Fine art borders

For all the talk about migration, not one of us would want to be out there on the migrant road, existing in squalid, horrible conditions.and fleeing from them too.  Behind all the rights & wrongs, and all the arguments, it's no place that any of us want to be.
This installation art-work, part of the Foundation Year exhibits at the Staffordshire University Fine Art Show really brought this home, I thought.  
What a horror to have to be in a world where no-one wants you.  Pity The Poor Immigrant, as Bob Dylan said.

Inspiration is Progress

The golden light of a sunset over the buildings at Staffordshire University still doesn't beautify them much...

The rather sinister-sounding slogan is to do with the new construction work going on on the site.

New English - hearts in pottery

I was at the London Design Festival last month (Sept 2012) where I noticed a number of Staffordshire firms (High House Wallpapers being another one) had stalls.

This was one of the most dramatic stands, installed by The New English Ceramics, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent.

Basically, New English made sixty pottery hearts - complete with valves, aorta etc - and asked international artists to decorate them and sell them for charity. The proceeds went to the children's medical charity Herz Fur Kinder.
Some of the hearts were quite fascinating...

Link:  New English & Herz Fur Kinder

Clay-pots caged

Pottery manufacture may have declined quite a bit in north Staffordshire, but we should remember that Staffordshire University still has a world-beating ceramics department.  It's much smaller than it was, and that just reflects the decline of the pottery industry.

Outside the department, the cages of used, empty plastic pots that contain the clay show that the students are expected to be hands-on.