1. The Ut Av Vår Hule (Out Of Our Caves) festival – a showcase for up and coming Norwegian musicians and artists – takes place every second year in old marble mines outside Fauske in Northern Norway, just inside the Arctic Circle.

2. The mines were a source of Norwegian Rose dolomite marble, used in the construction of New York’s UN Building and the Japanese Emperor’s Palace.

3. Many of the caves are still accessible, though for the safety of festival goers they are officially closed off due to the water that has flooded many of them. In some, however, old mining gear is still visible, coated in marble dust.

4. Behind the main stage, vast chunks of discarded marble tumble into a striking aquamarine pool, some boulders submerged like blocks of unusually heavy ice.

5. Abandoned buildings, many still containing machinery and tools, are used as venues for other stages and by artists preparing their work, though the message – No Safety Inside – remains clear.

6. Artist Ash Kh’s (AKA Ashraf Khuffash) installation of black doors climbing a marble slurry heap was especially impressive, and not unlike a Pink Floyd album cover.

7. Amidst the marble slurry mountain other participants had installed picnic tables, buckets and spades and other beach accessories whose colours stood out against the blinding white backdrop.

8.Some of those attending were keen to experiment with alternative forms of expression, overseen closely by organisers, naturally.

9. Friday’s opening act, 2x Slagwerk (Two Drummers) performed a challenging but exciting set of experimental rhythm and dub. Like most of the musicians, they are currently unsigned and chosen by organisers wishing to provide a showcase for their work.

10. Artists had created more subtle installations amidst the algae and weeds of the the stream that ran through the festival grounds, Alpine villages and rubber duck ponds amongst them.

11. Musicians Sondre Justad and Marte Røyeng had never performed live together before. They arrived two days early and spent time in the grounds seeking inspiration for their music after other members of Justad’s band, Giraff, were unavailable to appear.

12. A snake built out of painted half-tyres emerges, blinking, out of one of the caves into the bright light.

13. Local musician Æ performed an acoustic set inside one of the derelict buildings. He lives on an island some five hours by boat from the nearby city of Bodø.

14.Northern Norwegian drinking rituals often involve good natured physical combat, and Ut Av Vår Hule is no different. This pair are scrambling amidst the dust by the bar, a tent whose legs are levelled on blocks of marble.

15.Fipp, from Bodø, were one of over twenty acts to perform for free over the weekend. Their fierce combination of post-rock and jazz, led by French Horn player Vida Engar, proved especially popular with the small but passionate crowd.

16.Thanks to Northern Norway’s midnight sun, it never gets dark during the festival, though the sun dips down below the horizon for a short hour or two, lighting up the sky different shades of pink and orange every night.

17.Ash Kh’s trail of doors provided a surreal vision that Aldous Huxley would no doubt have approved at the top of the marble slurry mountain.

18.4.30am, and the festival grounds are finally deserted by partygoers and artists, revealing a bare but stunning landscape, the main stage now abandoned like the mines themselves.

19.As dawn arrives, it’s time for the last of the festivalgoers – wrapped in blankets to shield them from the cold of the small hours – to head to bed. In the background, Fauske is preparing for a new day.

Community Connection

Connect with experts on Norway through MatadorTravel including Anne-Sophie Redisch, and find out What Not to Do In Norway on MatadorTrips.

1.This was my initial view of the village, paintings bleeding out to line the entrance.

2.Maybe exhausted by all the visitors, the cat relaxes and enjoy a shaded, cool area. Dreaming in color, perhaps? 

3.The weather here is usually very humid even when it’s sunny. During the typhoon and rainy season, it’s even wetter. Exteriors take a beating and sometimes age with interesting results like dripping creeping rust and fading paint.  

4.In a world of drab and boring mailboxes, along come Rainbow Family Village hand-painted limited editions: mailboxes that are pleasing to the eye and probably also the mailman.  

5.A close-up of a character with large eyes that seem to say it’s ready to have fun in its new clothes and accessories.  

6.I wish I could read Chinese, but sometimes I like the fact that I don’t because I have use my imagination. Is this a happy family ceremony? 

7.Adding a third dimension and an even more playful quality to the village are toys found decorating the more secluded areas.

8. High romance among the bright paintings. The village is a backdrop for commercial film and photography.

9. Blue appears to be the background color that is used the most in the village. I especially like the pastel colors on the window covering. The work involved and the details must have been a labor of love. 

10.I wondered how long these painting have been here and how the images on the ground had held up so well. At first I felt uncomfortable walking on the imagery. Then I thought about how they must be meant to be enjoyed and walked on.

11.This is another of the three entrances to the village. One thing I like is that in a city of over a million people, this village was a quiet, calm place. It has a quality of peacefulness that is hard to find here. There were older people about, smiling and laughing, relaxing and enjoying their day. 

12.There is something comforting about the colors and images. They cover the drab world of wall, door, mailbox, and corner, making the average extraordinary.

13.This is exit I used to leave Rainbow Family Village, knowing I’d be back.

14.This angle is one of my favorites because you can get an idea of how far the painting goes. Even a pile of bricks is fair game. 

15.Rainbow exit from the private living area of the village. It looked like it might rain that day and I wondered if water brings the colors to glossy life. 

16.I was told the elderly man that painted much of the village lives here. When I arrived there were young girls outside his door saying, “Come out grandpa, please come out.” He didn’t come out.  

17.Rainbow Family Village is quite a visual overload. I looked intently in all directions, trying to take it all in. Not possible in one visit I am afraid. 

Community Connection

If graduate school is in your future, then maybe Taiwan is as well. MatadorAbroad brings you 7 Countries Where Graduate School is a Fraction of US Costs, and one of them is Taiwan.

Before you make up your mind, have a gander at MatadorTV’s Stunning Trip Through Taiwan.

One enormous creature from BIG BANG BIG BOOM by Blu

I knew it was made in Buenos Aires and it was inspiring on such a grand scale, it made me sure awesome things were happening here.

Now he’s done it again with “BIG BANG BIG BOOM: an unscientific point of view on the beginning and evolution of life … and how it could probably end” featuring a soundtrack by Andrea Martignoni matching the enormous scale of the building-sized animations that incorporate the real world measure for measure.

Filmed in Argentina and Uruguay, loads of local artists collaborated in the execution including those from RunDon’tWalk, and bs as stencil.

Blu apologizes for the video quality on his blog saying, “it should be seen on bigger screens with good speakers.” Though it’s more than impressive, I’m inclined to agree and hope to see it on a big screen here sometime soon. Full resolution would be mind bending.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU on Vimeo.

Community Connection

Intrigued? See the work of some of Blu’s Buenos Aires contemporaries in Graffiti Mundo: Street Art for the People in Buenos Aires.

Abbott and Costello meet the Wolfman and the Mummy and The Phantom of the Opera: mrflip, Feature Photo: Corey Leopold

…and The Phantom of the Opera and Dracula
and Frankenstein: mrflip

Wade is a Texas artist who lives at the end of a dirt road that coats the driver’s rear windshield in seconds. This may have been the impetus for the work, but as you can see in this video, he’s developed the process into a science, now requiring an even application of dirt blown with a hair dryer onto the wet sponge prepped glass.

Photo: charles2010

The ephemeral pieces are washed clean by the elements, presenting fresh opportunities to create.

Surely a people pleaser, you might not believe Wade is making any statement at all with his virtuosic subtractive process.

While many artists invest their egos in the preservation of their work, Wade sees the temporal quality as a plus and a metaphor for life itself saying, “It’s a very…spiritual message, too… We’re not here forever…You gotta just enjoy life as it goes by.”

Community Connection

Matador is all about art for the people. Check out our Street Art Focus Page for more art that gets exposed to the elements.

Photo and Feature Photo: Mypouss

They sing. They tap their feet. The guitarist – clearly a fan of Led Zep – moodily plucks the strings of his guitar then starts beating the crap out of it with a stick. The singers show off and hardly anyone pays attention to the drummer at the back, tapping away at the cymbals.

But this isn’t any old band playing at a Camden dive venue These are birds: Zebra finches to be precise. Playing guitars. In an art gallery. It’s gloriously, wonderfully weird.

This, French artist/composer Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s first solo art show in the UK, became an overnight sensation when it opened at the end of February and a Youtube clip is racking up the hits.

Essentially the most rock and roll aviary in the history of the world, plugged-in Gibson Les Pauls are installed around the Barbican’s Curve gallery. Upturned cymbals are used as birdbaths, feeders and water bowls while mic stands make perfect preening perches. Nesting boxes line the high walls and the floor is covered with sand and twigs. As the birds ruffle their feathers, shuffle, build nests and land on the guitars, every sound their tiny feet make is amplified through the speakers.

Whereas most bands struggle with that difficult third album, here all it takes to make an opus is a bit of hopping on a fret board, the arrival of an unwanted love rival and a ‘get off my land’ twangy skirmish on the strings.

Photo: Mypouss

The birds themselves are trained professionals that came through an agency that provides animals to the film and entertainment industries. According to gallery staff, the birds were a bit British and standoffish at first, but now they’re hanging out like friends and there’s even been some romance. Last week when an egg was laid, the gallery had to be shut down and bird experts were called in. The egg is now being looked after by a friendly finch elsewhere.

The exhibition is a joy to walk around. There’s no sense at all of being trapped, just a lovely liberating feeling of freedom as twittering birds fly past your head.

What these tiny finches couldn’t teach you about rock and roll isn’t worth knowing. Cleaning bird shit off the instruments is a regular job for gallery staff and not even The Who’s bad boy Pete Townshend was that rock and roll with a Gibson.

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London (tube: Barbican)
Until the 23rd May, 2010
Free Entry
Open daily 11am-8pm
Open late every Thu until 10pm

Community Connection

If you’re thinking of taking the show on the road, have a look at 5 Things You Should Know When Traveling with Musical Instruments.

More bird inspired music for you? Bird Song: Can You Hear the Melody of Nature? has birds making notes in a different way.

Paintings by Ahmad Nawash at Darat al Funin This and all photos are by the author.

Many travellers visiting Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan will be in search of authentic cultural experiences. To most, that means Bedouin tents, crumbling Crusader castles or bustling souqs.

>Exhibition at The National Museum of Fine Art

The Jordanian capital, Amman, boasts ancient architecture such as a Roman amphitheatre and a museum with some of the earliest sculptures in the world. But it is also strikingly modern, with buildings that give an Arab twist to elegant modernist architecture, a series of galleries which provide the Western visitor with an introduction to the vibrant world of Arabic contemporary art, and cafes and bars in which to encounter the city’s bohemians.

The most official of the art venues is the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts on Muntazah Circle, a half-hour walk through the leafy Luweibdeh neighbourhood from busy Downtown.

In the scorching (45 degree-plus) heat of Amman in the summer, the National Gallery is, apart from anything else, a welcome cool, white space, but the exhibitions are also compelling. The downstairs galleries display a rotating selection from the permanent collection, which when I visited included a sinister textile piece resembling human hearts suspended in a glass case, and a vast printed work reflecting the bloody and conflictual politics of the region.

Upstairs, temporary exhibits showcase modern artists from across the Arab world, working in a range of media and dispelling the notion that Islamic material culture stops with classical patterned tiles or Ottoman miniatures.

The garden in the large square outside, planted with scented shrubs and shady trees, is also home to several large modern sculptures.

Sculpture at Darat al Funun

Heading back towards the city centre, Darat al-Funun stands on the steep slope overlooking the honking mayhem of the Downtown area. Despite this, it’s another haven of cool and calm in Amman. This ‘Little House of the Arts’ is formed of three 1920s villas, one of them with the blue-roofed veranda typical of the city’s Circassian population – the first main community to re-establish themselves in the nineteenth century after the city had been reduced to a village for hundreds of years.

As well as a paved, shady courtyard which serves as a cafe and the remains of an early medieval church, Darat al-Funun is home to some of the edgier contemporary art to be seen in Amman’s galleries.

The sometimes bitter and violent paintings, stark photography or politicised video installations contrast with the calm white walls and elegantly patterned floor tiles, while outside modern sculptures set on the outer walls or amongst the mimosa trees have views of the city as their backdrop.

Gallery at Darat al Funun

The gallery also hosts artists’ workshops and a regular series of talks and films (many of them in foreign languages), details of which are listed on its website.

After all that art viewing, even the most dedicated buff will be in need of a long, cool drink. You might just be in the mood to head across Downtown to Jebel Amman and the Rainbow Street area, which has been restored to include street murals and small squares and open spaces amongst the quiet cream stone houses.

This newly-upscale area has attracted a range of trendy international restaurants, shi-shi art galleries and institutions like the Wild Jordan Cafe, an NGO-linked centre which hosts gigs and readings, as well as promoting fairly traded traditional local crafts brought up-to-date for contemporary buyers.

The cafe area at Darat al Funun

The thirsty gallery-goer in the Rainbow neighbourhood might first head for the lusciously-named Mango Street (unfortunately named after a prominent business dynasty, not the fruit). Here, Books@Cafe is still the place for visitors to track down a bohemian, literary crowd, a wide range of books and periodicals in English or Arabic, free wifi, and cosmopolitan cuisine.

Its 70s-loud decor has sprawled out from the original space to a series of rooms and terraces, offering (depending on the time of day) lush breakfasts, good pasta, pizza or contemporary Arabic food, nargilah, and a well-stocked alcoholic and non-alcoholic bar. It’s also a great place to watch Amman’s affluent, arty young professionals, and to realise how deeply uncool your own sweaty traveller’s garb really is.

Community Connection

If you’re thinking of a trip to the Middle East, MatadorNetwork’s Middle East Focus Page is a great place to start getting ideas of where and how to go.

Number Six on BNT’s Photo Essay: 10 Sacred Mountains Around The World is Mount Nebo in Jordan, so preview the highest point of the city there.

MatadorTrips features In Jordan, Forget Lonely Planet. Bring a Bible for a less contemporary take on the ancient city.

All photos are stills from “Unbelievable” with Takeshi Kitano aired in 2008.

She creates evocative images in ways that startle the viewer with unexpected techniques. Ingenious sculptures show a new form when illuminated. What looks like a photorealistic print from a distance is created on a white sheet with judiciously applied shoe prints.

Photos of this art have been making the rounds on various websites, seldom giving the artist credit. We are perhaps more inclined to view this work alone, behind a computer screen, to express our appreciation with typed words we share with people we will never meet. Anonymous viewers for an anonymous artist.

I love this video for more than the fabulous artwork. Kumi Yamashita, her pieces, and her process are presented by Takeshi Kitano as magic and adults appreciate them guilelessly.

Art on TV? Viewers who don’t feel like they have to present a neutral expression or have a degree in art or art history to discuss art? Art as magical and something to be appreciated by everyone?

Community Connection

Are you dying to know more about visiting Japan? MatadorNetwork’s Japan Focus Page has a wealth of information to slake your insatiable curiosity until you make it there in person.

Most of the time it couldn’t be said to be an improvement on the architecture many take for granted. Spend a few days here and it’s part of the scenery. Proclamations of love for another person, a football team or a band are the bulk of it while political statements from radical to those that are sponsored by political parties take a close second.

But within your first week, you’re sure to run across a wall that makes it obvious that not all graffiti are pleas to be heard or the human equivalent of a dog pissing on a fire hydrant. You’re sure to see a single provocative stencil here or there. Within a month you’ll find that there are some places where you can see several different styles co-mingling to produce something that makes passers-by stop and consider the message, smile, admire, crane their necks and squint their eyes. While the art scene worldwide is getting more elite as time goes on, this is art by and for the people of Buenos Aires.

It’s only fitting, then, that GraffitiMundo, a company that gives graffiti tours in English, sheds light on the artists and their processes in an accessible way. Marina Charles, who leads the tours, doesn’t get bogged down with curatorial jargon that means nothing to the average viewer. She takes visitors through the history of the graffiti renaissance after the dictatorship, pointing out key art and artists off the beaten path from Chacarita to Villa Crespo and ending in Palermo.

Find yourself in Buenos Aires and advance reservations and $75 pesos (less than $20 US) will get even jaded art veterans excited about art again.

All Photos Kate Sedgwick. All Rights Reserved.

1.Led by Marina Charles (pictured here in blue), the tour starts at Tec’s in Chacarita. Many artists collaborated to cover the largest side of the artist’s home including Parbo, Chu, Defi, nasa, and Bleep.

2.This piece by Gualicho was finished in three days. The artist works alone and quickly.

3.Two views of fenced in animals by RunDon’tWalk. Giant red creature: Tester, Big Yellow Robot: Bleep.

4. Luchadors by Jaz and Nemeremen.

5.The founder of Run Don’t Walk Collective shows us how it’s done. I was star-struck when I saw him pull out the stencil I had so admired in other locations throughout the city.

6.One gallery from the tour, Casa L’Inc. Works are affordable and appealing.

7.Across from Casa l’Inc, bits and pieces of a wall where many have contributed. Tightrope walker: (artist unknown), Man with a Stick: Jaz, Bat and face stancils: BsAsStencil, Tu basura es mi tesoro (Your trash is my treasure): RunDon’tWalk.

8. Stencils at Tegui: Vomito Attack. An upscale restaurant has employed Vomito Attack to assure the eyes of all passing pedestrians have only one place to turn. This photo is a compilation of about 20 photos. For more details, you can check out the process on the collective’s Flickr Page.

9.Outside a photo studio, artists have surrounded this bus hangar with giant pieces. The Devil Head is by GrouLou, and in the background are Ever’s giant heart and RunDon’tWalk’s head of a smoking man in 3-D glasses.

10.Collaboration on a house. The owner was approached by artists who, sketches in hands, made a case for this impressive piece. Massive pieces like this discourage taggers from leaving their mark. This wall is a collaboration by Triangulo Dorado.

11. A piece in Palermo very close to Hollywood in Cambodia by Ever.

12.The tour ends at Hollywood in Cambodia. A bar and gallery, Hollywood in Cambodia is a two storey riot of art and stencil work with pieces for sale in the back. Dog with camera head: RunDon’tWalk, Decapitated Fish: Tec, 3-D Geometry: Nerf, sailor cat and bird: PumPum, any help in further identifying artists depicted here would be appreciated.

Community Connection

In the know about the artists who created the above work? Help us link to the artists we didn’t know by adding your comment below.

Planning a trip to Buenos Aires? You might want to have a peek at our Buenos Aires focus page to open your intinerary to more of what the city has to offer.

Want to leave your touch on the world without getting thrown in jail? Check out 10 Places Where Graffiti is Legal before planning your next adventure.

All photos are screen captures of the original video below.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

The Eye Writer can be made for $50 using free software.
Here you see how it tracks the artist’s eye movements to draw.

We imagine all innovation made to enhance the lives of people who have suffered a life-altering tragedy (such as Tony Quan has) is up to big industry. We believe that the technology that allows people with incredibly limited mobility to create and communicate is prohibitively expensive and inaccessible to those on an average budget.

This story and video prove not only that creativity and technology can be and are in the hands of the masses if we seize the opportunity, but that if we dream big and cooperate, we’re hampered only by the limit of our imaginations.

Community Connection

Is the world slated against those with disabilities? Are you interested in the hardships facing the disabled traveler? Hop on over to Brave New Traveler and read Julie Schwietert Collazo’s article about the subject.

What do you think about open source software that improves people’s lives? Share your opinions below.

Photo: screenshot from YouTube

Prancing around in various costumes, French prankster Remi Gaillard disrupts traffic, dodges security, and crashes national events all to have himself a little bit of fun.

Having gained notoriety through his ballsy stunts and YouTube videos, Gaillard provides the perfect childish outlet for an adult world stifled by cut-and-dry maturity. In “Bat,” Gaillard wears a cartoon bat costume and finds random locations around the city to hang upside-down. Honestly, what else is a grown man dressed as a bat to do.

Random? Yes. Ridiculous? Sure. Pee-yourself-hilarious? Better strap on those Depends.

Check out some of his videos below!

PacMan:

Bat:

Mario Kart:

Snail:

Here at Matador, Editor Tim Patterson cops to his prankster nature in our confessional article Travel Guilty Pleasures. What about you?

Are you a prankster? Do share.

Photo from Inside the London Tattoo Convention: beerandnoodles

Follow along with Lauren Quinn as she walks you through five top destinations for the tattooed traveler, their tattoo history and icons.

Getting invited to work the London Tattoo Convention does for a tattoo artist what winning a Pulitzer does for a novelist. The prestigious event features the crème de la crème of the tattoo world, and an invitation pretty much seals your career for life. In 2008, the event drew 20,000 visitors—and they weren’t just there to bring home skin souvenirs from the world’s best working artists.

Photo from Inside of Frith St.: slushpup

The London Tattoo Convention showcases the heart and soul of tattoo culture with art exhibitions, an anthropological exhibition highlighting the history of tattooing by the Oxford Tattoo Museum, and burlesque performances by the ubiquitous Suicide Girls. The 2009 installment will be held at the Tobacco Dock September 25-27 and day tickets are 20 pounds.

London became the home to the world’s biggest tattoo convention by being one of the world’s best tattoo destinations. The roots of tattoo culture run deep, in large part due to its 19th century popularity among the British Navy. Check out how the modern-day shops are holding it down at Into You Tattoo and Frith Street.

Tattooing wouldn’t be what it is today without the influence of Japan. A national tradition dating back to the 17th century, tattooing was associated with the criminal underworld of the Yakuza and outlawed for nearly a hundred years. Legal since 1945, and increasingly less stigmatized, the Irezumi style has had a permanent impact on Western tattooing.

The greatest living tattoo artist lives just outside of Tokyo in Yokohama. Horiyoshi III apprenticed under Horiyoshi I, and is the second tattooist to be bestowed with the honorific “Hori” title, which translates to “engrave.”

Photo of two of Horiyashi III’s Living Canvases:
Good Nights Are Rare

Horiyoshi III and his wife run the Yokohama Tattoo Museum, a pilgrimage site for tattoo junkies around the world. More than just photos and traditional tools, the tiny two-floor museum features the stuff he collects: shrunken heads, stuffed tigers, and letters from Charles Manson, to name some of the more noteworthy curios.

Can’t afford a $20,000 tattoo session with Horiyoshi III? Yellow Blaze in Yokohama, and Inkrat, and Tokyo Hardcore Tattoo in Tokyo uphold the traditions of Japanese tattooing with a modern edge.

Spend some time in the Bay Area, and you’ll immediately see the prevalence of tattoo culture. Schoolteachers and waiters in fine-dining make no attempt to hide their ink, and full sleeves barely elicit a glance on the street.

Photo of Black Heart: ecastro

How did it get this way? Long before the rise of the Haight, in nearby ports and naval bases tattooing already had a long tradition with working and navy men. In the 1960s, when the city was under the siege of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, Lyle Tuttle catapulted the underground art into the mainstream by tattooing the likes of Janis Joplin.

Meanwhile, Ed Hardy was incorporating Japanese techniques via his friendship with Horiyoshi III. While the art of tattooing was heavily stigmatized and even illegal in most of the U.S., San Francisco became a haven for tattooists, the tattooed, and the other self proclaimed freaks of the nation.

Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City is still pumping out ink, but it’s best to hit up some of the new kids in town. While there are scores of good shops and killer artists, some of the tops include San Francisco’s Black Heart, Oakland’s Temple and San Jose’s State of Grace.

For the city where modern tattooing was born, you sure don’t see a lot of heavily tattooed people in New York City. You can chalk that up to the 36-year ban on tattooing in the state of New York, which forced artists to go underground, tattooing from basement shops and backrooms. An underground culture evolved and the tight-knit New York Tattoo Society advocated for a reversal of the ban, at last succeeding in 1997.

Photo of Fun City Tattoo: Dyanna

With tattooing now above ground, New York City is finally reemerging as the tattoo destination it always deserved to be (and always kind of was). You can grab a piece of history at Fun City Tattoo, where an homage to the original owner’s fuck-you to the ban still hangs: the “Cappuccino and Tattoo” sign that flaunted plenty of double letters and illegal tattooing.

Check out the burgeoning scene at Dare Devil Tattoo, home to some of the city’s best tattoo artists and a smoking hot clientele. New York Adorned is a stylish piercing studio, tattoo shop and jewelry store in one, while Brooklyn’s Smith Street and Fly Rite modify patrons across the bridge.

Be prepared to pay a little more than you might expect. New York City’s high rents mean most shops start at $150 per hour.

Photo Inside the Milan 2007 Convention: Ko_An

Really? Yes.

It doesn’t get the buzz of other big cities, but fashion-capital Milan has slowly come up as Italy’s tattoo epicenter by being home to one of Europe’s best conventions. In its 14th year, the Milan Tattoo Convention, held in February, draws many of the same names as the London convention, with a hefty helping of Italian national pride.

You’ve got dancers, burlesque shows and punk bands, but also quirkier features like tattoo tarot, an exhibition solely on hand tattooing, and the Miss Pin-Up Tattoo beauty contest. And all with a lot less hype than London.

If you’re not in town during for the February convention, Primordial Pain and Quetzal Tattoo offer a taste of Italian tattooing all year long.

Community Connection

Can’t read enough about tattoos? Check out Kate Sedgwick’s photo essay on the Tattoo Show of Buenos Aires or her essay about what the prevalence of tattoo culture is doing to destroy itself.

Do you have something to say about that tattoo you picked up in your travels? Start a Matador Blog today and start telling our growing community your stories.

Photo and Feature Photo: seier+seier+seier

From Variety’s Ali Jafar:

While Iranian cinema was preoccupied for much of the 1980s and 1990s with symbolism and allegorically cherubic children, the Iranian pics at Venice this year deal directly with the social upheaval in the country both preceding and following June’s presidential elections.

There are at least two women directors out of Iran this year at the festival,Hana Makhmalbaf and Shirin Neshat. Shirin Neshat’s debut “Women Without Men” is set in the early ’50’s during an American government sponsored upheaval and traces the lives of four women seeking personal peace in the time leading up to the revolution of 1979.

In the Variety article, Neshat says of the film and her work:

It’s important for Western audiences to know about the events of 1953 and how that led to the 1979 revolution and the events we saw in June.

We are seeing history repeating itself, only the players have changed. Instead of the shah we now have supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

What is the same is seeing the Iranian people trying to free themselves from attempts to take away their liberty.

Hana Makhmalbaf’s docudrama “Green Days” mixes actual and staged footage to create a portrait of a woman in the aftermath of Iran’s most recent elections. The director is just 21 years old.

The other film mentioned in the article is Nader Takmil Homayoun’s “Tehroun.” Homayoun splits his time between France and Iran and his film exposes a seedy underbelly in a statement about the disenfranchised youth of the country.

These films were created very quickly, but if these selections are any indication, we should be seeing some strong films coming out of Iran in years to come with a new perspective of world politics informing filmmakers’ sensibilities.

Community Connection

Interested in what else is going on in Iran? Check in with Matador expert Jason Rezaian in this Matador Trips article.

Looking for one or two more reasons to go to Iran to seal the deal in your head? See Jason’s article 7 Reasons To Travel To Iran NOW.

Thousands gather at Waterplace Park in downtown Providence to experience WaterFire.
All Photos: hlkljgk

She patiently explains that WaterFire is actually a living sculpture created by local artist Barnaby Evans. During WaterFire, one hundred bonfires illuminate the three rivers that converge in downtown Providence, and gondolas ferry passengers up and down the fire-lit waterways.

“Gondolas?” I say, “in Rhode Island?

“Gondolas?” I say, “in Rhode Island?

I still can’t picture what’s in store for us. Upon our arrival in Providence, I’m further baffled by our cab driver, who earnestly informs us that the fires are lit upon steel “brassieres” in the water.

“Braziers,” Travis whispers, in answer to my confused expression.

When we first arrive at Waterplace Park I can’t see the fires through the throng, only the orange glow they cast against the city skyline and their rings of smoke rising among the high-rises. We’re greeted with aromatic cedar smoke and a dramatic crescendo of opera music. This is Evans’ intent, I learned from Travis, to stimulate all the senses at once.

Still, I’m unprepared for the magnitude of the spectacle that awaits us once we finally sidle up to the railing.

The lighting of the fires is a spectacle in and of itself.

The braziers (three-foot-high baskets of steel-lattice, piled with blazing logs) are moored to buoys so the bonfires bob and float just above the waterline. This makes it seem as though the flames leap from the river itself, which looks like molten lava where the fires cast their reflections. Along the edge of the basin, thousands of people stand assembled, as if taking in a sporting event or religious ritual, their faces lit up by the fire below.

The fires are kept continually stoked by volunteers who circulate in motorboats full of fresh-cut pine and cedar. Gondolas, piloted by volunteers who look every inch the part in their wide-brimmed straw hats and black and white striped shirts, glide beneath the series of arched bridges spanning the Providence River.

Actors and street performers
contribute to Waterfire’s old-world
carnival atmosphere.

“I usually think this kind of thing is cheesy,” says Travis, as a gondola skims near enough for a man in masquerade to reach out and hand red carnations to ladies at the railing.

“But the time I went before, our gondolier sang Happy Birthday to me in Italian and I almost cried.”

…

Evans envisioned WaterFire as a symbol of the revitalization of downtown Providence. On the night we attended, the fires raged so high and bright – ten and twenty feet tall in the center of the basin – that I couldn’t help but be reminded of burning oil fields in Iraq, or funeral pyres on the Ganges.

Evans created the first WaterFire installation in 1994, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of First Night Providence. The original WaterFire proved so popular that Evans recreated it for the International Sculpture Conference in 1996. This sparked a grass roots effort to continue the project.

Today, WaterFire is a nonprofit organization which relies on donations. It runs each year May through September. Visitors can support the project by stopping by one of the Ambassadors Stations or donating online. All who pony up in person are given special, luminous prizes.

Check www.waterfire.org/ for the next dates. As of this publication, there are only four left this year.

Gondola Reservations

All photos from YouTube video, ITN

According to YouTube:
Gruesome body parts greet customers of a bakery in Ratchaburi, Thailand. Artist and baker Kittiwat Unarrom has sculpted life-like heads, feet and hands from dough in the bakery’s kitchen and exhibits them in glass cabinets in the shop. He says his edible art lures one hundred visitors a day.

Unfortunately the video isn’t subtitled, but according to the blog Shape and Colour,
Unarrom says of the work, “When people see the bread, they don’t want to eat it. But when they taste it, it’s just normal bread. The lesson is: Don’t judge just by outer appearances.”

Unarrom comes from a family of bakers and so the choice of bread as a medium is understandable.

The finished work could be said to demonstrate any number of concepts. The consumption of flesh as a part of culture, the ephemerality of art and life, the knowledge that our bodies will be subsumed by the earth and become fuel for new life – these are just a few that easily come to mind.

Do these special loaves have meaning to you? Do you find them sacrilegious, disgusting, hilarious or especially interesting? Please share your opinion in the comments field below.

Community Connection

Can’t get enough weird foods? Check out Pele Omori’s article 11 Weird Japanese Foods and Nellie Huan’s Dog Meat and Rooster Balls: The 10 Most Exotic Asian Foods.

Feel like whipping up something weird of your own? How about something that requires brains? Check out Tom Gates’ Five Recipes That Require Brains

At just under 10 minutes long, this short addresses many issues, and whether it makes you uncomfortable or makes you laugh or both, it’s sure to make you think.

In a recent interview with the artist, here is what she had to say about the work:

KS: Was this idea specifically inspired by the Inauguration of Obama or was this idea bouncing around prior?

Blanche (played by Swisher) confronts her partner
with a revelation.

PS: The idea for “Blanche is the New Black” was specifically inspired by the Inauguration, although I had been wanting to do something on the issue of race for a while. I actually went to a mostly black club that night and was the only white girl there, and had a total blast. Everyone was so happy and accepting. Then, the idea came to me.

KS: What was your reaction when you heard people saying “Racism is over in America?”

PS: I thought it was a total farce that the media was saying “Racism is over” because of Obama. If anything, his election brought out the racism in so many people. Blanche is an example of someone who accepts the President being black, but is oblivious to her own conditioned, stereotypical views of black people.

KS: Your role could be seen as pretty embarrassing. Do you feel like you showed your ass? If not, whose ass(es) did you show?

PS: Haha! I didn’t think it was embarrassing at all. It was a lot of fun. I actually really like the character of Blanche. You have to in order to laugh at her ridiculousness. She is a part of me, just as the other characters are a part of me, but she is definitely the most absurd, and I exaggerated that absurdity. On election night, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, I can’t believe all these black people actually like me!” which, if you think about it, is pretty silly.

So, in that sense, I do feel like I showed my ass, but it was because I mooned you.

KS: This is a piece that plays on “coming out.” Your character is partnered with a woman, though there is no direct commentary about that in the movie, and the other characters accept the relationship (and lots of other stuff) without commenting on it directly. Are you speaking to gay activism and gay civil rights with this piece?

Blanche tries her new identity on for size in a local bar.

PS: I am, in a way. I would love to have my homosexuality simply accepted. I think it is a topic that needs to be explored, and in the revised “Blanche is the New Black” it is addressed. But, for the YouTube version, I thought it would be new and fresh to just have the gay issue moved into a space where it really isn’t that big of a deal, as I hope it will be. My life is filled with black and white people who are supportive of ALL civil rights. It is the little person and the transgender who really need civil rights activism. Now, THAT is a parade or march that I would like to add to the list.

KS: I laughed pretty hard when I watched this. I think the piece is pretty brave. It could be taken the wrong way. If someone says this piece is racist, how would you react?

PS: So far, that hasn’t happened yet. And you never know how you are going to react to something, but I would probably say something about how humor is my favorite way to bring difficult issues up.

Pam’s current goal is to get ‘Blanche is the New Black’ seen in all 50 States, so leave some comments at her YouTube channel and let her know where you are. I’m sure that other countries are an extra bonus.

Community Connection

Interested in reading thoughts of everyday people on racism? Check out the links in this post on International Blog Against Racism Week.

What do you think about Blanche is the New Black? Share your opinions to generate conversation as a comment below.

Apollo Poetry has won multiple poetry contests including the NY Poetry Slam and has been featured in MTV’S True Life, VIBE Magazine and Showtime at the Apollo. His style is passionate, spiritual and raw, bringing elements of beat poetry and hip hop to a synthesis that is making people sit up and take notice.

Apollo now calls himself The Traveling Poet and he is taking his spoken word on the road to film a first-of-its-kind documentary and share the creative spark that burns within him.

From TravelingPoet.com
“Apollo Poetry is a spoken word artist who has chosen words as tools of inspiration to bridge the gap between our cultural divisions and unite us back into the realization that we are souls having a human experience.”

Apollo will go to schools, shelters, hospitals, and poetry venues around the world to spread an inspirational message of healing and inner peace.

Wanna jump on board and help Apollo and his crew? Visit TravelingPoet.com to find out how you can get involved.

Community Connection

Want to learn more about people using their natural talents to make the world a better place? Of course you do! Visit MatadorChange to get inspired and get connected!

Economic disparity, the western affinity for our animals, capitalistic commodification of the human being, comfort vs. exploitation, privilege, world politics.

Roses are Red by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Do you see it?

Roses are Red by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Before I tell you what Angie Reed Garner has to say about this painting I will admit to simply appreciating the work on first glance for the extraordinary textures and colors typical of her work.

I will admit to recognizing the dog, to zooming in on the text of classified ads and thinking, Labor Camps? I imagined the translucent figure with the sunflowers sprouting from him was a dead man – a ghost or an impression. I didn’t make the intended connections, but it still got me thinking.

Look a little closer.

Roses are Red, detail, by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Roses are Red, detail, by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Roses are Red, detail, by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Garner is a painter from the United States. Earlier works fed from mythology. Each piece tells a story – sometimes a very complex one like this that reads like a modern hieroglyph. Symbol heavy, the artist creates her own visual language with ties to historically understood meanings. Her work would be a never-ending feast for a semiotician.

Currently living in the UAE after a year in Lahore, Pakistan, exposure to blatant economic disparity among other culture shocks have made work like this possible for the self taught painter.

Here is what the artist has to say about this painting:

‘Roses are Red’ is about living alongside and participating in the extreme income disparity in Pakistan and here in the UAE. The same disparity exists in the United States as well, but it is much harder to see.

I give my dog a better life than many are able to earn for themselves and their families no matter how hard they work, and they work insanely hard in conditions that would drop me. 50C heat kills.

Roses are Red, detail, by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

“Expat” is a series of paintings Garner has painted since arriving in the UAE last summer. Also included in the show is a panel of ten canvases about her experience in Lahore.

Below, you’ll find a sample of some of her most recent work from the UAE.

Women by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

House of Pi by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

Cracked by Angie Reed Garner, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 20×64″, all rights reserved

The show opens July first and runs until August 15th in Evansville, Indiana at J.E. Smith Gallery.

Visit the artist’s website at angiereedgarner.com and check out her blog at LiveJournal where she shares much of her process and logic.