Jenny Odell's satellite collections

Satellite Collections,digital prints, 2009-2011

Jenny Odell: "In all of my prints, I collect things that I've cut out from Google Satellite View-- parking lots, silos, landflls, waste ponds. The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, reliably repetitive marks upon the face of the earth. From this view, the lines that make up basketball courts and the scattered blue rectangles of swimming pools become like hieroglyphs that read: people were here. At the same time, like any photograph, satellite imagery is also immediately an image of the past. That is, to look at satellite imagery is to look not only down upon ourselves but back in time, even if only by a matter of hours or days. In recording the moment at which things as bizarre as water parks and racetracks covered the earth, the photograph also implies that moment's own passing, encoding each tiny structure with vulnerability and pre-emptive nostagia. My desire to collect these pieces stems not only from the fascination of any collector but from a wish to save these low-resolution, sporadically-updated pixels--these strange pictures of ourselves--from time and the ephemerality of the internet. (source; found this project thanks to Design Sponge)

Kawandi quilts

Kawandi quilts on exhibit @the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco: Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India features 32 striking patchwork quilts made by Siddi women, heirs to the culture and values of Africans brought to Goa on India’s west coast beginning in the 16th century. While they have adopted and integrated many cultural aspects of the Indian peoples with whom they have lived for generations, Siddis have also retained and transformed certain cultural and artistic traditions from Africa. Soulful Stitching provides an opportunity to explore the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World through these colorful and vibrant quilts that demonstrate how cultural forms and traditions have been adapted throughout the Diaspora. The traveling exhibition is co-curated by Dr. Henry J. Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Sarah K. Khan, Director of the Tasting Cultures Foundation... Numbering about 20,000 today, [Siddis] live in small villages scattered in the forests and high plains and are renowned for their unique patchwork quilts known as kawandi. Quilts are created by women for family members and used as mattresses or covers. Small, baby-sized kawandi, often decorated with small, brightly colored patches known as tikeli, fill wooden cribs suspended from the rafters of Siddi homes. Larger quilts for three or more persons is seen as auspicious as it implies a growing family with children. (image source)