Ugly New Buildings

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Dan Witz - Ugly New Buildings 1

Dan Witz - Ugly New Buildings 2

Most of the so called “street-art” pieces are so boring and overused, but sometimes some guys like Dan Witz from NYC hit it so perfectly that we can’t get arround…

About his gentrification-critical series “Ugly New Buildings” he says:

“This year’s series, “Ugly New Buildings”, addresses how in the past few years much of my neighborhood in Brooklyn has been torn down to make way for luxury housing. Personally, I can’t say I like the new modern architecture very much. For the most part it’s sterile and alienating and so arrogantly disconnected with its surroundings sometimes it seems like giant alien space ships have landed in the night. But resenting gentrification in New York City is futile, like complaining about the weather or other forces of (urban) nature. For this year’s project I decided to work with it.
These are photo-based, heavily re-painted stickers, mounted on plastic and glued to the walls of the Ugly New Buildings. In May I put up around 30 and about half are still there.”

via Wooster Collective

Please refer also to The Wall

Learning from a potato perspective

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

potatoperspectiveSee, the thing is: I like gathering things I consider beautiful. These ‘things’ can be objects or images I saw, thoughts I found, ideas, activities, whatever. And then I like to go and share what I find…This project by Åsa Sonjasdotter is many things at the same time: It is about art and activism, about self-empowerment, about agriculture (past and future), about the beauty of diversity, about the beauty of people, about questions of sustainable living and cultivating, about the preservation of indigenous knowledge and culture, about europe and regulations, about personal experience, engagement and learning…you name it.

I find her work with this project deeply inspiring, educational and beautiful.

Now you take a look (www.potatoperspective.org).