Smithsonian Folkways

For access to a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions comprised of an unprecedented variety of online resources go to the Smithsonian Folkways website here. From this webpage you will be able to search and identify recordings of all types of music , or search for recordings of a particular artist or for music using particular instruments. Links from these search results allow you to sample and  if you wish purchase the recordings as digital downloads. The database also includes recordings featuring the spoken word: humour, scientific and historical topics, poetry, birdsong and much more.

For UWIC staff and students: there is a link to this website on  the Subject Guide for  Music Technology

Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951.

The Mapping Sculpture database , the outcome of a major three-year research programme conducted by The University of Glasgow, in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum and Henry Moore Institute , delivers the results of the first comprehensive study of sculpture between the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Festival of Britain in 1951.

If you are on a smartphone and would like to access the mobile version, click here

The project  can be summed up as an investigation of sculptural practice that aims to reveal the numerous personal and professional connections underlying the production of sculpture. The project's state of the art database provides the means of searching this complex web of connections.

There are over 50,000 records in the database. This wealth of information can be used to answer many questions and will also suggest many new avenues for further investigation.

autre mers (other seas)

French-born, London-based artist Francoise Dupre makes work that celebrates women's creativity, re-contextualising knitting and stitching activities traditionally associated with domestic space. A new exhibition at the Womens Library in London brings together a series of her installations that use many craft forms to create ephemeral, playful, extraordinary sculptural patterns and objects.

Turner Prize 2011-shortlist announced

The annual Turner Prize has turned its back on London and travelled north to the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, opening this year on 21 October.

The shortlist has just been announced and this year includes two painters, George Shaw and Karla Black, who are joined  by sculptor Martin Boyce and video artist Hilary Lloyd.

some pictures of the nominees work here

Adrian Searle (Guardian art critic) on this year's nominees

Easter in Port Talbot: The Passion

Michael Sheen (famous as the actor playing Tony Blair in 'The Queen' and Frost in 'Frost/Nixon') returned to his hometown of Port Talbot to direct and act in a 3 day play called The Passion  with a cast of over 1000 (14 actors and the rest members of the community in choirs and bands, amateur acting and dancing groups and ordinary people who thronged the streets).  Staging was by  Bill Mitchell and the Cornish site-specific miracle-workers WildWorks, the sound designer Mike Beer, lighting designer Paul Jarvis, and music director Clair Ingleheart. It was a National Theatre Wales , Wildworks production. The project is described here
The 72-hour performance, inspired by the biblical passion play, took place around the town on Easter weekend. During the marathon event, Sheen performed sequences on Port Talbot's beaches, hills and streets, including "The Trial" at Civic Square, "The Procession" at Station Road and "The Cross" on Aberavon Seafront.
There are some images here and here that show key moments from the Passion Play. Watch out for the filmed version on BBC in the future

Freezeframe- 20,000 Polar images searchable in an online collection

Something for a sunny day with thanks to Sarah Williams

The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge owns a vast and much of it fragile collection of polar images dating from the earliest famous days of polar exploration to the modern day. The photographs allow searchers to  trace the history of polar exploration and also that of polar photography and include images of domestic scenes round camp, aboard the polar vessels, animals polar and expeditionary and staggering landscapes made of ice. These images are now searchable online through Freezeframe, a fully catalogued digital image database of polar exploration photographs from 1845-1982 that has been produced by the Scott Polar Research Institute to support learning, teaching and research into topics relating to the history of Arctic and Antarctic history, exploration, and science.

The  images are presented with ancillary material from the collections of the Institute, and critical essays contextualising much of the material.

Festival of Britain 60 year anniversary

The National Archives Image Library has created a little image collection to celebrate the 60 year anniversary of The Festival of Britain . The Festival of Britain took place from May 3rd-September 30th 1951 to celebrate the British contribution to civilisation, past, present and future in the fields of art, technology and science and to encourage a looking forward after the horrors, privations and losses of the Second World War.
The National Archives Image Library contains other interesting image sets  including ones for Crime, Design, Mining and Maps.