As issues facing the developing world grow ever more complex and difficult, the task of good journalism should be to throw light on them

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Amazing photos of Burning Man festival 2009 by Hector Santizo

an exercise about today´s social behavior.

inspired by the shanty towns all around south america,
from las ciudades perdidas in mexico city to las favelas in rio de janeiro,
FALC try to preserve the improvisation´s essence, the grids absence,
the disorder´s liberty.
fabrics, wood sticks and boxes in different dimensions and materials
(from bamboo to polycarbonate)are part of a piece of furniture -
a shelf inspired by houses on piles.

shanty towns are units of irregular self-constructed housing that are typically unlicensed and occupied illegally. they are usually on lands belonging to third parties,and are most often located on the urban periphery. shanty town residences are built randomly, although ad hoc networks of stairways, sidewalks, and simple tracks allow passage through them. most are inaccessible by vehicle, due to their narrow and irregular streets and walkways and often steep inclines. This design project was born out of a conversation with a brazilian friend. we talked about the situation in the favelas, the violence and how people survive in such a hostile environment. but we also thought that those people are as happy as most of us in a luckier situation. in simplicity lies the joy of life. I tried to recreate the feeling of this experience and to express it within this shelf.

Found

frame light’ made from spruce wood

british artist and designer julian mayor will present his new ‘frame light’,
among five other contemporary designers at the fat galerie in paris, france.
the show will be on from april 2nd – may 23rd, 2009.

Found

Melbourne Artist

Sofa Lamp

Client: Moooi
Collaboration: Culdesac

Inspired by the iconic Chester Sofa, the Sofa Lamp takes its recognizable aesthetics out of context and re-interprets it.

The essence of the Chester is maintained and adapted to lightin.

It creates a lamp that through its design and connotation transmits all the social values of this emblematic piece of furniture, in addition to the natural attraction of the light effect itself.

Héctor Serrano Studio

By Nicole Schlomann

T-shirts are a dime-a-dozen these days, but when you see Pangaea Project’s designs, you’ll instantly know they’re special. Spearheaded by Chrissie Lam, the Pangaea T-shirt Project is an effort to “connect artists and activists, communities and causes,” and profits benefit her efforts in Rwanda and other developing nations. Made from super-soft organic tees donated by Save Khaki and others, with some made in Uganda, the shirts are emblazoned with quirky graphics by artists like Bryan Collins, Steve Green, Chris McNally (pictured above), and Jon Theiss (pictured below, left).

Artist and designer Lincoln Mayne volunteered to screenprint the designs himself. Lam’s goals include “raising awareness and funds to help sponsor orphans, and filming genocide survivor testimonies.” Check out her blog at www.createforacause.com for Lam’s personal anecdotes of her volunteer work, as well as photos of her Rwandan experiences and the collection’s tees. “The locals, NGO workers, journalists, photographers and filmmakers are all so inspiring and interesting,” says Lam. The shirts she’s commissioned are just as inspiring, and there’s a design for everyone in this collection—one top is printed with a sketch of two colorful hands waving hello, while another sports bright red hearts and arrows that make up the African continent. What better way to wear your heart on your sleeve?

From Refinery29

New book Library of Dust, by photographer David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books.

In 1913, Maisel explained, an Oregon state psychiatric institution began to cremate the remains of its unclaimed patients. Their ashes were then stored inside individual copper canisters and moved into a small room, where they were stacked onto pine shelves.
After doing some research into the story, Maisel got in touch with the hospital administrators – the same hospital, it turns out, where they once filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – and he was granted access to the room in which the canisters were stored.

In order to deal with the fragility of the objects, and to respect their funerary origins, Maisel set up a temporary photography studio inside the hospital itself. There, he began photographing the canisters one by one.
He soon realized that they looked almost earthlike, terrestrial: green and blue coastal forms and island landscapes outlined against a black background. But it was all mineralogy: terrains of rare elements self-reacting in the dark.

From http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/library-of-dust.html

As an opportunity to explore the play of the natural within the artificial, we constructed a three-dimensional steel matrix inset with panels of living mosses and enclosed within by translucent volume.

Freecell

Vitra