Meeting up for a different perspective

Every year Helen Tupper and I meet for a catch-up. We could do this in an office. We could meet in a cafe. Or go for a walk. But we always choose to go somewhere different. Last year we went to an art fair where Helen got her picture taken by the legendary photographer Rankin. The year before we went to the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

Why go somewhere different? Because we find it helps inform our conversation by looking at things differently. We take a literal and metaphorical journey together.

Yesterday our backdrop was Edward Burtynsky’s striking exhibition at The Saatchi Gallery.

His vast photographs appeared so abstract it took a while to figure out what you were seeing. 94 photographs that bear witness to the human and industrial impact on the planet and its environmental consequences.

At first glance aerial photographs of salt pans and underground mines looked like beautiful abstract paintings. So we helped each other figure out what we were looking at, Helen perhaps pointing out the perspective or I would notice a tiny truck or minuscule human figure in the frame.

It felt like an apt process for a relationship with Helen that started 11 years ago on social media. There to help each other figure things out, to look at our work from a different perspective.

Afterwards we sat by the giant curved picture windows of Vardo cafe looking out onto the Kings Road. Our view was like a real-life art exhibition. Seeing children at play, a uniformed ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ stroll by. I told Helen how my ongoing cancer journey has given me what I’m calling ‘a new pair of glasses,’ paying more attention to the world around me. Eyes wide open, really noticing, forever curious.

And the exhibition was certainly eye opening. It got us thinking. Here we are in front of a giant photograph of underwater coral.