pop-up culture

they say that in tough times, creativity blossoms.

as money is scarce in the arts, innovative thinking comes into major play and one key movement has been the 'pop-up' exhibition space. landlords and estate agents are clocking the advantages of offering empty shops to curators and artists to set up for days /weeks / months. fashion brands have been doing this for ages (comme des garcons the most obvious), banksy has done it, so it was only time until the flow reached others.

san francisco has a programme 'art in storefronts' up and running, backed by the Mayor (article here http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=35742 (thanks to curating.info)), new york has a 'no longer empty' initiative, numerous pop-ups in london and interestingly, salon gallery of london have just released details of a competition they are running for young curators to win the chance to put on a show - 'london's next top curator'. check out http://www.salongallery.co.uk/ for details on how to apply. crap title but a great chance for young graduates which is very much needed.

from personal experience, it's pretty difficult to find landlords open enough for suggestions on this, but i'm sure that says more about here and anything. ho hum. although there has been one - the 'aaaaart shop' in the main shopping centre here. so hopeful signs that it'll catch on. i do hope so.

time to get self-motivated to fill the empty with the full.

p.s. interesting article on this subject here (another favourite blog worth keeping an eye on) - http://newcurator.com/2009/02/slack-space-empty-shops-as-exhibition-space/

bubble, burst

it is wedding season at the minute and my third was this week. i felt adventurous and decided to make a statement head-piece = an origami cube, made out of beautiful paper (in a colour, complementing my homemade dress) and placed, nestling in my hair.

stood outside the church waiting to go in, a tramp inquired as to why i had a cardboard box on my head. yep. i know what you're thinking, he probably fancied it for himself but that just totally killed it for me. hilarious. i guess the origami swan medallion i made will have to wait...

so today, catching up on some of my favourite blogs, i saw these images from LAMagazine of a shoot by Billy Kidd (full spread here - http://www.lagmagazine.com/beauty/editorial.php?uid=nWqKCt7i58nq7X1pr4G0) on susie bubble's http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/style_bubble/. beautiful, and totally the look i was going for, although perhaps not so full-on.

also, interestingly, spotted these paper shoes on another favourite, http://www.highsnobette.com/ of work by ndeur, (http://ndeur.wordpress.com/), a leg of the le creativ sweatshop, as part of 'ndeur + make a paper world'. good good stuff.

the use of a material out of it's usual and in an unexpected form is always fascinating. and of course, shoes just make my day. more on this juxtaposition, i promise.