1) Nipples 2) MOMA Ad-Bombs Brooklyn's Top Transit Hub 3) Angel of the South 4) Chinese moral story from Ming Pao

1) Grow up... they are nipples, cows have them, your mum has them.
As if you would turn down a free Picasso if it was given free to your gallery. Not that Christina here has the same energy or artistic quality as Picasso, but find a better excuse to turn down paintings than 'because the nipples might offend viewers.'


2) I have seen ads for museum and gallery visits in public transport systems. But not something like this scale. I bet people from MOMA had more crazier ideas but perhaps was downscaled since the subway is after all a place to facilitate a undisturbed flow of sardines from one place to another.

What I love about it is how
"A few of the works even have audio guides, which can be heard on the stations’ pay phones or downloaded to portable devices."

Congratulations to MOMA efforts. Transport railway systems and government bureaucracies need to have maximum creativity in their space to inspire the public rather than cool, inhuman management risk free space that is clean and boring enough for it to be like airport toilets.

3) A giant horse in Kent is the Angel of the South..... hmmm.... very creative indeed... may I ask whats so special about this sculptural horse?

It's HUGE.... oh... and whatelse?
.... It's HUGE......

I have to say though.. compared to the other competitors, this makes much more sense.. actually the more I thought about this article on "What Does the White Horse Mean?", the more sense it made to me. For me, it is the tie of the Horse to the landscape around it that made the most sense. Afterall this sculptural piece is relating itself with its outdoor surrounding very beautifully.

4) The story of leeching from the wealth of other people and turning into your own.
The difference between Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Richard Li.

The long forgotten Central Police Station of Hong Kong

Remember the heated debates of the Central Police Station and how people argued that the design by Herzog & de Mueron was too big and overshadowed buildings behind it.

After careful research, the Heritage Hong Kong has come up with something, so rather than read the news / listening to politicians debate about it and agree / disagree with the new reporters, why not read the original documents and make your own judgements and give comments?

Do make your comment to Town Planning Board!
Deadline for comments: 27/02/2009

http://www.info.gov.hk/tpb/en/plan_application/Y_H3_4.html

http://www.heritage.gov.hk/en/online/press2009/20090207.htm

http://www.heritage.gov.hk/en/whatsnew/events_08.htm

Summer voluntary work: 1) Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009, 2) Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009, 3) Fundraising efforts:

Dear all,

I will be doing voluntary work in Japan this summer. In the remote
rice farming communities of Echigo Tsumari, Niigata and also in the
sprawling metropolis of the city of Osaka.

1) Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009

Echigo Tsumari (Niigata province, Japan) is a city scattered with rice
fields, dotted with hills and a brush of river running in between. The
art triennial is about using public art to revitalise vast amounts of
land covering six farming municipalities.

The story goes that urbanisation, a lowered demand for pearl rice in
Japan and a declining birth rate has meant that schools continue to
close down and the average age of the population continues to
increase. Its a trend that the entire nation will have to face and, in
many ways, what happens in the villages is a preview of times to come.

300 or so artists, mostly from Japan, but also selected from all over
the globe, will gather in Echigo Tsumari this summer to celebrate it's
4th Triennial by creating artworks addressing themes touching upon
the vice and virtues, friendships and conflicts of our contemporary
world.

I shall be working with a Hong Kong artist, Mr. Kingsley Ng (伍韶勁), who has
been selected by the Echigo Tsumari community to create an artwork
amongst rice paddies and village townhouses.

Please follow the link to see one of Mr. Ng's art piece called metier
a tisser musical (Musical Loom)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=HK&hl=zh-TW&v=qXjKmerqHwY

The following are related links:

facebook group:
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 越後妻有大地の芸術祭

Kingsleys Ng's homepage:
http://www.kingsleyng.com/

Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2009:
http://www.echigo-tsumari.jp/

2) Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009

I shall also be working on an art project for the
city of Osaka under the title 'Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009', an
initiative that aims to bring water back to the city of
Osaka.
Osaka was once known as the Venice of the east due to its rich
waterways. Modern infrastructure has meant reclamation and an
explosion of vehicles on concrete roads instead of water
transport as a way of commuting.

The project aims to stimulate questions about modern urban land use
and explore various themes such as conservation, nature,
city, development, and urban interaction.

The following are related links:

Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009' Touting new city image
http://www.osakacity.org/news/newsItem.aspx?news=370

Kansai in Focus: Waterside with people: for revival of 'aquapolis'
http://www.kippo.or.jp/KansaiWindowHtml/News/2008-e/20081105_News.html


3) Fundraising efforts:

In order to make all these happen, we plan to
have a tour to sponsor the artist, Mr. Kingsley Ng and
his team as well as students who will form a team at Echigo Tsumari
and Osaka.

The tour will be led by Mr. Alexander Hui (許日銓), a trained architect who was
a curator and lecturer from the University of Hong Kong. He also spent
some years as the executive officer of the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
He is currently pursuing a PhD degree and is also actively involved in
many community projects in Hong Kong.

One tour will cover a special preview to Echigo Tsumari to see the artists and volunteers at work.
The other tour will take all to a special visit to the Naoshima,
inland Seto Sea area for a special preview of not only places like
ChiChu and Inujima with the curators but also museums and art sites
under construction by Tadao Ando, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa and Li U Fan in
preparation for their opening in 2010.

If you are interested in these projects / tours / donations,
please email to

James Lam (林自立）
juanjaime@gmail.com

or
Alex hui (許日銓)
huialexy@hotmail.com

Warm regards,
James Lam

Things that brighten my life every Saturday

Before the discovery


After the discovery

More snowing in Edinburgh and food

Night snow scene...



They were in fact car tires making pattern on the snow, hence from the parallel lines, you could tell 2 cars moved back in order to get out.


Biblos Sweet Potato Wedges.... hmm... gems of Edinburgh food that I recently discovered. I can have this 3 times a day.


Home cooked Lamp Chop with Asparagus.... should've added corn for colour effect.
It tasted very lampy, which is exactly what I wanted, and as a result, my flat stunk : )

Snow and view from my bedroom

Pick your favourite, or least favourite, as the case may be.

Makes me nostalgic for the wonderful ski trip in Anzere, Switzerland some years back.

Blog on blog about teaching

I've taken up a part time job of teaching BBC (British Born Chinese) children Chinese. They age between 8 and 12. The hardest thing of all is to be mean and tell them to shut up since they are so adorable, the other hardest thing to do is to not smile and giggle when they are doing the mass reading from the text book. Simply the cutest ensemble of voices you can ever hear besides a baby doing dada sounds.

Anyways, teaching young children is not really that hard, I was afraid that they would be quiet and I wouldn't know what to say. But the problem in my classroom was keeping them quiet. And it is universal truth (if universal truths of any kind exists) that kids are all noisy, creative and talkative no matter what country you are in. And sensitive questions will be asked when you least expect it.

This blog on a teacher teaching English in rural parts of China shows a child wanting to be the first woman leader of the KMT party in Taiwan!!!