the rich and wonderful fashion of the women of Herero

Namibia is located in the south- west corner of Africa. It has a rich history and heritage, but I will get into that another day. Fun fact of the day though, it is actually were Mad Max: fury road was filmed. Cool hey?

Today is about dress styles and fashion identity.  In particular, the ladies of Herero awesome fashion style. The women of Herero have drawn inspiration and influence of their style from the Victorian period, but with a twist. A twist of colour.  The wonderful style  is way to express their talents and showcase their impressive designs. Some women even craft and sell miniature dolls of themselves.

The style stems from a dark colonial history, but they have reclaimed it (with a vengeance)!

It is known as the ‘proper dress’ for traditional married women. The dress consists of enormous crinoline worn over layers of petticoats, a horn shaped hat to supposedly represent and are all made from the same material- all bright and colourful! Each outfit is different to show personal flair. The Herero women have become a symbol of Herero tradition.

When I was in Namibia a few years ago, I loved the Herero women. I even have one of their dolls sitting on my bookshelf to this day. I love the fact that they are drawing from the dark colonial past to reclaim and form new cultural traditions. They are claiming ownership back of their culture, history and identity through fashion!

Enjoy these images from Jim Naughten.

Herero Woman in Patchwork Dress (2012 ) 50″ × 41″; C type

Herero Woman in Yellow Dress (2012) 50″ × 41″; C type

Herero Woman in Blue Dress (2012) 50″ × 41″; C type

Herero Woman in Patchwork Dress, 2 (2012) 50″ × 41″; C type

Herero Woman in Pink and Pattern Dress (2012) 50″ × 41″; C type

Herero Woman in Pink Dress (2012) 50″ × 41″; C type

 

further readings:

http://www.jimnaughten.com/project/hereros/

http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/07/23/the-african-women-who-dress-like-victorians/

http://saharanvibe.blogspot.com/2011/09/herero-ladies-of-namibia-africas.html

 

immersive flower installations

 

Okay so while I was processing all the admin that I have to do, I got distracted and stumbled upon the fantastic flower installations by Rebecca Louise Law.

They are so amazing and beautiful.  They transform the space. They take nature inside and the relationship between indoors and outdoors is great.
It is a conceptually beautiful and intricate work and I am now obsessed with it.

Check out more below.

further readings:

https://mymodernmet.com/flower-installation-art-rebecca-louise-law/

http://www.rebeccalouiselaw.com/

https://mymodernmet.com/rebecca-louise-law-hanging-flowers/

happy international museum day

happy international museum day!

to celebrate i am sharing photographs from the tumblr people sleeping in museums. 

who hasn’t had a sneaky nap in a museum? they are the perfect place to rest your weary eyes and legs.

anyway happy international museum day and enjoy!

 

further readings:

https://peoplesleepinginmuseums.tumblr.com/

people matching artworks

 

This is just so genius.

I adore these photographs.  They are from the French photographer, Stefan Draschan.

These photographs are beautiful, funny and unique. They make a beautiful harmony between the work of art itself and the visitor. Take a look yourself. Enjoy scrolling and finding the matches.

further reading:

https://www.boredpanda.com/people-matching-artworks-stefan-draschan/

https://stefandraschan.com/

city museum: a massive playground

Now I don’t know if this is a museum or a playground but regardless it is amazing.

The space used to be a 10-story International Show company, it is called the City Museum and is located in St Louis.  It  is the brainchild of artist Bob Cassilly, who opened the museum/urban playground in 1997 after many years of renovation and construction.

While, Cassilly passed away in 2011, the museum is constantly under construction and new features are being added or improved by the a group of artists called the Cassilly Crew.

So what do you find at the city museum? a sky-high jungle gym? two towering 10-story slides and numerous multi floor slides? A rooftop ferris wheel? a circus arts facility? it is all there. Everything in the museum is sourced locally. That is super cool and sustainable!

It is like the hip arty version of Disneyland. it is worth visiting if you are in St Louis!!!!

 

further readings:

City Museum: A 10-Story Former Shoe Factory Transformed into the Ultimate Urban Playground

http://www.citymuseum.org/

 

 

Dedicated to Prince

This blog-post is dedicated to Prince.

I want to discuss and look at the community that has been drawn together by the passing of this star musician. In addition, I want to look specifically at how museums, specifically LACMA are creating a space for this community.

Sadly, on April 21^st 2016, we lost one of the great musicians, Prince. There is an ongoing investigation to how he passed away and already rumours of pill-addiction and suicide is coming out in the media. Now, Prince fans around the world have united together, like they did when David Bowie died in January. ‘Pop up memorials’ are being erected all over the world, for instance, in Sydney’s South-West a mural has been painted of the artist, similarly in Melbourne. These memorials are used as ways for fans and community members to gather and unify over the passing. People post photographs of the artist on their Instagram or Facebook. They write status updates and use hashtags to group these individual postings together.

What makes someone a Prince fan? What makes you part of this community? Do you have to love purple? Do you have to love funk? Whilst, the being part of this community itself is quite broad, it still has some key features. One specifically is that you like Prince’s music. Similarly to David Bowie, Prince represented the outsider, the artist, someone who has artistic integrity. He is suave and represents the marginalised within society. He challenged ideas of sexuality, race and gender. His music, his charisma and his beauty drew his fans; his ability to be sure of himself drew people together. As one fan has stated “ he did things that others were afraid to do, be it clothes he wore or things he sung about, he was a prolific, self taught one of a kind, true artist…” This ability to be a true artist, and speak for the voiceless made him a leader, his death echoed similarities to David Bowie’s death. Fan groups unified by the death of their idol.

It be interesting to see what happens over the cause of the investigation into his death, how the community reacts and connects, but that is for a latter discussion.

Personally though, I have been drawn to LACMA’s remembrance to the artist. Not only, does it unify and give a voice to Prince fans but it also draws and engages with the museum audience. LACMA’s Rain Room, was lit purple after the announcement of Prince’s death. It not only provided a specific space for fans, but a way to inform and create a larger museum community. It addresses both, LACMA’s art community and Prince’s fan group. It brings to groups together (whilst, they may not be so different from one another), it allows them to intersect together within the artworks space.

Images are below:

further readings:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/in_lacmas_rain_room_theres_purple_rain_falling_for_prince

http://www.lacma.org/

LACMA pays tribute to Prince with Purple Rain Room

 

behind the scenes in museums

I am sure you know that the most museums only display about 2 % of their objects in their collection. This might be due to space, restoration of certain objects, the sensitive nature of the objects themselves, etc etc.

Traditionally, museums have always kept their secret collections hidden in storage, where no members of the public are ever allowed to visit. BUT, thankfully for us now, this is changing. Museums are opening up, making open storage, where visitors are able to get a backstage pass and visit all these undisplayed collection of objects. It is happening all over the world and is not really a new phenomenon in today’s age. It still is pretty cool though.

The Smithsonian team at the National Museum of Natural History have gone one step further and made public images of these beautiful hidden collections.

The images are just amazing. They not only show the vast collection of the museum owns, but also allows us into a glimpse of some of the work museum professionals do.

 

Birds collection

Botanical collection

The Botany (Algae) collection

Entomology collection

Vertebrate Zoology (fish) collection

Collections from the Department of Invertebrate Zoology

The Mineral Sciences’ collection

The Vertebrate Zoology’s mammals collection

The Paleontology collection

Anthropological collection

The  Vertebrate Zoology’s marine mammals collection

further reading:

Inside the Secret Collections Backstage at the US Museum of Natural History

 

http://naturalhistory.si.edu/rc/cp/index.htm#

back from hiatus-international museum day

SO i am back. after a week of feeling completely out of my depth I think I might be okay for now. So to get started. FIRSTLY! HAPPY INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DAY! And to celebrate I found this cool tumblr during my week hiatus called: http://art-conservation.tumblr.com/

Did you know that good ol’ Blue Boy once had a dog standing next to him? The Huntington had this famous Gainsborough painting x-rayed in 1995, and that’s when the furry pooch was discovered.

caption: Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-88), The Blue Boy, 1770, oil on canvas, 70 5/8 x 48 ¾ in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. X-ray images from 1995. GIFed by The Huntington.

opening up the museum.

A great talk to listen to on a saturday night.

christo and jean-claude

A selection of work by the artist duo.

Wrapped Coat, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia 1968-69

  

Wrapped Trees, Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park, Riehen, Switzerland 1997-98

Surrounded Island, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida  1980-83

And a work that is yet to be realised:

The Floating Piers, Project for Lake Iseo, Italy. 2014

further readings:

http://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/the-floating-piers#.VULjtXeSw5s