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.

The post heARTbeat: Our Readers’ Top 5 Favorites of 2011 appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnPhotographer Frieke Janssens takes us back to a time when smoking was aspirational.

When I was a little kid, both my parents smoked. Movies made smoking aspirational. And it wasn’t unusual to go into public spaces and come out smelling like a dirty ashtray.

Now, utilizing the glamour, lighting and drama of a 1940s Hollywood portrait shooter, Brussels-based photographer Frieke Janssens confronts us with the unexpected shock of seeing children smoke, posing in very adult vignettes (with, uh, cheese substituted for cigs). After getting over the initial jolt and settling on the images themselves – part of a series called “The beauty of an ugly addiction” – the shots beg a few questions.

Tom Tack in his article for I Love Belgium:

The children, aged four to nine, are shameless posing while enjoying their cigarette or cigarillo. So why kids? By portraying adults as children all the attention went to the smoking. An adult would draw too much attention to the portrayed person. Thus these portraits evoke questions such as: is the smoking ban the right way to get rid of an absurd addiction and are smokers treated like little kids who can’t make the difference between good and bad? While Frieke doesn’t give answers, the portraits are strong enough to start your thinking process!

Indeed they are, as we consider the personalities of: Pipe with Contempt, The Bourgeoisie Holder, Fag Ash Lill and Exhale Worries.

In part, Janssens was inspired by that infamous YouTube video of an Indonesian toddler addicted to a 4-pack-a-day nicotine habit. The project also coincided with a general smoking ban introduced in Belgium where, as in America, socially acceptable opportunities to smoke in public are being stubbed out. Janssens was also moved by the fervent reactions Americans have towards smoking, especially our response to the Indonesian toddler.

Janssens says of her craft:

A picture has succeeded, when you can look at it for a while. It can not only just be beautiful neither only interesting. It needs both.

Check out the video Janssens produced while creating “The beauty of an ugly addiction.”

Images via Frieke Janssens.  Inspired by a post in Go To Public School.

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: Smoking Kids Photography by Frieke Janssens appeared first on EcoSalon.