Today I present another project by Candy Chang. An interesting installation on a side of an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans. She transformed it  into a giant chalkboard where residents could  fill in the blank and remember what is important to them in life. The project is also about turning a neglected space into a constructive one where we can learn the hopes and aspirations of the people around us.

Responses of all kind were collected. They are being documented and many will be included in a book. Once the wall is filled, they will wash the board with water and begin anew again.

Check out the wall of responses after one day!… Photo strip here!

Este es un proyecto que lleva a cabo en su barrio de Nueva Orleans, donde mediante el diseño de unas sencillas pegatinas crea un elemento de comunicación para que los vecinos expresen sus deseos en los edificios y solares vacíos o abandonados (una especie de what if .. analógico)

Las pegatinas son de vinilo y se pueden retirar fácilmente. Esta divertida herramienta permite recoger las respuestas de los ciudadanos de los distintos barrios reflejando sus esperanzas, sueños,  necesidades, etc…

Miles de pegatinas se distribuyeron de manera gratuita en comercios, cafeterías, librerías, bares, salones de belleza, etc..

Candy Chang invita a repetir la idea en cualquier ciudad del mundo….

Más info sobre el proyecto

Más imágenes en flickr

FAVELA PAINTING IS A PROJECT BY THE FIRMEZA FOUNDATION

The Firmeza Foundation creates striking artworks in places where people are being socially excluded. The foundation collaborates with local people to use art to combat prejuducie, create sustainable solutions, and attract the world’s attention.

The artworks contribute to the sense of pride and awareness in the communites where they’re produced. By making each step of the creative process open and community-driven, the foundation cotrnibutes to the education of local youth and motivates residents to improve the living environment in their neighborhoods.

In 2005 we went to brazil to shoot “Firmeza Total”, documentary about the youth in favelas (slums) of Rio and Sao Paulo and the role rap music plays in their lives. We were very inspired by their nergy and creativity, the power to make something out of nothing.

Driving through rio while shooting the film we werw very impressed by the way the favelas are built on the steep rockfaces in prominent places throughout the city. We imagined how this beauty could be accentuated by painting the houses or even a whole favela, depicting one huge image.

In 2006 we reured to Brazil to do research for this project. We visited many favelas looking for a suitable places to paint, always making sure we knew someone from the area who could show us around.

We found three houses in Vila Cruzeiro, one of Rio’s most notorious favelas. Different designs were presented to the people living in the houses and the neighborhood representative. Everyone liked the design of a boy flying a kite best. Something that all kids do in the favela.

The kids we worked with learned how to use a grid to set up the drawing and different painting techniques. Meanwhile they helped document the process with photography and video.

After weeks of plastering, climbing scaffolds, waiting for the rain and shootouts to pass and a lot of painting the mural in Vila Cruzeiro was completed early 2007.

About on fifth of Rio’s population lives in some 700 favelas. Although many have access to running water and electricity, most lack the basics in healthcare facilities and education. Help the children of Rio’s favelas use their creativity to fight social exclusion. Help us make more and bigger paintings.

We organise courses in art, design, film and photography with the purpose of providing the youth with the tools to communicate their talent to the world and possibly pursue a creative career.
Favela Painting works in collaboration with local cultural centres where possible, such as the IBISS centre for the youth in Via Cruzeiro. IBISS (Brazilian Institute for Innovations in Social Heathcare) is a local organizsation fighting social exclusion in over 50 favelas in Rio. (www.ibiss.info)

Due to a lack of opportunities many kids end up working for the local drug boss. The kids who painted with us in Vila Cruzeiro wee part of “Soldados Nunca Mais”. A program by IBISS that offers youngsters alternatives to a life in one of the drug gangs.

With the mural, Via Cruzeiro received a lot of positive attention from Brazilian and international press alongside countless online blogs.

We organise exhibitions with our own artwork and photografy to promote Favela Painting. In 2006 we exhibited in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum (Rotterdam) and in Studio Apart (Amsterdam) in 2007.

All steps of our project are documented, resulting in a huge library of images. So far we have created documentaries, video-installations and music-videos for local artists.

The artworks that were shown at the exhibitions were auctioned by Christies during different events organised by Favela Painting.

Dre Urhahn
Bron in Amsterdam in 1973. After two years of studing Chinese in Leiden he started working in media. He has been working as a journalist, copywriter and art director and has set up succesful companies handing anything from event-management to television-production.

Jeroen Koolhaas
Born in Rotterdam in 1977, Joroen studied design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven where he followed courses in different media including graphic desig, architecture, product design and animation.
He graduaded as graphic designer but has since been working as an illustrator for the New Yorker and freelance audio-visual designer. His work cab be found on www.jeruniverse.com.

source: www.favelapainting.com

“Scientists think that ice will probably disappear from the North Pole for the first time by this summer 2008 due to the global warming. We would like to express our solidarity with the hungry – and probably angry – polar bears that will soon reach our lands (?) trying to find some dry land and food. What about architecture?”

This was how we started presenting our project - LONDON . BREATH . S - for a floating art gallery competition on river Thames in London. We were saying something like: “Hey, if architecture isn’t able to radically change his relation with nature, we’ll soon have some angry polar bears in London!”.

A few months after this competition, it’s surprising and very funny to see that 3d production experts “Hothouse IWG” created  the Polar Bear and cub sculpture, seen floating down the Thames on Monday.

Here is an interesting video of the making of the sculpture.

More info here and there.

- LONDON . BREATH . S – credits: Francesco Cingolani, Massimo Lombardi

source: http://www.creativematch.co.uk/

I’d like to present this curious group all composed by young women who invaded London’s streets with cakes.

Below is an extract from their web space www.myspace.com/thegreatcakeescape

THE GREAT CAKE ESCAPE
we would love to see cakes invading the streets every day… So get baking, cake crusaders, and a trail of brightly coloured treats shall populate the urban landscape forever more!

from baker street to old street…
from spitalfields to hoxton square…
here, there and everywhere…
find me//read me//take me//EAT…
if you dare.

T-A-K-E-T-H-E-C-A-K-E
FONDANT FANCY and CHERRY BAKEWELL would be delighted to bring cakey magic to a street
or event near you… what started as a birthday wish,
extended to a little project to keep us out of mischief and boredom…
and now the cakes have taken us on many fantastic adventures
and we’re excited to see where the cakes shall escape to next…ideas,
challenges and requests on a postcard please! Or message/email us…takethecake@hotmail.co.uk

Superuse is based on a simple but effective concept. For the viewer, it is a big database of recycling-related projects in various fields (design, architecture, art, etc) and for its registered users it is a community whose members can submit stuff and vote other people’s sumissions. As a social network Superuse doesn’t seem to allow super fancy profile pages, but this is not necessarily a bad thing since it keeps it hardcore to the posting, the voting and the commenting. More than a tool for professionals to promote their work (even though it can also be used as such) the website is about being passionate and showing appreciation for recycling, with tons of links to pages and Flickr sets. The voting thing makes the sharing tastier, and we know sharing is one of the internet’s best virtues.

The graphics and interface themselves are rather slick and clean, with lots of thumbnailed submissions directly accessible from the homepage and a quick navigation system. I could find just a couple of flaws, like the rather undressed profile pages and having to scroll down to see who has voted each project.

The people behind the project are the brilliant dutch studio 2012 Architects (also founders of the Recyclicity foundation and soon to be featured on the next Yearbook) and Suite75.

source: www.yskira.com

the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community…

I think it’s a nice tool for the momet to start up a project when you need an excuse to motivate yourself and decide for example… the colors!

web: www.urbansketchers.com

Artech 2008 is the fourth international workshop held in Portugal and Galicia on the topic of Digital Arts. It aims to promote contacts between Iberian and International contributors concerned with the conception, production and dissemination of Digital and Electronic Art.
Artech 2008 brings the scientific, technological and artistic
community together, promoting the interest in the digital culture and
its intersection with art and technology as an important research
field, a common space for discussion, an exchange of experiences, a
forum for emerging digital artists and a way of understanding and
appreciating new forms of cultural expression.

ARTECH 2008 is also Co-located with the Events:
Olhares de Outono 2008 New Trends in Digital Arts Festival, 3-8 Nov. 2008
Digital GAMES 2008 Conference on Digital Games, 6, 7 Nov. 2008

http://www.artes.ucp.pt/artech2008/

Main Topics:
Main areas are related with sound, image, video, music, multimedia and
other new media related topics, in the context of emerging practice of
artistic creation. Although non exclusive, the main topics of the
conference are:

* Art and Science
* Audio-Visual and Multimedia Design
* Creativity Theory
* Electronic Music
* Generative and Algorithmic Art
* Interactive Systems for Artistic Applications
* Media Art history
* Mobile Multimedia
* Net Art and Digital Culture
* New Experiences with New Media and New Applications
* Tangible and Gesture Interfaces
* Technology in Art Education
* Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

ARTECH 2008 INSTALLATIONS PROGRAM -

http://www.artes.ucp.pt/artech2008/installations.html

Friday, 7 November 2008
Installation Session #1 – 9:30 – 20:30

Sala de coro (floor -1)

Instalación Interactiva “JCC, Brain Research II”
Agueda Simó

Sustainabillity & Extinction
Bello Benischauer

Speaking at the Wall
Chiara Passa

Pink Music on FF Sale
Ciustódio Ricardino e Vitor Lago Silva

VideoSpace: a 3D Video Experience
Telmo Rocha e Teresa Chambel

Blood Landscapes
Richard O’Sullivan

Bar (floor -1)

Composição VIII
Paulo Cezar Barbosa Mello

Rádio room (floor -2)

Fonema Visual
Rui Figueiras, Marta Duarte e Miguel Cunha

—————————————

Saturday, 8 November 2008
Installation Session #2 – 9:30 – 20:30

Sala de coro (floor -1)

Instalación Interactiva “JCC, Brain Research II”
Agueda Simó

Sustainabillity & Extinction
Bello Benischauer

Speaking at the Wall
Chiara Passa

Pink Music on FF Sale
Ciustódio Ricardino e Vitor Lago Silva

VideoSpace: a 3D Video Experience
Telmo Rocha e Teresa Chambel

Blood Landscapes
Richard O’Sullivan

Bar (floor -1)

Composição VIII
Paulo Cezar Barbosa Mello

Rádio room (floor -2)

Trame
Ivano Morrone.

BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group won the competition of designing and creating the danish pavillion for the Expo Shanghai 2010.

It is designed as a big double-helixshaped string – which throw the visitor from the ground – through the shape – 20 meteres up in the air – and down again. It is a journey of ecological picnics, by foot or bike, playgrounds etc.

The whole builiding is supplied with bikelanes and citybikes for the visitors – in the center of the pavillion it is a pool with water from the harbour of Copenhagen. You can take a swim – watch the national treasure that illustrate the fairytale of H.C. Andersen with the same name, the sculpture of the little Mermaid, made by Edvard Eriksen (1913). The people of Denmark is debating about the issues of moving the sculpture to Shanghai.

The winning project is focusing on the relation between Denmark and China, and are capturing many positive elements, that the chinese are relating with Denmark.

It is a pavillion with sustainable solutions – danish solutions in the climate – and energyarea.

BIG

WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN

MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC AND BUISNESS AFFAIRS