Everyone’s making eco bag these days, but the environmental credentials of green bags aren’t very clear cut. TBWA’s tongue-in-cheek range of Eco Bags are a breath of fresh air and a reminder that appearing ‘green’ isn’t the same as acting green.
Monthly Archive for June, 2009
Long before “Big Brother” was a reality TV-show; it was introduced into the wider vernacular by revolutionary author George Orwell, and this month we celebrate the sixty year anniversary of his timeless classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Without a doubt, Orwell’s work is one of the most influential and socially significant novels of the modern era. First published in 1949, it tells the tale of protagonist Winton Smith living in a dystopian world, where Big Brother, the Thought-Police and incessant propaganda have eroded any hope of collective freedom for the citizens of fictional super-continent “Oceania”. Orwell’s themes are manifold, and his bleak prediction of a world ruled by fear and oppression served as a timely reminder to the potential tyranny of state authority. Continue reading ‘big brother turns 60′
“Deadline” is a stop-motion film by Bang-yao Liu, at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Also watch how they made it here.
proving the world is a small is place
It’s often easy to lose perspective, but a visit to the World Press Photo Exhibition at the Powerhouse will serve as a profound and ultimately grounding experience. The 52nd annual event showcases the very best of photojournalism around the world, capturing the state of the world in 2008. The Beijing Olympics, crippling poverty, and the beauty of nature feature prominently, as does the state of the world economy, all played out as a visual tragedy. Flying the Aussie flag is Mark Dadswell, who won second prize in the Sports Action Singles category by capturing the agony and the ecstasy of Usain Bolt as he won the 200m men’s final at the Olympics. The calibre of the imagery and the confronting social issues make this exhibition one not to miss.
Designed by the Dutch firm West 8, the Simcoe St Wave Deck just recently opened at the Toronto Habourfront. This wooden deck mimics the graceful curves of water, and the shape naturally entices people to run, climb, sit and slide. It adds a fun flair to what otherwise could have been a normal footpath. Continue reading ‘wave deck’
It is hard for a sighted person to imagine what it is like to be blind. The innovative and award winning children’s book “The Black Book of Colour’ invites readers to explore what it’s like to read with their fingertips by using black raised line art against black pages to illustrate the story. The descriptive, sensory text, such as “yellow tastes like mustard, but is as soft as a baby chick’s feathers” is featured in both printed text and Braille. This beautiful and clever book makes me think how colour is such a powerful design element to almost everything, and I’ve always been intrigued about how the colour is our rooms, our clothes or other things can make us feel better or different. Today, pink is making me happy. I think pink tastes like your kiss, and is as sweet and fluffy as fairy floss.
James is 25, fresh out of art school and utterly lost. His best friend Emma is stuck in a dead-end job, might be pregnant, and thinks she’s in love with James. The trouble is James is gay. Then again, there’s always the married man with the comb-over at Emma’s work … Simon and Gary are also looking to James for love. But James reckons Simon is just a kid and Gary’s old enough to be his father. Everyone obsesses about passing life’s use-by date as they drift through the coffee shops, bars and apartments of Brisbane. Richard Jordan’s award-winning new play is a heartfelt slice of sex in our very own city. Forget about Generation X – this is all about Generation Why? See Queensland Theatre Company’s latest work, 25 Down, playing at Bille Brown Studio until July 4, 2009. Buy your tickets here.
DJ Derek describes himself as a late-night person. He also a fan of real ale and is renowned for having visited every Weatherspoons pub in the UK. Although he is 68, Derek does not feel out of place when he takes the stage to mix reggae music in front of thousands of young revellers at gigs such as Glastonbury Festival and The Big Chill. His love for reggae and music evolved out of spending much of his adulthood soaked in the culture of the West Indian immigrants that arrived in England in the late 1950s and 1960s and his rise to fame in underground British music circles hasn’t always been easy. This charismatic senior has more ‘street cred’ than most British DJs and he has an encyclopaedic appreciation of music to keep him level with current music trends and infusing them with those of yesteryear. The world would be dull without interesting characters like Derek, and when you stumble across one you can’t help but smile. 
This short documentary about DJ Derek was compiled by Jamie Foord and Russell Smith.
For those who miss the soothing rhythm of watching a game of tennis …
Josh Pyke and Andrew Denton think Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ will be number one in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of All Time. Rosie Beaton thinks Muse’s ‘Invincible’ will top the charts. And Missy Higgins thinks Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way’ will perform well. Just what is the best song of all time? It’s really hard to decide, but surely the songs that have defined generations will be front-runners. Those that come to mind include Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – the winner of the Hottest 100 of All Time from 1998, ‘Alive’ by Pearl Jam, ‘Paranoid Android’ by Radiohead and hot favourite ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ by Joy Division. You’re allowed to vote up to 10 times for your favourite song, so at least you don’t have to narrow it down to one song. If you vote, you go into the running to in a trip to the Reading Festival in the UK. And remember you can vote for anything from iconic Beatles songs to Peter Combe classics, it’s up to you!
Did you ever wonder what happened after the final page of a fairytale? While most choose to maintain a more idealistic view that the protagonists really did live happily ever after, others beg to differ. Photographer Dina Goldstein, who admits she did not grown up being read fairtytales, offers her own insight into the fates she imagines might have have befallen Snow White, Cinderella and other favourite childhood characters.
Samson and Delilah is an indigenous-Australian story told without words. Winner of the Camera d’Or first film prize at Festival de Cannes 2009, it has a tendency to leave some viewers speechless while stirring the reverse reaction in others. When the film, produced by Kath Shelper, screened to an outdoor audience of 2,500 mostly indigenous locals in Alice Springs earlier this year, there was an electric mixture of laughter, tears and hope crackling in the night air as the crowd related to one of their stories told in their way. Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton says his film is essentially a snapshot of what remote indigenous Australia looks like right now. It’s a story of petrol sniffing, boredom, neglect, despair, judgement, displacement, injustice, love and hope. It’s a plain view of our country that not many of us get to see. But it’s through a lens that can zone in on any teenager of any background in any town. The issues it raises are often hard to talk about, but Samson and Delilah’s stories are getting people talking the world over. And talking, in itself, is a positive way forward. Continue reading ‘live dreamer – kath shelper’
How much packaging do you discard each day just for the sake of convenience? From your take-away coffee, to your bottled water, to your muesli bar at lunchtime, to the packets of chips, single-serve two-minute noodles, and canned vegetables, the few seconds you spend removing the packaging probably means nothing to you. But to the environment, it could mean hundreds of years in landfill, suffocating the Earth’s surface. Determined not to be responsible for such degradation of the planet, Londoner Catherine Conway decided to create her own solution – a place where all of your everyday needs, from food to toiletries to cleaning products, would be available in bulk so that you could bring your own containers to refill. Almost two years later, Unpackaged Store has been embraced by London’s consumers with great enthusiasm, with a refill rate of 75%. But while Catherine is proud that her idea has come into fruition, in reality it’s only the very first step.
Clean, fluid lines cut silhouettes of modern femininity and understated elegance as models parade the catwalk in The Rocks’ Overseas Passenger Terminal. It’s the 2009 Rosemount Australian Fashion Week and this is the debut runway show for Melbourne-based label Arnsdorf. Launched only two years after creator Jade Sarita Arnott graduated from fashion design studies, Arnsdorf was picked up by prestigious boutique Marais in its first season, is now stocked in the venerated likes of Brisbane’s Blonde Venus, Sydney’s The Corner Shop and Melbourne’s Fat stores, and just this minute released into cyberspace with a new online store. Continue reading ‘national dreamer – jade sarita arnott’
Elizabeth O’Connor-Cowley is eternally inspired by designers like Frenchman Philippe Starck and fellow Aussie Marc Newson. It is their capacity to design everything from airport control towers to palaces (Starck), from jet planes to Olympic swim suits (Newson) that fires her creative soul. Elizabeth’s design brief is, currently, a little narrower but just as life affirming. When she launched her natural fibre kids wear label, eeni meeni miini moh, with husband Philip Cowley in 2002, Elizabeth finally lulled the creative frustration within her, which she presumes had simmered since she was a tiny tot (note: a constant childhood urge to re-arrange her bedroom). Breaking all the business rules, the couple ordered their first container load of clothing without one stockist on their books. Seven and a half years later, the gamble has paid off with their label for 0–12-year-olds stocked in more than 150 stores around the world from Australia to Spain, and a new lifestyle range in stores too. But Elizabeth says it’s only early days – they’ve still a long way to achieve all that’s in their heads.
Continue reading ‘local dreamer – elizabeth o’connor-cowley’
Etsy.com strives towards a new economy to buy, sell and live handmade. It was #44 in Fast Company’s Top 50 companies of 2009 and with $90 million in sales, it’s a interesting business model that also shows shopping for handmade items still has a place in our often overly mass-produced culture. Chi Designs is one local Brisbane designer you can find on Etsy, selling cute handmade clutches, purses and bags. In a simple search, you can find 254 results come up for Brisbane designers alone.
Public transport is slightly different in almost every city, and most people pass through stops and stations without giving a second thought to these important pieces of urban infrastructure. “69 Stations” is a photo essay by David Topping, where he photographed all the subway stations in the Toronto system. He describes the subway as “still an obstacle between where we are and where we want to go”, but coming from a city without a subway, I think it works pretty well.
If you were lucky enough to see it, Earth from Above was the stirring, photographic installation project of Frenchman Yann Arthus-Bertrand that toured the world. A decade in the making, the collection of images taken from the air, documented both the World’s natural and man-made happenings. Not satisfied with either the exhibition, or DVD of the same images, in 2009, Yann, who was possibly inspired by Jehane Noujaim’s Pangea Day, is releasing Home. In partnership with French film director Luc Besson, and a global PR firm, Yann is simultaneously broadcasting the film on the same day in over 50 countries. That day, is World Environment Day, June 5. There’s no place like home. (Apologies, it’s late…;)
