The press of Heather & Ivan Morison
Publication: Headline: Caption: Selected editorial: By Martin Stote "A couple will enjoy a jet-set lifestyle by being paid £6,000 of public funds to travel the world in the name of art. They will send back postcards and e-mails back to a gallery in Birmingham to illustrate different foreign cultures. Artist, Ivan Morison, 28, and his wife Heather will rent out their home for a year as they visit 14 countries, including America, Australia, China, Russia and Antartica. They are paying part of the cost of the trip, but it also being funded by Birmingham city Council and the lottery backed West Midlands Arts Board. Their expedition, called Global Survey, is expected to unfold naturally as they meet different people and learn of places worth visiting en route. But Andrew Mitchell, Tory MP for nearby Sutton Coldfield, yesterday branded their trip an extravagant waste of public funds. He said: "It beggars belief that the lottery will not support armed services charities adequately but wastes public funds on this sort of indefensible nonsense". But Mr Morison, of Edgbaston, Birmingham, said: "The money we get is irrelevant. We see what we are doing as good for the city. We are embassadors. Perhaps we have a naive view that and artist might have something worthwhile to contribute. We have a heartfelt desire to engage with people. Its that desire that makes us want to go and explore and meet people, and that fuels the expedition. Wherever you go, people want to know where you are from. We can tell them about Birmingham as well as finding out about their lives. The exhibition is being organised by the Birmingham based arts group Vivid as part of their 2003 Hothaus project. Yasmeen Baig-Clifford, the director of Vivid, said "The project is not about money, it's about education and development. Art has moved on from the traditional vision of picking up a paint brush, just as technology is moving on. The expedition will all be very basic. This is not a high art project. A message from China might read something along the lines of: 'Mrs Chan has just had eggs for breakfast'. Another £15,000 of public funding is also being spent on a project called The Intimator, a glass screen filled with the drugs LSD and MDMA, the main component of Ecstacy. OPINION: PAGE 14 Good causes are losing out It is hardly surprising that the enthusiasm for the National Lottery is waning fast when our money keeps going to cranky causes. The original idea behind was that people could enjoy a flutter with the satisfaction of knowing that, if they lost, at least a good cause would be a winner. However, "good cause' is not a label that can be attached to a recent recipient of lottery cash, artist Ivan Morison who is taking his wife around the world for a year: Mr Morison defends the trip as a worthwhile artistic project. It sounds more like a free holiday to us. If our money continues to go to unworthy causes no publicity campaign will ever revive the fortunes of the lottery".
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