TATE

'Embryology' Magdalena Abakanowicz is the first piece that you come across when entering the Tate Liverpool. It's not a piece I expected but it's one that I felt that I could identify other ideas with. Such as the title 'Embryology' instantly made me think of the newest Flaming Lips record, 'Embryonic' which has been one of my favourite records of the year. The idea behind it made me think of a series of photograph's I worked on a few years ago where I was using a powerful micro-lens and documenting the human figure. I was making the abstract landscapes with the use of skin, eyes, ears, hair, teeth and everything between. That's something I think I share with Abakanowicz in terms of taking something so natural,organic and fundamental to everyone and making you look at it in a new way. Aesthetically though, I feel that she created more of a desolate beech scene rather than abstract human organisms.

Artists Alrredo and Isabel Aquilizan are from the Philippines and often use the community and the audience with their joint projects and this year's biennial piece is no different. They recruited lots of different schools from the surrounding area's of Merseyside and had the children make small boats. Then then created their own small world within a room on the top floor of the Tate. It's the type of piece that I would love to make myself but always feel that it would be too forced but by them getting children to open their imaginations they are free to use this naive and low-fi technique. This piece of work makes me think about a lot my own childhood and making dens all summer and the sense of exploration and adventure that can never really be replaced. It also makes me think about my young cousin and little sister as I would encourage them to draw and make things and I would often keep these mini masterpieces. The book and film 'Where the wild things are' has had a big impact on me over the last year and my early childhood. It's one of a few books I remember loving as a small child. This project seems to have echo's of the same themes and deal's with childhood imagination with a lot of resecpt and that's something I try to do.