The Pervaya Eltsovka River consists of two subterranean pieces, an old littered one and a new one - that is still being built.
The old part represents square tunnels, stink and much litter. Here comes different household rubbish that is dumped by people upstream. As a result, the collecting header is blocked by congestion of plastic bottles.
From Mind Games:
The Dutch proverb “a Jan Steen household” originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings. The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. I am the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 yrs. ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real.
The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issue that I investigate in this body of work. We live in a culture where we are both “child centered” and “self-obsessed.” The struggle between living in the moment versus escaping to another reality is intense since these two opposites strive to dominate. Caught in the swirl of soccer practices, play dates, work, and trying to find our way in our “make-over” culture, we must still create the space to find ourselves. The expectations of family life have never been more at odds with each other. These issues, as well as the relationship between the domestic landscape of the past and present, are issues I have explored in these photographs. I believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary. It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that my life as a mother parallels my work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged. As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos.
Alex Cornell's vast designs are at once elegantly simple and infused with a sprawling, dry wit.
My friends and I have made a blog (well, technically it's a tumblr). It's called The Pantograph Punch and it's basically the most e-fun a person can have.
I came up with the name while trawling wikipedia one evening - traditionally, pantographs were an instrument used to copy writing (they kind of look like a compass) and the pantograph punch was a machine used in the 1890 U.S. census. The name reflects the intention of the blog - finding cool things on the internet and transposing them into this pretty wee receptacle.
I first became acquainted with Maira Kalman's work when I bought The Principles of Uncertainty on a whim (thank you, Amazon recommendations). It turned out to be the better choice over Alice in Sunderland anyway, which I still can't muster any enthusiasm for.
Anyway, I just discovered that she blogs for the New York Times (which continues to amaze me with its overwhelming breadth). And the Pursuit of Happiness is themed around American democracy, starting with Obama's inauguration. My favourite is probably In Love with A Lincoln but Can Do and I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door are pretty good too ("then came dinosaurs and motorcycles").
