The Peroni Collection

            This week I have been invigilating an exhibition called The Peroni Collection at No Wall’s Gallery in Brighton. It has been put on by Peroni, as a means of selling themselves as an Italian style brand – which is refreshing as usually lager adverts consist of a bunch of lads talking about football and acting in some derogatory way toward women.

                                                        Bitter Rice

The exhibition has toured the UK, from Edinburgh to London, Manchester to Brighton, and the last leg of the tour, is Cardiff and Bristol. The exhibition is curated by renowned photographer Rankin – who has taken some pretty cool photos in the past, click here to see his work – and fashion writer Anna Battista. The collection of beautiful black and white images from old films make up the exhibition, and there is a short film- which is admittedly just an overdone advert for peroni. The film attempts to present peroni in a stylish, Italian way, with a beautiful woman floating around the streets of Florence (I think) and drinking peroni as she catches the eye of a beautiful Italian man.

The images are stills from films such as Casablanca, Bitter Rice, War and Peace, Boy on a Dolphin all the way to the more contemporary Casino Royale. The images are of older movie stars who are far more elegant than a lot of our current ‘celebrities.’ Stemming from Sophia Loren to Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck to Daniel Craig- the exhibition has enticed a variety of people in; young and old, who gasp at the beautiful people in the photos or contend that cinema will never be quite the same as it was 50 odd years ago.

            In the evening I serve complimentary Peroni’s to age-appropriate customers. Unsurprisingly, quite a few friends of mine have popped in and taken full advantage of the ‘free beer.’ However last night was very quiet- which is strange what with the ice cold Peroni's ready on arrival. According to some guy, art-lovers would see the name ‘The Peroni Collection’ and assume it is exhibiting little more than a couple of large (empty) Peroni bottles, and those who are not into art would probably rather go to the pub and purchase a beer, instead of pretending to care about art work. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it is not.

The Bank, who are the events company who help put this on, have kindly let me work on my dissertation whilst I am here, as long as I acknowledge people when they come in. Well, clearly I am procrastinating, instead of writing my dissertation I am writing about this exhibition. If you are in Brighton come along and take a look – it is only on today and tomorrow, 10am – 8pm, and if you are not in Brighton, sorry to bore you. Ha!

The beginning of the end...

I’m now going into a new academic year, which is also the end of an era. 2010 is the last year of what will soon be 18 years in education! Shit?! Final year of my degree, a frightening thought most would think, but I am surprisingly nonchalant about it. I have joined the Brighton University newspaper, The Verse, as the (co) news editor. It is exciting and looks pretty good on the old CV. Ben (my co-editor-we are both third year and thought it would take a little pressure off each of us) and I have appointed Soph to write an article (her idea) on which charity is best. We told her what we are looking for, and she is getting it done. Ben and I are then going to focus on our preferred charities and write a brief section about them. I have started writing mine on Amnesty International, summarizing their work and attempting to recruit readers to support their causes.

Gen (features editor and friend) and I have also been put in charge of organising a launch party for the magazine. It will allow us to gain support from local businesses, show that the verse has changed and is back (and better), and recruit writers for the paper-but lets not forget to have loads of fun.

At the same time as this, I am attempting to write my dissertation (on the BIG subject of pornography.) The books and articles I have been reading are brilliant, and completely support the argument I am trying to make.

At uni, we are currently studying Marxisms…notice it is the plural of Marxism, so not just good, fun old Karl Marx, but the different theories emerging from his works. I won’t deny it, but it can be ever so slightly dull, but I am trying to embrace it and feel that the works of Marx are definitely something worth knowing.

It is all go and very interesting, but it is early days….soon I may be crying because I will be swamped with work…or maybe it’s about time I was!