Category: Arts & Culture
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Nocturnal Exhibitions
God bless the magic of Twitter. I love to be surprised by what I find and how I find it. Everyday is like following Alice down the rabbit hole. I randomly discovered multidisciplinary artist and musician Lisa Lipton through LOROPR, which called out her upcoming performance art spectacle Window Ballet 2: Electric Boogaloo. The performance piece riffs… Read more
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Tile Me a Story
Once again admiring the intriguing narrative tile work here at Inn at the Forks in Winnipeg. I’m searching for more pieces around the city by local artist Fleur McLauchlan, but work has a way of seriously cutting into my sleuthing time… Read more
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Exit the Television
We haven’t had a television in our house for a very long time. One day I got fed-up trying to place the family room furniture in a conversation-friendly layout that also permitted television viewing. So I called up a friend who drove over and drove away with our set, bound for a Community Living group… Read more
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(Sort of) The Grand Re-Opening of the McKittrick Hotel 2012
A year ago we donned bone-white Venetian masks and registered at the McKittrick Hotel in NYC for an evening of mute revelry and immersive voyeurism. It’s set to be doors wide open again this year. Post the Do Not Disturb sign and prepare to Sleep No More. Read more
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Part 1: If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home – The Kitchen
One quick Google search of the word kitchen yielded this smart, funny and well-paced BBC series about the history of our homes, as told through four key spaces: the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room. Historian and presenter Dr. Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces. She pretty much gets to time travel,… Read more
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Street Art: Things Change
I love when street art and murals bring cities to life. But this is no average mural. It was conceived as an animation, as living storytelling, and not as a static snapshot in time. However, in the end, it is unable to escape its essential form. A three-week painting condensed into a 3 minute animation.… Read more
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Expats: From Neither Here Nor There
Ottawa is known as a government town. It is predominantly middle-class, not obviously flash or sexy. I don’t say these things as a criticism. We chose to live here for the past thirteen years and continue to make that choice for a variety of reasons. But unlike Montreal or Vancouver, with their more obvious charms,… Read more
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CurioCabinet: Anatomy of a House
Ma’a’seh Toviyah Venice, 1708. Woodcut. National Library of Medicine. Toviyah Kats (ca. 1652-1729) [author] This illustration from a Hebrew encyclopedia pairs the interior of a human interior with the interior of a house, a visual metaphor: the organs, like rooms in… Read more
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SacredSpaces: Vedic Verses on the Mystical Rites of House Consecration
FROM THE VEDAS Reproduced with permission from Hinduism Today The building of a house, or even any transaction concerning it, is not just a matter of masonry or of business. It is in both instances a liturgical act, in which human lives as well as the powers above and below are involved. A house is… Read more