the relationship between birdsong and the human voice, drawing out similarities between the behaviour of birds and humans". Marcus Coates has cleverly re-created the dawn chorus in a unique and eccentric fashion. He has achieved this by recording bird song, then slowing it down and asking individuals to mimic it. He reverted back to the original tempo produced by birds through speeding up the recording of the humans imitating them. It works surprisingly well. The strangest element is the way that the participants are filmed mimicking bird movement in everyday scenarios, including a man sitting on the bed in his underpants.

Best of the rest: Gauge at Circus Street Market.

Inside the spacious Circus Street Market building lies an interactive weather-themed playground. This is a surreal world where visitors witness water dripping onto a piano and children can't wait to immerse their hands in containers of mud. Water trickles, bubbles and steams in weird-looking vessels, set against the concrete and graffiti of the old market. Meanwhile, the whole experience is being observed and orchestrated by people sitting at laptops. Australian creators Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey have recruited the skills of scientists, artists and musicians to collaborate on this project. They engage the audience in the sounds of water and demonstrate its beauty, therefore encouraging admiration of this versatile natural resource.

Part 2: De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea

Little did we know that the day we chose to visit the De La Warr Pavilion was the same day that its foundation plaque had been laid 80 years ago. After discovering this fact I looked up the pavilion's history online. It was apparent that Earl De La Warr was very forward thinking with his vision that the pavilion would "...become a crucible for creating a new model of cultural provision in an English seaside town..." The sheer number of similar creative arts venues that have sprung up along the south coast is surely a testament to this. Over the years the De La Warr Pavilion has earned a decent reputation for the diversity of its programme. In addition to art exhibitions, it hosts many concerts, film screenings, workshops, talks, comedy shows and theatrical performances. It also has a small, but well-stocked, gift shop with a great choice of books.

Ladybird By Design (see Part 1) has been the venue's most popular exhibition to date. Another key crowd-pleaser is likely to be the forthcoming show of Bridget Riley's Curve Paintings that starts 13th June. Anyone wishing to steer clear of the mainstream might prefer the smaller exhibitions on display. They showcase contemporary works that offer alternative ways of thinking. In this category I would place Mark Harris' Pro Patria - A Continuous Series 2009-2015. His show features collage and maquettes constructed from the content of mid-to-late 20th century architectural publications. Harris' sense of purpose in rescuing these images from future obscurity is quite apparent and fairly commendable. However, these imaginative ideas for utopian (and sometimes dystopian) architectural projects seem to have had the life sucked out of them through this recycling process.

Also on show at  De La Warr Pavilion are John Stezaker's Film Works. His three films are shown simultaneously on three walls in a darkened room. They silently flick between images of either horses, cathedrals, or crowds of people at 24 frames per second. Such a high speed creates a flip book effect, challenging the brain to keep up and make sense of the images. In the past Stezaker has created collage from found images, therefore these films are like an antithesis to this - the images move so fast that they almost hurt your eyes. The artist describes these works as "accentuations of the purgatorial incessancy of film images" - a sentence that has just won him 'quote of the day'!

Part 1: De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea

Yesterday I visited Bexhill's De La Warr Pavilion with cousin Sue. The modernist seafront venue, built in 1935, provided some very welcome shelter from the high winds battering the shoreline. We headed up the spiral staircase to the spacious cafe with large windows offering views of ferocious waves. I was impressed with the fresh, homemade food on the menu, especially the sandwich choices, like South Coast crab with avocado.

We caught the Ladybird By Design exhibition just a few days before it finished. It took us through the history of Ladybird Books, highlighting their cultural significance in the 20th century. Particular attention was given to the golden age of this national treasure, stretching from the 1950s to the late 1970s. The high level of observational detail in the 200 original illustrations was made even more apparent from seeing them in full size. These images from bygone eras also conjured up strong feelings of nostalgia for the past. Books with titles such as Shopping with Mother (1958), made me reflect upon how much lifestyles have changed. Depicting a very conventional mother and children, it featured mostly independent retailers, such as grocers and butchers - a rarer sight in modern times. The scenes in many of these books may have been idealistic interpretations of life, but this is what makes them interesting historical snapshots. There is a collective sense of achievement felt through looking back on changes in society, such as the invention of the computer. The exhibition also made me appreciate the present day diversity of attitudes - a far cry from the gender stereotyping and UK-centric world views displayed in some of the books.

There are, however, two major reasons for me to pay homage to Ladybird Books. Firstly they helped myself and millions of others to learn to read (Peter and Jane are fictional heroes in this respect, even if their lives were mostly unexciting). Secondly, the illustrations can be credited as an early source of inspiration for my Mum, who is a professional printmaker. She was grateful for the high quality of the illustrations in the Nature series, which she carefully copied as a child! Moreover, the cost-effective single-sheet printing of Ladybird Books- a result of wartime paper shortages - meant that they were cheaply available for the masses to enjoy.

Very first blog post

Creating the first couple of posts for this blog has been more exciting than I anticipated...definitely overshadowing the general election taking place today!