We are going to an exhibition this Sunday and I’m really really really looking forward to it!!!!!! I found it thru a url A. sent me about things to do in London. Here’s some info:
Primarily through long exposures, Dan Holdsworth uses photography’s capacity to record what is not visible to the human eye as an analogy for the limits of knowledge and our desire to overcome these shortcomings. In 1999 he went to French Guiana, South America, to photograph the European Space Agency’s spaceport. The results are hugely ambivalent – by turns doleful, futuristic and romantic. At dusk, a sleek rocket towers over a car park before a distant moon; the stars have been turned into streaks by extended exposures and from this position near the equator they appear to fall towards the ground like laser beams.
Last year Holdsworth was back in a tech-heavy jungle. In Puerto Rico, he photographed the world’s biggest single-dish radio telescope, which can access radio signals from the outer limits of space; exposures of up to four hours transform the moving dish into a soft blur. When, at one point, it manifests itself as a sparkling gold smear above misty mountains while strange red lights infect the edges of the print, the image becomes tinged with an almost theological import.
This year Holdsworth went to the outskirts of Reykjavik and a rocket range in Norway to photograph the Northern Lights. Again, as the nocturnal illuminations flare, the lens is left wide open so that the skies and the snowy landscapes below them turn rich shades of emerald and jade. Only the presence in the barren land of the occasional boxy dwelling clarifies that this is part of Europe rather than the surface of another planet. His work may seem only like a matter of consulting atlases and booking plane tickets, yet Holdsworth is more capable than most of conjuring the technological sublime.
Untitled’ from the series ‘Hyperborea’
We will be planning a trip to see the Northern Lights next year, probably in October or November in Iceland. I’m obsessed with this phenomenon [and need to see it before I die].
After visiting the exhibition, we will have lunch here:
Pavilion Tea House
The Pavilion Tea House offers food and drinks and is near to the Royal Observatory. It was designed by Sir Henry Tanner as a two-story octagonal building in the rustic style and built in 1906-7.
This is a consistently lovely lunch place, situated alongside the Royal Observatory (due to reopen in 2007 following major redevelopment). A big draw is the enclosed lawn, with its lovingly tended flower beds, large, part-shaded eating area and fab views over Greenwich Park and Docklands, with the dome of St Paul’s in the distance. Visitors are welcome to relax and eat on the lawns. Inside, the operation is well organised, with appetising wall-mounted pictures of the mains; it’s a cosy refuge in winter. Staff are friendly and helpful.
Hot food has a British bent, and includes smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, welsh rarebit or smoked chicken and asparagus salad. Sandwiches are chunky and fresh, and classic dishes such as bread pudding, trifle, scones and rock cakes feature for dessert. The decor incorporates features of the original refreshment house, built in 1909, with a more modern, sleek look, making this a pleasantly individual spot.
And then we’ll go for a walk in the park…
Greenwich Park
Covering 74 hectares (183 acres). Greenwich is the oldest enclosed Royal Park and home to a small herd of fallow and red deer. Situated on top of a hill, visitors enjoy sweeping views across the River Thames to St Paul’s Cathedral and beyond. The park is part of the Greenwich World Heritage Site, host to the Prime Meridian Line and the old Royal Observatory, as well as having the National Maritime Museum as a neighbour. Al fresco dining in our newly landscaped garden at the Pavilion Tea House.
The History
Greenwich Park has several historic buildings nearby including the Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House…
I’m so looking forward! *chuckle*