If you follow TBTP, you are probably aware of my admiration for street artist Seth Globepainter aka Jukien Malland. This week, following the horrific terror attacks in Paris, he left a simple, but moving message for the world. Using one of his wonderful child characters, he painted the longtime Paris city motto on a wall at Place Ménilmontant in Belleville. The very apt Latin phrase Fluctuat nec mergitur means “tossed but not sunk”.
Comedian Greg Benson may be from Texas, but he effing loves New York City. His highly condensed, expletive-laden tour of the city hits just enough of the highlights to feel his love for the Big Apple. If you can handle the language, it will put you in a New York state of mind too.
NSFW:
Sean Yoro, aka “Hula”, is a Hawaii-born, New York City-based artist who made waves last year with a series of photorealistic murals of women that he painted from his surfboard. His latest project, called “The Warning”, involves equally dramatic paintings on sheets of acrylic, which are fixed to icebergs.
Completed at an undisclosed location in the North American Arctic, the project aims to raise awareness about people already being affected by rising sea levels due to climate change.
I’m always ambivalent when I see a new set of book art collages from British artist Alexander Korzer-Robinson. The Bristol-based artist’s work is undeniably brilliant and original, but I can’t help cringing when I think about the irreplaceable 19th and 20th century volumes that are destroyed in the process.
Korzer-Robinson creates the amazing 3D collages by painstakingly cutting out the text and leaving just the images from books in a process that took months to refine. Here’s how he describes the work:
The book pieces in the pictures have been made by cutting into the books, cutting around some of the illustrations and removing others. The composition is built only using the imagery that is already in a particular volume. I try to create hints of a narrative in my pieces without being too concrete, and this is something people seem to respond to. It is an invitation to the viewer to engage with the imagery, to enter into a dialogue with what they see.
You see more of the work and even purchase prints of the collages on the artist’s website.
TOMO Mags is a converted short bus that rolls around Houston (and sometimes Austin) Texas offering print periodical lovers the chance to purchase hard to find indie magazines and journals. The mobile magazine shop, which turns up at coffee shops, galleries, art spaces, and retail stores, stocks more than 200 periodicals from around the world.
The unique rolling newsstand was created by partners Vico Puentes and Keiwing Chong. You can follow TOMO on Facebook to see where they’ll turn up next.
Many years ago, on my second or third visit to London it finally dawned on me that it was often much quicker to walk to some locations than to take the Underground. Now Transport for London has finally created the first official Tube map showing the walking times between nearly all of the stations in the network. The clever map will be a real boon for confused tourists who often misjudge the distances between London’s tourist attractions. Now they can make more efficient use of their limited time and maybe even get to know the city a little better.
You can access a pdf version of the full map here..
images: ©TFL
LeVar Burton, beloved host of the Reading Rainbow Public Television show and star of Star Trek: The Next Generation shares “11 of the most beautiful sentences in literature” in this little video below:
I rarely endorse Kickstarter projects, but Call Me Ishmael is a worthy literary project that deserves attention. Honored by the National Book Foundation with the Innovations in Reading Prize, Call Me Ishmael has already surpassed its modest Kickstarter goal. Inspired by the famous opening line of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick, the Call Me Ishmael Phone uses repurposed vintage payphones to help book lovers discover great reads. This video explains it all:
h/t to Aubrie Rudnick for this post
We have all seen the horrible pollution that has been accumulating in waterways and on beaches around the world. Well, the brilliant Washed Ashore project in Bandon, Oregon on the shore of the Pacific Ocean is doing something about it and simultaneously working to raise awareness about the dangers to our marine environment.
Under the direction of lead artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi, Washed Ashore has organized thousands of volunteers who have collected more than 17 tons of plastic debris from beaches. Some of the trash, which is 90% petroleum-based plastic, has been transformed into colorful sculptures of marine creatures.
The non-profit community organization takes the art work on the road for awareness raising exhibits on pollution in aquatic environments. Along with stops around the Pacific Northwest, Washed Ashore has brought the travel show to far-flung corners of the U.S. as far away as Florida and Texas. This year, the exhibition will be featured at the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C..
Visit the project’s website to learn more and possibly make a donation.
Since returning to Iceland this summer after many years away, I’ve become a little bit obsessed with the extraordinary island nation. If you have ever been there, you will understand where I’m coming from. With the largest unspoiled wilderness area in Europe, Iceland is an environmental treasure. So, it’s depressing to find that the most pristine areas of Iceland are under immediate threat from rapacious developers.
This week,Björk and the Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason held a press conference to announce the launch of a global campaign to pressure the Icelandic government to stop the construction of further hydroelectric dams for the production of electricity. They are especially concerned with plans for a high-voltage cable between Iceland and the UK, which they argue would create increased pressure for further damming up of rivers and the utilization of geothermal areas. You can watch the whole press conference (in English) below.
Björk and Magnason are among founding members of the environmental group Gætum garðsins, which translates as “Protect the Garden”. The group proposes the creation of a National Park in Iceland’s pristine Central highlands, ensuring the area is protected and preserved for future generations. Even though a large majority of Icelanders support the creation of a National Park in the highlands power companies have opposed the idea, while they plan to build new power plants and high voltage transmission lines in the highlands. The Icelandic government has supported some of these plans.
If you care about protecting Europe’s largest wilderness area, you can help by signing a petition at the Heart of Iceland website protesting the development. You can also contact the Icelandic embassy in your home country to raise concerns about these misguided projects. Local embassies can be found through www.iceland.is/iceland-abroad/ .
