This Saturday 10th of February the Vortex Museum will have its second physical pop-up in the architecturally beautiful old and renovated building of Leicester Adult Education in the heart of the city. These events host a myriad of different projects and expand the awareness of unique heritage concepts, expose to the public and pursue further growth with collections, museums and archives of all sizes, types and points in their journeys. For Vortex it's a place to speak with people about the growing (and still developing) museum and try things out; to build further community, engagement and communication on different fronts and for me as the curator and creator to have the opportunity to make a digital project, one assumed to be exclusively online, into a totally physical one and be in essence a preview of what it is to come. The event has allowed the consideration of what more the Vortex Museum could become and the methods and platforms it can be presented and represented.

I will be part of the DocPhoto8 exhibition organised by Documentary Media Centre starting this Monday 8th December at 2:30pm and on until Friday. I'm installing a super-sized photo grid, instant film, showing a small example of my developing AI visuals and the Watercolours series. Head to the CapCow Instagram for more updates and check out some of me making my selections below (also me discovering an accidental infinity mirror) and maybe I'll see you there next week!

As well (!) in conjunction with next week's event I've launched on Etsy to sell prints of Captain Cowboy work. I'm beginning with the Watercolours series of 14 prints available in two sizes and made to order on beautiful textured Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper from The Print Space in London. Shipping internationally. Have a gander for Christmas!

​

The developing museum jauntily slid into the inaugural Saturday Heritage Fair just over a week ago, held at the Adult Education College (Leicester) organised by the Documentary Media Centre and the inimitable John Coster. It was there that I and the Lord Mayor discussed a German Drinking Songs CD and I learnt from her unexpected knowledge of bad German 80s song covers of "Schlager". I also met a woman who told me she'd practiced the ancient discipline of ninjitsu, a memory awakened and admission to me after seeing the Mystic Arts of the Ninja book on display, and something I honestly thought might be too much as I contemplated the weekend ahead as I travelled on the bus from London to the Midlands to take part... turns out it wasn't. Amazing. This is part of what I'm looking for in this large new CapCow project; ephemeral meetings, re-thinking and remembrances. The main goal of attending the fair was not getting "feedback" as the museum grows towards its full inception but having conversations with people around the pieces and trinkets that spanned from the 1930s, flying through lots of the 70s, 80s and 90s and see what it evoked in people. This then informs, inspires and possibly guides me in the continued construction and thinking of the new museum. Some of the words that come to mind that I want the museum to encapsulate are: unique, offbeat, modern, design, throwback. It was rewarding and eye-opening to put my thinking and philosophies out there, seeing people's faces as they pondered and picked things up handling them. Long conversations about old cinema and pro wrestling were had, and a really successful busy fair right from 10am until it closed in the mid-afternoon. Delightful, informative, enriching and useful.

Behind the scenes from a photography test, as the museum ideas, design and production constructs.

Last weekend going over notes for the museum and relaying that to what I was deciding to take to this inaugural Saturday Heritage Fair. The central book is Cinema Posters of the 60s.

It suddenly occurred to me. I wanted sketches and illustrations but who and how to make them? To play with an illustrative identity, of tone and ideas for my new museum. It will house curated virtual rooms of music, film, odd books, physical media, ephemera, advertising, comics, DVD menus. And then it came to me - that I might use one of the new spangly AI tools to breach the surreal barrier and see what I and it could make. I've been happy with my artificial intelligence collaboration so far and its promised to come for me last when it takes over the world.


​

Wow! Feels like only weeks ago we began our journey together! I was sure I had written a blog about this whilst it has been an active project since May but I seem to have not. Ran by Unearth, of which I participated in a virtual exhibition last year, the collective has met monthly to develop individual and group projects. I had felt I was going to make some photographs in the woods, my "garden of death" I've been documenting for some time, but I was taken with the idea of making a new film. I had pencilled in to create my digital version of my 2022 solo show First Exhibition and also to start production on documentary Tanzania '68 but the opportunity to work with Unearth based in America and create new work and gain new experiences took priority.

​Put loosely, our conversation, thoughts and somewhat fears have latched onto the topic of technology and its relation to nature: human nature, nature around us, psychological nature etc. and this has been intrinsically linked with our practices and lives. Often in conversation, our damning of tech has given to realisation that through technology we are able to talk to each other despite being in New York, London, Chicago... realising the delicate balance of what is "good and what is"bad" about technology as a tool, a premise or somewhat an organism of its own. After these meetings and deep thought, I have developed and began shooting a new film piece called Spirit that explores these ideas and fears as well as my own meditation on the aesthetics of nature. Something that through forest bathing and meditation I have come much further to appreciate, notice and care for.

​The third annual Unearth Arts Festival is remaining open until December 8th.

The virtual exhibition was set to close yesterday but will now remain open longer, announced on @unearth_art with a reel shared of Råjberg Mile Migrates, my dance film that features in the exhibition co-directed with Julie Schmidt Andreasen that I also shot and edited that was filmed in Denmark upon moving desert sand dunes in 2016. You can also see my new photo series Watercolours which is the opening piece of work.

​After months (years!) of waiting it came and it went so fast.

My first solo show of work First Exhibition began on the 23rd of September with a private viewing in Leicester at the Documentary Media Centre and then proceeded to be open 24th / 25th of September for two days to guests and the public. It was the first time I had designed a show of my work and I learnt a lot - about my own work and how it might be perceived and interacted with, surprises to me as to the most popular aspects and how fulfilling and useful individual conversations with visitors was towards advancing my ideas or building further confidence in sticking with current ones. Plenty to discuss and think about at a later date.

I had intended for the digital version of the exhibition to be ready a week (I'm crazy?!) after the physical's conclusion but there's too much editing, design and thinking out to be done to complete it that fast. So with this I plan to comfortably put it all together for the new year. I want to have this digital version as a solid document to the exhibition that I can refer to online but also so that my international "followers" on social media can be a part of First Exhibition with video walkthroughs, photos of the works and afterthought writings. It also will be beneficial to show other spaces and galleries what it may look like and possibly run a second (...) First Exhibition in London. Images top and bottom are ungraded stills from my Black Magic filming.

Stay connected with Captain Cowboy @cap.cow