Category — Viorika

This bronze and gold figure from around 1300 B.C., came from a shipwreck.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is the sole spot for Beyond Babylon exhibition. Some 300 artifacts from royal palaces, temples, tombs, and even shipwrecks were recovered and brought out for us to see. These objects provide insight into the movements of people, artworks and luxury goods across the ancient Near East and Mediterranean during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000-1200 B.C.). At the MET, these adventures begin in Babylon, the melting pot city made powerful by Hammurabi in the second millennium B.C. Because many of these works have either only recently been excavated or have never been shown abroad, “Beyond Babylon” is a remarkable opportunity for the public to experience the rich artistic and cultural traditions of this period. [Read more →]

My collage project is entitled Best on Earth and it focuses on the life advice I go by, and just the philosophies I would say everyone should go by. I took magazines like “National Geographic,” “National Adventure,” “Cosmopolitan”and looked through the pages. I cut out the phrases/pictures I really liked and put them on an oak tag to create my collage.

I believe that a person has to be the best he can be, and do the best he can do. A person should strive to achieve the highest, and “dream out loud.” I think we should all aspire to our dreams and never let anything bring us down. As one of my pictures says, “the world can’t weigh you down when you’re standing on top of it. ” [Read more →]

De Colores

Mantras

Egyptian Feline

“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” Claude Monet was a fine artist, actually a good bit better than fine and he could barely come to grips with unbridled possibility of color. It’s overwhelming, so much so that we tend to dismiss it. Photography is a terrific way to capture some of the inquisitiveness which makes us human. There are a few instances in which photography can show us little more than what we can view, but often photography reveals to us how little our eyes permit us to see.  Normally we don’t see things as they are; the familiar is forced into the background of our focus. The couch we are sitting on is no longer a collection of darks and lights, patterns and textures; it is simply a couch.  Even though we live in a world full of color, we often don’t appreciate how powerful colors are. We blend it into our minds and don’t notice the beauty of its affect. This project focuses solely on colors, not in one specific area, but in our environment. [Read more →]

The performance opens up with a group of men and women who start to move in slow motion. As they move forward, one woman starts to announce the name of her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The others behind her begin to speak as well, stating their family names in their own language. One voice became many, and the chaos of layered declarations, filled the background of the stage with memories, like scales. “Les Ecailles de la Memoire” (The Scales of Memory) is a dance performance that seizes the imagination, leaves you on the edge of your seat, and thrills you in the moment. [Read more →]

On November 25^th, our IDC class had the honor of meeting a famous writer and journalist, Samuel G. Freedman. From the start, he approached the class in a comfortable and caring way. He had a newspaper deadline and was running late, but “decided to risk it” just to visit our class. [Read more →]

Klementei Rybak was just like any other farmer in the Russian Empire. After the Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew Czar Nicholas II of Russia and attempted a complete redistribution of wealth. In 1920, he received free land in Moldova, a country in the Soviet Union.  It was distributed to him for the purpose of him making money and growing crops. [Read more →]

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”  – Anon

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” – Aristotle

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”  – Anon

“If you have one true friend, you have more than your share.” – Thomas Fuller

“When it hurts to look back, and you’re scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there.”

“A true friend is someone who knows there’s something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face.”
[Read more →]

The movie starts out with one of the characters being pursued by ravaging dogs racing down empty streets and alleys. As the dogs run, mothers cling to their children and people jump out of their way.  This is the recurring dream of a man who has been through war; he is pursued by every dog he shot at the entrances to the Lebanon villages. [Read more →]

Cuesta del plomo, hillside outside Managua-a well known site of many assassinations carried out by the National Guard

Susan Meiselas is a photographer best known for her committed coverage of political conflicts in Central America during the 1970s and 80s.  She was very concerned with issues of nationalism and identity.  Three of her most famous projects are Carnival Strippers (1972-1976), Nicaragua (1978-2004), and Kurdistan (1991-present).  Currently, her works from these projects are exhibited in New York’s International Center of Photography, to which we took a class trip.  [Read more →]

Lincoln Center Theater’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific is the first “Broadway” revival of the show since its opening nearly 60 years ago. As one enters the theater, there is a script spread across the stage, upon which are projected the first few sentences of James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” the book upon which the show was based: “I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.” [Read more →]