Hello everyone! Here is some lovely Art to send you off to your respective homes.

Jee Young Lee creates dreamworlds in her tiny studio, tearing down the set and repainting the entire space in between shoots. It's amazing what she achieves without (much) computer trickery.
Here's a collection of her images, and the source.

If you like the style, look into the work of Sandy Skoglund, who started working before Photoshop and all that modern malarky- to the best of my knowledge she was also the first person to start doing this sort of full-room surrealist photography. You can find most of her major installations here.

Can you feel it? That wonderful excitement and glow of warmth that comes with the start of December, as the magic of the Christmas season finally descends upon us…Okay, maybe not. It’s there somewhere though, I promise you. It’s just been dulled and repressed by thoughts of Week 8 essays and vacation work. Being the incredibly grown up and mature (ish) students we are, we perhaps don’t invest enough of ourselves in the frivolity of this time of year. Maybe we should. Maybe it’s not so frivolous after all.

Regardless of if or how or what you will be celebrating over the vacation, this time of year is about fun and laughter, it’s about love, it’s about family. Battling through that last bit of work, I feel like an echo of Kevin in Home Alone as he pleads,

 "Okay, this is extremely important. Will you please tell Santa that instead of presents this year, I just want my family back?" 

There’s nothing quite like going home to a proper meal, a freshly made bed, and a hug. It might sound like clichéd Christmas mulch, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the thought of seeing my Mum next week is very comforting. And I hope it is for you and your respective loved ones, too, as we edge closer and closer toward the moment when we ‘get our families back’ for an entire month. 

Although, I must admit that when it comes to actually getting through that month, I may well be a little less sentimental. The nagging, the squabbling, the stresses, will all no doubt put paid to such soppiness. In those trying moments I will wish for nothing more than to be back in Cambridge, not just because I will desire to escape Christmas conflicts, but because I will be beginning to miss my other family: my Downing family. Maybe you think this is a little ridiculous, but that’s how I view this place and the friends who help each other through Cambridge. There’s only so many times a person can talk you down from an essay crisis, sympathise with your rants about how unfair everything is, or hold your hair back whilst you regurgitate your Curry King curry (or even, naming no names, a West Lodge dinner…), without you coming to realise that they are every bit as vital to your existence and happiness as those waiting for you back at home.

And this brings me to my point. Hamilton Wright Mabie summed up what Christmas meant to him in the simple statement,

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” 

and that’s what we should be plotting right now; the little acts of love which will show our appreciation for our families, however we choose to define them. So let’s remember to love when things get a little fraught in our homes over the holiday, and let’s conspire to love each other through Week 8 here in our Cambridge homes.

                      Merry Christmas, Downing 

By Miriam Goode