​Fiji water
I came across this Fijian water in Boots in Birmingham, I’m still finding it very difficult to understand its popularity. Is the message of single use plastic falling on completely deaf ears, how can it be that a bottle of water can be filled in Fiji and then transported 9,827 miles to then be loaded onto a lorry and sent to shops all over the U.K, for the cost of 99 pence.
 53% of the Fijian population have no access to clean water and yet the population of Birmingham which has access to clean, safe drinking water can and will purchase water contained in a plastic bottle. Does Fiji water taste any different? It is advertised as tasting clean and soft, hmm, like water then.
A little research shows that there ares issues and the conflicts to consider, Fiji water company is owned by a Californian couple with a business Pom wonderful, who sell a range of speciality drinks. The Pom drinks company were paying 1/3 of a cent per litre for the water, but after protests they now pay 15 cents per litre. This payment constitutes a large proportion of Fijis G,D,P, the company are also one of the largest employees in Fiji and without it many Fijians would lose their jobs.
Does this justify a foreign company making a profit from a smaller one, selling water from a country where half of its residents do not have access to clean water. Could a simpler solution be for the people of Fiji to sell the water for themselves, using the profits to provide fresh clean water to all of its population?
I’m left wondering if there is a strong advertising campaign that accompanies this water, or is it the celebrities, personalities that are seen to be drinking it, or that it appears on the menu of high-class restaurants. Are these the things that affect people’s behaviour?
 

​Polly Apfelbaum
And the desire to touch
This exhibition is full of colour, it is bright and joyful.
The colours of the ceramic target pieces, pop from the wall, drawing you closer to look at the many colours and variety of patterns within the ceramics. Whilst upstairs, there was an assortment of shoes left along a bench on one side of the gallery, their owners padding around in stockinged feet so that they could curl their toes into the plush multi coloured rugs, which ran along the upstairs gallery floors.
Strings of handmade ceramic beads hung like curtains, some high in the ceiling space and others, tantalizing low, seemingly tempting the unforgivable sin of touching or pinging.
The show is textural, with a mix of hard cold ceramics and soft plush rugs, the invitation to walk on these rugs breaks the usual convention of ‘not touching’ where as the temptation of touching these beads, strung in a line across the room, serves to remind the visitor that they are in a gallery space and touching is not allowed.

Toadstools in the woods
How nature attracts us
On a recent walk in Formby woods, looking for red squirrels we spotted these fly agaric, they are such a Bright deep red, contrasting with the deep browns and moss greens of the forest floor, they are almost shouting, I’m over here, come and look at me.
Red is a powerful colour, which can act as a signal or attractor, it is emotive of both love and rage Nature uses colours, shapes and smells and even lights to draw in or warn off, using different methods for different species, in the case of the fly agaric it is the brightest red and has a smell which attracts insects to it, the toadstool gets its name from the old tradition of placing a piece of its flesh in a glass of milk, the smell would attract flies, who would then come to a dizzying end after consuming its poisons before headbutting into the nearest object.
The animal kingdom uses many other tricks to draw in its prey or to attract a mate, from Luminous algae to Fireflies. So that it is little surprise to find that the human species can also be affected by these things, when we give an ahh of wonder at insects lighting up in the forest, or are enchanted by the discovery of the phosphorescence of a cave, we are just responding in the way that nature intended.
The trick is to find which of these elements can be used to highlight an issue, to bring our attention to a subject, to hold people’s attention for long enough that a connection might be made and hopefully in the same way that finding a brightly coloured toadstool in the woods will be remembered.




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