Thurs 26th of Feb, 09

Meeting at Gwdihw cafe. Glenn brought the AHRC's Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images, Objects Programme, to the table as a potential funding avenue. Also, he showed us work he had done last year for MA Fine Art student, Adiola, consultancy work funded by the Welsh Arts Council. The work was done as a way of helping her articulate the key themes in her art work and consisted mainly of photographs of her superimposed by text, specifically the word Creole. All the images played upon differing relations between 'figure' and 'ground', between individual and cultural identity. They also included some moving images consisting of blocks of texts moving across each other, in such a way as the word Creole indicated a surprising wealth of other words or suggestions of words (ole, ecole, cre, etc.).

We all agreed that bringing these new images into the frame helped enormously to re-focus our project, and seemed to represent a physical/visual break with Paperwork (which has undoubtedly cast its shadow over this project to date). Alexis: having just seen this work, I could write several articles!!

We also discussed Tuvalu, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, which is in serious danger of being reclaimed by the sea. Its entire population may need to re-locate. There is talk of the island being re-created, so to speak, online, as a way for them to keep their memories, history alive. This is an interesting example of new migration - with a new media as well as an ecological dimension. To find out more about the impact of global warming on the islands: http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm