Although not quite in the category of “Don’t Try This At Home”, it looks like this bicycle animation is much more than the sum of its laser cut parts. Artist Katy Beveridge writes that the action must be filmed to animate as it isn’t visible with the naked eye.
The final results certainly impress!
From the collaborative film Waste Land about the catadores (trash pickers) of Jardim Gramacho to the new documentary Trashed, there are film makers and organizations talking about the growing and overpowering problem of waste. Waste Land talks about the transformation of trash into art. The documentary film Landfill Harmonic is about “people transforming trash into music; about love, courage and creativity.”
With the ethos of reuse and recycle there are those who grab the creative spirit along with our attention with programs like the Paraguayan Sonidos de la Tierra (Saving Children Through Music) and Favio Chávez, director of the orchestra of recycled instruments on the Catuera Landfill on the banks of the Paraguay River. Continue reading
Art and culture are about to explode onto Kochi at a season that is already filled with color and light. Biennales have been taking place for well over a hundred years, starting in Venice and spreading throughout the world.
Just as the lost port of Muziris had been a regional gateway for the world the Kochi Muziris Biennale, the first of its type in India, has the goal of reviving the vibrancy of Kochi as a meeting point of culture and trade. Spanning the calendar period of 12/12/12 and 13/03/13, the three month long exhibition is expected to draw high international visitation in what has been designed as a cultural strategy of self-renewal. Continue reading
Newspaper editor Brendon Grimshaw bought an “abandoned” Seychelle island in the 1960s and spent the rest of his life lovingly creating the habitat that is now Moyenne Island National Park, part of the Ste. Anne Marine National Park.
Together with a Seychellois named Rene Lafortune Grimshaw transformed the island, planting 16,000 trees by hand, including native hard woods such as mahogany. The trees attracted birds (some 2,000 make the island their home), and Grimshaw himself reintroduced over 100 giant tortoises, native to the Seychelles but almost hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. The labor of love resulted in Moyenne island now holding more than two thirds of all endemic plants to the Seychelles as well as the Seychelles government standing firm against the multiple advances offering millions of dollars to”develop” the island after Grimshaw’s death. Continue reading
Bangalore city map, circa 1924 from “Murray’s 1924 Handbook”
Before a recent trip to Karnataka I’d asked my Indian friends for advice prior to any urban travels, getting their opinions on the iconic activities in each of the cities on my itinerary. There were pearls and biryani in Hyderabad, palaces and markets in Mysore…but for Bangalore, most friends said things such as, “Oh Bangalore. That’s where people from Cochin go to get their shopping done.”
Well, okay. Considering I actually did need to get some shopping done, I wasn’t terribly distressed about this advice. However, the fact remains that I am not a particularly good shopper, so I’d hoped that there was more to the city than just consumer attraction. Continue reading
In coordination with the 2012 Paralympics British performance artist Sue Austin has revised her 2008 project “Portal” into “Creating the Spectacle!”, a piece that literally sends ripples across the divide between spectator, audience, galleries and stage.
The focus of the project has shifted from being about transforming preconceptions about the wheelchair to a more global perspective that we all have issues to transcend… Continue reading
“In African mythology the elephant reincarnates carrying the soul of a murdered God. It is thus the embodiment of the transmigration of souls. It is also the metaphor for the world’s preoccupation with Africa as an exotic location. The elephant thus embodies the world’s romanticism with Africa…” Andries Botha
South African artist Andries Botha has been paying homage to the strength, majesty and perseverance of elephants throughout his career. Blending Western and African elements he has created numerous life size pieces, both as individuals and in groups, that portray a sense of mysticism in their unexpected settings. Continue reading
For over a year now we’ve been writing about newspaper bags along with the people and organizations who work with them. We’ve also written about how newspapers are used in other forms of recycling. I have recently come upon an additional “closed loop” use for this ubiquitous material.
Dutch designer Mieke Meijer in collaboration with design label Vij5 has created a product called NewspaperWood. The material has the potential to put a portion of newspaper discarded daily into an up-cycle system bringing paper closer to the wood from which it’s made.
Painting by: Jane Pompilio George
It was with pleasure that I recently discovered a Cornell “neighbor” who happens to be both an artist and bird lover, who takes inspiration from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s round-the-clock “bird cam” nest images. (Click on the painting above to go directly to her blog.)
People all over the world have been able to experience (and be inspired by) the nesting of great blue herons and red-tailed hawks near the Cornell campus, as well as Osprey nests in other parts of the United States.
Sira Barbet by Michael G. Harvey
What happens when a group of “newly minted” Cornell ornithologists go on a birding expedition in the high Peruvian Andes and the team discovers a new species of bird?
They name it after the Cornell Lab of Ornithology executive director Dr. John W. Fitzpatrick whose fieldwork in Peru during the 1970s and 1980s led to numerous discoveries of course!
According to NASA, transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments. The last time it occurred, in 2004, I happened upon some wonderful pinhole viewing boxes set up in a Paris park. (The 2004 transit allowed full visibility throughout Europe, where I happened to be living at the time.) Continue reading
I’ve written about numerous artists who have just the right “tinker’s eye” to see the aesthetic potential in what many would call trash. But as far as I know, Chicago based artist and educator Nick Cave (not to be confused with the deep voiced musician of the same name) is the only one to take the next step to turn sculpture into a kinetic, interactive celebration. Continue reading
We were recently traveling by houseboat from Kumarakom across Lake Vembanad, the largest backwater in Kerala, toward Cochin and therefore the Arabian Sea. This route requires passing through the Thannermukkom Bund, the largest mud regulator in India.
This barrier essentially divides Vembanad in half – separating the brackish waters that flow from the Arabian Sea from the sweet river water that feeds into the lake. For six months a year the dike is left open, particularly during the monsoon season, but historically the gates are closed on December 15th to assist agriculture in the Kuttanad District, where farming is done below sea level.
Like many areas of the world with significant geographical elements that effect both country and culture, the watery landscape is defined as either north of the bund or south of it. These discriptors are as elemental as global coordinates for people in the region.
We’d made this journey from North to South last year when the gates were still open, but this second, opposite journey required negotiating with the gatekeepers in order to continue our passage.
Even without understanding a word of Malayalam the process was fascinating. Continue reading
In the best of cases food both nourishes and inspires. Who’s to say that it can’t amuse as well.
Still Life with Peeler II, 2011; Mia Brownell; Akus Gallery
Anyone who has spent time at our site can vouch for our commitment to community and the power of the liberal arts to sustain and develop each of us both individually and collectively.
The Akus Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University is bound by their own mission statement to provide a fertile environment for interchange among the diverse disciplinary perspectives of the university’s liberal arts community. Continue reading
Vestiges, David Marshall Lodge, 2012
Scottish artist Rob Mulholland‘s work touches on Man’s relationship with Nature in many ways, but for me the most essential is the most literal. At our very best we reflect the beauty of our environment, in the same way that we are said to reflect the divine.
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples…
-John Muir Continue reading
Despite its “Science Fiction Trilogy” sounding name, The Plankton Chronicles is a series of short, compelling educational videos made in conjunction with Tara Oceans Expeditions (a scientific expedition to “sail the seven seas” collecting plankton samples to understand and hopefully mitigate the effects of climate change) and the Observatoire Oceanologique de Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Viewed as a set, they invite the viewer into the kaleidoscopic world that exists in a teaspoon of seawater as well as the open oceans. Click on the image for a macro lens glimpse. Continue reading
For art lovers nothing quite tops the experience of standing before a favorite painting, sculpture or tapestry, far from the madding crowds, soaking in the aura of history. But few of us have the luxury of being able to visit the “Hermitage” in the morning and the Musée d’Orsay in the afternoon, not to mention the connections that would enable a personalize tour with the curator.
Over the past year Google has put its technological powerhouse behind a project that brings over 30,000 pieces of art from 151 museums in 40 countries into the home of anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Continue reading
There’s something about drums. Like dance, they have an almost primordial capacity to rouse even the most complacent person to action. The sound connects with the heartbeat and makes it impossible to stand still. Personally I can’t decide whether I prefer West African Djembes, Indian Tablas or Japanese Taiko. Percussion seems to be by nature a communal activity, and the bottom line is that I love the way the sound makes me long to participate. Continue reading
I recently read the fascinating story of Inakadate, a small village in northern Japan struggling against a global economic downturn. The rural community with a population of fewer than 10,000 people had none of the charismatic landscapes that typically drive tourism. Twenty years ago a clerk in the Town Hall was asked to figure out how to bring that very thing to the bucolic village surrounded by rice paddies and apple orchards.
The story goes that Mr. Koichi Hanada saw school children planting purple and bright green rice as a class project when it occurred to him that the varied hues could be used like a natural artist’s palette. Continue reading
Organikos 