‘Children’s Activity and Learning Centre’

The unique ‘Children’s Activity and Learning Centre’ at the 6-star Soneva Kiri resort in Thailand is a study in sustainable construction. Dutch firm 24H-architecture designed the bamboo building as a way to provide visiting children with a wide range of entertaining activities that could raise their level of ecological awareness. The “Den,” as it is called, provides a number of outposts, including an auditorium for films, lectures and plays; a library filled with books on permaculture and local traditions; an art room; a music room; and a fashion room offering children both a creative and ecological destination to learn. The center’s manta ray-inspired bamboo dome is perched at an elevated position, seemingly ready to launch itself into the bay from the location on which it is perched.

Artist: Paula Hayes, Nocturne of the Limax maximus

Paula Hayes's assistant, John Gray, installs the plantings for the installation Nocturne of the Limax maximus

When Hermes and Aphrodite had a son, Hermaphroditus, who was fused with a nymph, Salmacis, the resulting person possessed the physical traits of both male and female—hence the term “hermaphrodite,” used in biology as a description of similarly dual reproductive traits in both plants and animals. Applied to humans, the term is considered derogatory—as the term “hermaphrodite” developed, in the Victorian age, a dehumanizing fetishistic/pornographic/freak-show connotation—and is now preferably replaced by “intersex.”

The Limax maxumus—the Leopard slug referred to in the title of my commissioned installationsimultaneous hermaphrodite” that is not capable of self-fertilization. It takes two to tango: with each being fertilized by the other via male anatomical delivery systems that protrude from the sides of their heads, dispensing sperm into one another’s internal ovaries during an unusually sensual and beautiful mating process. on view in MoMA’s lobby—is a “

So, the possession of both female and male “parts” occurs in many manifestations in both plants and animals with many nuances, characteristics, and abilities. What separates this physical classification of gender in humans is the pressure to conform to a binary gender system when other human dimensions come into play in the continuum of gender identification. Most specifically the spiritual, psychological, and emotional realms.

Close-up view of plantings for Paula Hayes's installation Nocturne of the Limax maximus

In a giant leap, I will go as far to say that our own particular nuances of gender, which are repressed by the pressure to uphold a binary system, seep into infinite areas of cultural expression. The areas that fascinate me most are the comparisons of female roles in not only art as an object, but in the practice of art making itself. The female’s status as a subject, through possibly marriage or genetic lineage (in portraiture), and divisive fetishistic roles since the beginning of human art production, potentially distracts us from a cultural feeling of the feminine forces of gestation, birth, and nurturing as not only subjects in art, but in the actual performance of art making and the literal transference to future generations in living art forms, forms that require varying degrees of participation to enact the intention of the work versus the conservation of a period of time known as the “time of execution.” Living art literally involves the attentive and continuous role of participants and caretakers in all aspects of the continuum of its manifestation and life; this reality is at its core—a core that is performed by humans along any point in the spectrum of gender. It is essential that there be an internal, collaborative maintenance of the life of the work so that it can exist as an artwork. Binary systems (such as owner/object) become irrelevant, while interrelatedness and continuously active and attentive devotion become essential.

November 30, 2010 - from the MoMA website

Antonio Pio Saracino - Chairs

New York based architect and designer Antonio Pio Saracino will be exhibiting his works at the Industry Gallery 1358 Florida Avenue, Washington DC from September 11 onwards till October. The highlight of the solo exhibition is no doubt the sculputuristic two large-scale models of triumphal arches which represent Italian immigration to North and South America. Saracino is not new experimentation and majority of his works stems from nature. This its no surprise that in the past has also worked wonders with materials like wood, metal, carbon fiber and synthetics which give an illusion of molecules, leaves, blossoms, and natural crystal formations.

The Molecular Chair is an exploration of the structural components found in the natural world and the ways in which they can find expression in design. Each chair imagines the scale of matter within a traditional baroque chair, using the same microscopic structure but in human scale. The chairs are composed with a wire-frame mesh and differently sized felt balls or “molecules” are woven together to create a comfortable chair. The felt represents a natural, low-tech, and eco-friendly material.