Februari 29, we will give a presentation on our work @ Mediamatic, Amsterdam: "From design and new technologies that deal with nature's intricate structures and workings, to game art and cat movies. Learn all about window agriculture and the first 3-dimensional model of a brain circuit. Join us for twelve 5-minute presentations. Please RSVP on this page."
You can't make this up. The address of the Re:Rotterdam Art Fair is Boompjes 60-68. We'll be showing our work in the booth of LhGWR. More information here.
Since we started our project, we’ve been frequently asked if we also started growing our own bonsai? At first we thought to limit ourselves to photographing them. But you got us thinking. The first thing we did in our attempt to make a bonsai was to choose a type of tree. In honour of the bonsai philosophy we chose for a Dutch native species: Salicaceae, or Willow. The ‘Pollard Willow’, which is made from Salicaceae, gets its distinctive shape through cutting off new branches at a height of about 2 metres, every other year. It has been around for ages and is considered as typical for the Dutch landscape. They like to have wet feet.So we set out into the Utrechtse Heuvelrug with biologist Bas Sprengers. Bas talked about the significance of this tree for the Dutch landscape. Not just in shape but also in function: the cut-off branches where used to make the first dike enhancements to protect our country from the surrounding water. And these willows form fertile grounds in their trunks for other types of plants to grow, increasing biodiversity by just standing there.
2012/01/29
__________________________________
__________________________________
We will be showing our typology, including two new works, at this year's Noorderlicht Photofestival. It is part of the chapter Urban Jungle, presented in Museum Dr8888.
Recently, we have been attending some bonsai workshops and demonstrations. Masters train and style their bonsai in long sessions, with an audience present.
Pan Yi Long has been making penjing for over sixty years now, but he stands in long family tradition of penjing artists. Penjing is the Chinese art of growing trees in trays. In general penjing differ from bonsai in their wider range of shapes, allowing more creative freedom to make ‘wild-looking’ trees. This freedom is also reflected in the use of brightly coloured and creatively shaped pots. We visited Pan Yi Long’s garden in Nanjing in the winter of 2009. It was a peaceful haven in an otherwise urban wasteland inhabited mostly by pushy car dealers, on the banks of a small river. Having a cup of green tea in his freezing cold glasshouse, he explained what his work means to him.
2012/01/29
__________________________________
__________________________________
Our new website is up and running. We'll be updating more regularly. Above is a new work we will present at the Re:Rotterdam Art Fair. And below you will find some of the posts we transferred from our old blog.
The special edition of our tattoo video comes in a Solander box. It is named after Swedish botanist Daniel Solander (1733–1782), who is credited with its construc-tion while working at the British Museum, where he became Keeper of Printed Books. This book-form box is still used in libraries and archives as the most suitable way of storing prints, drawings, herbarium materials and some manuscripts.
Longing to be in wild nature and designing a bonsai go hand in hand, as we learned in our interview with Zhao Qingquan. In fact, there are seven main nature-images to be found in the history of Western philosophy: Physis, Kosmos, Creatio, Universe, Landscape, Wilderness and Reservoir. Read more about them.
In december 2009, we travelled to China to explore the origins of bonsai. In Yangzhou, we arranged to interview Zhao Qingquan, vice-president of the Association of Penjing Artists of China. Read it here
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________