Snapshots

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg
Venice Biennale, June 2011, Italy.
The Pavilion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Raja and Shadia Alem's work The Black Arch is the Kingdom's first entry in the Venice Biennale. Raja and Shadia Alem are non-traditional artists who have travelled the world, and The Black Arch is a meeting point for the two sisters, representing two visions of the world, darkness to light. The work projects the artists' "collective memory of Black" and the "physical representation of Black" that is their past. It is fueled by inspirational tales told by female family members, and anchored in the city of Mecca, where Raja and Shadia grew up in the 1970s.

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg
Venice Biennale, June 2011, Italy.
The Pavilion of South Africa. Siemon Allen, Lyndi Sales, and Mary Sibande’s installation Desire: Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art represents a "concrete and abstract renaissance" in the country's creative history, exploring ideals of beauty, pleasure and democracy in a post-apartheid society. This exhibition marks South Africa's return to the Biennale and re-emergence in the international arts scene after more than twenty years of creative isolation due to cultural boycotts protesting apartheid policy in the country.

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg
Le Laboratoire, September 2010, Paris.
Mathieu Lehanneur unveils The Pumpkin water carrier at Le Laboratoire, Paris. Art + Science = Cultural Change.

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg
Mona Lisa at the Louvre, 2010, Paris.
The public doing what they do when faced with the Mona Lisa.

Posted by Iwona Osmolska
The USS Intrepid, 10 October 2010, New York.
American models dressed in Halloween costumes prepare to strike a pose in front of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid in New York. Built during the WWII, the National Historic Landmark that took part in all major US wars till 1974, the USS Intrepid was chosen by the photographer as a perfect background for a Halloween photoshoot. That's cultural change.

Posted by Vesna Jocic. Photo by Raymund Arenque, Rai'Entertainment.
Birthday Party at Nuit Blanch 2010, 2 October 2010, Toronto.
Happy Birthday to ___________! at Nuit Blanche 2010 in Toronto. An all-night birthday party in the middle of Yonge Street brings friends and strangers together in an interactive social performance.

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg. Photo by Yude Henteleff
One constant in a sea of change, 3 July 2010, Winnipeg.
The Queen unveiled the cornerstone connected to Magna Carta at Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The Museum CEO Stuart Murray speaks.

Posted by Gail Lord
G20 Summit, June 2010, Toronto.
Here is where 2000 foreign journalists work at the G-20. Row on Row of workstations. They view whatever happens at the conference on giant screens. Briefings are held here. No wonder Andrew Coyne, veteran canadian journalist says of our fake lake "All in all it’s rather a pleasant spot, a small oasis of calm and comfort away from the conference churn, and shows every sign of being a hit with the foreign press." That's cultural change!

Posted by Gail Lord
Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg.
Of the truth and reconciliation meetings in winnipeg a few days ago. It shows Buffy St Marie performing in the foreground with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights rising up in the background.

Posted by Rina Zigler
Girl talk concert, Toronto.
Girl talk has made his name + career in the music industry mashing up favorite tracks and playing them on his mac laptop.

Posted by Joe Banh
Nuit Blanche 2009, Toronto.
Wild Ride 2009 by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan on Bay Street at Nuit Blanche 2009 in Toronto. Joe likes this photo because it's at once so obvious, but layered at the same time.

Posted by Joe Banh
Nuit Blanche 2009, Toronto.
Wild Ride 2009 by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan on Bay Street at Nuit Blanche 2009 in Toronto. Joe likes this photo because it's at once so obvious, but layered at the same time.

Posted by Gail Lord
"The Morning Line", Istanbul.
"The Morning Line" sound installation - project of Istanbul's year as European Capital of Culture. In the background a Minaret.

Posted by Gail Lord
LeLaboratoire, Paris.
Le Whif! A product of LeLaboratoire in Paris for chocolate lovers - David Edwards leads cutting edge art-science innovation. Now you can inhale a whif of chocolate.

Posted by Louis Choquette
Experience Music Project, Seattle.
If every age gets the architecture it deserves, then Frank Gehry's sinuous structures evokes the instability and exhilarating freedom of broken conventions and boundaries. Still, I don't find these to be without a disquieting effect on the viewer—we are free from classical conventions, but unsettled by a shape we just can't fix.

Posted by Gail Lord
The introductory headline text for the state museum in Zurich Switzerland shows a powerful cultural change - the main theme of a national museum of a relatively "old country". No one was ever "always here" means in effect "we are all immigrants" from the celts to us today.

Posted by Ngaire Blankenberg
This photo collection is displayed at the dental clinic of Dr. Kenneth Montague a Toronto dentist. Montague is an excellent example of the 'new patron', whose own photography collection "the Wedge Collection" explores black identity in the African diaspora.

Posted by Iwona Osmolska
Museum of Warsaw Uprising, Warsaw, Poland. It's remarkable that the logo of the hammer and sickle, the symbol of communism that was a political, social and cultural reality for the Eastern Bloc is now hanging in a museum on the wall like one of the artifacts sandwiched between other works of art.