Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton

The Light House is a museum exhibition centre based in Wolverhampton. I managed to make a quick visit to 'New Perspectives: Photography from China and Mongolia', by Grace Gelder and Laura McCallum last week.

McCallum’s work is a personal account of her experiences with internet dating. After answering personal ads in Beijing men’s lonely heart sites, she recorded her preparation, journeys and meetings, which are exhibited along with extracts from her shooting diary. The project researches the effects of China’s imbalance in the ratio of men to women, which is causing many men to use the internet to broaden their search to find their perfect match.

Gelder's work is delivered through a series of portraits of professional Mongolian women, with the aim of challenging the perception of Mongolia as an under-developed country dominated by a rural nomadic population. I myself was guilty of of this view, when in fact over half of the 2.9 million inhabitants now live in an urban environment, mostly in the capital, Ulanbaataar; and statistics from a recent UN report show that out of 115 countries surveyed, Mongolia came top for women’s participation in the professional and technical workforce. This project shows a variety of roles that women play in Mongolian society by photographing them in their working environment. This exhibition proved to be a real eye-opener and although I didn't expect it to, it has significantly broadened my cultural knowledge.

Crude Oils

Billed as 'an exhibition of remixed masterpieces, vandalised oil paintings and vermin', I visited this free Banksy exhibition back in 2005. Sat right alongside Westbourne Grove in London, visitors waited in a democratic line before signing a form of 11 terms and conditions and entering the space where they were greeted with a warning to stay calm and tread carefully around the gallery. Initially confused by the notice, I soon found out that exhibition was full of rats, crawling in and around broken urns and snuggling into a uniform-clad skeleton. On the walls were a series of classic paintings all of which had been 'Banksified'. The rats were as much a part of the exhibition as the art.