In this season of low but growing light, DesignInquiry shares a few recent epiphanies.Â
Aside from their [Christian] religious connotations, EPIPHANIES, as bursts of sudden perception and knowledge, are welcome manifestations of illumination during winter’s darkest hours. After the holidays, after the annual fundraising appeals, in a tumultuous moment, DesignInquiry wishes to share with you diverse work that has recently sparked a change in perspective. Here’s hoping that 2018 is a year of potent thinking and making for you and yours.
Amy Sillman: “Making a painting is so hard it makes you crazy. You have to negotiate surface, tone, silhouette, line, space, zone, layer, scale, speed, and mass, while mass, while interacting with a meta-surface of meaning, text, sign, language, intention, concept, and history. You have to simultaneously diagnose the present, predict the future, and ignore the past — to both remember and forget. You have to love and hate your objects and subjects, to believe every shred of romantic and passionate mythos about painting, and at the same time cast your gimlet eye on it.â€
Isabella Rossellini, at 64, is pursuing a master’s degree in animal behavior. Green Porno continues to inspire.
A Philosophy of Yogurt Making. There’s something fabulously magical and reverent about unswaddling a jar of yogurt and checking out its bacterial dairy transformation. It’s sincerely easy to make, and made daily the world-over. With each batch, liberate yourself from just one more plastic yogurt container.
The End. Hans Erich Nossack on loss.
The closing sequence of Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 sci fi film Arrival turned to Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, both film and score as epiphany.
No Word for Wildness. Enrique Salmon.
Andri Snær Magnason's Iceland’s Dark Lullabies harkens back to the worship of Norse gods. Featuring the Graduale Nobile Choir conducted by Ãrni Heiðar Karlsson. Partially recorded in Binaural Stereo. Listen on headphones for the best effect. Additional sound design by Phil Channell, Producer Neil McCarthy. [Also available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jcnpr#play
Or here https://podtail.com/podcast/seriously/iceland-s-dark-lullabies/]
On Zoo Radio, Mentor birds with 10-foot wingspans. Wildlife biologist Jan Haber talks about finding and capturing the last wild California Condor.
Hanna Tuulikki’s Air falbh leis na h-eòin | Away with the Birds, a complex project well worth the time. It “explores the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song and the sensitive ecologies of the islands and highlands of Scotland. At its heart is a fifty minute composition in five movements, written for an ensemble of ten female vocalists. Once you enter the project you can explore two hours of film, half an hour of music, over two hours of commentary, field recordings of over twenty birds, fifteen new drawings and audio recordings of nine Gaelic songs and five poems.â€
A quiet showstopper: Golden Letter winner Ornithology by Anne Geene & Arjan deNoy [graphic design by Jeremy Jansen].
“The orphaned collection, the immaterial collection, and the infinite collection.†Finders Keepers exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, until 11/02/2018.
Finally, two critiques of the work of Maurice Sendak and Charles Schultz, neither new but both relevant. Maria Popova on Open House for Butterflies prompted by a meditation on starting again, in this season of low but growing light. And Sarah Boxer on “The Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy,†prompted by the publication of Celebrating Snoopy.
JOIN US for DesignInquiry REWRITE next summer.
REWRITE in Devon, UK August 6-10, 2018.
REWRITE on Vinalhaven, Maine June 24-30, 2018.
next summer.
We love to hear from you. Request a questionnaire to REWRITE 2018 or drop us a line to share an epiphany.