Sunday, 7 February 2021

Cauleen Smith, Artist (b. 1967, United States)

Doris Salcedo (b. 1958, Columbia)

A site specific public art project recognizing those

who died in Colombia's Civil War.

Bogota, 2016

“Doris wants to do something for peace, but we still don’t know what it is,” students reportedly whispered. Soon after, a mass email was sent to the entire campus: “Doris Salcedo invites us to draw the names of victims of the decades-long conflict on seven kilometers of cloth and then put them together with needle and thread.” In response, thousands of volunteers from around the city gathered early on the morning of October 6. Among them was Mariana Sanz de Santamaria, a law student: “Once you arrived, you saw many tables filled with volunteers. There were some people cutting up the letters and others who were getting the cloth ready to be printed with the names of victims of the conflict, which had been gathered from the government’s Registry of Victims.” The pieces of cloth would later be sewn together across Bolívar Square.

The work, called Sumando Ausencias (Adding Absences) is a statement of mourning, but also a call for peace, Sáez said. Salcedo has said the result of the quilt will be a “flag-shroud” that evokes both those sentiments.

“The act of sewing together each piece of cloth in an act of reparation, of knitting our own peace and is especially important at this time of uncertainty,” she said.

AIDS Memorial Quilt

The Ashes on the Lawn

Stories about the protests and mourning

associated with the AIDS pandemic.

Listen to the podcast at Radio Lab:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/ashes-lawn

The time specific to the quilts is 15:00.

Link below to learn more about the quilt:

https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history

Above image source:

https://www.turnout.org/aids-quilt

Above image source:

https://untappedcities.com/2019/06/28/pieces-of-the-aids-memorial-quilt-are-on-display-in-nyc-for-one-weekend-only/

Above image source:

https://untappedcities.com/2019/06/28/pieces-of-the-aids-memorial-quilt-are-on-display-in-nyc-for-one-weekend-only/

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

Earliest Known Pile Carpet

Source:

https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/25.+Archaeological+Artifacts/879870/

The Pazyryk culture is a Scythian^[1] nomadic Iron Age archaeological culture (of Iranian origin; c. 6th to 3rd centuries BC) identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in the Siberian permafrost, in the Altay Mountains, Kazakhstan and nearby Mongolia.

The "Treasures of the Pazyryk Culture" of the Early Scythian Epoch includes the unique and world famous burial mounds (kurgans) and petroglyphs of the Pazyryk Culture. The Pazyryk Culture is one the related Central Asian cultures of the Scythian time. On the large area of the Altai Mountains it existed from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BCE. This culture has left clear evidences which are presented by unique burial complexes. The archaeological sites presenting cultural heritage of Pazyryk time include burial mounds (the frozen tombs of tribal nobility) and petroglyphs made in an "animal style".

Source and More:

https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6283/

Pile Weave -

A looped or tufted surface that extends above the initial foundation, or 'ground' weave.

Geology

The Floating Egg begins with the search for an alchemist's secret, and ends with the re-imagination of a past world. Each chapter is connected to a particular corner of north-east England, and each explores the uncertain line where myth is dissolved into science, and belief gives way to knowledge.

Different episodes show how the fall of Constantinople converted the common rock of the Yorkshire cliffs into a source of extraordinary wealth and power, and how this in turn uncovered the inhabitants of a succession of past worlds; how a stone falling from the sky near this same coast changed the minds of all the natural philosophers of Europe; and how a new science was born on the top of the tower of York Minster. We learn about the cloak-and-dagger world of fossil trading in the town of Whitby; and we see the entire life-work of a forgotten scientific genius who died from consumption at the age of twenty-five, having revolutionised his science.

The stories move from documentary accounts to fictional recreations of historic events, from contemporary writing and illustrations to present-day reflection. By using different ways of describing the world of scientific endeavour, the author has produced a fascinating visually beautiful and highly entertaining book which allows us to witness the birth of a new science - the science of geology.

Text from Good Reads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/834025.The_Floating_Egg

Red

Cochineal is a scale insect and is found on prickly pear cactus. A rasping, sucking insect, it feeds on the tasty juices of the cactus. It produces a cottony white covering to protect itself from predators.