Design & Gardening: Design Museum's Designs of the Year 2010 & Window Farms

 Photo from www.designsoftheyear.com

I was at the Design Museum this past weekend for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2010 exhibition. This exhibition was worth a see, there are lots of inspiring ideas from architecture,  fashion, furniture, graphic, interactive, product and transport designs including this year's winner Min-Kyu Choi with his Folding Plug.

The museum was also showing Sustainable Futures that showcases the changing role of the designer and reveals how design can make a difference. There were a few good ideas but I didn't feel this exhibition was very comprehensive as it focused mostly on environmental design. The food/ecology section was interesting but wasn't ground breaking.

Recently, my very good friend Heather from Backyard Farms Toronto has send me this post from Design*Sponge and I thought New York's Window Farms was much smarter, accessible and easier to build one yourself. Window Farms are vertical hydroponic vegetable gardens growing from recycled materials (such as water bottles), clay pellets, and equipment that can easily be purchased inexpensively from any local hardware store. There are kits available from the Window Farms website but unfortunately not for sale internationally. Good news is there are tutorials on how to build one from scratch in their Community section of their website.

Photo from WindowFarms Flickr

Last year, I've turned my bathroom into a greenhouse (unfortunately there was an aphids plague and killed all my plants). This year I've started a mini window still garden – basil, thyme, chilli, sage, lemon, parsley and tomatoes. I'm inspired and intrigued to build a Window Farm. It is a great alternative to curtains or to block that ugly view from your window and also grow your own fresh herbs and vegetables.

Nightlife: Orphanage Valentine Dance

Date: Saturday, 13th February, 2010
Event: Orphange Valentine Dance
Promoter: The Last Tuesday Society
Venue: Stone Horse Paper Cow (128-140 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4HX. 020 7377 9555) 
Who: Angela, Elsie, Hamish, Zara


Hamish and I were photographed by WeKnowWhatYouDidLastNight.com

 

Culture Vulture September

Last week, I joined as an ICA member. I was far too excited to get my hands on these events in September through advanced sale, and thought it was worth it. Shame that I've only got one ticket to each event, I'd love some company but it's always ending up begging people to go or my friends are too skint.

I've already took advantage of my membership and booked these within the hours, I can't wait for these:

Douglas Coupland on What Words Look Like
Thursday, 3rd September



Douglas Coupland has always been one of my favourite modern writers, not just because he's Canadian. He captures the IT generation quite well, although thought JPod was a bit smug but his characters were always so interesting.

Helvetica
Tuesday, 8th September



I've been waiting to see this documentary for AGES! AGES! A documentary on a typeface! How amazing is that? And best thing was, there was a deal with Douglas Coupland talk, film was discounted! yay!

David Mitchell and Robert Webb on the Death of Television
Friday, 18th September



I love the Peep Show. Thank God for my membership prior tickets, because this show is now sold out! I can't wait for this!

I'm actually quite interested in going to the Joe Sacco talk as well, that's at the end of September. Will decide as the date comes closer.

Theatre: Samuel Beckett's "Not I"

When: Tuesday, 7 July, 2009 @ 1930
Where: The Purcell Room, South Bank Centre: 2009 London Literature Festival

I love Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot was one of the plays I’ve read in high school that I didn’t hate and I still love it to this day. I recently saw the play again at The Theatre Royal Haymarket starred Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Despite it was the most elaborate stage production of Beckett I’ve seen, it was also the best production of this play I’ve seen mainly because of the actors.

Tonight, I attended the evening of Samuel Beckett’s Not I performed by Lisa Dwan as part of the London Literature Festival at Southbank Centre. Full house. It was the most intensive nine minutes and forty-seven seconds of theatrical experience in my life! To make the Purcell Room pitch dark, black curtains was laid throughout the space, and a sole spotlight was on “the mouth” exactly eight feet from the stage. Lisa Dwan began her monologue at the speed of thought.

The play concluded with a Q&A session chaired by Michael Conevey, unfortunately due to illness, Billie Whitelaw couldn’t be present; a taped interview was shown instead. As always, Beckett had extreme specific stage direction and the length of each “.”, “..” and “…”, which was heavily guarded and monitored, by Beckett’s estate. The actresses must have “white voice” meaning — they should not “act”. “The mouth” must not move away from the light, a discipline that can only be achieved by physical restraint. Whitelaw had herself strapped; Dwan had a pair of tights, blindfolded and had her ears blocked. Whitelaw compared performing the piece to "falling backwards into hell"; Dwan says it is like driving the wrong way down a motorway without any brakes. Whitelaw being heavily coached by Beckett himself, has passed on all his and her notes to Dwan — the “Not I” legacy passes on.

Having done a bit of research about this play, I had a slight idea what I was getting into but had no idea I would be blown away by the performance. I’ve tried to read the play; it was impossible how anyone could remember word per word and dots by dots. I appreciate the performance even more after the Q&A session and the length the actresses had to go through for it. It was also an interesting concept of thoughts out-loud. A verbal stream of conscience —scattered yet alert. I’m very intrigued to read and see other Beckett plays now.

Art & Culture: Antony Gormley & Damien Hirst

(left) Antony Gormley // Blind Light // 17 May - 19 August 2007
05.29.06.07 @ Hayward Gallery (Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, London, SE1 8XX)

(right) Damien Hirst // Beyond Belief & For the Love of God // 1 June - 7 July 2007
04.05.07.07 @ White Cube (25-26 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU)


Antony Gormley // Blind Light
Zoe and I went to see Antony Gormley's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre. As we entered into the gallery, we saw this giantic metal sculpture on our left and the infamous Blind Light installation in front of us. We couldn't help it but to experience that first. "Blind Light" is a glass room filled with fog, where the audience will became part of the art itself. We couldn't see anything but mist when we were inside, we stayed close to each other. It was bizarre, you can hear people but you can't see them until they came up real close.

Next we went to see "Allotment" which is a room full of concrete blocks which was meant to look like urban landscape. Each is cut out with a cube you can look through them and walk through the concrete forest. Then we went back to the main area and looked at "Space Station". A breathtaking sculpture of metal cubes combining together to form space. The upstairs gallery features his wired matrices of himself. Loved it!

Canada Day in London
After the exhibition we walked to Trafalgar Square to attend the Canada Day in London celebration. It was lame. None of the food promised was there, there was no poutine, bison burger was £5. So we went to the Maple Leaf instead. Met up with Matt and Audrey, had a pint of Sleemans and poutine, we went back to the Square and met up with Niki and Paul. K'naan was alright and Sam Roberts was boring. Niki insisted to go back to Maple Leaf, I wanted to meet up with Zoe's mates and Jarvis at The Phoenix. I was so bored at the Maple Leaf, and it was a MISSION to get them outta there. The phoenix was fun, I met Greg, infamous Tommy and his girlfriend Laura, and another friend of theirs. A bit of mix bag of a night...

Damien Hirst // Beyond Belief // For the Love of God
The White Cube itself is quite an interesting venue as it is situated in a middle of a square with offices around. We had to queue about half an hour for the viewing of "For the Love of God". Once our group was let through upstairs, it was curated by a security guard with a long list of instructions to put our bags against the wall, and informed us we'll be entering a pitch black room but eyes will get used to it, no touching the glass and so forth. Zoe and I entered the room, everyone's focus was on the infamous diamond skull. It was magnificent! I love how the skull had a missing tooth, it was the imperfection in the perfection. After about 3 mins of viewing, the security thanked us for visiting and our time was up. Zoe and I went back to the front and see the rest of the exhibition. Damien Hirst explores the fundamental themes of human existence -- life, death, love, truth, immortality and art. We first face a series of "Birth Paintings" which was actually paintings of his son's birth, Cyrus, by Caesarean section. The series illustrates the brutality yet tender images of horror and beauty of a childbirth. Downstairs was the series of "Biopsy Paintings" which we found was a bit eerie since it was based on a series of biopsy images of cancer patients with the rich texture of broken glass, choice of redness "blood" and razor blades. We did enjoy walking through the Natural History series, the infamous half shark, half cows, sheep, fish, butterflies. His last piece "Nativity in The Adoration" was the most amazing, it was a knife through a heart with wings, it is where Hirst questions art, science, faith, pain and religion. Amazing!

After the exhibition, we met up with Gavin at Ed's Easy Diner on Great Newport street for some malt shake and Astro Fries. It was amazing! You can read my review here on TrustedPlaces. We were soooo full!! We went to See Woo for a quicky browse and picked up some rice noodles and said our byes. It was a good day.



Damien Hirst // White Cube Hoxton Square: Beyond Belief
On Saturday, 7th July, I went to the last day of the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Hoxton Square location. I am glad I went to this one after I've seen the one at Mason's Yard. The collection is a bit smaller. But this time the "Biopsy Paintings" has deeply affected me more, especially knowing they were biopsy images of dying cancer patients and lumps of hair in the paintings. The Hoxton Square collection continues questioning about faith. The first piece as you walked in was the stunning "Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain" which was representation of the Saint's martyrdom -- glass tank with a black calf with arrows through the body. "Nativity of The Adoration" showed a medical scenario with 3 dead sheep in kneeling position to a silver baby skeleton. "God Only Knows" featured another 3 sheep in crucified positions. Upstairs was a small collection of the post-birth painting series of Cyrus and his wife Maia.



After thoughts
Antony Gormley challenges the human body as a habitation and how the body form interacts with space, landscape and environment. Whilst Damien Hirst challenges the deeper meaning of the human form: faith, technology, love, life and death. Most Hirst's installations were cast in glass tanks where Gormley's were free structured. Although interestingly enough, Gormley's "Blind Light" was a basically a large glass tank and filled with fog, where people can see the silhouettes from the outside and became the subject of the art form. Are we the cut up shark and dead sheep in this case? I like both exhibition, but reckon I have more emotional reaction to Hirst's collection, I suppose it was more in your face and it questions the higher meaning of life and death. But both exhibitions were well curated and I highly recommended to anyone to see them both.

Cultural Weekend: The Social, Mosaïques Launch Party, The Crimea at Primrose Hill

Friday: The Social

Jarvis invited me to come down to The Social for a drink. It was also his friend's birthday. I got there around 10:50pm, the cozy bar was loaded with people. Jarvis introduced me to his friends, Zoe and Jenny, they're from Swansea, Wales. Jenny is the birthday girl who works at the V&A. Her boyfriend Simon also works there and also there were a few colleagues of hers at the drink. Zoe and I chatted away, we have lots of crafty interests in common. Her boyfriend Gavin is bandmates with Jarvis, Gavin seems cool. They were all very fun and friendly people. We got kicked out of the bar shortly after 1am. It was pouring outside. Jarvis asked if we could meet up for coffee or lunch sometimes. I said yes. He walked me to my bus stop, he texted me an hour later to see if I got home okay which was very sweet of him...


Saturday: Mosaïques Launch Party

Elodie invited me to the Institut Francais for the launch party of Mosaïques 2007. We missed the screening of Transvylvania due to our lazy arses. The Institut Francais is erected in the posh South Kensington. Apparently that's a French area, stores and even corner store sells French imported things. The Institut is quite big and there's a high school attached to it. We were escorted to the VIP upper section of the theatre for the gig: DJ Click featuring Tziganiada. It was interesting, Balkan music with an electro infusion. The dancer was great. Eventually audience broke off their shells and started to stand up and dance, it was great fun. We went back downstairs for our free drinks. I've never heard of such thing as Vodka & Apple Juice, Elodie insisted that it's THE drink in France. It's actually every nice and refreshing. Due to my sucky alcohol tolerance level on empty stomach, i started feeling a cramp as we were on route to Primrose Hill.


The Crimea at Primrose Hill

We got there around Midnight. The park was huge and it was dark. We climbed the never ending hill following the cheers of the crowd. When we got up to the top of the hill, people were shouting "Andy! Andy! Andy!", and there were quite a crowd there. The Crimea kicked off the launch of their free album (which is available to download for free on their website) with a free gig. Great concept. It reminded me the time that Ninja High School launched their 7" at some park at midnight, I missed that gig. Little did we knew, they've already played a whole set prior to our arrival. We only caught the encore in the end as the police started arriving. The best part was when Andy started playing his guitar along to the pre-recorded Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca". I met Owen's girlfriend, she was lovely. The view on top of the hill was magnificent, you can see the London Skyline. I was caught in the moment and almost had teary eye because I thought Mike was suppose to take me there 2 weeks ago (but was it turned out he was suppose to bring me to Hampstead Heath, which is less posh). Speaking of, I've decided to give myself a break from him for a bit and focus to find work. I've met a few cute guys this week which I have completely forgot they existed because I was so keen on just the one guy! Anyway, after the band packed up their stuff, we then went to a pub called Quinns along Kentish Town, near Davy's. I didn't stay long coz my stomach was still hurting so I went home.

Not sure what I'm doing today. Suppose to play Kickball today but it's pouring outside.