The commute in New York is like no where else
#expresstrainsrunslowerthanlocal #busestravelatwalkingspeed #thereare2trainsevery10minutesinsteadof1every5 #delaysat59thstreet
Author: Adrian
College is awesome, but
#semesterisover #lackofsleep #somuchstudying #toomanyemails #timeflies #honorscenterranoutofsnacks
The world we don’t see
I went to see Zero Tolerance at MoMA PS1, Complexions Contemporary Ballet at Joyce Theater, and Genesis at the International Center of Photography with Joshua and Kevin. My favorite of these three events was the exhibit Genesis.
Genesis was the main exhibit in the International Center of Photography. It was a collection of photographs taken by Sebastiao Salgado. They show Salgado’s findings in the mountains, in Africa, and within the arctic circle. Salgado is trying to raise public awareness of global issues, especially climate change. He doe this by showing us how the environment affects many people of developing countries because they are most closely associated with the way things used to be. Therefore, the name of the collection of photographs is Genesis.
I enjoyed looking at the photos of the mountains because they were so large and beautiful. My favorite was a photograph of a small mountain range and clouds above it, and behind the clouds I could see the base of an enormous mountain. The grandeur of such mountains impresses me. I also liked that the photos hanging in one of the hallways were showing two completely different things. On one side, photos of Siberia depicted the cold climate and how people struggled to keep warm while traveling across an immense expanse of a frozen desert. On the other side, were photographs of the natives living near the equator. Unlike the people from Siberia, they were warm all the time. However, they lacked adequate food, shelter and tools. This setup of the two areas juxtaposed in one hallway, shows how close Salgado allows us to travel to see such different aspects of life, but I’m sure it took him a couple of years to take all the photos.
This exhibit demonstrates the ways so many people live using black and white photographs and short descriptions.Salgado shows the viewers that there are so many places different from ours. He did not take pictures of any of the things we are used to seeing in this industrialized, technologically advanced part of the world. By portraying only nature, he encourages people like us to think about our surroundings and how we affect them. I am glad I made this afternoon trip to this exhibit to view the parts of the world I did not see before.
How individuals work together and behave as one: Complexions Contemporary Ballet
Joshua, Kevin, and I went to Complexions Contemporary Ballet on their opening performance. Joyce Theatre is a movie theatre re-purposed as a dance space. It has been open as a space for dancers since 1982. On a cold day in November, Complexions Contemporary Ballet performed a set of dances entitled “Head Space”.
Complexions Contemporary Ballet is a dance group keen on reinventing dance by blending methods, styles and cultures. They focus on removing boundaries between the styles of each individual culture they include and amalgamating all of those styles into their work. Throughout their dances, this dance group has developed a prevalent theme of stacking their dancers one on another. Many times one individual would lift her leg up high and hold on to her partner for balance. Most of the ballet included these kinds of dance moves that required two partners to perform. The two individuals would have to function as one system to perform the quick paced yet meticulous dance. The dances also had the effect of emphasizing what freedom of thought looked like. They were purposed to stress that freedom of thought.
-Adrian, with Kevin and Joshua
Man on the Wire
Watching the documentary about Philippe Petit made me aware of such a crazy, unique, and incredible event. I can hardly believe that someone would have the courage to walk on a tightrope so high in the air, while knowing the police will arrest him. In addition it must have been really hard to plan everything out, but it is great that he was able to get the rope up to the top of one tower and across to the other tower. I wonder what it was like to be Petit when he was on the wire at the time. I am so glad I had the opportunity to spend an evening with my class watching this extraordinary event get planed and performed.
Zero Tolerance
Joshua, Kevin, and I went to MoMA PS1 in Queens to see the exhibit Zero Tolerance. An interesting site that welcomed us to the museum is 4 dumpsters with one of the words “Throw Your Art Away.”
The Exhibit inside the building was a massive collection of work from various artists. It featured multiple mediums of art such as photography, painting and documentaries. Most of the work is from the latter half of the 20th century all the way up to today. They are connected, however, through their conveyance of the tensions of freedom and control around the world. The exhibit is called “Zero Tolerance” to describe the way people feel they are not tolerated by the government and so the lack freedom. “Zero Tolerance” is also the name of the policy in New York City in the 1990s when police took a tough stance against crime and immoral behavior.
One room had TVs on all the walls and it sounded like chaos when you tried to listen to all of it at once. Nevertheless, by paying attention to one of the TVs, we could understand what was going on and it was most likely an important event that we did not know about before, so we can learn a lot from being in that room. All of the events were outside of the United States and in foreign languages, but there were subtitles if to understand what people were saying.
Other events captured on video were taking place in Russia where homosexual practices are banned. Female rebels were spontaneously kissing Russian police women to demonstrate their protest against the anti-gay laws.
There was a music video, called Wonderland, made to show the terrible conditions in which some people live in. The title is misleading by making it see like if it will be about a place full of admiration, when the place lacks admiration. The title is trying to let the audience know that the people feel that they can make their neighborhood a wonderland if the government stops interfering and threatening to demolish the place. The video explains that the government is trying to tear down the neighborhood in Istanbul and how the inhabitants will not let them do that. It showed a group of men in a poor neighborhood demonstrating their disagreement of government corruption while fighting the police. For those interested in watching the video, the URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUzK6c0TVV4
Although this does not directly show any correlation with the lack of freedom due to government control, this part of the exhibit is interesting because it shows how one person can make a change no matter how small. There were photos of a person trying to make changes to the featureless Tiananmen square in northeastern China. He glued a rock to the surface of the square and showed how one person can make a small change even on a large featureless area. This encourages people to do something to improve the quality of life in the world because anyone can make a change.
Adrian, Joshua, and Kevin
