Recently The Boy & I went to London, (13 days 'till I move there!) & it was
awesome!
I made a delightful route-plan, 'cause we wanted to do quite a lot in the time we had;
On our itinerary was a trip to the
Tate Modern, Oxford Street, a road called Denmark street, where Dan wanted to go (I'd never heard of it before, so looked it up on
Wikipedia - more on that later). We then planned to go to
Harrods as Dan had never been, & I really wanted to see the puppies on the fourth floor! After that, we planned to end the day with a trip to Southfields to have dinner with my Gran.
The plan worked out pretty well over all! We started by getting a
Megatrain to Waterloo. If you've not gotten a mega bus/train, I would strongly recommend it - it cost the two of us £10 for a day return from Southampton to Waterloo! & you can sometimes get even cheaper fares if you book further in advance. Bargain-tastic!
Loving life on the train.
An elephant at Waterloo!
Dan ran away while I was taking a picture of the elephant.
After navigating the tube, we went to the Tate. I was a little surprised to find that some of the floors/exhibitions were closed due to lack of staff - I think they were striking, but I'm not sure. There were a few signs at the entrances to some of the rooms saying that the staff had issues with the company that employed them, as opposed to the Tate itself...which was pretty strange. & when I mentioned it to my Gran later that day she pointed out that it was interesting how there hadn't been anything in the press about it, & you wouldn't know if you hadn't been to the Tate & seen the signs...Does this mean the Tate are being sneaky & covering it up so as not to seem bad? I wonder.
But regardless of that, we still managed to find a lot of fun things to see & do whilst there!
There was a
huuuge metal box in the entrance hall;
Dan said it was the biggest thing he'd ever seen. It was pretty impressive! & we then discovered you could go inside...
It was horribly dark. You literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Which made walking around in there pretty weird because you couldn't see where you were going, which kinda made it feel like you were about to fall off the edge of something!
"Miroslaw Balka’s box of darkness is disturbing in its historical echoes but beautiful as well."
The Times
"Miroslaw Balka's black hole at Tate Modern is terrifying, awe-inspiring and throught-provoking. It embraces you with a velvet chill."
The Guardian
This is what the
Tate Modern website had to say about the 'piece';
"The latest commission in
The Unilever Series How It Is by Polish artist
Miroslaw Balka is a giant grey steel structure with a vast dark chamber, which in construction reflects the surrounding architecture - almost as if the interior space of the Turbine Hall has been turned inside out...It stands 13 metres high and 30 metres long. Visitors can walk underneath it, listening to the echoing sound of footsteps on steel, or enter via a ramp into a pitch black interior, creating a sense of unease.
Underlying this chamber is a number of allusions to recent Polish history – the ramp at the entrance to the Ghetto in Warsaw, or the trucks which took Jews away to the camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz, for example.
By entering the dark space, visitors place considerable trust in the organisation, something that could also be seen in relation to the recent risks often taken by immigrants travelling. Balka intends to provide an experience for visitors which is both personal and collective, creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences through sound, contrasting light and shade, individual experience and awareness of others, perhaps provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue."
We also saw the biggest furniture I've ever seen;
Outside the Tate along the Southbank, we saw a 'beach'!
(Dan's fancy phone picture)
(& mine, with people in suits on the beach! A strange (but nice) sight)
We then got the tube along to Oxford street & saw a delightful busker;
& found Denmark Street!
"
Denmark Street is a short narrow road in central London, notable for its connections with British popular music, and is known as the British Tin Pan Alley.
Venues on Denmark Street have strong connections with the histories of British jazz, rhythm and blues and punk music. The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix recorded in basements in the street. Elton John wrote his classic early song
Your Song here. Later, the Sex Pistols lived above number 6, and recorded their first demos there. The street contains London's largest cluster of music shops. It was also the original home of London's biggest science fiction and comic store,
Forbidden Planet." (
Wikipedia)
Dan had great fun taking pictures of amps, guitars, talking to the music people...I nodded along & pretended to know what they were talking about.
From there, it was off to Harrods!
We saw lots of things that everyone needs...
We then went on to see my Gran, eat too much dinner & try not to fall asleep on the train!
Tomorrow, I'll do a post about my couple of days in Devon, with the lovely Lyzz -
(a picture from Amsterdam last year - a little random, but I do love the pic!)
xo
