PEGGING, SPECULATORS, AND THE ASIAN CURRENCY CRISIS OF 1997

Stability of an exchange rate can be achieved through a variety of currency policy regimes. While a currency peg can be beneficial to many developing economies, a poorly managed peg can have negative effects on the exchange rate. During late 1997, a currency crisis began to spread through several Asian countries and has become one of the most effective examples of the perils of poorly managed exchange rate regimes. This crisis will be examined in depth to provide and insight into its causes, the way it was handled by each nation involved, and its effects. This will provide a better understanding of the importance of understanding and effectively managing a pegged exchange rate

Lets Eat (children & diet) for the Bradford Institute for health research photographs by Ian Beesley poem by Ian McMillan

In 2015 Born in Bradford started working with Bowling Primary School, Usher Street Bradford, on a series of collaborative arts projects. The first was a project looking at food. Born in Bradford had been donated a number of smart phones which, once their sim cards had been removed, made excellent digital cameras. Year 6 pupils were taught how to use them and then were asked to photograph what they had for breakfast, what they had for dinner and what they had for tea. The images were projected in class for all to discuss. Ian McMillan, poet, helped them construct this poem around these images whilst Fay Darvill Beesley, a performance artist helped to create movements to accompany the words. The strength of such a collaborative approach is that it enables us to see into a child’s personal environment from their singular viewpoint, whilst empowering the child in the artistic and editorial performance of the work

Ammonites from offshore deposits near Bogenfels, Namibia

Pyritized ammonite nuclei and fragments were recovered by vibracore sampling from offshore deposits near Bogenfels, Namibia. Although these could only be identified at genus level, the association of Baculites and Scaphites suggest a Coniacian age for these deposits which conforms with the age of the associated foraminifera

Non-Fungible Tokens: Accessible Investment for All, or a Bubble?

NFTs have complex direct and indirect consequences on the modern economy, making the average, rational individual’s use of them prone to higher risk. Just as professional, educational, and social institutions progressed through the COVID-19 pandemic using technological tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, the world’s economy has also become more intertwined with technology than ever before. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), through Web 3.0, have played a major part in this intermingling of public markets and technology. On a surface level, NFTs can seem like a trend or Ponzi scheme put forth by the young “influencers” of social media. Additionally, the deeper technical and social implications make NFTs a more complex option than traditional investments, potentially putting the average individual at a disadvantage in a modern market full of new financial sharks. So, what are the direct and indirect effects of NFTs on individual investors in the modern economy? While many see the economy as strictly related to stocks, the modern economy is broad, in which individuals make decisions based on financial, social, and ethical implications. NFTs play into these factors, resulting in effects such as pricing changes based on social trends in addition to news in the press, in the way that traditional stocks are impacted. This fluctuation and instability can result in an unwillingness for lenders to grant loans based on holdings in NFTs or cryptocurrencies. That volatility calls the intrinsic worth of an NFT into question. Despite these issues, digital capital like NFTs and cryptocurrency do provide opportunities to invest with a low barrier to entry. Concerns of environmental ethics are diminishing as crypto is fully mined and companies become carbon neutral. This multitude of factors and issues results in a market situation that is incredibly difficult to predict. Here, we conclude that while NFTs pose considerable risks to investors, the opportunities and new possibilities suggested by a growing cryptocurrency market suggest that cryptocurrency is not just a fad or a bubble: it’s here to stay, and will have lasting impact on markets

The big K

On the 18th December 2015 Kellingley colliery Yorkshire closed marking the end of deep mining in the United Kingdom. I was invited by the National Coal Mining Museum for England (NCME) to document the site before the demolition of the headstocks and then to create portraits of ex Kellingley colliery miners using an ultra large format camera. All the images were later acquired by the NCME for their permanent collection and this small publication was produced to accompany the exhibition of the work

Yorkshire Stridings by Ian Beesley & Ian McMillan

Yorkshire Stridings is an incisive, intelligent guide to the history and landscape of Yorkshire from a renowned social documentary photographer and one of Britain’s most popular poets. Ian McMillan and Ian Beesley have spent years walking through the landscape, history, towns and cities of their native Yorkshire and have recorded the uniqueness of the area in poetry and photography. Ian Beesley’s evocative photographs and Ian McMillan’s witty, moving poetry provide a portrait of Yorkshire’s past and present, its history and culture, and landscapes that have remained unchanged for generations. From the iconic landscape of Ilkley moor and the limestone pavements of Airedale, the gothic coast around Whitby to the factories and mills of the industrial past, and the lost coalfields of South Yorkshire this is a sharply observed, personal, interpretation of ‘God’s Own County’ from two of its most popular native artists

The book of damp Photographs by Ian Beesley Poems by Ian McMillan

The book of damp was commissioned by Doncaster & Rotherham Metropolitan councils for their Warm Well Families (WWF) research project facilitated by Sheffield Hallam University. WWF examined the factors influencing the ability of households with children with asthma to keep warm and well in winter

A box full of cuckoos photographs by Ian Beesley Poems by Ian McMillan

Oldham’s original Library, Museum & Art Gallery opened in 1883. Plans were unveiled in 2012 to transform the building into a new Heritage Centre at the heart of a vibrant cultural hub for Oldham. The project was awarded development funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England and the real work began. Photographer Ian Beesley and poet Ian McMillan were invited to chart the first stages of this development. They found some rooms already empty, others still used to store museum collections and evidence everywhere of exploratory drilling and structural assessments. A new Heritage Centre will restore much of the building to its look and feel. It will also enable the museum collections to be fully displayed and allow the cuckoos out of their boxes once more

Magic Lantern tales by Ian Beesley and Ian McMillan

Photographer Ian Beesley and poet Ian McMillan tell a story of the First World War from the point of view of the men and women who survived it and lived on to old age.In the 1980s and early 1990s Ian Beesley photographed and interviewed as many survivors of the First World War as possible this publication is a selection from this project, accompanied by Ian McMillan poems based on their stories

Bruised Air by Ian Beesley & Ian McMillan [publication for the Bradford Institute of health research on the effects of environmental pollution on health]

Geo-medical landscapes In 1966 the Russian epidemiologist Pavlovsky developed the theory of landscape epidemiology, which involves the identification of geographical areas where disease is transmitted. He proposed that one could use the landscape to identify the spatial and temporal distribution of a disease by looking at the key factors such as temperature, elevation, rainfall, development and activity. Since 1966 aerospace technologies have proved to be invaluable in the development of the understanding of the earth’s landscape and its connections to the spread of disease. NASA has initiated these technologies into the areas of forestry, agriculture, geology and public health. The Bradford Institute for Health Research’s Born in Bradford project is investigating how our total environment shapes our health and well-being. It is measuring how air pollution, ultraviolet radiation, noise, green space and pollutants in our diet affect our early life development. These photographs of pollutants found on waste ground in Bradford, reference landscape epidemiology, bio-medical scans and satellite photos of the earth