corner view: white

when i heard what theme natsumi had chosen for this week's corner view (find more corner view links over at jane's spain daily) i wasn't sure if i even had much white, or what to photograph if i didn't find anything. so i went to have a look through my archive, which was quite interesting. there's definitely not much white around - i seem to be drawn to stronger or darker, muted colours lately. i wonder why. it's not a conscious thing.

here's what i found then (including some almost-whites): cherry trees in my neighbourhood, their pale, pale pink petals looking almost white in that overexposed shot - one of my absolute favourites, perhaps because it's from the first ever roll i took with my praktica. then impressions from venice, early this summer - bed, and then breakfast at the hotel. followed by santa maria della salute, angel detail, and an espresso maker at the scandinavian pavilion at the venice biennial. finally, a modern architectural concrete detail, spotted right next to the opulent russian embassy in berlin.

no interesting thoughts or stories this time, i'm afraid - my brain seems to be producing mostly white noise. a lot, an awful lot to do until the weekend. and the text i'm working on is all-consuming. have a good day!

digital love

i love my analogue vintage praktica camera. so much, in fact, that i recently thought i might have fallen completely out of love with my tiny digital camera. which is sad, since i owe it so much - mostly, a different way of seeing, and being such a patient teacher to me. looking through some pictures that i took with my digital in venice, i realise that there are still things i love very much about it and that i don't know yet how to achieve them with my analogue camera. that soft blurriness, that really is a side-effect of it being slow and not very good with low light, which lends those photos a slightly unworldly, poetic quality. and so i think i'm falling in love again. maybe it's like with our closest friends - we love them because they are so different. because of the many facets and because there is no such thing as perfection in one place, ever.

the first images taken inside the dutch pavilion. shadow and light and people moving within the installation spaces by fiona tan. then a shot taken at the arsenale, bird seed chandeliers by pae white and the feet of my friend jo. and finally a shot of an art work by valerio berruti in the italian pavilion at the arsenale, titled 'la figlia di isacco'. one of the works i saw in venice that moved me most. a little girl sitting on a chair, constantly moving around like children do - an animated film made from very simple and just plain magic drawings. even though the quality of the video i found is not great, PLEASE take a look. you won't be sorry. and here's a slide show of the 'making of', featured on berruti's website.

soundtrack

last week was crap from start to finish. to be honest, i think this may not just be down to the fact that i've been working for weeks without a day's break and was sick, but still had to work, but may also have been weird side-effects of the antibiotics. although i have to work this weekend too - this time at my desk, translating - i'm determined to enjoy the sunshine and take a little time off tomorrow.

so here's my soundtrack for this weekend:

keren ann, lay your head down

johann sebastian bach, goldberg variations played by glenn gould

coralie clément, indécise

on a different note - i think it may be time to say good-bye to venice. it was a good time. here's to travelling with a good friend, seeing lots of art, being surrounded by water and amazing architecture. to the unbelievable light. thanks to you all for coming along! (if i may, i'll show you more pictures from the second part of trip to france next week.)

a note on my pics (since i still haven't figured out to do captions that look good - tips welcome):

1st - funky lights by artist tobias rehberger at the venice biennial bookshop and cafeteria in the giardini 

2nd - said crazy cafeteria, one of the art works that won a golden lion

3rd - oh to travel with a good friend, thanks jo!

4th - dutch pavilion with a series of amazing art works by fiona tan

5th - light and shadow in front of the belgian pavilion

venice: faded postcards and singapore pavilion

i still can't get over the light in venice. so bright. the pictures i took on the vaporetto from the icelandic and singapore pavilion to the arsenale came out like faded postcards.

the singapore pavilion was in the same palazzo as the icelandic pavilion, just one flight of stairs up. isn't that chandelier amazing? the project featured there was a take on movie productions from the 1950s in singapore.

venice: icelandic pavilion

for me, one of the highlights of this year's venice biennial was ragnar kjartansson's performance at the icelandic pavilion on the grand canal. he is basically spending six months, the entire duration of the biennial, painting his cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking, speedo-wearing male model in a rather swish setting, the ground floor of an old venetian palazzo. i asked him what they do in aqua alta, when the city is flooded: "well, it has already happened. we just take our shoes off." read more about his work here.