French Graffiti

France is a beautiful but battle-scarred country, which makes me assume that the above ruins are connected with WWII. Then again, perhaps I'm totally off the mark since no pomp surrounds these broken down buildings.  They're covered in graffiti and seem to have been plonked unceremoniously in the midst of holidaymakers, making for an incongruous backdrop to one of Capbreton's pretty but otherwise unextraordinary beaches.

All pictures by me.

Hongdae Graffiti

Graffiti in Hongdae, known as the artistic, hedonistic area of Seoul.  Also known as my favourite place in Korea.

Sequinned Graffiti

I adore graffiti.  Adore it.  I'm also a huge fan of sequins, much to the disdain of my wincing fashion conscience, which makes me feel like I should stop wearing clothes because my sense of style is clearly awful.  

Unfortunately (for you) Korea has made me chubby with its (evil) yummy food (mm, delicious), so I won't be getting naked in public anytime soon.  I will be trying to quash my circus-of-horrors influenced bad clothing taste by overindulging in these sequin graffiti art installation shots by Danish artist Theresa Himmer, though.

Theresa lived in Iceland for four years and became critical of the environmental damage that was occurring in the country.  The installations are representative of the snowy cap of a mountain, the lava from a volcano, and a gushing waterfall.  The installations, made of unauthentic, unnatural materials such as sequins are representative of the denigration of these natural scenes, drawing attention to their impending loss.

I remember the Icelandic volcanic ash situation with clarity.  I was in Bali at the time with some very pleased British documentary-makers whose flight had been cancelled, leaving them with an additional 11 days of holiday.  I never really thought beyond the superficiality of the luck/ woe of holidaymakers to the chain reaction that may have caused this event - at least not until now.

I guess art really can make a personal impact.

Images: Favim and Inside Out.

Seven Days

In the last week I've been mostly playing outside in the sun, continuously humming 'Bruises' by Chairlift ("I've got grass stains on my knees for you, and holes in my new jeans for you"), finding old pictures I took of Pai in Thailand, watching David Dutton's 'Do You Know South Korea?' over and over with excitement and trepidation, coming across random new graffiti in Cardiff, and remembering the 2010 Student Protests by watching VBS' Teenage Riot.