EXTRAORDINARY sculpture, set in a 100-acre art park near Edinburgh, provides a superb online viewing experience at the moment — and it’s a cracking trip to plan for when we’re all allowed out again.

Works by Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Helen Chadwick are part of the collection at Jupiter Artland, about 10 miles from the Scottish capital.

Artist Peter Liversidge has been inviting teenagers to share their lockdown stories, incorporating their responses into a monumental new Sign Painting. Jupiter Artland hopes to unveil that later this summer as part of a programme of projects dedicated to the amazing Allan Kaprow, who created “happenings” in performance-art throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

It’s a joy to see groovy geezer Kaprow being remembered in the 21st century. One of his events invited visitors to walk along a corridor and up steps to a platform, where a young woman was frying banana fritters.

His painting is worth a look too and there’s a nice four-minute guided tour of his New York artwork on youtube. youtube.com/watch?v=cZnQMreEoF0
Jupiter Artland is also producing some excellent resources on creative activities for young people to explore at home.

For those planning to take the high road to see the park in reality in the future, there’s a short film. Mind you, seeing young children romp around this lovely space could elicit elation or a heart-sinking, as we all pine for the great outdoors. jupiterartland.org

Female desire has been much on the mind of the team at the British Film Institute (BFI). It's currrently screening a season of films curated by film writer Christina Newland, who's just got a new book out on women writing about sex and desire in the cinema.

According to the BFI, the programme aims to “flip the switch on a century of the male gaze and find space for women's own lust and sexual expression in film, from classics of world cinema.”

As the films include Belle de Jour, in which a bored housewife played by Catherine Deneuve discovers prostitution and seems to get a lot out of it, this is an odd collection. Dirty Dancing is there, too, in which female viewers presumably get the chance to gaze at Patrick Swayze.

Still, if you like watching films on TV or online so that you can shout at the screen, it could be entertaining.

In BFI at Home, there’s a Girls on Film podcast with Billie Piper, Sally Phillips and Ronni Ancona who provide a giggle as well as some views on sex scenes for women.

Some of this viewing is free and some on subscription on the BFI’s website or its youtube channel.
player.bfi.org.uk and youtube.com/user/BFIfilms

Battersea Arts Centre in London continues in its mission to create genuinely innovative and quirky work, while showing off its beautiful, extraordinary building.

New piece The Way Out is a chance to explore the centre, and who better as a “mystery” guide but comic and actor Omid Djalili?   

As he leads The Young Person, played by Blaithin Mac Gabhann, through the dark labyrinth, they encounter Caleb Femi, Botis Seva, Le Gateau Chocolat, The Cocoa Butter Club and others. Expect live music, cabaret, burlesque — more opportunity to shout at the screen about the proliferation of the “male gaze” — and perhaps a circus act thrown in.

Directed and co-written by Suri Krishnamma as part of the Performance Live programme, the film is one continuous 42-minute take. While you’re welcome, of course, to provide your own popcorn and a beverage of your choice, I’d recommend absinthe.