Popshots...

...proud to have popuplunch featured as part of the US Pavilion at the 2012 International venice Architecture Biennale. So exciting!

Love Locks

It's been nearly a year since I was sucked back into the vortex that is working full time but this weekend, I had a chance to come up for some fresh air. My husband and I took a lovely post-taxes stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge on saturday. We had barely pushed off from the shore of Manhattan when we started noticing locks affixed to every affixable structure on the bridge (benches, hooks, wires). In some places there were so many locks that they began to look like barnacles. I had seen locks on the bridge before but what we were seeing now was exponential growth since the last time we had crossed. Every lock was different and most were personalized, with initials or affections. The hot pink ode to NYC above was one of my favorites. Another lock looked like it was the first lock ever made. It was over-sized and rusty and seemed to have spent a number of years in the Hudson before someone had dove in and drudged it out especially for the occasion. It was, aesthetically, a perfect barnacle for the Brooklyn Bridge. We started to seek out the locks as we walked and made a sort of game out of who could find the next one first. It was lovely - as if we were on a treasure hunt - and we appreciated this strange lock barnacle phenomenon, even if we didn't understand it. When we got home we did a Google search and then we did understand it. Though I kind of rather liked it better when we didn't. Click here to learn the lore behind the love locks.

Break me off a piece...

While I contemplate this blog's evolution into an urban design-based news aggregator, take a look at this brilliant Kit Kat "ad" that recently launched in NZ:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1644021/have-a-break-in-kit-kats-new-diy-chair

a couple of more that i meant to post earlier, while i am at it..."oldies" but still goodies:

A Smashing Idea: Eco-Friendly Aggression

Kate Gilmore: Walk the Walk

Excitement: Metropolis Coverage

Link to article here: THE IMAGE VS. THE OBJECT

The Key to the City

Saw this bit in the Times and after reading more on the Creative Time site, I got goosebumps and want to cry (tears of delight!) all at the same time....it is just a wonderful idea and I can't wait to participate:

‘Key to the City’ Kiosk

You no longer have be someone important to get a key to the city, at least not this summer. The New York artist Paul Ramírez Jonas likes engaging the public in his interventions. Together with Creative Time, a nonprofit organization that presents art around the city, and the office of the mayor, he has come up with “Key to the City.”

From June 3 to June 27, a kiosk in Times Square will give out 35,000 free keys that recipients can then bestow on friends and family. The keys will unlock a host of mysterious events including small exhibitions or provide access to little-known, otherwise off-limits spaces in New York. It is a scavenger hunt involving 20 sites in all five boroughs, like a boxing gym in Brooklyn, a community garden in Staten Island and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.

The keys will unlock steel gates and padlocks, security booths and secret doors, and what will be hidden behind them is yet to be revealed. Each participant will receive a map to the sites.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Ramírez Jonas has used keys in his work. Five years ago he distributed 1,000 that opened the gates to a tiny park in Cambridge, Mass. He also mailed 5,000 artist-designed keys to Cambridge households, stamped with phrases like “Copy Me,” encouraging people to make duplicates to increase access to the park. And in 2008 as part of the São Paulo Biennale, Mr. Ramírez Jonas arranged for members of the public to receive keys to the front door of the exhibition’s pavilion. Each recipient was required to leave behind a copy of one of their own keys.

The New York project was like “creating a portrait of the city,” Mr. Ramírez Jonas said in a telephone interview. To pick the sites, he explained, he sat down with a map and made a list of different kinds of experiences that make up a city. “It was like being an urban planner,” he added.

Nato Thompson, chief curator of Creative Time, said the custom-made keys themselves were little sculptures. “I don’t think people will ever get rid of them,” he said.

Creative Time has more info on program + how to volunteer!

ok - i am back. LOVE the billboard:

so much fun...see post below...everyone must try it: just send an email to 390gaoxip@tumblr.com or go to wesee.us.