Oct 152016
 

With thanks to Gemma Setter, PR Account Executive, Frasermedia.

howard-and-ann-johnson2A leading provider of fire control and safety solutions has been presented with a prestigious accolade by a major industry body in recognition of its innovative supply chain operations.

Blaze Manufacturing Solutions (Blaze), which was established in 2006 to serve the global oil and gas and renewables markets, was presented with the Energy Industries Council (EIC) Supply Chain Breakthrough 2016 Award at the ceremony held at the Natural History Museum in London on Thursday (13 October).

The accolade, which recognises member organisations that have demonstrated excellence within the energy supply chain, was presented to Blaze for its operations involving its Flameshield 300™ fire protection deluge pipework system solution.

Blaze, which is headquartered in Laurencekirk, offers fire safety protection, detection and loss prevention solutions for harsh and challenging environments including offshore production platforms, drill rigs, floating production units, onshore oil fields, terminals, refineries and petrochemical plants. For the past ten years, the firm has been at the forefront of fire control and safety systems technology.

Its signature fire safety protection system, Flameshield 300™, offers the delivery of a jet fire resistant, blast resistant, corrosion resilient fire protection system with a 20-year design life, eliminating corrosion problems for the client during its lifetime operation. The system has increased levels of reliable fire protection and safety, saved many millions of pounds in potential lost production, and extended the life of valuable offshore assets helping to play its part in OGA Maximise Economic Recovery (MER).

Ann Johnson, finance director at Blaze Manufacturing, said:

“We work very hard to ensure that our supply chain operations are of the highest standard, alongside all of our fire control and safety systems. It is an honour to have been recognised by the EIC and we’re very proud of our dedicated team who are committed to striving for excellence in all aspects of the business.”

Blaze Manufacturing Solutions, a leading provider of Fire Safety Protection, Detection and Loss Prevention services for Safety Critical Solutions, is an accredited distributor for Xtralis; manufacturer of the market leading VESDA Aspirated Smoke Detection systems.

Xtralis has an established worldwide network of certified distribution partners to serve customers seeking world-class, early warning life safety and security solutions. Blaze has over 20 years’ experience in the Design, Supply, Installation, Commissioning and Maintenance of VESDA systems worldwide for a vast range of clients.

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Aug 152013
 

By Jill Austin.

As I was walking past the old Summerhill Academy site on the Lang Stracht last Thursday night I noticed an amazing open-air gallery adorning the fencing.

It stretched all the way from the bus stop round the corner and down the lane to Gairsay Drive.

There were at least 20 works of art- ranging from 10” square to 5’ square!

They were composed in varying media from spray paint to fine pen-work to collage.

Unfortunately, the evening light was poor.

Therefore the quality of these photographs don’t do the artwork justice.

( Click on the images to enlarge. )

There was also a wee garden further down Gairsay Drive planted in shopping baskets.  [Photo- Little Garden2]

Two of the arts contained something of a manifesto and the name of the group who had installed the gallery.

Intrigued, I investigated this group and managed to get a hold of them by email. They sent me the following statement:

“MUSTA BLOKKI [WE : COME]

1.The Creation

An open-air gallery and garden at the old SummerhilAcademy on the Lang Stracht.  A place once of education, a place once for community.

2. The Aim

To highlight with beauty the ugly mess that has been left by the supermarket wars of the 21st Century.

3. The Reasoning 

Morrisons have created a pile of rubble taller than the houses whose view it blights.

“This is because Tesco objected to their plans then throw up a supermarket on the site they had left unused for decades as soon as Morrisons acquired the Summerhill site. Tesco must think the people of Summerhill are only worth building a shop for to stop another chain from making profit.

The council may have given Morrisons the green light now, but will they replace the rubble with a store?

No profit in competing with Tesco next door. No profit in cleaning up their mess.

A working class area  – No local residents hold shares – no local residents hold sway – no local residents are rich and with power.

Supermarkets buy land and leave it unused to avoid tax.

Around 40 million square feet of land is owned by supermarkets. 

The vast majority of it will never be built upon.

Beneath the pavement, the beach!

We encourage people to reclaim their city, reclaim their spaces and make the ugly beautiful.

Fences are for climbing – borders are for crossing – the world is ours but only of we make it so, yes?”

MUSTA BLOKKI are an international incubationist fine ART bloc.

Their previous works include the 2011 installation “Wood”.

Constructed in bronze and granite (effect) it was erected in Union Terrace Gardens, which at the time were under threat. 

I would highly recommend a visit to this unusual gallery, but alas, it is no longer there.

Instead, I hope Aberdeen Voice readers can at least enjoy this pictorial record.

Here is a bit more about the group’s ethos – be inspired!

ANOTHER GENERIC ART MANIFESTO FROM MUSTA BLOKKI

Art is accessible and free
Art can be created by anyone
Public space is contaminated by the corporate debris of the 21st century
Public space should be reclaimed – Beneath the pavement, the beach!
We resist corporate domination and social apathy
We commit to shaping something original despite our culture’s fascination with the disposable
We commit to shaping something original from society’s superficial consumer culture
If we cannot enjoy the process, we cannot enjoy the result

If we cannot dance it is not our revolution

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Feb 032012
 

With thanks to Kylie Roux.

YOUR LEANING NECK – SONG AS PORTRAIT – Steven Anderson

Based on an event from November last year at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Your Leaning Neck is a performance project that aims to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values.

A silent video installation showcasing last November’s event from two perspectives will be shown in the Peacock gallery.

Saturday 18 February – Saturday 10 March 

– Live Performance

Starting off at Peacock’s gallery then moving onto the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Andrew, visitors will be treated to a live re-contextualisation of the performance event created as a site-specific response to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits from the Scottish Enlightenment. Within the performance, oral tradition singers are presented alongside contemporary artists who also use their unaccompanied voice as a means of expression.

Friday 24 February | 7 – 9pm | Peacock Visual Arts | FREE 

GIG IN THE GALLERY – Martin John Henry

Recently praised by Sound-Scotland, as “one of Scotland’s finest songwriters”, Gargleblast Records and Peacock Visual Arts present Martin John Henry.

The Lanarkshire born singer songwriter is best known for fronting Scottish Rock Band De Rosa – critically lauded and championed by John Peel and Steve Lamaq – as well as writing, recording and playing with many of Scotland’s finest musicians including Barry Burns (Mogwai), Robert Johnston (Life Without Buildings), King Creosote and Malcolm Middleton.

Saturday 4 February | 8pm | £8 on the door 

RESIDENCY/PERFORMANCE – ONE MAN UNIT – Paul Wiersbinski and Wieland Schönfelder

ONE MAN UNIT is a hybrid of man and sculpture. Through a variety of outputs, audiences are invited to interact with and experience the spontaneous and unexpected developments of this creative beast, as it evolves during the artists’ two-week residency at Peacock.
You can follow the construction of this half man half machine via their daily blog on Peacock’s Facebook page. The ONE MAN UNIT will then be let loose on the public on two occasions:

Saturday 28 January – Friday 10 February

– Note: Aberdeen Voice updates Peacock info periodically, but there may be recently added events not included in this post. Please contact Peacock direct for the latest information.

Peacock Visual Arts
21 Castle Street
Aberdeen
AB11 5BQ
Tel: 01224 639539
Mob: 07947 490626
e: kylie@peacockvisualarts.co.uk
Website: www.peacockvisualarts.com
Online Print Store: www.peacockvisualarts.culturelabel.com

Dec 012011
 

With thanks to Adrian Gomez.

Local artists, graphic designers and illustrators are collaborating on a one-off project in Aberdeen.  But there’s a slight twist – the collection will be on display at a secret location in the city.  It’s part of ‘Rumour’, a pop-up cocktail bar and art installation, now in its second year.

The temporary brand combines cocktails, art and music, fusing all three elements together to create a social environment for the creative industries.  In typical fashion, the team are keeping the location of the pop-up bar under wraps, only leaking details and hints on Facebook and Twitter in the weeks running up to the opening.

‘Rumour’ began life as an 8-week residence in the Carmelite Hotel last year and, after enjoying great success, is returning next month on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd December only.  This year’s concept is ‘The Bournville Village Emporium’.

The inspiration for ‘The Bournville Village Emporium’ stems from the only area of the UK to be ‘dry’, a term used to describe a geographical region‘s availability of alcohol.  The weekend also coincides with the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition in the USA, a key date in any bartender’s diary.

Adrian Gomes of cocktail catering company 10 Dollar Shake said:

“We’ve been asked since the end of the last Rumour when we’re putting it on again, but we really needed the venue, artists and concept to come together before we were confident of holding it again.  I’m happy to say, we’ve aligned all factors and Rumour #3 has the potential to be the best one yet.”

Local creatives Siobhan Ogg and Sarah Stanley will be creating a scenery backdrop with local illustrators contributing artwork for the walls. The period-related artwork will be a fresh collaboration of young and inspiring talent in an interesting and unusual fashion.  All artwork is available to purchase after the weekend.

10 Dollar Shake drinksmith Adrian Gomes will be creating a bespoke drinks list, in association with art-centric Scottish brands Caorunn Gin and AnCnoc Whisky, fusing scientific and gastronomic techniques to create innovative twists on some early 1900 cocktails.  Director of Music Giles Walker is again on hand to provide the soundscapes.

Rumour #3 – ‘The Bournville Village Emporium’ is open on Friday 2nd December 9pm – 1.30am and Saturday 3rd December 9pm – 1.30pm.

For guaranteed entry, reservation is advised. Entry to the exhibition is £12, cocktails are complimentary (max. 2 per ticket). Rumour is on Facebook (Rumour.Gossip) and Twitter (Rumour_Gossip)

(Click on map opposite to enlarge)

 

Apr 152011
 

By Stephen Davy-Osborne.

With the recent fair weather and the school holidays in full-swing, many visitors to Aberdeen beach may have noticed an addition to Broad Hill.

Situated between the Beach Ballroom and Pittodrie, the small hill is well known as a spot to avoid on a blustery day, but with better weather on the horizon the installation of a new open-air exhibition could not have chosen a better location.

BY ORDER OF ME is a collection of wooden signs scattered across the hill, and is the collective work of visual artist Rachel O’Neill, writer Davey Anderson and 54 pupils from Kingsford Primary School. The collaboration, organised by Extreme Aberdeen and the National Theatre Scotland, in partnership with the City Council’s Art Education team, set out to challenge the way visitors interact with their surroundings.

The signs themselves were inspired by the many prohibitive signs found across the city, and were created to represent many young people’s view of a an urban landscape that is cluttered with signage ordering what can and cannot be done: No Ball Games, No Skateboarding, Keep Off the Grass, to name but a few.

With such signs as “No Kissing on the Hill, I Mean It”, it is evident that those taking in the fresh sea breeze are being encouraged to ponder the world from a different point of view.

While they are not inviting visitors to run amok on Broad Hill (although one sign does state we should run down the hill screaming) the purpose remains to encourage visitors to enjoy their surroundings and the spectacular views across the bay to one side, and the city sky-line to the other. The exhibition will be in place until early next spring.

For further information please visit www.nationaltheatrescotland.com

Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Events, Featured, Information  Comments Off on Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’
Mar 252011
 

By Suzanne Kelly.

Some 100 people of all ages and backgrounds packed an Aberdeen University lecture room on 22nd March; most of us were not entirely sure what to expect.

Mark Edwards – internationally known photographer, writer and witness to 40 years of global problems was there to deliver his ‘Hard Rain’ lecture and still photography presentation.

By the time he had finished it was clear that each person present had taken away food for thought on a host of global issues, however much or little they had known before they arrived.

Mark made a brief introduction explaining the Hard Rain Project’s genesis.  At the time of the first moonwalk in 1969, Mark was traveling in the Sahara desert’s unforgiving landscape, got lost, and was subsequently rescued by a nomadic tribe.  They offered him food, shelter and a fire to sit by, and then they produced a radio.  Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall’ came out of it; a track inspired by the Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis.

Edwards considered his personal situation, the simple nomadic lifestyle, and the moonwalk and out of these events grew his idea of illustrating each line of this moving, evocative song.  Some 40 years on, the Hard Rain project was touring the world.  It features still photography taken from all quarters of our world, and illustrates the issues, which we have to face urgently.  Edwards took his Aberdeen audience:

“…on a journey through the past to a future which is ours to change.”

The photographs are as beautiful and as diverse a collection as you could possibly imagine – Edwards has captured virtually all aspects of humanity and of the earth.   These photographs and Mark both bear witness to the increasingly urgent issues we must solve now:  famine, destruction of habitats, human suffering, war, climate change, waste, disrespect and misuse of people, animals and the planet.  The things Mark has seen in his travels have not led him to despair; he retains faith in human initiative and human spirit, which he sees in the shantytown inhabitants’ resourcefulness.

As to the photographs:  there is a bulldozer in the Amazon cutting a scar through the lush jungle; there is a sea of ghostly, dead tree stumps in an arid wasteland; there are dead and dying women and children from around the world.  I am haunted by a photo of an oil-covered bird taken in Brazil, which is accompanied by the line from Hard Rain ‘I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans’.

This photo presumably was taken years ago, but it could have been the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.   (You have to ask yourself why one oil disaster was not enough to ensure we never let it happen again).
But I am most haunted by (as were several of the students I spoke to including Deepu Augustine and Rita Lwanga) of a poignant image of a newborn baby lying on its side, small hands and feet visible, wrapped in a hooded garment, dead.  It was lying in a shallow, womb-like grave about to be buried.  The number of children who starve to death is legion.

As Mark says when addressing all the various issues:

“Perhaps our greatest mistake is taking our easy lifestyles for granted.”

Edwards explains that “we broke the first law of nature” – for instance how the death of a leaf and its natural decomposition create fertile soil on which new life will grow.  The problem is that we have created a host of chemicals, which do not break down. He does not bombard us with numbers and statistics, but those he does use are unforgettable.  In discussing our chemical dependence and proliferation of chemicals throughout the food chain globally, he says that any pregnant woman anywhere in the world today will have somewhere between 8 to 17 kinds of pesticides in the placenta.

Mark describes himself as a witness; he does not have all the answers.  But he will tell you that we urgently need to increase education around the world, end child labour (which is nothing short of slavery:  buyers of cheap imported goods and clothing please do take note), pay fair prices for crops, encourage family planning, and end extreme poverty.  Another statistic he has hit us with:  the GDP of the world’s 48 poorest countries is equal to the wealth of the world’s three richest people.

A series of photos taken in Haiti show the human impulse to slip away from rational thinking and regress to superstition (a ‘voodoo’ ceremony to pray for long-overdue rain is depicted), and later work shows a flock of brightly-clad Haitian school children.   Edwards then makes interesting comparisons between the 1930s American Dustbowl draught and Ethiopia’s similar situation today.  He compares Industrial age London’s shantytowns to today’s third world shantytowns, they both were born of similar circumstances and had similar problems and potentials.

“The past is not over and the future has happened many times”

– or put another way – those who do not know the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes and tragedies.

His bleak, depressing photos of urban sprawl were based in Mexico City; but if we are not careful the same thing can easily happen in Aberdeenshire on a smaller scale.

The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier

We are, after all, getting rid of acre upon acre of (supposedly protected) green belt land to build hundreds of identikit houses, a 21,000 seat stadium where we currently have important wildlife and rare plants, and a car park/mall is planned for our only city centre green sink and beauty spot – Union Terrace Gardens.

Rather than increasing public transport, we plan to cut a highway through our countryside with the AWPR.  And we are going to shoot (sorry, cull) the Tullos Hill Roe Deer, as our elected officials have deemed that building fences or protecting saplings with plastic are more expensive options).  Mark makes a remark that some politicians are:

“…defending political positions they know are no longer appropriate…”

I think I do not need to look any further than Aberdeen City Council for an example of Mark’s assertion.  I get the feeling that 99% of Edward’s audience is receptive and probably actively concerned for our environment – I find myself wishing we could get the local Council to see ‘Hard Rain’.

Edwards shows us a family in Bhutan; they are outside their home and have all of their, not very many, possessions spread around them.  Next we switch to an American family of four – again in front of their home with all of their goods.  The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier:  Bhutan is, in fact, the country with the highest percentage of happy and satisfied people on earth.

Edward’s talk is part of the Aberdeen University Students’ Association Climate Change Projects.

Jamie Peters is the Climate Change Project Co-ordinator and he advised me that the Climate Change project has been packed full of events this past week including; tree planting, cookery demonstrations, gardening, meetings and discussions.  Reusable bottles and bags were distributed as well as bookmarks with tips on energy saving and recycling.  The Climate Change Project at Aberdeen University:

“aims to improve life around the campus, provide something fun for students to get involved in and at the same time save 1,000 tonnes of CO2.”

Fraser Lovie, a policy adviser at the University, congratulated the Climate Change Project for bringing Mark Edwards and his exhibition to Aberdeen and welcomed Mark’s hints that a new touring exhibition, based on Hard Rain, is in development, that will support the behavior change agenda in Universities and Colleges.

STOP PRESS:  At the time of writing, it is uncertain whether funding will be found to keep the Climate Change Project going:  I certainly hope they will continue their work.

After a glass or two of wine and a few words with Mark Edwards and others (he is affable and keen to talk), I made my way home.  Another Bob Dylan song came into my head – ‘The Times They Are A Changing’;

“… if your time to you is worth saving, you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing’.”

Change has never happened faster in human history than it is happening now.  But exactly what are we changing our world into?

Regent Walk is the scene of the Hard Rain Project outdoor exhibition, which accompanied this lecture; it will be up for a month.  I urge you –  go and see it.

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Quotations from the Hard Rain Project Lecture

*     “In the next 24 hours deforestation will outweigh the carbon footprint of 8 million people”

*     “If forests are the lungs of the world, we have had one lung removed”

*     “All humanity is in trouble; time is the enemy; indifference is the enemy”

*     “We have Stone-Age impulses, Medieval beliefs, and God-like technology”

*     “There is no ‘them and us’

 

Q&A from the Hard Rain Website:

“Mark has been traveling and taking photographs in over 150 countries in the last 40 years. He first decided to illustrate the global environmental crisis in 1969, and Hard Rain really began to take shape as a live presentation in 2000. The DVD has been in development for about a year, since interest in the presentation has exploded.

“How many cities/countries has Hard Rain been seen in?

“The exhibition has been seen in over 50 cities, with a tour of India immediately following Copenhagen. The presentation, on which the DVD is based, has been seen in hundreds of venues on every continent.

“How has Dylan lent his support?

“Dylan and his label, Columbia Records, have been extremely supportive of Hard Rain right from its public launch as an exhibition at the Eden Project in 2006. They have also been very supportive of Hard Rain by allowing us to use the lyrics in the exhibitions.

“This year, the Royal Photographic Society recognized Mark Edwards and Bob Dylan by presenting them with the Terence Donovan Award for their achievement with the Hard Rain Project.”