Seeing Differently

A couple of days ago I went to see the Assembling Bodies exhibition - rather reluctantly as I didn't really think it would tell me much I didn't already know. It turned out that wasn't the point. It was a lot of fun. Mixing anthropology, art, technology and science to look at our bodies from all different angles. Here's just a couple of things that made me laugh.

It's the eyes that caught my attention. The Papuan funerary statue has incredibly realistic snail shell eyes - his gaze is unsettling. The Head of the Blue Chip has two different eyes: one a small camera, the other a large blue eye under which is a video of a real eye, moving and blinking. The camera eye really works: you can see youself on a little screen on the right side of the 'brain'. The blue eye is realistic because it moves, blinks and seems to look at you. But the statue's eyes have a blurred quality that feels to me like the way we look into people's eyes every day - we don't usually stare fixedly at someone's eyes, we just get an impression of them. They are different versions of reality. 

Mariam's holding the cast of a hug! It is the empty space inside of a hug. Such a brilliant idea. We both played around with it, holding it in different positions, trying to find the right 'fit'. It feels cold initially, and rough, and quite heavy. Then it warms up with you, and once you relax and stop feeling idiotic hugging this thing, you can get it into a good position. It feels like it's comforting you.

It made me think of the way that in traditional Iranian towns, the Friday mosque is a space inside the bazaar - it's  not a building with an outside wall and an ornate portal, it's the inside empty courtyard that is important. Where there is silence and stillness and room for prayer.

Open Cambridge

Last week was Open Cambridge - two days in the year when some of the libraries, buildings and gardens in the University and around town, are open to the public. It's an opportunity to see some of the treasures of the town that are normally hidden away.


In Mill Road Cemetery, there are some interesting graves. The 'Friends of Mill Road Cemetery' gave us a tour. They try to keep a balance between keeping areas of wilderness for the wild life, and keeping the graves in good condition and the cemetery a place of beauty and order. The brambles, ivy and self seeding trees do almost as much damage as the kids who take pleasure in pushing over headstones and crosses, and the drug users who leave needles lying around in hidden corners. I was intrigued by this pair of graves built like a Ziggurat. The first headmistress of The Perse Girls School is buried nearby. Her grave is rather untidy, but it is remarkable in that it is the only gravestone for a woman that tells us her occupation (other women's graves just say 'wife of...' or 'daughter of...'). She's buried with her (female) partner.