Great reception tonight in honour of our friend, Adam Brooks, who’s one half of the Industry of the Ordinary; who (as you’ll see from their website here) are dedicated to exploring and celebrating the customary, the everyday and the usual … and in the process “challenging pejorative notions of the ordinary”.
I love that notion. Just as I love the “I want to be ordinary” glasses (above), which were a take-away from the evening (we didn’t steal them … honest … although we did cause a slight fracas on exit when Tony pointed to a woman – who had eight of them in her handbag – and said “oh my God! … and I felt bad because we had two …!” I don’t think she knew where to look …)
Anyway: it’s all very thought-provoking. In a number of ways. As you’ll see if you look at the website, the Industry of the Ordinary’s work, far from being cozy, stretches the boundary of what’s ‘ordinary’. And while – for all sorts of reasons – I love the notion, for myself, of wanting just to be ordinary … yearn for it … there is a tension between that and wanting also to have done extraordinary things.
Added to that: if I’m ordinary, who (and what) else is …? How do I feel about everything else that could be included within that boundary?
Anyway: all of these are questions it’s probably unwise to try and answer at 9.30 on a Tuesday evening. I’ll close with a throw-back to our last (formal) meet-up with Industry of the Ordinary, when Tony contributed a picture (below) to their “39 Verbs” show (it’s number 55 under the ‘projects’ tab on their website). His verb was ‘Drink’ … now what do you do with that if you’re an architectural photographer …?
A much better version can, of course, be found on his website.
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