Thursday 29 October 2009

Beautiful Badger

Golden Badger- Ghostpatrol

During the summer, I caught a glimpse of Ghostpatrol's work on the monitor screen next to me. This beautiful piece of street art is one of my favourites! The badger appears as if in human form. We empathise with this creature: it looks so vulnerable and alone. I adore the juxtaposition of Ghostpatrol's crisp drawing style against this highly textured and distressed background: this enhances the realness of the scene.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Ronald Searle embraces the typed mistake...



“It must be true, it was all in the papers”- Denys Parsons

I found this true delight when I was browsing in the depths of a second hand bookshop in search of inspiration, and I simply couldn’t resist it! This 1950’s gem contains a selection of comical misprints from newspapers, magazines and books. A charming and delightful array of illustrations by Ronald Searle enhances the humorous tone of the book. It seemed fitting to discover this during the process of dissertation writing and understanding the importance of proof reading. These are fine examples where simple errors have completely altered the content of a written passage.

Hidden Truths

Taryn Simon: White Tiger (Kenny)
Chromogenic Colour Print
As a result of selective inbreeding, Kenny is mentally retarded and has physical limitations

I discovered the work of Taryn Simon when I watched her TED talk in September, 'Taryn Simon photographs secret sites'. Her photographic exhibition, ‘An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar’ is groundbreaking and astounding. She embraces photography’s ability to uncover hidden truths.

Within the last 3 months, I have been examining Malaysian Radio Broadcasting, in an attempt to establish the extent to which the West dominates the East within contemporary society. It has become apparent that within this subject exists a separate topic that could succeed as an investigation purely on its own: the idea that an incredible amount of information is kept hidden from the masses as it is filtered out to ‘protect’, or lead society astray.

Wadah Khanfar is the director general of the al-Jazeera Network and was interviewed as part of the Guardian’s ‘Weekend’ edition last week. Q “What is your greatest hope for the next 10 years? - A “To see Journalism liberate itself from the chains of political influence and commercialism, and to see freedom of expression become sacred without any suppression by governments or authorities”.