Saturday, October 29, 2005

fascinating stories..

Some weeks ago I passed a shop with the text "shopping therapy" on the window. Shopping as therapy seems to be both common and accepted as well as encouraged. Wich surprises me. Looking into the world of "consumerism" there are a lot of things to be surprised about and fascinated by. Stories about hoarding for instance. I'm sure you've all heard one before. If not;

"The San Diego Humane Society reported that last year there were five major cases of animal hoarding. These five cases involved a total of more than 245 animals. These hoarders became so focused on acquiring animals, and had so many, that eventually they were not able to properly provide for these animals, or for themselves. And they failed to recognize this as a problem." Read more at
http://eldercare.uniontrib.com/news/denise/hoarding.cfm


The picture tells the story?
"Basically, 2,000 kilos of rubbish were removed in late August from the apartment, at no. 13 where I once lived"...
I found this at
www.puertadelsolblog.com

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

paula

Hi.
I have been in contact with Nääs konsthantverk. Just a short visit…
I will contact them again when everyone has something to show on the blog.
I have left our address to the blog and hope they will look at it.
You can look at the website: www.naaskonsthantverk.se

This is an interesting project in two ways... First we got the blog as a communicating area, that’s for it self an art piece... Then we have the last and final thing; to show what’s coming out from this on-line project.

So keep on working and use the blog for communicating!
Now it is people out of the project who taking part, and look, thinking about what we are doing and how we are thinking about the consumer society in some kind of jewellery world.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

gila sayes hallo

hi everybody! better late than never! I think a lot about desires for material things. Nothing matches real powershopping, a nice kick, mabye the old hunters and collector instinct drives me and makes the blod run faster.
There is also another side of the collecter storie, how I/we store all the old things. The attig is a good place, you get the things out of side, you can get it back when you need it (instead of giving it up, you never know if it suddently could be usefull.. in a possible project ?)....the problem is unfortunatly that you gather so much that it makes it allmost impossible to find anything when you do need it again!
I saw this programe on the tv, about a woman in a former east european country. She had made a fortune in selling junk/scrap...the junkqueen she was called. I vondered ..how does a junkqueens crown look like? i think i try to answer that in my project!
Glad to see all the good things going on !

Bst rgds
Gila

Friday, October 21, 2005

more information from the wall
















A soft broche inspirated from this photo taked it from the wall near my studio
I want to explain that the wall has been painted in pink colour and now Is impossible to put on advertisement

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Inspiration images (Paula)

Some more inspiration images…For the moment I have a lot of ideas about what I want to do… (Or may be some kind of idea anyway…)I have collected pieces of graffiti paintings in a legal graffiti area hearin Gothenburg. (Röda Sten). I think this is interesting pieces, because it’s both nature and culture init, and its many peoples work in one small piece. The graffiti is also somekind of comments to the society we live in, there the public room is filledup with commercial adverting posters etc. everything in the public room whotell us how we gone live, what we need to buy etc. I think that graffiti is a good comment of the society, I don’t know if Ialways like it, but it’s still some kind of reflection of who is running thepublic room and why…Also that people who painting graffiti want to bee seeing… To be a part ofthe society, in some how…I have also try to melting down my hair shampoo caps, just to see what’shappened…I like to melt it down, but I don’t want to melt it so you can’t see what itis, that’s not my point of view. I want that people and my self couldrecognize what it is in the beginning…I will work further with this to things, the graffiti and the hair shampoocaps. I will put these things into the jewellery world.I have collected hair shampoo caps and other plastic caps to, because Ithink the have interesting shapes, and they have been used to somethingbefore I clean them up…Every product in our society is selling a lifestyle more than it’s a goodproduct that you actually needs. That’s an interesting point of view Ithink… Everything is about life styles, who you want to be???After my trip to South Africa and the Cape Town I will finish my jewelleriesfor this project, now I’m just collecting interesting things, ideas,thoughts etc.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

About my first pictures (Martina)

Hej everyone.

I were in a hurry when I posted my pictures. That's why I left out all information about them. I'll give you some now. The images in my previous post shows what I've been working on lately. Image no. 1 is an inspiration-picture, a detail of an old redpainted candelholder. The others show my own woodwork. I have mostly reused old un-painted wood that I've painted, then made the paint come off, painted again and so on.. The worn out look of my work is mainly fake. For the moment this consumer project is all about finding out more about my own relations to objects like some specific belongings of mine (the few ones I would hate to lose). But also objects in general. I chose to work with wood because I wanted a material where age/time/handling clearly can be seen and felt. I imitated (sort of) the "used look" simply to compare it with something authentic and to find out more about my attitude towards them. What I might do next is to take a closer look at old things vs. new things.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Friday, October 07, 2005

My first thoughts (Mar)

The first time I heard the name of this project, "Consumer society project", the idea of this concept that came to my mind automatically was not a positive one.
This project could simply be a criticism of our society, but on the other hand, we could treat it as a reflection or solution for consumerism.

What it is to consume:
1. to finish with something
2. to eat or drink something
3 to acquire

The action of consuming is an ambiguous one. People consume in order to acquire, but at the same time they empty something (like the supermarket’s shelf or the forest). This is a circle without shape, isn’t it?

Many sociologist have said that consumerism is the sickness of our day.
What are people fooling themselves into thinking they are buying, only necessities?
The accumulation of unnecessary objects is something without sense.
Although the best solution to solve this problem would be to understand or think about what we really need, recycling being a good example of how to go against it.
Recycling does not mean only to transform the rubbish, it also means to reproduce something that is just as useless. Or there is another current verb more appropriate for our work: customise. To customise is what we can do with our old stuff; change their image or their function.

So, dear jewellers, why are we looking for new materials to work with? Perhaps our grandmother’s, our neighbour’s, or our friend’s jewels can be materials themselves waiting for a transformation.
MAR

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

sas

Monday, October 03, 2005

another image

this is piece of burned pine wood with melted plastic.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

First visit... (Sarah)







Hi all...
I haven't forgotten you or this project and now finally I am here.

Like many of you, I am looking at the evidence of consumer culture.
Let me say, that although I know it can be sinister, I love consumer culture. Sometimes.

But I do love stuff and accumulation (to look at, not to live with).

For now I am starting locally, at the local dump. So many discarded things, and yet so much possibility. Potential. That is what intersts me.

Sarah T.