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An abandoned shopping cart
Oct. 1st, 2012 08:15 pmI noticed the little girl in the shopping cart on Friday, but didn't have a camera on me. Of course my photograph would never be as good as this one.
The story of the scripture
May. 19th, 2012 07:25 pmSome stories transport you to a different world. Some stories change the world you know in such a way that when you emerge from them what you see stands in a whole new light. The story of Dodola and Zam, as told in Craig Thompson's graphic novel Habibi, has that ability. It's set in a fictional Arabic world that's our world's past and future all at once. Dodola and Zam are slaves, finding each other in an attempt to escape. Searching for guidance on their path they turn to stories, mainly from the Koran, but also from other religious and well known texts. Fate has bound the two protagonists together. Through story-telling their love unfolds.
With his black and white drawings, Thompson creates a mystical realm wherein Arabic calligraphy is a magical formula*. He weaves his own tale around the stories told by his characters, moving in and out of their conscious. On the way we learn about religion and how it gives meaning to a person. Habibi is thoroughly researched. The reader doesn't always know where factual Koran-knowledge ends and interpretation begins – as is the case in any reading of holy scripture. Unlike holy scripture, though, one can't separate image from text. As is common in Arabic, text becomes the image**.
Thompson has created a work of art that neither is a true comic, nor a true novel. He has a voice of his own – which a reader might not expect from a graphic novel. It deserves several readings, even, for lots of details and meaningful words are hidden below the surface of a first glance.
*Suras are used as cure for illness or other problems.
**Muslims are forbidden to draw living things, since no drawing can honour the perfection of Allah's creation.
Cities in pictures
Aug. 26th, 2011 12:38 pmFor those of you interested in photography, Brussels inhabitant Heleen Rodiers has set up a website to show off her work. It is mainly centred around places and has a definite otherworldly feel to it. Most photographs are devoid of humans, showing the the emptiness when people have left. Those that do feature in an occasional picture, look forlorn, travelling from one place to the next.
Heleen is quite curious to hear what other people think of her photographs, so please feel free to contact her with any remarks or questions.
Heleen is quite curious to hear what other people think of her photographs, so please feel free to contact her with any remarks or questions.
Make Something!
May. 27th, 2009 08:23 pmThere are certain things I'd like to do better when teaching. I never quite achieve the standards I set myself, partly due to lack of time when preparing my classes, partly because you can't control all parameters. A lesson with my fifth graders on Friday at the end of the day, will always turn out less good then teaching the same matter to my group of sixth formers earlier the day. I do my best with what I can, and tweak and smooth my lesson plans (at least when I've got a proper lesson plan... oops) every year again.
What I always try is to smuggle creativity into my lessons. I don't mean ordinary drawings or painting something. No, I want my pupils to be completely free in their creative thinking. Everything they do in life will ask for a certain degree of creativity, and I try to stimulate them finding that part inside themselves.
Traditional school systems don't like free-flowing creativity. Children aren't really stimulated to be wild in their thinking. Whenever something "creative" is done, the pupils need to follow the teacher's direction. Then I tell them to "Make something", and most are lost. Whiny Kid can actually spend half a lesson going on and on about how she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, and she doesn't have any inspiration.
But kids don't need much inspiration to make something, just simple encouragement that whatever they do will be great and fun, and even great fun. Most of the times the journey is much more important, because that journey learns you how to use your creative thinking, and be wild again. For that reason I like initiatives like "Make Something!!". It addresses kids who are never seen within the traditional creative courses. Out of school music or art lessons are for the privileged kids who have parents who nurture their child's creative side. But lots of parents are lost when it comes to creativity, or think it isn't important, or simply find all these extracurricular activities very expensive. "Make Something!!" gives those kids the opportunity to find out what they are worth, and that everyone's an artist. Some of these ways of education are finding their way into traditional teaching, but looking at my pupils, we still have a very long way to go.
(Link to a page on Wooster Collective.)
What I always try is to smuggle creativity into my lessons. I don't mean ordinary drawings or painting something. No, I want my pupils to be completely free in their creative thinking. Everything they do in life will ask for a certain degree of creativity, and I try to stimulate them finding that part inside themselves.
Traditional school systems don't like free-flowing creativity. Children aren't really stimulated to be wild in their thinking. Whenever something "creative" is done, the pupils need to follow the teacher's direction. Then I tell them to "Make something", and most are lost. Whiny Kid can actually spend half a lesson going on and on about how she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, and she doesn't have any inspiration.
But kids don't need much inspiration to make something, just simple encouragement that whatever they do will be great and fun, and even great fun. Most of the times the journey is much more important, because that journey learns you how to use your creative thinking, and be wild again. For that reason I like initiatives like "Make Something!!". It addresses kids who are never seen within the traditional creative courses. Out of school music or art lessons are for the privileged kids who have parents who nurture their child's creative side. But lots of parents are lost when it comes to creativity, or think it isn't important, or simply find all these extracurricular activities very expensive. "Make Something!!" gives those kids the opportunity to find out what they are worth, and that everyone's an artist. Some of these ways of education are finding their way into traditional teaching, but looking at my pupils, we still have a very long way to go.
(Link to a page on Wooster Collective.)
Instead of having lunch with acquaintances we'd rather avoid, we went to see Bernard Plossu at Contretype. I was struck by colourful images. The Fresson technique makes the photographs look like crayon on the back of wallpaper. Still not every image lingers, for I too could have photographed that café: The bus used to drive by.
Draw Yourself as a Teen Meme
Jul. 10th, 2008 11:43 amThis must be one of the best memes I've encountered: Draw Yourself as a Teen. Flight has a an excellent post up where they link to teen-drawings of some of their contributors. There are some gems by genuine artists there. Love it.
Along with Derek's Flickr-pool entitled Your Geekiest Photos this must be the best celebration of everything that goes wrong when you're young and impressionable.
Along with Derek's Flickr-pool entitled Your Geekiest Photos this must be the best celebration of everything that goes wrong when you're young and impressionable.
As far as visiting the old Paris temple of art and artifacts – better known as Le Musée du Louvre – goes, it's not important for its cultural value, but for its show-off-percentage. Standing in the napoleontic quarters, we are overtaken by a group of what we believe are Russian tourists. Their guide speaks an incomprehensible language that sounds Eastern European and he rushes the group forward. This is the nocturnal Louvre. There isn't much time to see everything.
Most group members don't take time to see either. They point cameras at furniture and ceilings. Snapping picture after picture to show to the ones that were left at home. Today we don't need darkened rooms to show our neighbours boring slideshows of our traveling adventures. Hall after hall I notice cameras pointed this or that way and snapshots taken from poseurs in front of famous paintings. The crowd in front of Michelangelo's Gioconda simply moves ahead, takes a picture and leaves the room again. The digital camera caused the common tourist to forget how to look using their eyes. Every gaze upon a work of art was a mediated gaze, whether it be through the lens of their camera, or on the screen of the same camera to check whether the photograph was any good. Then they move on: next painting, next picture.
But not everyone who points and shoots, is in the wrong. When I notice a young girl pointing her picture-phone at the ceiling, I look up at a beautifully painted work of art. She must have used her eyes to find this piece of beauty and is now using her camera to capture the moment.
She's not the only one getting struck by vastness of some works of art. I hear an American excitingly talk about "This guy," he checks the painting for the name tag, "Eugene. This guy who painted this painting. See, he painted himself right there in the tophat. So the guy carrying the gun is actualy the painter of the painting." He was talking about Eugène Delacroix and his La liberté guidant le peuple. I don't know if he was right. You could go and have a look for yourself. He sounded sincere though.
Most group members don't take time to see either. They point cameras at furniture and ceilings. Snapping picture after picture to show to the ones that were left at home. Today we don't need darkened rooms to show our neighbours boring slideshows of our traveling adventures. Hall after hall I notice cameras pointed this or that way and snapshots taken from poseurs in front of famous paintings. The crowd in front of Michelangelo's Gioconda simply moves ahead, takes a picture and leaves the room again. The digital camera caused the common tourist to forget how to look using their eyes. Every gaze upon a work of art was a mediated gaze, whether it be through the lens of their camera, or on the screen of the same camera to check whether the photograph was any good. Then they move on: next painting, next picture.
But not everyone who points and shoots, is in the wrong. When I notice a young girl pointing her picture-phone at the ceiling, I look up at a beautifully painted work of art. She must have used her eyes to find this piece of beauty and is now using her camera to capture the moment.
She's not the only one getting struck by vastness of some works of art. I hear an American excitingly talk about "This guy," he checks the painting for the name tag, "Eugene. This guy who painted this painting. See, he painted himself right there in the tophat. So the guy carrying the gun is actualy the painter of the painting." He was talking about Eugène Delacroix and his La liberté guidant le peuple. I don't know if he was right. You could go and have a look for yourself. He sounded sincere though.
What happens to a sticker on the wall?
Jan. 15th, 2008 11:43 pmMumbleville knows...
Click on image if you want to see more.
Click on image if you want to see more.
P. Jays drying
Aug. 12th, 2007 11:52 pm
© KayLynn Deveney
The concept in itself is easy: the photographer acquaints herself with a neighbour, an elderly man who's living on his own. She starts taking pictures of his day-to-day life. She photographs his quirky habits and crazy rituals. In and of themselves the photographs are nice, but they are taken further. The object they show gives commentary on what he himself sees. Sometimes he has written what happens and sometimes he shows a beautiful insight into his own mortality. Maybe it's compulsory to become a philosopher at the age of 91.
"The Day-To-Day Life of Albert Hastings" is part of the exhibition "Relative Closeness" at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. And now I notice it closed on the 8th. The museum is free, and a nice place to look at pictures. You can check out their website and see if there's anything else of interest.
Crossposted to
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salon_virtuel.King Charles' Town
Jul. 23rd, 2007 10:10 pmOn the day our first King took the oath we walk up the hill to the convent. It's in disguise. Inside we encounter Mexico and the U.S.A. like it once was: in black and white and sometimes on rollerskates. Most pictures have something unconcerned. America is still the best place to be and go to. Girls wear their tiny shorts and are happy with their bodies. Men walk past them, look back, because the girls are pretty. Life is good.
Outside the sun is shining in between days of incessant rains. The old kingly town, heir to empty factory buildings and people on the dole, show a little of its previous glamour. If only for a while one forgets that when the grey takes over this town what it was before: a dark and dank place where living is more about surviving.
"So Long. Vivre l'Ouest américain 1970/85" and "La Frontera, Mexique 1974", photographs by Bernard Plossu until September 23, 2007 in Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi.
Outside the sun is shining in between days of incessant rains. The old kingly town, heir to empty factory buildings and people on the dole, show a little of its previous glamour. If only for a while one forgets that when the grey takes over this town what it was before: a dark and dank place where living is more about surviving.
"So Long. Vivre l'Ouest américain 1970/85" and "La Frontera, Mexique 1974", photographs by Bernard Plossu until September 23, 2007 in Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi.
Buffy in the strangest places
Jul. 10th, 2007 11:35 amThanks to Maud Newton I now know that Edward Gorey's favourite tv-show was Buffy the Vampire. CITIZEN-TIMES didn't quite get the Slayer-concept, but at least they give some decent information to the Fans.
The article in question is a review of The Many Deaths of Edward Gorey, a ballet and "study in strangeness".
The article in question is a review of The Many Deaths of Edward Gorey, a ballet and "study in strangeness".
Seen in Brussels
Jun. 20th, 2007 08:22 pmIt's always* nice to see my town show up on an international website:
Fresh stuff from Bonom & Lork on Wooster Collective.
I've noticed that painting on the scaffolding before (it's on my usual route to school). Now I also know what it means.
*Unless I have to correct stupid mistakes.
Fresh stuff from Bonom & Lork on Wooster Collective.
I've noticed that painting on the scaffolding before (it's on my usual route to school). Now I also know what it means.
*Unless I have to correct stupid mistakes.
"Cat getting out of a bag"
Jun. 16th, 2007 08:21 pmSince I can't have one of my own, I bought an imaginary cat today.
