Walking thinking Urban Ramble

One of the workshops that I signed up for was an Urban Ramble which took place this afternoon with Bridget Kennedy.

http://www.axisweb.org/p/bridgetkennedy/

A blog is being kept for the project, and will be updated as we do more workshops.

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/bridgetkennedy/

Our group of 6 students involved in the workshop this afternoon began by doing a short exercise inside in which we were asked to move around the space in a mindful manner. Bridget read out some text with prompts for us to follow, such as breathing exercises, focusing our attention on different parts of the body as we moved around, establishing an awareness of our bodies in the space.

We then ventured outside into the city, focusing on an area area Chinatown where there are the remains of the medieval wall.

St James' Park, the home of Newcastle Football Club, used to be the most visible landmark of the Newcastle skyline, but more recently the Newcastle University Business School has been built and blocks some of the football stadium from view.

Around the Business School there are a number of University buildings, with unified walls, some made from metal, some ceramic and some that appear to be clad in acrylic.

I like the patterns found on the surface of one of the buildings; very textured.

Some panels had bumps going out and others had bumps going in.

Bridget explained that this area of land "had been used for a performance from the last AV festival . The artist Lara Almarcegui, brought people onto the site to witness the extraction of coal in order to make the ground a sound foundation for the new huge building projects planned there."

http://www.avfestival.co.uk/programme/2014/events-and-exhibitions/lara-almarcegui-the-last-coal-extraction-in-newcastle

 

The walls of one of the other buildings in this area were clad in ceramic tiles, a material that I have not often seen being used for these purposes. 

In a strange space between the high-rised buildings, a layer of moss was being laid, presumably to help neutralise the carbon levels.

One would think that having a garden outside would help the mind, but I'm unsure that such positive effects would happen when the trees are dead!

We continued to one of the sites where the town wall still exists, and walked along the outside of it, along the alleyway between the wall and the buildings, and then along the buildings that would have been inside the wall. These buildings are now Chinatown.

Having walked through Chinatown, we entered Blackfriars, and the remains of the monastery. 

In the courtyard there is a walnut tree! 

As we walked back towards the University, we managed to escape some of the high streets by walking through Graingers market and Central Arcade, two interesting spaces with different atmospheres. 

I am pleased to see that most of the spaces in Graingers market are being used, and there does seem to be a good amount of people using the markets to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, cheese and other food items, as opposed to going to the supermarket.

Central Arcade is rather grand, and has glazed ceramic tiles inside. Once again, I am drawn to some of the patterns embellished in the tiles.