check out the trailer for my solo show ...

I don't remember exactly when it happened... from katy baird on Vimeo.

I heart Tottenham

In this post I wanted to talk a little bit about Tottenham and love - love and Tottenham

Ok lets start with Tottenham. Tottenham is a district of north London, England and is in the Borough of Haringey. It is situated 6.6 miles (10.6 km) north-northeast of Charing Cross. Tottenham is famous for its football club Tottenham Hotspurs. It is thought to be the most ethnically diverse area in London, and possibly Europe, with 113 ethnic groups speaking around 193 languages. Unemployment is still London's highest and of course most recently Tottenham has become synonymous with the riots and looting which took place during the summer. Tottenham is also where I live:

As for love ? I will admit that I am not exactly an expert in matters of the heart. I have an ex - girlfriend who is in and out of my life like a fiddlers elbow and an ex- boyfriend who has ran away to live in a donkey sanctuary in Spain.

So needless to say I have been feeling a little bit despondent and jaded with the whole love thing. That’s when the facebook message came. Now its not the message that is important it is what it made me think of that matters:

This was an advert placed in the Scottish metro about 5 years ago by the artist Nic Green and as I thought about this advert again I had an idea. Can see where I am going here ? yes, that is right, I thought I could place the advert here in London and where better to do it than Tottenham, my home for the last 2 years.

So in my desire to rekindle my belief in love I made my own poster:

I posted them all around Tottenham

And I checked my emails every day - nothing. I was a little disappointed then a friend pointed out to me that maybe people didn’t have pens and paper at these places so found it hard to write down the contact e-mail.

So I changed my approach and I made a new poster with those little pull off strips at the bottom:

and i went back out into the streets...

Then I waited and I checked my e-mails, still no response so I started thinking that maybe I am putting them in the wrong places maybe I need to get out and about and speak to people. So I made some flyers and I went up the high street.

but it was no good, I failed dramatically in this task, not one single person replied to my advert. What is wrong with the people of south Tottenham. Right now you could be feeling all warm and fuzzy reading about a multi-cultural exchange of ideas around love. At this point in this very blog you could be watching a video of me doing something at an Ethiopian wedding or I could be telling you a about a poignant touching scene where a rude-boy from the wrong side of the tracks, maybe from Nigeria or Ghana, emails me to say he wants to tell his mum he loves her and then we could all go how touching how sweet aren't we just all the same underneath.

images courtesy of Jonathan Michael May

Manchester mischief

This was taken when I was up in Manchester a few months ago for the Marina Abramovic performance and couldn't resist helping local artists cause a little bit of mischief.

you are being watched

Can you guess which street this is ? I will give you a clue, it is the main street of Scotlands oldest borough.

Yes, that is right it is non other than Rutherglen Main Street. The place that I was born and raised and now apparently an internet sensation. This still is from a live 24 hour camera feed which recently hit the 1 million viewers mark ! here is the link: http://nairb1.camstreams.com/

It may not be worth visiting for the street view but the guest book alone is hilarious and well worth a read as is the new pan and tilt function which gives you the options of looking at 'a tree', 'pubs and kebabs', 'the old church' or the 'sky' , brilliant.