#056: The British Museum of the Future

The non-British collections have been repatriated and most of the museum is now a full and honest history of Britain.  

Room 4, though, is lined with time travel machines that allow the visitor to visit the museum at any point in its history by walking along a time tunnel that takes you to the desired time and gallery start point, at a quiet time of day.  These machines do not fully, physically, place you in the past but rather you visit as a ‘ghost’: you cannot be seen by those living in that time, or touch anything, but you can walk around freely and take it all in as if you could.

Failing that: replicas.  The V&A have many amazing replicas, such as Michaelango’s David and Isfahan’s walls and domes, that excite the the viewer; and the Natural History Museum’s most famous exhibit, Dippy, is a replica - as are many of the items on display, from fossils to whales and the dodo.  If 19th and early 20th century museum workers could pull this off, imagine what might be possible now, or in the near future.

Anyway, I blank-canvassed that part because the important point is the full and honest history of Britain and a world where the west can continue to enjoy the art of the world and where the worlds where these were created can once more enjoy the originals.  

#055: Fourth Plinth Proposal (Imaginary Art in the Real World)

Leave it empty.  

At ground level a sign reads: “Look up and let your mind run rampant.  What do you imagine is, or could be, there?  Stand back, think and create it in your mind.”

The sign then points you in the direction of an app and a website where you can describe in writing (or drawings, if you find it easier) your idea for a Fourth Plinth sculpture.  These ideas are then presented in a notepad gallery within the app and on the website.  

In a nearby building, possibly The National Gallery, tablets are placed close to windows overlooking the fourth plinth, allowing people to create their ideas closeby on a larger screen than their smartphone.  If it can be done securely enough, posts could be set up at different points around Trafalgar Square with built-in tablets for the same purpose; and allowing different vantage points to imagine from.  

Advertising in newspapers, on social media and transport would alert people to the app and website, encouraging people all over the world to take part.

Although there is always the option to keep your idea as imaginary art only.

#054: Adulthood (Life's impossible game)

Oil on canvas.  Two people sit at a table in a plain room playing chess.  One, on the left, is in normal clothes while the other wears a billowing white shroud with a hood covering much of their head but showing a full, healthy face bearing a broad grin.  The player on the left has only black pawns while the player on the right has a full set of white pieces and is poised to take another pawn (they already have four on their side of the board).  

#053: Comfort Rites

Perform your own Rites of Comfort - slip into your own soft, warm safety blanket, whatever that might entail.

Let yourself feel.  

Let yourself be free.  

#052: Witness (Does Silence Exist? V)

A person standing, gagged, in the centre of a compound surrounded by high walls and control towers topped with barbed wire, searchlights and guns.