otro mundo es posible

I can't allow myself to get carried away with the glorification of suppression, war and suffering in the name of art. These are all too real and harrowing experiences in the world today. What do the walls of war look like for an adolescent in the 21st century? Almost 100 years on from Tapies' experience of the Spanish Civil War, refugees escaping the atrocities in Syria today are faced with a rather more flimsy affair, as described this week by NOW  reporter, Alex Rowell, on his visit to an 'informal tented settlement' in Nahiriyeh, Lebanon: 'Invited inside the home of Umm Ahmad, a warm-spirited grandmother from Qusayr, NOW saw few means by which the family of eight would be able to escape the rain and snow. The roof comprised cardboard box panels supported by wooden beams. The walls were carpets held in place with nails. The floor was a mat thrown over an uneven, cracked layer of concrete; ' Read the full report with photos of Umm Ahmad's makeshift home...

Antoni Tapies describes the walls in his paintings as 'fundamentally a form of artistic organization.' (Tapies, 1970). He traces the source of his awareness of walls and their evocative power to his adolescence spent mainly shut in within walls during the Spanish Civil War, and recognises that his early works of 1945 'have an air of street graffiti and of an entire world of protest - repressed, clandestine, but also full of life.' (Tapies, 1970) 'How many suggestions can be derived from the image of the wall and all its possible permutations! Separation, cloistering, the wailing wall, prison, witness to the passing of time: smooth surfaces, serene and white; tortured surfaces, old and decrepit; signs of human imprints, objects, natural elements; a sense of struggle, of effort; of destruction, cataclysm; or of construction, reemergence, equilibrium; traces of love, pain, disgust, disorder; the romantic prestige of ruins; the contribution of organic elements, forms...

I find it fascinating that in times of civil and political unrest in the Canary Islands, the people look inwards towards their Guanche heritage. These ancient and fundamental origins that the indigenous population have been at great pains to conceal since medieval times are now emerging again in their expression of discontent at the contemporary economic and political  climate in 21st century Spain. Walls have been the canvas for creative expression since the beginning of time. I have observed that the fever of creative expression seems to escalate in direct relation to the suppression and suffering of the people. My incidental monitoring  of the walls of Lanzarote indicate a fairly modest and low level of discontent. . On a recent visit to the ancient Venetian port of Chania in Crete, I was able to observe a heightened outpouring of expression on the dilapidated walls of the old harbour area, which spoke of the reactive tension to the miserably failing Greek economy. This...

I have found myself delving into the aboriginal beginnings in the Canary Islands and have made some significant discoveries. The original inhabitants of the islands were Guanches, who are thought to come from the Berber tribe in North Africa. This tribe were reputed to be very tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, a description which also fits the Grooved Ware folk from Orkney who I believe could be one and the same. The graffiti that I spent much time photographing around the island turns out to be a Guanche motif. There is a  neolithic settlement on Lanzarote called Zonzamas which seems to have striking similarities to Skara Brae in Orkney, although it is very hard to find and not promoted much as a visitor attraction. In fact, I had great difficulty in locating it on the island. During the Spanish Inquisition anyone of Guanche origin was hunted out and put to death, so many islanders denied their Guanche history from that time onwards and it still seems to be rather a taboo ...