Eek…Coffee Supplies Set To Dwindle

Few things fill me with impending dread, but news that coffee supplies are set to dwindle over the coming decades is one such thing.

The Guardian Eco has interviewed the sustainability director of Starbucks, Jim Hanna, who states that they are already seeing the effects of climate change on their coffee suppliers: “if conditions continue as they are there is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain.”

The increased threat surrounds the Arabica bean, one of the most important to the coffee trade. Climate change has meant that an influx in pest infestation, along with changing and more aggressive rain patterns, are threatening even the most well established coffee farms.

This is the second threat in less than a month to a food source that many cannot live without. Late in September, research from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture warned that chocolate was also under threat due to spiking heat in Ghana and much of the Ivory Coast, the world’s main producers, meaning that by 2050 these countries may be unable to produce chocolate.

With this in mind, the question is now is it too early to start bunkering coffee?

While the shelves of supermarkets may not yet be stripped of the remaining coffee supplies, there is an onus on action in the present before it’s too late. With Hannah set to address members of Congress in Washington on the severity of the situation, coffee addicts the world over await with baited breath any decision that will keep our coffee mugs full in the decades to come.

Some Domestic Incidents: An Exhibition of New Painting from Britain

24^th September – 13^th November

MAC

www.macarts.co.uk

Home is where the heart is – or so they say. A new art show, in conjunction with Prague gallery Biennale 5, looks at the different perceptions that people have of their homes and how every day occurrences can make a home into an oppressive force. Instances like burglaries, family deaths or even visits fro bailiffs have the power to strip warmth from a home and leave an indelible mark.

For others, the home is never a happy place from the start. It is a place of loneliness and melancholy, misery and oppression – where the walls are more akin to a prison than the proverbial castle they should be. Some Domestic Incidents explores the reality of these differing perspectives and the gulf that exists in modern perceptions of the home.

With a number of artists collaborating, including Graham Chorlton, Sally Payen, Oliver Clegg and many more, the subject matter is as diverse as the perceptions of the home they represent. Midlands based Chorlton will explore, in his segment, night scenes often devoid of human presence, with chairs pulled from tables and cards discarded on tables, all signifiers of relationships and lives that have ended in the home. Another West Midlands based artist Sally Payen previous work has addressed issues of angst, protest and civil unrest. In her pieces for the show depict the remnants of a house party that has gone sour.

Curators Matt Price and Charlie Levine will be hosting a free tour of the work on 20^th Oct at 7.30.

Written for Area Magazine

George Shaw

I woz ere

18^th November – 11^th March 2012

Herbert Gallery

www.theherbert.org

Coventry born George Shaw has forged a formidable reputation within the art community over the last 15 years, culminating in his recent Turner prize nomination. His work surrounds the area he grew up in, Tile Hill, which was often riddled with the graffitied musings of a disillusioned youth, who took comfort in scribing I woz ere wherever they chose.

Much of Shaw’s work documents these, seemingly obscure, areas of his youth and the disembodiment he felt when returning later as a so-called ‘visitor’ to his old stomping ground to find everything changing. The moody simplicity of Shaw’s work is haunting and yet there is an underlying beauty that lurks beyond the surface. What usually would be considered mundane subject matters, are brought to life by the deft attention to detail and the skill of Shaw’s brush.

Having showed his work once this year already, Shaw believed that the Coventry paintings would end following the showing. It was not to be, as fresh inspiration following the death of his father means that he continues to cling to the past, working on his end to the Coventry paintings. In a sense, his work is his moniker on the Coventry landscape - his I woz ere.

For the first time, Shaw brings the product back to the inspiration with his first show starting at The Herbert in Coventry, in November.

Written for Area Magazine