Immediate Spaces at Wongema

Graduation Studio for Immediate Spaces at Wongema

beelden Anne Holtrop & Sophie Krier

 

Utrecht Manifest

This blog has migrated to www.werklandschap-kruist.nl till June 2012!

I am currently curating one of the four research based residencies of Utrecht Manifest, Biennale of Social Design.

(Dutch) preview:

werklandschap KRUIST ICI bouwt aan een alfabetische inventaris van het aanwezige potentieel aan vaardigheden en expertise in Rotsoord en omgeving; de b van brandweer, de e van ecoloog, de j van jurist vormen straks samen een blauwdruk voor potentiële kruisbestuivingen en productiemogelijkheden in het gebied. Wat gebeurt er als de paraatheid van de brandweerman wordt gekoppeld aan de onzichtbare handschrift van de autoschade expert? Zijn conciërge en criminoloog alleen alfabetisch aan elkaar verwant? 

Met het netwerk aan makers en enthousiasme als een denkbeeldige, gedistribueerde werkplaats ontwikkelen genodigde ontwerpers voorbeeldprojecten die het potentieel van dit bijzondere netwerk verbeelden en testen; parallel hieraan worden onderzoeken uitgezet naar de ruimtelijke en economische condities van de diverse soorten bedrijvigheid in het gebied. Workshops met het lagere en hogere kunst- en cultuuronderwijs verbinden dit proefondervindelijke onderzoek naar het wezen van werk met de nieuwe lerende generatie.

Met bijdrages van o.a.  Cathelijne Montens (tentoonstellingsontwerp), René Put & Brigitte Gootink (grafisch ontwerp), Cynthia Hathaway (Car Mecca, voorbeeldproject), Joanna vander Zanden & Arne Hendriks (’t Rommelt in Rotsoord, voorbeeldproject), Jonathan Muecke & Bas Princen (Work of Work / Field Essays), Jan van Duppen (onderzoek naar ruimtelijke condities van locale bedrijvigheid), Dima Stefanova & Andreas Zangger (Know-How|Show-How, workshop), Jesse Howard (Open objects, graduation project), Conor Trawinsky (Craft Communities, internship research), studenten van rietveld designLAB,  studenten van Design Academy Eindhoven / Man And Living (Thuiswerk studie o.l.v. Mara Skujeniece).

Blog Beauties 1

She is already in my "I LIKE" list but here's a special link to artist / curator / writer Gabriella Gomez Mont's Toxico Blog. Beautiful, disturbing imagery - otherness, again and again. This is a zootrope animation still from the 1990s, which she found.

Edith Dekyndt is a Belgian artist. You can find out about her research for subjectivity here.

Look for XY02 - the film with the hands and the loop of string. A handful of magic.

Bidoun is a magazine for art from the Middle East. Its discourse and aesthetics are like a great coffee in the morning. You don't want anything else, for a moment. This image is from the Revolution by Design article in the last issue.

From time to time I stumble upon a project that I become REALLY jealous of.

The surrender of Reynard The Fox by Leonard van Munster is one of those. 

The "Tops" film installation by Miguel Angel Rios is a brilliantly choreographed metaphor of relationships between the world, things and people, and the tensions they create. You can watch fragments of the films via Evo Gallery here.

My research for I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING BUT I WANT TO BE THERE led me into a web of (graphic) design initiatives worth mentioning. Here's a first selection. 

‘Arc en ciel’ by emilie faif & les amis'' by arnold goron, 2009 (stoneware, stone, paint, wood, fymo, bone), other works by Faif and Goron can be viewed via Soledad gallery in Amsterdam.

From the Dezeen archives: " Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong has created a tiny floating house as part of the Hong Kong & Shenzhen bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture."

About his Pushpin Calendar, Japanese designer Ryohei Yoshiyuki writes: When you put paper on the wall with this, you can make your own calander with paper of your memory. 2006 July. Ryohei keeps a diary with his dog in the main role, loyally by his side throughout his work.

To be continued in Blog Beauties 2

art & object rotterdam

Object Rotterdam was like last year, the boring one of the two shows, with hard neon light, static presentations and important looking (wannabe) designers - in contrast to the tipsy, out of line, talkative artists on the other side of the road (which I feel a lot closer too, to be honnest). There was ONE thing that gave me shivers, Scholten & Baaijings's Total Table Design, a cooperation with Royal Leerdam Crystal (glassware), Koninklijke Van Kempen & Begeer (cutlery/table accessories) and the Audax Textile Museum. Scholten and Baijings are real shapers (vormgevers), in the crafty sense of the word, with a sense of aesthetics, details and texture that left meunder their spell for a while. Thank you Stefan and Carol for taking things this far. It proves that good design can renew our sensitivity to the world.

Tracey Snelling @ Gallery Cokkie Snoei # Bad Motel, # 2008, # mixed media, # 106 cm x 58 cm x 36
Either I'm addicted to dream-like houses and scale models, or the art world is. The 2010 opening of Art Rotterdam was busy as always, and my hurried visit amidst the bubble wine frenzy left me with a homesick feeling and four names in my notebook: Snelling, Sep, Halsmans, and Van der Ende. They make bad motels, uncanny markets, flagmans houses, insomnia motels, a slow city. I decided to start a collection of beautiful alternative homes, also because these days I'm fevereshly sketching on a weather house (a house with the weather inside) for a project, whatever that may become..

A Cheerful Seater

Big string-sofas, 2008, Bertjan Pot
For the café of the Textile Museum Bertjan placed four comfy cheerful seaters in each corner - frames of metal woven into hamock like alcoves. They are elegant, funny, well made and they work - they literally frame the space, in a hushed manner. Wonderful.

zilu - celebrating the handmade

You know how sometimes things friends do just make you SO proud? Ghazaleh and me have been friends since, well, that embarassing teenage time when I had braces and she had a huge afro. Ghazaleh's career has taken her from Law to Creative Journalism to Zilu - an online shop for everything that's "handmade with love". That sounds simple but it's not that easy to find the makers that really make qualitative jewelry, accessories and other unresistable ornaments of everyday life. Thanks to her flair and that of her partner in business (&life) Bob, Ghazaleh has now gathered a select group of craftsmen & women. It's a relief compared with the usual overload of "nice stuff" everywhere else. If you don't believe me go have a look for yourself (it's nearly Valentine, after all).