aa: architects, lawyers and prostitutes

Whenever you see the word “Client” in something to do with building, you know there just has to be an architect involved because no one else in the building game ever refers to anyone as “clients.” It is such a strange word, isn’t it? In a shop you are a customer, on a train you are a passenger, in a hospital you are a patient, in a class you are a student, in the economy at large you’d be a consumer. But client? The only people who have clients are lawyers, architects and prostitutes, all of whom have to live with the reputation that they are simply out to screw you. Only the prostitute is honest about it.

sfz: domesticity

A Lahore based artist Nausheen Saeed’s sculpture,  titled Dove, is made entirely out of soap and makes a comment on domesticity.

ba: pop goes the artist.

‘Gigogne’ is a small set of tables presented by Fornasetti as part of Milan Design Week 2010. The designer has used particularly simple and modern shapes that could be used as a coffee table, stool or bench with a pop art element; adding a twist to everyday functional objects.

sfz: 1947 ke khayal

When history comes to life: Khayal khana activity in collaboration with CAP.

Pakistan’s early days were brought to life in an exhibition organized by the Citizen’s Archive of Pakistan called The Birth of Pakistan. Targeted mainly at school children, the exhibition’s main draw was how interactive it was. But it was not only Pakistanis who benefitted, as foreigners too were spotted at Mohatta Palace learning about Pakistan’s stormy Partition days. The exhibition runs till 23 June, 2010 at The Mohatta Palace Museum. This series of photographs is a recollection of people’s experiences at the Birth of Pakistan.

“It really brought history to life because the history that I’m learning is very boring. All that I know is read and learn from the books. I liked the replica of the tent the most because I could see the way the refugees lived. I felt sorry for the people because the conditions that they lived in were not good.” -Abdullah Farooq, 10, Pathway School student

Photos by Eefa Khalid, Text by Syafiqah Omar and Liyana Low

sj: the hero lies in you.

Anyone who is a design freak will love some comic book something somewhere. And if you love that comic book soemthing somewhere, then you will love wasting your time on this.



Click on image to start.

mza: old Indian calendars on display in Berlin.

aak: three thoughts for a minute each.

Designing is not a profession but an attitude. Design has many connotations. It is the organization of materials and processes in the most productive way, in a harmonious balance of all elements necessary for a certain function. It is the intergration of technological, social, and economical requirements, biological necessities, and the psychological effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space. Thinking in relationships.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Photographer, Graphic Designer, Co-Founder, Bauhaus

Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space… On the one hand it’s about shelter, but it’s also about pleasure. The intention is to really carve out of a city civic spaces and the more it is accessible to a much larger mass in public and it’s about people enjoying that space. That makes life that much better. If you think about housing, education, whether schools and hospitals, these are all very interesting projects because in the way you interpret this special experience.
Zaha Hadid, Architect

Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis … Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.
Vitruvius

sfz: the need to dialogue.

Excerpt from Gemma Sharpe’s interview with Atteqa Malik of Media Medie Collective..

“I was talking about how media art is not going to evolve in Pakistan in the same way that it does in the West…

So what we realised was that in the future we need some kind of institute, or an infrastructure from where media art discussions are going to take place; where there can be dialogue. In Pakistan we’ve had years of censorship – particularly in the eighties – pages were literally ripped out of history books. So for my generation, now in their late 30’s, there’s a blank. We don’t have a history. Yet all of a sudden with the internet coming in, there’s so much information and what’s happening is it’s all getting mixed up: past, present, everything. “

It seems like it wasn’t so easy for Atteqa to set up an Institute..

“But I found that the problem with setting up an institute in this country is that you need support. If you get government support and the government changes, then that’s the end of your institute. If you have a space and you don’t have the funds to run it then all the time you’re just worrying about funds. So we decided as Mauj that we would be fluid. We would use all the empty spaces that are in this city for our meeting spots. So sometimes we meet in cafes, sometimes in the park, other times we meet at someone’s house. It works for us. That was the whole idea: to make it a grassroots yet sustainable collective that’s low profile and so ends up achieving much more.”

Here’s a link to the rest of the interview.

http://otherasias.webnode.com/products/interview-with-atteqa-malik-in-karachi-pakistan-by-gemma-sharpe/

sj: I’m usually talking book, not movie.

Even though I don’t really mind watching movies made from books, in my heart I have decided the book will be better any given day. However, this could be the first “movie”, if it can termed that, that I felt did justice to the book. It’s the kind of book you try to prolong reading, to truly savour all that its putting forth. A total recommend for the next stop at your bookshop. Or yes, in this case, even DVD.

mik: back to the basics

So we talk about clients and how they are so difficult to handle. How they have issues with everything in life. How they love “drop shadows” and “vignettes”. I think when they are being taught in schools, the clients that is, they should be given crash design courses. More than that a course that should be called “How to Respect Someone’s Design – Basic Ethics 1”, and then every semester they should have a follow up of it. Our bad luck is that when we step into the market we are told “Client is always right”. So it ends the game for us. But even then we try. And trust me that trying… works out at times, that too in shape of sensible designs. This is something that would/should inspire the most non-artistic type… Something basic. But Brilliant nonetheless.