In some (many) months from now we’ll build a room for Thor in our otherwise open NY style loft – consisting in large part of the elements we’ve collected here. I still love the way big change makes way for redecorating and sourcing new ideas. Maybe this is part of why I’ve moved so many times? No.. a little.. maybe.
Bedding
1. My initial wish was to purchase the Kili bed (a reproduction of the original Lille Per bed but updated slightly to comply with current safety standards). We were gifted a Lille Per bed by Jan’s parents though (a restored 60 year old original) and we love it.
2. Wildlife quilt covers from by nord Copenhagen. Comes in a few variations (incl. the deer version as seen left). I couldn’t resist the oh so Canadian grizzly bear (there’s a definite animal theme taking shape in this space). They only come in junior (and adult) sizes however, so it’ll be a little while yet before we bring this guy into use. In the meantime Thor’s got his moose from Urban Elk in Nørrebro.
Storage
3. Cell shelving from Bolia.dk. We lucked out (in that my to-do list before Thor came was that long and this was one of the few things I didn’t get to) and they ended up going on sale for a handsome 50% off for a handfull of days last month. We just picked them up this week together with a small dresser from the same line. You know what else this means? That’s right, I get to use my heavy-duty power drill to mount them to the wall. Yes!
Art & cuddly things
4. I couldn’t resist these graphic prints from Frankie magazine‘s 2012 calendar (ordered from Australia). Polar bear design by Nancy Mungcal and fox design by Donna Wiloon. There are works by Elisabeth Dunker of Fine Little Day included as well as some other great pieces – so there’s plenty to rotate with.
5. Owl by Franck and Fischer of Denmark. Ok I admit that I probably love this creature more than Thor will, but I am willing to share. They’re available at Louisiana Art Gallery or online.
American contemporary/ street artist Shepard Fairey (best known for his Barack Obama “Hope” poster) has been in Copenhagen recently working with the Obey team on 5 new pieces throughout the city. His latest graphic mural happens to be right outside our office at Nygårdsvej – and it was fantastic to follow their progress over the 2 days to the completed piece above.
It’s been ages since I’ve had a solo afternoon up at Louisiana. Reminded me a lot of my first half year in Copenhagen, when I didn’t know all that many people (hardly any actually) and Louisiana was the place I could retreat to, to lose myself in the exhibitions, forget how lonely it was and empty my brain of all the things there are to think about when you’ve uprooted yourself and moved to another country. Things have obviously changed since then, and I’m well settled (most days) – but being up there today, and with a lot on my mind these days – the sanctuary was the welcome break I didn’t know I’d needed.
Sophie Calle
The sheer creativity of French photographer & writer Sophie Calle has me so SO inspired. There is a follow-through with each concept that I’ve rarely seen before, and each concept is so clear, solid and well thought out – that I found myself exploring every little detail to the end. Imagine – finding an address book belonging to a stranger and deciding to make a project out of it by contacting every person in the book, interviewing them one by one to build a mental picture of who this address book owner is – coming closer and closer to knowing him, without actually knowing him.
Or how about inviting friends, family and strangers to, one at a time, sleep in your bed for 8 hours each so that you could photograph them sleeping? The result is 28 sleepers and 173 photographs. How intimate – inviting so many, even strangers (one of them drunk), to sleep in your own bed. Interestingly, despite the personal nature of sleep, the installation remains unsexual and anti-romantic – as the sleepers arrive one at a time and do not talk about anything deeply personal during their interviews.
And the biggest of all (if the others bordered on obsessive, this tips the scales) – “Take Care of Yourself.” Calle receives an email from a lover ending their relationship – at the end of which her ex-lover says ‘take care of yourself’. How she does that is just epic – she distributes the letter to 107 women professionals, from grammar professionals who scrutinize his writing, to psychiatrists who evaluate his mental profile, from actresses who act out their own would-be reactions to such a letter to opera singers who sing the ex-lover’s words. Calle is quoted as saying that at first it was therapy, seeking and documenting all these professional evaluations of the letter, but that in the end it worked – the project replaced the man, and the suffering was gone. The woman really knows how to pour everything into a project. Hats off to that.
Next time you’re near Kongens Nytorv check out the European Environmental Agency building (next to the French Embassy). As part of their contribution to the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity they’ve created a living façade consisting of 5,000 plants to demonstrate some of Europe’s plant biodiversity. Their creation also shows just one possible way of bringing more of the necessary green space into cities – via vertical gardens!
The living façade will be in place until October. Just imagine how it will look by July! I also like how they’ve hung images of the plants instead of actual plants wherever there are windows – so that it’s still livable for the people inside.
Came across New York photographer Erin Mulvehill at FFFFound recently and was mesmerized by her remarkable “Underwater” series.
They’ve got an ethereal quality to them that’s sometimes dream like, sometimes eery, sometimes deathly and sometimes like an awakening – depending on the photo. Yet regardless of their differences, all of them are strangely intimate.
A clever concept, the SleepBox (area: 3.75 m2) addresses the need for quick access to sleep facilities for people on the go. The designers envision it being placed in airports, train stations and shopping centres.
Architects Goryainov and Krymov have thought convenience and hygiene (to some degree) into the design (between users the bedding would be automatically changed, with sheets wound from one roller onto another) – but my imagination immediately starts doing laps thinking about their application in reality (something perhaps a little human supervision & maintenance might address). Apparently I’m not the only one: here are some of the more entertaining comments posted at various blogs:
SexBox
“Love the general idea but wouldn’t be a place for young lovers (or something worse) to express themselves????”
“Great idea but will clearly become a rude box in no time, I can see prostitutes loving them, finally they get their own offices.”
“Japanese coffin hotel meets love hotel. Perfect match. I would only use it for sex. I’m not a day time sleeper.”
“Wank Bank “
” If the box is rock’n don’t come knock’n…”
When shopping and eating less is not an option
“I can recall so many times when i’ve been out shopping or had a big meal and just want to have a little nap before going off and about my day.”
As a long time lomography enthusiast, the Blackbird 35mm Fly camera (a successor to the classic Holga) made a quick hop onto my wishlist…
“…the Holga is also known for its unpredictability, as every one is just a little different. Most have light leaks, and those leaks are not going to be the same between any two Holgas. This unpredictability contributes to much of their charm, and was taken to the extreme by some photographers as it became a popular camera for “shooting from the hip.”
What the hell is lomography? It was in the early 1990s when two students in Vienna, Austria, discovered a small enigmatic Russian camera, the Lomo Kompakt Automat, and started a new style of artistic experimental photography of unorthodox snapshots. In the blink of an eye the Lomographic message spread around the planet and people from North to South were screaming for Lomo LC-A’s.
Spent a lovely afternoon wandering around Louisiana, admiring the courage and the vision of some wildly different artists – each focused on colour: nuances, relationships, interpretation. Interesting – the instant reaction to each piece, depending on how the colours had been set together.
Works spanned two centuries, and ranged from impressionists to spectacular light installations. Hardly a better way to spend a Saturday and definitely recommended. Make sure to check out Yoyoi Kusama’s “Gleaming Lights of the Souls” while you’re there.
“COLOUR in ART is a magnificent, visual journey of discovery into the inextricably close, but often stormy relationship between artists and colour in the twentieth century. It takes the viewer through an array of brilliant works by the greatest names in modern art.
COLOUR in ART includes each and every nuance. Here you experience the entire history and development of modern art, seen and told through colour. Comprising 150 works by 72 different artists, the exhibition explores how artists – from the late 1800s until today – have worked and experimented with taming and interpreting colour as a medium.”
Reduce, reuse, and recycle’ urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, this approach only perpetuates the one-way, ‘cradle to grave’ manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place.
Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful and highly effective. Waste equals food.
Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new – continually circulating as pure and viable materials within a ‘cradle to cradle’ model. Drawing on their experience in redesigning everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved in making anything can begin to do so as well.”
In some (many) months from now we’ll build a room for Thor in our otherwise open NY style loft – consisting in large part of the elements we’ve collected here. I still love the way big change makes way for redecorating and sourcing new ideas. Maybe this is part of why I’ve moved so many times? No.. a little.. maybe.
Art & cuddly things
