International Environmental Film Festival of Paris: Prize List and Small Gems

/ Allegra / 3 Comments

The 30th edition of the International Environmental Film Festival closed in Paris a few weeks ago. The selection of rare, beautiful and eye-opening films was a treat so I wanted to share some of the goodness with you.

Grand Prix: The Fruit hunters by Yung Chang

Inspired by Adam Leith Gollner’s book of the same name -that also inspired a post in these pages – Canadian director Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze) enters the world of fans of rare varieties of fruits.  As he follows fruit hunters’ travels and meet-ups, he finds the tree of an almost extinct mango, comes across actor Bill Pullman and interviews many of these unsung heroes of biodiversity. The aesthetics of the cinematography makes those fruits and those characters irresistible. Continue reading →

Echoes Of Net Impact 2010

/ Crist Inman / 4 Comments

AlexCountsAlex Counts spoke at the Net Impact Conference in 2010, which took place at Cornell University during the spring semester, while I was teaching a course there. I had the good fortune of being recommended to listen to his talk.  Today I had the good fortune of encountering him again, on this podcast series that I have so far been batting 1,000 with:

Microfinance lending, the practice of making small loans to individuals who would otherwise not qualify for traditional loans, has been a proven method of nurturing entrepreneurship in developing countries. As a college student, Alex read about the work of Noble Prize winning Dr. Muhammad Yunus and his efforts in microfinance. Continue reading →

Frankenspecies

/ Organikos / 2 Comments
Bringing Them Back to Life.The revival of an extinct species is no longer a fantasy. But is it a good idea?

Bringing Them Back to Life.
The revival of an extinct species is no longer a fantasy. But is it a good idea?

One of our favorite science writers brings interesting ideas to life, weirdly but masterfully. And fun.  But this one tilts heavily to weird, except for the fact that this is real:

On July 30, 2003, a team of Spanish and French scientists reversed time. They brought an animal back from extinction, if only to watch it become extinct again. The animal they revived was a kind of wild goat known as abucardo, or Pyrenean ibex. Continue reading →

Thamarassery Churam – Wayanad

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Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor

Wayanad is located on the southern tip of the magnificent Deccan Plateau, known for its picturesque hill stations, sprawling spice plantation and luxuriant forests. Thamarassery Churam is the gateway to Wayanad. This pass through the Ghats, consisting of nine impressive hairpin turns within 14 km, connects the Calicut district to Wayanad. The view from the top provides an excellent  view of the green patches beneath. Continue reading →

Metal, Craftily Crafted

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Brazilian artist Vik Muniz has been on our radar for quite some time.  Partially because his work redefines the concepts of waste and the proper “mediums” in art, but mostly because his work is just plain fun. While some previous series have used medium as bizarre as dust, granulated sugar or  melted chocolate, the prints exhibited at the 2013 New York Armory Show were created with the metal waste of the modern world.

Muniz is not only a master at recycling but at keeping his viewer completely off balance with his sense of scale. His 3 dimensional collages, whether made of scrap metal like the ones in the slideshow above, or with more “generalized garbage” as in the pieces depicted in the documentary The Waste Land, are orchestrated piece by piece from a 20 meter vantage point. For example, at first glance the hummingbird image looks as shimmeringly delicate as a Hupert Duprat/caddisworm collaboration, but wait! Are those paint cans, bed springs and automobile tire hubs I see? Continue reading →

Indian Lotus Flower

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Photo Credits:Ramesh Kidangoor

Photo Credits: Ramesh Kidangoor

Lotus, the national flower of India, symbolizes beauty, majesty, spirituality, purity, wealth, serenity and knowledge. It is an aquatic plant that belongs to the Nelumbonaceae species with broad floating leaves and bright aromatic flowers that grows in shallow waters. Its seeds, leaves, flowers and roots are all edible and used in a variety of medicines. Lotus is also a sacred flower for Hindus and Buddhists. Continue reading →

Tidy Up

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© Die Post Swiss Post has asked Ursus Wehrli to create a tidied up stamp – the stamp is NOW available at every Swiss post office.

© Die Post Swiss Post has asked Ursus Wehrli to create a tidied up stamp – the stamp is NOW available at every Swiss post office

There is an entertaining video from five years ago of this comic artist presenting his “work” and a book review from 18 months ago on Trendland that is worth a look because it presents an excellent sampling of Ursus Weherli’s images, and you can decide relatively quickly whether you want more or not (one purpose of a book review, well fulfilled in this case:

Organizational skills aren’t usually something you look for in an artist, but in Ursus Wehrli‘s case, they’re definitely something of value…

His most famous image is likely this one below, but the stamp above commissioned by Swiss Post shows an evolution of sorts, which you can see after reviewing the images in that book review.  It also shows an idea, a concept, on a roll.  Where did it come from?  Where is it going?

theartofcleanup2

Continue reading →

Musical Crossovers

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For some of us New Yorkers, it was a superb experience attending the India debut of Norah Jones in Mumbai recently.  The most recent installment of the India Ink series that mashes up images, themes and ideas related to the commonalities and differences between New York and Mumbai is a perfect complement to that recent musical outing: Continue reading →

Palm Leaf Decorations

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Photo credits:Ramesh Kidangoor

The coconut tree plays an integral part of the lifestyle and the economy of the Kerala. (In fact, the name of the state itself has coconut in its etymological roots.) There are numerous products and byproducts derived from the tree. In addition to its use for food, beverage and coir, its tender leaves are used for decorating houses, Temples and churches. Continue reading →

In The Category Of Must See

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Inimitable.  Some of us love superlatives, and some of us find them tedious; but all of us will agree that this fellow is inimitable (click the image above to go to his work directly):

Recently, I created an app called Petting Zoo. It is an interactive app for iPhones and iPads, and creating it was a difficult but interesting process. Continue reading →

Exoskeletal Bling

/ Amie Inman / 3 Comments

The caddis worm (order Trichoptera) may not be as popular as its famous shiny cousin, the scarab beetle, but it carries the extra charisma of an intrinsic aesthetic behavior.

French artist and science enthusiast Hubert Duprat took his natural curiosity to an elaborate level when he began providing these case building larva with gold spangles and semi-precious materials in lieu of the bits of sand and gravel they would normally use.

An amazing observation is that the worms seem to approach their work with an artistic eye, choosing the color and quality of the materials they use. In the 1930s an American entomologist observed in a Nevada river that “among all the little particles of sand and minerals swept along by the water, the Trichoptera make meaningful selections of bright blue opals—in other words, the most conspicuous or garish materials.” Continue reading →

Gliding In Utah, And Protesting Strip-Mining

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Click the image above to go to the full post by James Fallows at Atlantic Monthly‘s website:

Short version: a unique natural mountain configuration has made a site in Utah the best place in America for one particular pursuit. The pursuit is paragliding, and the location, Point of the Mountain south of Salt Lake City, has a very unusual combination of topography and natural windflow that makes it a perfect soaring spot. Point of the Mountain has attracted devotees from around the world, as shown below, and built a substantial tourist economy. But to get more gravel, a mining company has for the past ten days been bulldozing away the very ridgeline that is the basis for this world-renowned activity — as if earth-movers started chewing up a famous skiing slope or dredging sand from Malibu or Waikiki. It’s the familiar story of mountain-top removal mining, in a new setting with new effects.

Continue reading →

Beauty Of Kerala – Nelliyampathy

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Photo credits: M N Shaji

Photo credits: M N Shaji

Situated south of Palakkad Gap in an area once famed for its luscious oranges, Nelliyampathi is now blanketed in tea, coffee and cardamom plantations. The region was once owned by the Maharajas of Kollengode and Kochi and is now a part of the Nenmara Forest Division. It’s close proximity to the Parambikulam, Anamalai and Peechi-Vazhana wildlife sanctuaries add to its appeal. Continue reading →