Illuminated Fragments (by sarah)

Currently it is the Gloucester History Festival - happening very differently to previous year in the restrictions on numbers and the shift to more outside pre booked things and mostly online talks and interactive virtual tours. Even if I'd been well enough there is no way Cuddly Science/History could have done it's normal activities with sand pit digs and cloth puppets 0.o

I am seeing past events popping up on Facebook memories and they are awesome but do you know what? So is this year... there is a festival that had to completely start from scratch and reorganise some great stuff and they managed it and on their big year too! 10yrs of the Festival and 25yrs for the Heritage Open Days!

And it's not like I am completely devoid of involvement - back in the spring an art and archaeology project that I was very excited to be a part of obviously had to go on hold but now the exhibition is there for anyone who wanders over to see! They are asking people to pre book free tickets and wear face masks when in the building as well as doing track and trace.

It's at Llanthony Secunda Priory and called Illuminated Fragments. There were 15 of us lead by Jacqui Grange of Creative Solutions with access to the archaeological finds from the area thanks to Cotswold Archaeology, and tutorials on calligraphy as well as researching the history and stories of the area.

I really enjoyed the parts of it I managed to get to and the work produced is truly spectacular - it is only up until the 14th of Sept 2020. Including the Heritage Open Day.

Protected: Moon Mania PechKucha Talk (by sarah)

Gaia – Llanthony 2019 (by sarah)

This weekend starting tomorrow there is going to be a giant Earth floating in the grounds of the historical site Llanthony Secunda Priory and Moon Mania Mega Make my community textiles project will be there with it 🙂

It will be there from 10 am till 5 pm for three days:

Friday 28th of June Saturday 29th of June Sunday 30th of June

I will be there from 1 pm on the Friday, 2 pm on the Saturday and all day Sunday. If the weathers nice I will be outside by the coffee van if it's bad I'll be inside. This will also be the first proper outing of Moon Memories where I hope to snag people and get them to tell me their tales of the moon landings and space race or what their aspirations for the future of space exploration is. This is for a legacy piece which will result in a book and website and my hope is to archive these stories properly so that they are not lost to the sands of time (or moon dust!).

Gaia is part of Gloucester's amazing Earth and Moon festival which will be going on through out the summer and autumn and includes events at the Libraries including their annual reading challenge which is space themed, cinema at the GuildHall, the accompanying Moon to Gaia will be in the Cathedral later in the Year, and of course last but not least there is the Museum of Gloucester which has a Moon Exhibition which is opening this Saturday (29th of June 2019) starting with a kids craft corner focused on International Asteroid Day. I myself will be doing talks, creative writing that's moon themed as well as rock handling at the Museum.

Some of the events can be found in the SoMac brochure, some in the museums and libraries and Guildhalls own brochures 🙂

I also have various poetry, arts and science talks planned starting on Tuesday with a little PechaKucha talk at Liquor and Chow.

Now back to Gaia - this is an amazing installation that is going on a tour around the UK and is made by Luke Gerram with imagery from NASA. I am very excited to have the chance to be involved for Moon Mania!

Gaia is the name of the Greek Goddess who made/is the Earth, that which gave birth to everything, in Earth and Planetary Sciences we have the Gaia Hypothesis which takes the planet as a kind of mega organism with each part - trees, animals, sea, weather - all being part of the whole and what affects one affects the other. Computer Gamers will also be well aware of these concepts!

I have a mini obsession with Gaia so here is one of my favourite art making and concept creating videos about another fabulous art inspired by Mother Earth:

Rebirth of Gaea

Oh and I am looking for as many people as possible to be involved with the Mega Make!

Moon Mania Mega Make Press Info (by sarah)

MoonMania Mega Make is a community textiles project being created as part of the celebration of human kind reaching the moon 50 yrs ago in the Apollo programme - we walked on another world! It is also a chance to look at the amazing things that have been discovered during this new human endeavour -- space travel and where it is possibly heading in the future.

The project will produce a series of banners each using a different style and form of textiles or fabric art. The first piece is a large embroidery of Sarah Snell-Pym's Celestial Montage, a multimedia piece originally produced as part of the European Space Agency's Create Your Space project. The second is a rag rug using the designs Tanya Feasey.

The idea of the project is to get as many people as possible involved so please come along and add a stitch or more and if you wish you can be added to the wall of fame.

Along side the MoonMania Mega Make, there will be the opportunity to share your memories or those of older relatives and friends of the Moon Landings and Space Race. Or just maybe how space has inspired you!

These Moon Memories will be going into a legacy piece of art and science communication so that they are not lost to the sands of time (or moon dust for that matter), it includes a print book and website.

Other parts of MoonMania include talks, rock handling, poetry and creative writing, spacecraft workshops for children and puppetry.

Moon Mega Make – Update! (by sarah)

This week the Moon Mega Make community textiles project has been out twice in both Gloucester and Cheltenham 🙂 Someone even started stitching the Sun which made me very happy!

Part of the outings was also to put up posters and give out flyers and have further meetings about Moon Mania. This lot of flyers cover the Spoken Word and Creative Writing aspect of Moon Mania which currently comprises 4 events, the first of which also includes the Mega Make at the First Thursday in Cheltenham - an Arts Quarter event that happens once a month unsurprisingly on the First Thursday where the Wilson Museum and Art Gallery is open late and July's event is Moon Themed for the 50th anniversary of the first human on the moon!

There is lots of awesome moon themed stuff happening 6-9 pm 🙂

Cookes Coffee and Curios is also supporting the Moon Mania Mega Make giving us a space for the Moon Meets and popping my posters and flyers up in their wonderful coffee shop! The photo below is of my mum stitching away over a coffee.

And last but certainly not least - Gloucester City is having a wonderful Earth and Moon Festival opening with Gaia a giant inflatable Earth that is going into one of the loveliest historical landmarks around - Llantony Sucunda Priory. This amazing artwork is by Luke Jerram and is open to the public on the 28-30 of June 2019. Check out the Facebook event here. To my utter joy I get to take the Mega Make along to this event - extract timings for me are yet to be called but I am hoping to make an appearance on all three days so if you are local come along see the art and add a stitch!

The Moon Mania Mega Make even ended up at the Gloucestershire Steam Punk Society's get together this month where there were cogs and moon chatting and much much more!

And last but certainly not least my prototype t-shirt has arrived - I don't like the black rectangle around the moon so am attempting to get rid of that in future prints but this one shall be mine for events to go along with the space dresses, moon skirts and leggings 🙂 I am hoping to sell these to help fund some of the other Moon Mania events and I would like to be able to give these to all the poets and story writers who are providing works for the Moon Miscellany!