Seasons Greetings...

Seasons Greetings from us all, currently enjoying a chilly white December here in Finland...

The ginger-bread-coupe above was made by one of my daughters...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Venice Ivy...

A few photos documenting the osmotic/ parasitic relationship between, here mostly man-made, structures and climbing-plants...

All the photos were taken in Venice in early November, 2010...

small Bizarres No. 14 - Shadow Men with Multi-color Eyes...

A small shadow man appeared on my blank laptop screen the other day... A man with a rotating (hypnotic..?!) multi-color eye... His nerdier brother, below, showed up a bit later...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Venice Laundry...

Some photos of laundry in Venice - evidence that even in a city almost fully defined and dependent on its cultural, touristic and historical settings there still, nevertheless, exists a fully domestic realm (a side of it that actually epitomizes - fulfills a conspicuous and fundamental role in the benign 'branding') of/in the city...

One could claim that Venice laundry embodies the ambient quality that places like the Villaggio Mall in Doha aspires to capture (but clearly will never achieve - at least in their current format)...

Misty/ Dusty Day at Education City, Doha...

A picture taken through my office window here at the top floor of VCUQ this morning... I'm not too sure if its mist or dust in the air, as the temperature and humidity would suggest the former, whilst the smell/ fragrance and color of the air (a pixellated light-gray) would indicate the latter. Perhaps there's a bit of both...

The 'ring' in the center of the picture is my camera lens being reflected in the double-glazing...

The image below was taken less than ten minutes later than the image above... Here the sun has already managed to burnish off most of the mist/ dust... These events don't take place too often in the region, which, even according to local weather reports, seems to be a nuance free and constant 'sunny & hot'. Consequently such, brief as it was, amiably atypical moments as this morning's 'ground-cloud' are always highly appreciated...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Venice Moss...

A few images of moss - on statues, walls, trees, sculptures, rocks - taken during a recent visit to Venice...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Korean TV...

Korean TV - its soaps, news broadcasts, advertisements - so different, yet so the same...

VCUQ - Opening of New Wing...

View of the ad-hoc 'logo' from the studio entrance...

Today VCUQ has the inaugural opening event for the school's new wing. The shots above and below are a few, somewhat off the cuff, photos taken from various locales up here on the top MFA floor.

In the upcoming weeks more blog entires will follow from my recent trips to Bahrain, Venice and London...

Constantin Boym, the Department head of the MFA Program, making some last minute adjustments to MFA Student Robert Canak's Anamorphic installation...

The 'stretched' anamorphic blocks that form the colored areas/ highlights of the text...

A, somewhat aligned, view of the words highlighted by the anamorphic blocks of color in the background space...

A MFA student's studio space that's gradually beginning to look a bit like a design studio space should...

Some students looking down, into the atrium, from the MFA floor...

View from the student lounge on the MFA floor...

Small Bizarres No. 13 - Sports for Plants in Seoul, Korea...

Came across the curious scene above during a recent trip to a stadium in Seoul, Korea. Perhaps the plants were there to watch grass 'speed-grow' across/ along the running track (see image below)...

Shirin Neshat at VCUQ...

Portrait of Shirin Neshat (for source of image click here)

We had the rare privilege yesterday of having Shirin Nashat, the Iranian/ American artist, photographer and film-maker, and her partner Shoja Azari, as our (the MFA students & faculty) guests here at VCUQ... During our roughly hour long, quite intimate, debating session many very relevant political, social, cultural, gender role based topics were covered. This was followed by a public presentation, which was a joint effort organized both by VCUQ and the Doha Film Institute/ Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Her work, which explores some of the topics mentioned above, has a fragile and delicate quality to it. Her movie 'Women Without Men' has already won a trophy-chest full of awards and will be screened today here in Education City at Northwestern University Qatar between 2.00 pm - 5.30 pm... For a link to the film's web site click here...

For samples of her photographic work click here...

Included below is her video piece 'Turbulent'...

Small Bizarres No. 12 - Sign in Seoul Metro...

WEEEEeeeeeeeeeeehHheeeeeeeeee...!!!

The Other Salhiya, Kuwait...

A post on the back streets of the up-market Salhiya has been posted on this blog's sister-site, smarchitecture. The blog-entry can be accessed by clicking here...