Captured and Captivated

Dear Diary,

What an extraordinary ordinary day, A day to remember why I love living here and doing the job that I do. I really must ramble on about it, with apologies for such a lengthy entry.

Firstly, after a pleasant enough normal day teaching and talking (all seven hours of it !!), I had a brief rehearsal for the Play - I am performing some Renaissance music (with a colleague) to open the show - oh it is really fun to be a performer again cos it's been a while since I was on stage rather than being director and/or backstage manager and/or front of house manager - not that I don't love doing those things too...

After rehearsal, I spent a little time in the Theatre Foyer Gallery where my colleague is installing the next exhibition, the subject of today's photo. (More info below.) Then I went to the library to work on my dissertation for a couple of hours and was much encouraged by the fact that, as yesterday, I was able to write - maybe I have my mojo back? So thank you to all who posted words of encouragement on Sunday!

Grabbed the chance to go home for a while and was met at the door by Connie. It is months since she last did that. I don't know what made today different - maybe she got her mojo back too, at least, just for a bit ... then it was back to school for the opening night of the play - I enjoyed my fifteen minutes - and then home once more to dump concert clothes n' stuff with an immediate turn around to head off down to Konak Terrace to join a group of residential colleague-friends and their families for a candle lit collective cook-out and conversation in the wonderful warm balmy evening. Some of the children found the first fire flies of the year. Could it be any more magic? Well yes it could - and was. We friends gathered together to share this lovely evening with honoured guests. Our much loved and sorely missed Headmaster who retired back to the States in 2012, is here, with his wife, for the week. All I really needed to float off heaven bound was for Oberon and Titania to walk in through the trees surrounded by afore mentioned fire flies….

Finally home at 22.30 after a very long but wow-what-a day. Now I can write about today's photograph which is a totally different topic - but still important for my journal. The photo shows part of the latest Theatre Foyer Gallery exhibition, curated by my friend and colleague who directed the whole project last year that led to this installation, previously exhibited in New York. Entitled "Terra Firma”, the information given is as follows:

"In the winter of 2013, the Dalton School of New York City came together with Istanbul Robert College for a unique interdisciplinary collaboration between Turkish students of contemporary Art and American students of ancient languages. Beginning at archaeological sites in Ephesus, Turkey, students from both schools researched together historical material and collected data. This process of investigation continued in Istanbul based at the SALT Museum of Contemporary Art, with students excavating contemporary cultural material and artefacts. With the collaborative art installation TERRA FIRMA combining the layers of cultural material collected throughout the process. 70 Digital photographs from the ancient sites of Ephesus, Miletus, Didyma nd Priene... have been altered with images of urban grids from New City and Istanbul,,... with the 70 contemporary artefacts, each covered in Anatolian clay dust."
(Director and curators noted)

Phew! That was a long one. I am simultaneously exhausted and energised !
Thanks for looking.