Latest news with #JohnBunyan
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Ceramic cats purchased by The Higgins Bedford 'huge mews'
One of the artists who created a pair of cats inspired by John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress said she was left "overwhelmed" after they were purchased by a museum for £6,000. Ceramic artists Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes made the works Despair and Promise for the Bawden and Me exhibition at The Higgins Bedford. Miss Lindo said: "It's the ultimate for any artists to have your work in public collections, as when we die it will still be there."Victoria Partridge, The Higgins' keeper of fine and ceramic arts, said: "I'm thrilled that we get to keep them in Bedford forever - it really is huge mews." Miss Lindo said: "It's incredible - when we made the work we didn't expect that this would be the outcome. "You make it and hope someone might want to buy it but it's never really the goal. "It's overwhelming. It's really special because it belongs to everyone and anyone can go and look at it." The cats were purchased with £4,800 from The Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and £1,200 from The Trustees of The Cecil Higgins Art were made for the Bawden and Me exhibition, which featured work by 40 artists and creators who were able to access Bawden's extensive archive to create new pieces inspired by his was one of The Higgins's most successful exhibitions and attracted 36,000 visitors, Mrs Partridge said. Miss Lindo said she was immediately drawn to Bawden's tapestry of The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's Dream. She said she did not know the story, but listened to the audiobook as they worked, which became "immersive research".Cats were chosen as the main inspiration as they are her "DNA" and Bawden "was cat mad", she added. Ms Partridge said: "When the cats were on display they were universally admired, especially by children, because it's a lovely way of talking about John Bunyan's story through the medium of cats."As soon as I saw them, when I opened the box, I knew we had to have them for the collection, because they have such amazing links with Bedford, through the work of nationally acclaimed artists." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Malay Mail
25-04-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
Preserving a dying art: Inside Ipoh's last traditional print shop
IPOH, April 26 — The Star Printing Shop may be the last of its kind, a living testament to the traditional art of hand-press printing. Established in 1933, the shop exudes a sense of timelessness as you step inside, with walls stripped of paint, chipped and faded from years of use. The machines, though worn, stand as relics of a bygone era, enduring for decades, while dusty shelves overflow with printing materials. The shop has now adapted, to some degree of computerised printing, to survive in the modern market. However, the old printing machines, which are unique and rare, are still carefully preserved. Owner C. Veeramani, 65, said that the goal is to keep the shop alive for people to appreciate and understand how printing was done in the past. 'Despite transitioning to computerised printing about 15 years ago, we continue to maintain all the old machines, as they are rare and considered antiques. 'The reason is that we want people, especially future generations, to understand how printing was done in those days. 'It was much more challenging compared to the ease of digital printing,' he told Malay Mail during a visit to the shop on Jalan Sultan Yussof here. Veeramani explained that he comes from a long line of printers, with his grandparents having started a printing press — a tradition passed down to his father and now to him. Veeramani with the Alexandra press, which is believed to be more than 120 years old. — Picture by John Bunyan 'My father took over the printing business from my grandfather in the 1930s,' Veeramani said, adding that he began learning the trade in his youth. 'In 1987, I bought Star Printing Works to start my own business. The man running the printing press at the time was elderly and wanted to return to India, so he sold it to me,' he said. He also said that the shop already had traditional printing machines that are rare when he took over. 'One of the machines is called the Alexandra press, which is made in the United Kingdom, and to my knowledge, the machine could be more than 120 years old. 'We also have other machines, such as one from the United States, which is 90 years old, and a Heidelberg machine from Germany, which is about 70 years old,' he said. The Heidelberg printing machine from Germany is about 70 years old. — Picture by John Bunyan While maintaining the old machines is not as burdensome now, given that most of the work is done using modern methods, Veeramani explained that this was not the case when they relied entirely on the machines in the past. 'These machines are imported and one of a kind, so it's not easy to find spare parts locally if something breaks or gets damaged. 'We often have to modify some of the spare parts to keep the machines running. We usually refer the broken parts to engineering shops that are willing to fix them for us, and it doesn't come cheap,' he said. He noted that his business is facing fierce competition from newcomers who use advanced technology in printing. 'Our business has obviously declined, but we are still surviving. We have loyal customers who continue to seek us out for printing work. 'To date, we still print billboards, wedding invitations, business cards, calendars, pamphlets and even school magazines,' he said. However, Veeramani noted that the future of the printing shop looks bleak. 'We are still running the business, but not sure for how long. After me, there is no one else to take over this business. 'And at the moment, we have a limited amount of people who know about this old trade,' he added. He also expressed hope and willingness to allow the government or tourism stakeholders to take over the shop and convert it into a museum or printing exhibition centre, as he wants the tradition to be preserved. 'To this day, I have students and foreigners visiting the shop for academic and tourism purposes. Some even come just to see the old printing methods. Veeramani expressed hope that the government or tourism stakeholders can take over his shop and convert it into a museum or printing exhibition centre. — Picture by John Bunyan 'If we close the shop now, I'm sure most people will never know how printing was done in those days as we are the last traditional printing shop,' he said.
Time Out
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘It was high chaos': the death and rebirth of London's coolest theatre
Of all the new theatres to open in London this century, none feel so vital as the Yard. Built in just a few weeks in 2011, from reclaimed materials – including some dubiously acquired scaffold planks and unwanted lino scavenged from the Olympic development – the Hackney Wick venue was billed as a pop-up when it opened with an eccentric programme of theatre that bore little resemblance to anything being staged elsewhere in the city. Early shows include a jokey micro-budget adaptation of John Bunyan's epic Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (A Progress), a show about the mathematical phenomenon of emergence (Game of Life), and a 40-minute opera about a samurai rampaging through an old people's home (Manga Sister). Emerging in a then-desolate corner of east London alongside various other cultural start-ups and club nights, founder artistic director Jay Miller set up the theatre on a shoestring because it seemed cheaper than the alternatives. 'I graduated during the last recession,' he says. 'There were hardly any opportunities, I couldn't afford to live in London and I naively thought it would be easier to start a theatre than to get a job in one. The Yard was my last-chance saloon'. Since then, the Yard has not only survived but thrived, gaining Arts Council funding and playing a pivotal part in the launch of the careers of the likes of Michaela Coel, Ncuti Gatwa and director Alexander Zeldin. Late at night, it also serves as a pretty great night club: the auditorium becomes a dancefloor for an eclectic series of late-night parties. It's a model of what a modern grassroots theatre can be, and now it's about to embark upon its next chapter – following its current production, a Miller-directed take on Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, it will close its doors, be torn down and built anew in a more durable and high tech building. After all, it was never intended to last this long, and it isn't really fit for purpose for what the theatre has become – there isn't even a backstage area. The last show in the theatre as we know it is on May 10. On the eve of the old Yard's destruction, Miller reflects on the theatre's past, present and future. What was your vision for the Yard when you launched it? 'The truth is that in the first year there was no business plan, there was no sense of what precisely it was that I wanted to do with it. It was more just following an instinct and impulse and a bunch of energy. Fundamentally I was really frustrated [about lack of opportunities in London theatre at the time] and really bored, and so that energy – rather than intellectual rigor – defined it.' Well it worked! 'Yeah! But I didn't realise how difficult it would be.' Can you give a flavour of what the early days were like? 'It was high chaos. I slept in what is now the female toilets for a few months because the door shutter wouldn't close and because I really couldn't afford rent. We got some money for a little garden from a lovely charity and unbeknownst to us people started growing weed in it. Every Friday a man would phone up asking, really politely, if he could turn up naked. We thought about it for a while and in the end I was like: no, that's probably going to make other people feel uncomfortable.' Was it always the plan to have clubbing as part of the Yard's programming? 'I moved to London in 2010 and it felt like the height of [legendary avant-garde club night] Shunt. I only went once, but I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and I was really inspired by the idea that you could give people a different context by which to engage with experimental performance. If that involved booze, then cool, if that involved a dance, then cool. And being in Hackney Wick and wanting to attract a younger generation of artists and audiences, I knew that would be a fundamental part of the offering. We started doing parties pretty much immediately.' Do you feel you've 'made it' now? The Yard's future seems reasonably assured. 'I mean, the truth is that I never feel like that. I'll have at least one or two nights a week where I don't sleep because I'm worried about what's around the corner, it never feels secure. It's not a world in which it's possible to feel secure: we make ephemeral art and so the ephemerality of it translates to the business and the way in which the budgets are constructed.' What will the new Yard be like? 'My hope is it will be the same spirit, but the offer to audiences and artists will be better. We've been operating in a tin can: when it's cold outside, it's cold inside. When it's hot outside, it's hot inside. There's no backstage area. We're not adjusting the style, the taste, the spirit of what we do and who we are, but we are hopefully ensuring that we'll be able to deliver that in a more exciting way, in a more comfortable way and in a way that ensures that the shows and the experience of those shows is better.' We've been operating in a tin can Hackney Wick has changed enormously in the last 14 years: how do you feel about it? Do you see yourselves as gentrifiers? 'When we opened we were a group of artists making theatre in a cheap part of London. We moved in, and others moved in too. But it is impossible to escape the contemporary relationship between art and residential development. People want to live near artists. Was that our intention? Absolutely not. We just wanted to make excellent new theatre. Do I regret making excellent new theatre? No. Can I influence the cost of flats around us? No. We've worked hard to get to know our neighbours. We''ve worked with local young people for ten years on a weekly basis. We started a partnership with our local primary school – I rehearsed Glass Menagerie at Gainsborough School. What hasn't changed is that Hackney Wick remains a place people go to have a good time.'
