Along with all the venues for the games being constructed and set up there are also lots of other events happening in the city in celebration of global arts and culture. Today - because of a cancelled train, I had a bit of time to kill so I ventured to London's south bank (The Festival Hall, BFI and National Theatre area) and had a wander around the Festival of the World event happening there. It was nice, lots of different and inspiring things to look at. As time was limited I didn't stop and read all the information provided I just went with the visual stimulation. Here's a few pics I took:
These structures provided outdoor seating and shelters on the upper level of the South Bank Centre (Festival Hall). I'm guessing, inspired by traditional African mud huts. They were very tactile and constructed (see second picture of the interior) from what looked like sand bags and then covered in the sandy clay-like outer skin surface. They also reminded me of traditional wood fired bread ovens.
These two figures are giant - sadly I couldn't get anything in the photo to give a sense of scale. Made of many scrap pieces of wood and are climbing up the side of the building. If you happen to be going over Waterloo Bridge on foot, or on a bus, you can see them on the south side of the Hayward Gallery.
This was an ice like cave constructed entirely from recycled milk cartons. A homage to a, now uninhabited, South American shanty town which was built on a rubbish dump and whose residents used anything and everything they could find to construct shelters for themselves and their families.
Then a roof garden, this bought me A LOT of joy! Living in an urban environment myself (but secretly yearning for a countryside lifestyle) I love discovering any sort of "green space" in a city and innovative ways of growing things are always an inspiration. As well as the vegetable garden I photographed here, there was a meadow which has over 100 native species of plants and flowers in it and a grassed area for sitting on to eat your lunch or meet and talk with friends or just relaxing and watch the world go by.
From the roof garden I spotted this down below on the pedestrian area alongside the Thames.....a rainbow sandpit.....come on, that is genius!! Designed by Polish artist Adam Kalinowski called Rainbow Park. Even on a day with not the bluest of skies it was a lovely thing and little under 5's were loving it, picking up the sand and letting it run through their fingers. It was making everyone stop and smile. The integrated seating was pretty neat too. I couldn't help but think how much by blogging partner GD's son (see the cookie baking blog post earlier on here) would have loved to play in this space. I wished they were here.
Of course the skate park area under the South Bank Centre remains, I love the ever changing street art here.
And finally outside the National Theatre No Fit State Circus were setting up and rehearsing for their nightime show "barricade". I'm not gonna lie, having done gymnastics and trampoline for about 12 years during my childhood and teens, I just wanted to have a go on the trampoline! It looks like a crazy fun show.
Hope you enjoyed my little review/tour of the events going on today on the South Bank, London.
GD*BG
