culturalboundaries

Hibakusha Stories Film Festival

Witness to Hiroshima is a short documentary by my good friend Kathy Sloane a photojournalist from Oakland, California.

Just in time for Mother’s Day, so bring your Mom, friends or anti-nuclear family too!

Hibakusha Stories and Maysles Cinema present:
Docs on Nukes — nuclear narratives through the art of film
Maysles Cinema
343 Lenox Avenue
(Malcolm X Boulevard)
New York, NY, 10027
Between 127th and 128th
2,3,4,5,6, A,B,C,D subways to 125th street
212-582-6050

Witness to Hiroshima
Directed by Kathy Sloane, 2010
Running Time: 15:56 minutes

Japanese citizen Keiji Tsuchiya, using his 12 powerful watercolors, recounts his experiences in Hiroshima as a 17-year-old soldier immediately following the dropping of the atomic bomb, and relates those experiences to his subsequent life-long commitment to saving the Japanese horseshoe crab and its habitat. http://www.witnesstohiroshima.com
Witness to Hiroshina Trailer

Post screening panel discussion with filmmakers, Kathy Sloane and M.T. Silvia and Kathleen Sullivan, PhD, Program Director of Hibakusha Stories.And Special Sneak Preview
Atomic Mom
Directed by M.T. Silvia, 2010
Running Time: 87 minutes

Atomic Mom is a documentary about two women, both mothers, who have opposite experiences of the atomic bomb. After decades of silence, a daughter’s quest for truth leads to the exchange of an olive branch between an American Scientist and a Hiroshima Survivor.
http://www.atomicmom.org

The GAP tees are now in stores. After a few delivery issues snafus from their factory, they finally arrived.  I want to thank all of you for your patience and support.
Gap (RED) is featuring a few artworks by Len Davis for their Limited Artist Edition Spring/Summer line. One of the three t-shirt designs are in Gap stores today.  The other two designs will be in stores on May 10th.
Look for the in-store signage for Gap (RED) Limited Artist Edition tees.
All proceeds go to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS in Africa. http://www.joinred.com/Learn/HowRedWorks.aspx

I have a knack for meeting incredible people and quickly adopting them as lifelong friends. Archie Boston, a Los Angeles-based designer, author and educator is one of those people. Recently, I was talking to one of my fellow design critters, Alan Rapp, when I noticed a book on his desk, Fly in the Buttermilk by Archie Boston. Alan told me he had just finished writing Archie’s profile for the upcoming “Design Journey” Exhibit that opens on May, 19th at the AIGA headquarters in NYC. Then he told me that another fellow design critter, Mike Neal, was one of Archie’s students at California State University Long Beach. I approached Mike at the end of the Crossing the Line: The 2010 D-Crit Conference this past Friday told him we share a close friend Archie Boston. His face lit up like a Christmas tree, as he ranted about his thrill at having had Archie as a design teacher, and that he viewed him as a mentor and father figure.

Watch this video on VideoSurf or see more Videos or Art (Law & Order: Cr Videos

A few weeks ago Archie sent me an email with a post announcing his retirement from teaching after 30 years, and included a video of his last lecture. (See this remarkable man at work). I’ve know him for almost twenty years, we met when former graphic designer Fo Wilson and I co-curated an exhibition “21: African American Designers Challenge Modern Stereotypes,” held at Parsons School of Design in NYC, in 1991. The show featured his work and since that time we have remained design friends. Here’s a few samples of Archie’s work from his self-published book. And check out Archie’s award-winning designs, plus his videos clips from his DVD, “20 Los Angeles Designer”.

Contact: Archie Boston to order his book and his DVD’s.

Email: bostona@earthlink.net

Proceeds from Archie’s booksigning will be donated to the VCDA Student Group at CSULB.
Proceeds from this FU lecture DVD will be donated to the Archie Boston Graphic Design Scholarship Fund at California State University, Long Beach.

As reported by The National Design Museum

“Ted Muehling Selects” is the 10th in a series of small one-gallery exhibitions in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Gallery. The museum invites guest curators from all around the world to create exhibitions and installations interpreted in their own voice from works in the museum’s permanent collection.

Check out Ted Muehling’s splendid retail shop located in Soho.

If you ever thought paper dolls were just for little girls, think again! Instead of Ilisha Helfman recycling the pile of Sunday Times Magazines that litter her house, this Graphic Designer and toy maker has created an exuberantly colorful line of paper dolls that function like puppets with moving parts. These dolls are made from the award-winning NY TIMES covers designed by Design Director Arem Duplessis. I’m sure Arem would be pleased to know his cover designs have found another use. Crafitinista Ilisah Helfman’s paper doll kits are sold at Leafpdx, a store she owns with her husband, Joe Freedman. Check out these wonderfully crafted interactive paper dolls. Before you throw out your Sunday Times, maybe you too will find another use for it besides fodder for the landfills.

Apparently French Vogue has  featured Dutch supermodel Lara Stone in Blackface in the fashion spreads . While Marc Jacob’s Spring collection for Louis Vuitton has shown his models sporting huge Afros styled wigs like political activist Angela Davis, and blaxploitation film actor Pam Grier on this springs Paris Fashion runways. What’s up with all this appropriation of black culture? And blackface haven’t we passed this or does the presence of white models in blackface makeup underscore the lack of black models on the runway? Or is this some fantasy being played out by fashions designers just to call attention to this seasons fashions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zandile-blay/black-face-in-italian-vog_b_320328.html

AGO 2010 Exhibit Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu at work in her Brooklyn Studio in conversation with art curator David Moos from AGO Gallery in Ontario, Canada.

Mutu’s work tackles hard topic of  hyper-sexualized Black females in her work, and at the same time she challenges the viewer to rethink their concept of the black female body.  She composes  intricate collages assembled from scraps of visual images from fashion magazines or medical journal then she overlays broad strokes of watercolor to give a sensibility of transparency ambiance. At times the viewer might find her work disturbing because of the vial content the position of the female bodies or the politics of violence.  She also shows her women as empowered figures.

Wangechi Mutu’s work boldly explores the contradictions of female and cultural identity, drawing the viewer into conversations about beauty, consumerism, colonialism, race, and gender. Her representation of the human forms are disturbing and transfixing, at once utterly complex and strikingly direct.

DESIGN JOURNEY: AIGA national will showcase the works of 25 designers from diverse backgrounds is set to open on May 19, 2010 in the national headquarters in New York City.

“Design Journeys” is a collection of stories about the professional lives, contributions and portfolios of historically underrepresented designers that serves as a publicly accessible comprehensive body of research honoring their accomplishments. Individuals selected for “Design Journeys” will be published in an online archive that includes visual samples of their work with an insightful, biographical essay. A traveling exhibition is planned for 2010.

Join us in celebrating these extraordinary designers:
Gail Anderson, creative director, design, SpotCo
Archie Boston, founder and principal, Archie Boston Graphic Design
Andy Cruz, owner and art director, House Industries
Charles Dawson, artist and designer
Aaron Douglas, artist and illustrator
Emory Douglas, graphic artist
Rafael Esquer, founder and principal, alfalfa studio
Karin Fong, director and partner, Imaginary Forces
Sylvia Harris, information design strategist
Lorenzo Homar, graphic artist
John C Jay, global executive creative director and partner, Wieden+Kennedy
Steve Jones, principal and creative director, Plantain Studio
Garland Kirkpatrick, founder and principal, Helvetica Jones
Saki Mafundikwa, founder and director, Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA)
Chaz Maviyane-Davies, professor of design, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston
Pablo Medina, founder and principal, Cubanica
Rebeca Méndez, founder and principal, Rebeca Méndez Communication Design
Bennett Peji, founder and principal, Bennett Peji Design
Samina Quraeshi, co-founder and principal, SQ Design Publishers
Edel Rodriguez, artist and illustrator
Art Sims, founder and CEO, 11:24 Design Advertising
Lucille Tenazas, founder and principal, Tenazas Design
Michele Washington, founder and principal, Washington Design
LeRoy Winbush, founder and principal, Winbush Design
Maurice Woods, founder and chair, Inneract Project

The essence of Dubai’s Menalab is to explore the role of Design in affirming Emirati identity, designing a livable space in Dubai and promoting cultural understanding among the UAE‘s diverse residents.

Design is connected to everything; it is a powerful force that has the potential to create significant social impact and ultimately change our lives. That said, designers have a great responsibility to serve the community using their knowledge and experience to positively influence what is being designed and consumed.

Excerpt from NYTIMES: He’s Got It Bad, or ‘Baad,’ for His Art, from Ben Sisario’s interview.

ASK Melvin Van Peebles about his legacy, and you get a snort, a grimace, a wave of the hand, a game-show error buzz and a finely punctuated “come on.”

Greg Tate, cultural critic and musician.

Burnt Sugar has been described as a “funk-rock-electronic-samba-soul-jazz-fusion whatever ensemble” and counts among its influences Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, Funkadelic, Bad Brains, Band of Gypsys, Sun Ra and Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi. Bandleader Greg Tate “plays the band” using a technique called conduction, which gets its name from the field of physics, and was developed by jazz conductor Butch Morris. Employing a series of gestures, baton twirls, eye contact, and facial expressions that are used to communicate directions to the band, the bandleader can change the melodic and harmonic structure, creating a one-time composition that could not have been predicted nor repeated.

(trailer) Burnt Sugar with Special Guest: Melvin Van Peebles. Sun Jan 10 at Joe’s Pub from amy gail on Vimeo.

More of Burnt Sugar Live in Paris: