ColumnDrawing a labyrinth with salt is like following a trace of my memory. ~ Motoi Yamamoto

An art installation, by definition, assumes the viewer experiences the work where it is installed.  Looking in through the window of photographs limits our experience, but sometimes the peek has us longing to put ourselves there. Such are the salt works of Motoi Yamamoto.

Yamamoto says:

Many of my works take the form of labyrinths with complicated patterns, ruined and abandoned staircases or too narrow life-size tunnels, and all these works are made with salt.

His work with the medium began after the 1994 death of his sister, who died of brain cancer.  He adds:

Since then, I have had the dilemma, in grief and surprise, of thinking about what I had and lost. I started making art works that reflected such feelings and continue it as if I were writing a diary.

Working with salt is a tricky choice. Yamamoto finds the space, the conditions and the medium itself lead to the conclusion.

During the course of drawing, I cannot tell it if will reach the essential point till its very end because lines are curved or cut against my intention. It depends not only on my psychological or physical condition, but also on the condition of the floor or the level of humidity. I always silently follow the trace, that is controlled as well as uncontrolled from the start point after I have completed it.

Yamamoto’s ability to stay present leads us into his meditations with respect for the results, wonder at his vision, and a desire to put ourselves into the vastness he attains with little more than a pile of salt.

Motoi Yamamoto’s Labyrinth, 2012 is on view at Bellevue Arts Museum till May 27, 2012. Enjoy this video of Yamamoto installing the piece:

Inspired by Anna Brones who found the work on Trendland.

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.

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ColumnHow civilized are we, really?

When artist, Ali Golzad was ten years old, he was forced to flee his native Iran, and live as an orphan in Sweden until he was reunited with his parents three years later. As a result, he has a strong affinity for the estimated twenty million traumatized and abused children who are displaced by armed conflicts or human rights violations around the world.

Golzad says:

To me the plight of child soldiers and children abused as sex slaves escapes notice in the civilized world which causes me to question how civilized we really are. To me, these are invisible people.

Golzad’s use of recycled cardboard to reveal these unseen victims has an uncanny effect on our emotions, and his.

I have struggled with my material to create images that are highly emotional. The three-dimensional shapes of the eyes, noses and mouths, the wrinkled clothing, and the shapes of the hands and arms, outlined with Sharpie-lines, are a result of my struggle with the cardboard to capture the empathy we would have for any enslaved people.

As his forgotten subjects imbue new life and meaning into cast-off materials, Golzad does so, so that we might see through his eyes into theirs. It is hard not to.

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.

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Column A new series explores how development and industry effect trees.

Designers Raw Color and Studio Maarten Kolk Guus Kusters (MKGK) have created a new series called Temporary Trees. As written by Kahlil Gibran:

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.

For the last eleven years I have been living among oak, eucalyptus and bay, trees that reach heights of up to 150 feet. When you live with trees like that, it is possible to respect and admire their strength, beauty and complexity. A few years ago, Sudden Oak Death swept through our swath of Northern California. We lost a couple of very big trees. It was a humbling experience.

“Temporary trees‚ Poplar & Oak”

When I saw the Temporary Trees project, it struck a chord of fragility and pathos with its intent:

The project is a social commentary on how plant-life, once cherished, is now forgotten in favor of development and industry. Trees are often regarded as objects and are removed according to the landscape plan ruthlessly. In the Netherlands trees typically reach only one tenth of the age that they could make.

For Raw Color and Studio Maarten Kolk & Guus Kusters trees are anything but static. They are ever changing life forms that determine how we experience light, shade, wind and changes of the seasons. This observation is translated to illusions‚ of trees in different materials, that represent the life, dynamics and transformation of trees.

“Temporary trees‚ Weeping Willow & Plantan”

The project, part of Make a Forest, an international platform, will be presented at Object Rotterdam 2012.

“Temporary trees‚ Pollard Willow”

May Temporary Trees and the Make a Forest project continue to inspire tribute to the diversity of our forests, encouraging us to embrace what we’ve got, before it’s gone.

Check out the video of the making of Temporary Trees.

Leaves – Temporary Trees from Raw Color on Vimeo.

Inspired by a post on designboom

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.

The post heARTbeat: ‘Temporary Trees’ Gets Us Thinking About the Real Thing appeared first on EcoSalon.

Looking from above for the earth underneath you.

Sometimes if it’s out of context, an aerial view can be disorienting. Perhaps because of this, aerial images can also intrigue and seduce. David Hanauer counts on this visual play as our senses veer towards the gorgeous patterns created by his designs for Worldwide Carpets.

Hanauer, a German design student, has set about creating contemporary Persian rugs by bringing the ancient tradition up-to-date. Utilizing screen shots from Google Earth, Hanauer grounds landscapes onto the floor, and into our consciousness from a fresh perspective. By developing symmetry with a central point, we experience Persian patterns as we have never seen them before.

Hanauer was trained as a tailor, and worked for fashion house Escada before discovering his love of design. His works, some sold by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, turn our perceptions back on ourselves.

Aiming to create new functions with not-so-new forms, Hanauer’s conceptual ideas resonate as his abilities with new applications invite us to look down from above for what we experience on the ground.

For more on Hanauer’s design process and inspiration check out this video done during preparation for the International Design Festival in Berlin.

Inspired by a post on dangerousminds.net, images via David Hanauer

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal 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.

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Mozart Guerra communicates complex emotions with simple rope and styrofoam.

Taking cues from cultural taboos and evolutionary allusions is definitely the territory of artists. Mozart Guerra’s sculptures are bold graphic statements that could halt traffic with their visual punch.

The Girl from Kyoto 2

Guilty Pleasure

Guerra is a Brazilian who studied architecture in his country, working as a set designer for theatre, cinema, and TV in Brazil while developing a sculptural style employing rope as a medium. At home in Paris since the nineties, Guerra has exhibited his work worldwide. In October of this year, he will exhibit in Luxembourg.

The New Rich

Distilling ideas down to our ancestral roots, Guerra confronts us with our primate nature, cultural clichés and sexual stereotypes. In The Girl From Kyoto 1 and 2, we are forced to gaze on the face of the geisha, with lips painted red but mute. His 3 Wise Primates hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil; literally. The New Rich assume the trappings of hip-hop culture to a graphic, visual beat.

 The 3 Wise Primates

The Girl From Kyoto 1

Guerra’s art succeeds with simple materials and strong line. His dramatic presentation and emotional content cause a double-take at his ability to convey an arresting image with only the twist of a rope.

May his inspiration continue to unwind.

images via Mozart Guerra

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal 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.

The post heARTbeat: Mozart Guerra Ties Emotion into his Sculpture appeared first on EcoSalon.

A fashion photographer gives us a fresh take on the ubiquity of plastic.

Plastic never fully decomposes. Over time it goes through a process of photo degradation and may break down into smaller and smaller pieces.  But as of this moment, every bit of plastic that has ever been created will never totally disappear.  What does it take to look at plastic differently, the remains of bottles, plastic wrap, straws and containers that are everywhere? What can we do to make them work for us, instead of throwing them into an “away” that doesn’t really exist?

Tomaas presents us with a view of plastic that has us consider the potential beauty of a material that we have a complex and inextricable relationship with.  The Plastic is the New Black series uses commonplace  items to embellish models with the very substance that surrounds all of us daily. The photographer’s context makes us see the medium in a new light – not that of trash, but fashion.

A German, Tomaas has spent most of his career working in New York. Originally a travel photographer, fashion and beauty seem a natural choice for him. His clean, boldly contrasting studio work lends itself to a certain, pristine conceptual expression. This series is a case in point.

What was your motivation for Plastic Fantastic?

Tomaas:  Prior to Plastic Fantastic…I’d shot a story called Eco-Beauty, using everyday materials.  It was published in several international magazines and exhibited at the Icon Gallery in NYC.  The team I worked with had such fun that we decided to do a similar shoot but focus on one material alone.  The more we researched, the more we became aware of plastic.  It’s everywhere and it’s so versatile. You could almost say that among materials, plastic is the “new black.” The story is an ode to this material.

We may not be ready to abandon our natural fibers and breathable fabrics.  But considering the ubiquity of the medium, and the fact that it isn’t going away any time soon, perhaps Tomaas is on to something.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal 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.

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Hao-Ni Tsai’s work seeks to juxtapose material with culture, informing a new kind of textile craft.

In her series of Hybrids, Textile Futures Textile, textile artist Hao-Ni Tsai experiments with transforming fur sourced from western cultures, indigenous Taiwanese fibers and traditional craft technique into new combinations of sculptural adornments.

The work’s natural beauty,  textural complexity and the fact that we have not seen them in just these combinations makes us question their source.

Cocoons nestled into headdresses, sisal binding merino wool, the pith of rice paper, horsehair and pineapple fiber all create new shapes that seem ancient and contemporary at the same time.

Born in Taiwan, Tsai studied at Central Saint Martins and lives in London. The artist innovates textiles with a fearless approach by using a variety of handwork that includes traditional crafting, knotting, looping, knitting and binding. The result is that her textile combinations produce pieces of unique interest and boundless imagination.

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Stop and take a snapshot of the roses the next time you #walktowork.

Perhaps, dear reader, you’re wondering what the deal is with that # in the title. A late night writing mishap that slipped past the editors? Hardly. It’s part of the curious language of  Twitter, like a compound noun, that the Twitter-savvy refer to as the hashtag. For the uninitiated, it’s a way of organizing your tweets so that others looking for similar content can search and find it.

#Walkingtoworktoday is a photography project started by Michael Surtees, a multidisciplinary designer, writer and educator who strives to explore people’s daily experiences and observations through design.

The concept behind #walkingtoworktoday is to create a “library” of shared experiences utilizing open source tools, mobile devices and cameras, and an everyday occurrence, like walking to work.

Here’s the drill:

#Walkingtoworktoday is open to anyone and the guidelines are pretty straightforward.

1.Take an image while walking to work.
2. Post the image to flickr and tag it with walkingtoworktoday (all one word).
3. Tweet the title of the image with the hash tag #walkingtoworktoday along with a link to the image on flickr.

Sometimes the results are banal; other times, sublime. At the very least, they’re usually interesting.  The subject matter’s not really the point since the beauty of Surtees’ project goes beyond the pictures themselves. Contributors might be in New York, where Surtees resides, or halfway around the world. The hashtag is what unites the effort.

More meaningfully, the concept slows us down and asks us to interact with our surroundings with a fresh perspective (something this column aims to achieve).

Should you find yourself #walkingtoworktoday, perhaps you will be inspired to open up, pause, and take the opportunity to share.  If you do, let us know. Just remember to use the hashtag.

All images are from  flickr.  Two years ago Surteess put this video together as he was thinking about design in New York City.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal 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.

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