ColumnA retrospective: 2011 in heART.
The fusion of conscious art and sustainability into what we now call heARTbeat was first published this year in May. Seven months and dozens of heARTbeats later, we bring you the top five stories that made you take pause.
#5: heARTbeat: #walkingtoworktoday Project by Michael Surtees
After this was published in July, Michael wrote to me:
I just wanted to mention how much I appreciate you taking the time to write a post about #walkingtoworktoday. You’ve given it a huge boost. It has been an interesting experiment watching how photo sharing has evolved and fragmented over the years. When I first started it, email and uploading images to Flickr from a mobile phone was slightly unusual. Now with apps like instagram it has become second nature.
#4: heARTbeat: Qi Wei’s Exploded Flowers Portend the End of a Season
Photography is a crowd pleaser with our readers, and Qi Wei’s Exploded Flowers struck a chord with a fresh take on perennial flora favorites.
#3: heARTbeat: Tomaas’ Photographs Consider Plastic as “The New Black”
Tomaas has a clean, advertising quality to his work that works beautifully for editorial. No wonder we all loved it. He’s selling reuse of the most ubiquitous and toxic throwaways in existence: plastic.
#2: heARTbeat: Ran Hwang’s Art Transcends The Idea of a Woman’s Work
Ran Hwang’s installations dazzle us with her scale and ambition. At the same time, the art of her labor forces us to stop and consider the time consuming results of these gorgeous odes to repetitive manual work.
#1: heARTbeat: Smoking Kids Photography by Frieke Janssens
Ultimately photography compelled our readers most in 2011. Frieke Janssen stunned us with a world that fortunately doesn’t exist, seducing nonetheless. Movie star looks and lighting give way to vignettes of children smoking. Janssen reminds us that anything in just the right light makes even addictive behavior that much more interesting to look at.
heARTbeat: Miru Kim’s Nudes – the Pig That Therefore I Am
Miru Kim’s bravery, sensitivity and originality made this my favorite heARTbeat of the year. With art, I aspire to be surprised, even a little shocked, and Kim does just that with this series.
Here’s to more artistic inspiration in the same vein in 2012.
Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.
