© Sid White-Jones - No Frost at Night, installation view.
Curated during my time on the Babylon Young Curators Programme between 2020-2021, No Frost at Night was a contemporary art exhibition containing new works directly inspired by a weather diary recorded in 1963 by Betty Mann, owner of Mann’s Nurseries and lifelong resident of Soham in Cambridgeshire.
The exhibition ran from the 23rd April - 23rd May 2021 at the Babylon Gallery in Ely.
© Sid White-Jones - No Frost at Night, installation view.
© Sid White-Jones - No Frost at Night, installation view.
“Mrs Mann was a nurserywoman who - come rain or shine - religiously diarised the temperature readings and weather patterns that she observed from her garden in Soham, Cambridgeshire. Betty began writing her first twelve-month weather diary during the Big Freeze of 1963, one of the coldest winters ever recorded in the United Kingdom. On the surface, it presents the reader with an uninterrupted insight into the atmospheric conditions experienced by those living in The Fens in 1963. However, there is far more to be found hidden between its pages.
© Mann family collection - Photograph of Betty Mann.
© Babylon ARTS & Sid White-Jones - No Frost at night, exhibition poster.
No Frost at Night presents an artistic analysis of this diary, in the form of five newly commissioned artworks by: Amber Lawrence, Eleanor Wood, Mari French, Mark Tamer and Simon Nunn. These artists have collectively utilised a range of mediums - as vibrant and as varied as the weather itself - to dissect the many facets of this historical record. This exhibition is a celebration of creation and invention. Whilst projects that we begin today may feel of limited value, with passion and perseverance they can become greatly significant; leaving behind legacies through which we live on.” - Sid White-Jones, 2021.
© Sid White-Jones - No Frost at Night, installation view.
© Mann family collection - Winter photographs.
© Mann family collection - Assorted photographs.
© Heritage for All CIC - The Soham Weather Diaries, January - April 1963.
© Sid White-Jones - Local ephemera from the year of The Big Freeze, 1963.
Visitors to the exhibition were met with artworks in a range of mediums including: installation art, contemporary works on paper, abstract painting, experimental photography and film. More information on these works and their creators can be found below.
© Sid White-Jones - Amber Lawrence, 365°.
Amber Lawrence - 365°
Concrete and Wood
365° extracts daily temperature readings from Betty Mann’s 1963 weather diary and
presents them in a sculptural form. Curated into months, the artwork reads like a calendar running from January to December, with each upright post marking a new day. Much like a bar graph, the height of the post corresponds to the recorded temperature.
Amber Lawrence is a sculptor based in East Anglia, whose work primarily concerns architecture, form and space. She is interested in the relationship between human histories, memories and place, and through her practice explores the overlooked beauty in industrial structures and objects.
Eleanor Wood - Weather Diaries Series 1 to 6
Early 20th century book, waxed paper, pencil and oilbar
Within my new series titled Weather Diaries each work is made on the inside of the covers of old books that have significant signs of wear and tear. The texts have been removed and in their place are sheets of waxed paper with pencil and oilbar additions. The meticulous commitment and repetition within Betty Mann’s diaries fascinate me and from the moment I first read about them, the prospect of using these diaries as a starting point for a series of work appealed to me enormously. Within Betty Mann’s pages I used the compositions and divisions determined by the days of the week and the months of the year, and I responded to the horizontal and vertical lines and to the lists which chart numerically lowest and highest temperatures measured in Fahrenheit.
Eleanor Wood was originally from London and studied on the MA in painting at Chelsea School of Art. She has also lived in the North East, Norwich and central California. In 2017 she settled in North Norfolk. Recently her work has been exhibited in The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize touring exhibition (2020-21); and Process at Paul Kuhn Gallery in Calgary, Alberta. Her work was selected for the Sir John Hurt Art Prize 2020 and her prizewinning work was exhibited in the Sainsbury Centre.
© Sid White-Jones - Mari French, Elements.
Mari French, Elements
Acrylic, ink and collage on cradled wood panels
My submission references Betty Mann’s weather notes for January 1963, the winter of the ‘Big Freeze’. I imagined her checking the weather daily through her windows as well as using a barometer/thermometer. A selection of those notes (e.g. ‘snow on ground’, ‘cold wind’, ‘fog’) were my starting point for a series of nine abstract works on wooden panels, presented together in a ‘window’ formation. I layered Mann’s phrases, distressed and obscured (weathered), with abstract imagery created with acrylics, inks and stained tissues. I noted how the media reacted with the smooth panel surfaces, blending and staining, suggesting ice-covered ponds, frost and sweeping winds. Texture was introduced with gesso; the rough brushstrokes and impressed marks contrasting with the smooth areas giving the pieces further dimension.
Mari French is from Manchester where she studied art and design. After 15 years on the Isle of Skye she now lives and works in Norfolk as a full-time artist. Exhibitions include: Mall Galleries, London: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 2016-2021; Artist & Illustrator Magazine ‘Artist of the Year’ Finalist 2016; The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Finalist 2014; and Bankside Gallery, London: Royal Watercolour Society exhibitions 2018-2019.
© Sid White-Jones - Mark Tamer, Harmony in my Head.
Mark Tamer, Harmony in my Head
Black and white photographic paper
For the last 13 years, I have suffered from chronic vestibular migraines that affect both my vision and my balance. During that time I have kept a diary that records my headaches using a numerical rating scale of pain (0-10) along with any possible triggers: weather changes, food or drink consumed and any other environmental disturbances, as any of these can be triggers for a migraine attack. Harmony in my Head is a visual interpretation of 31 days in January 2021 from my diary. I have used a cameraless chemigram process, where black and white photographic paper is exposed to daylight and then “resists” that block both the light and the chemical developing process are applied to the paper.
Mark is an experimental photographer that embraces accidents and errors in his work, as they not only remind us how vulnerable and delicate we are, they can often reveal the base elements of the apparatus of photography, the material that creates those illusions of reality. Ultimately it is a balance between chance and control and between construction and destruction.
© Simon Nunn, Twelve Whispers.
Simon Nunn, Twelve Whispers
Digital moving image and sound, 6min
The film journeys through the seasons of 1963 in a systematic manner, mimicking the quirky meticulousness of Betty Mann’s unique weather report. The video incorporates archival footage of Soham and its surrounding fens landscape, combining past time festivities in the village with weather patterns shot digitally.
The film seeks to demonstrate the transformation of the seasons and the times, by juxtaposing a sense of life unfolding beneath the sky in Soham, as the descriptions of the weather are read aloud. This explores the societal changes in customs, our relationship with each other, and with the landscape.
Simon Nunn is a filmmaker & photographer based in Norwich, his works have screened at film festivals such as the BFI London Film Festival and the Lisbon International Film Festival with his shorts being distributed worldwide by the French production company Gonella Films. His work on music videos has been featured on DIY May/Gig Wise/LouderThanWar and shortlisted for Best Music Video at CineFest 2020 Bucharest & Leeds International Film Festival respectively.
The exhibition also included a display of artworks created by the local community. Inspired by Betty’s regimented recordings, I asked members of the community fill in their won diary for fourteen days. These diaries were posted out to people for free, to fill in and return to Babylon ARTS.
Over 100 of these completed diaries were returned and then subsequently displayed within No Frost at Night. Some of these diaries were used to personally reflect upon the pandemic of 2021, whilst some were used as a form of escapism; an opportunity to forget about the outside world for a short period of time.
© Matterport - No Frost at Night, virtual exhibition tour.
If you missed the exhibition, but would like to experience it in some form, a VR tour of the show is available on Matterport here.
© Velvet Magazine - No Frost at Night, published feature.
© Norfolk Suffolk Love Magazine - No Frost at Night, published feature.
No Frost at Night was featured on and in: BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, Ely Standard, Suffolk Norfolk Life Magazine, The Lost Words Podcast & Velvet Magazine.
For more Babylon ARTS visit -
IG: @babylonarts
TW: @BabylonArtsEly
Special Thanks -
This project was supported with funding from Arts Council England and The Co-op; and with support from Wysing Arts Centre, Kettles Yard, G's Fresh and Heritage for All CIC.
Thank you to the whole team at Babylon ARTS for your mentorship. The artists for their creativity and dedication. Heritage For All CIC for your generosity in lending the diaries to me. To all of those involved in the Fourteen-Day Diaries project.