Wafaa Bilal -
Quote:
Wafaa said in relation to his Domestic Tension project that he was trying to “highlight the dehumanizing effect on the human. ” I liked this from a conceptual stand point. Often times people talk about video games having a negative effect on kids and leading them to do violent acts. Wafaa explained that by placing himself in the game people started to take sides with him and would actually pull the gun in directions away from him to keep him from getting shot.
Something New I Learned:
Wafaa definitely had experienced a lot of pain in his life. He had lost is brother and father and lived in a constant state of fear. It really helps me to understand his work to learn that.
Themes in Wafaa’s work:
Political, Cultural. Religion, Human Interaction
Thoughts:
Wafaa was very clearly spoken about his projects. I came away with a much better understanding of what he was trying to convey. Most of his work had a element of self-inflicted pain. Through this pain and performances the audience was introduced to the ideas of what he had struggled through by being an Iraqi. He described his themes in projects such as Domestic Tension as ‘conflict zone vs. comfort zone, aesthetic please vs. aesthetic pain, virtual platform vs. physical platform.’ The idea of virtual reality vs reality is something that I feel not many people have touched on. I don’t think I wouldn’t instantly assume his project Domestic Tension was real if I had come across the site. But after watching or playing it for awhile I surely would.
What I found to be most compelling in Wafaa’s work:
I’ve pretty much only talked about his one series of work so far and it is probably my favorite: “Domestic Tension.” Wafaa placed himself in a real world setting for a month where people could log on and shoot him with paintball guns. Paintballs certainly are really painful and I can’t imagine being shot at 24/7 like it was at some points during his project. It was the little stories that he told about this project that really that made me enjoy what he was doing. He said there was one person logged in at one point that kept shooting him over and over. He looked at the camera and said, “you can keep shooting. I’m going to eat my sandwich.” At that point the person realized it wasn’t just a game and felt guilty, stopping his shooting. In this way he probably changed someones outlook completely on the situation. I think it’s every artists goal to reach people and Wafaa certainly does a good job of it.
My Questions:
You seem to surround and place yourself in painful situations with a desire to make people more aware of the situations around the world, how is this more influential than reporting on reality? To rephrase, how does the artist have a bigger impact than the media? I think that Wafaa showed us that he was able to bond with people on a very personal level. With his interactive setups people where able to engage and talk with him personally. The best example is the group that was protecting him from getting shot in ‘Domestic Tension.’
2. In your series “One Chair” you have a computer program that makes the video interact with live subjects. To me this is a very strong way to communicate with large numbers of people, especially since with the addition of people things change to a great degree. Do you have any plans to take this project further? This wasn’t specifically addressed. He didn’t even talk about this project, however, I think I can see a clear progression in his work. It all tends to focus on politics and human interaction. So in a way he never stopped working on “One Chair,” he just followed a progression onto newer, but stylistically similar, works.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wafaa Bilal
1. You seem to surround and place yourself in painful situations with a desire to make people more aware of the situations around the world, how is this more influential than taking from reality?
2. In your series one chair you have a computer program that makes the video interact with live subjects. To me this is seems like a very strong way to communicate with large numbers of people especially if the addition of more people plays an impact on what occurs. Do you have any plans to take this project further?
2. In your series one chair you have a computer program that makes the video interact with live subjects. To me this is seems like a very strong way to communicate with large numbers of people especially if the addition of more people plays an impact on what occurs. Do you have any plans to take this project further?
Idea Blog #3 - Personification
Personification
I hope that by showing a collection of found furniture that a sense of personification will be conveyed to the viewer. To me these objects are very much living and breathing entities. We can only begin to image what they have witnessed. I’m sure a lot of us formalized with Pixar movies and the magic they bring to ordinary objects. David Ristau comments that give normal human stories to fantastical characters and make you love them. I hope that I can bring people interested to something that goes over looked. Maybe they would even be prompted to do something with found objects as well and make there own found art. On continuing my thoughts on my images I had realized my annoyance with the constant lighting setup I was creating. Now I shoot in many different styles of lighting. When I look at the gallery it almost reminds my of work by Andy Warhol. However unlike Andy Warhol we said “I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like” I do not want my work to seem mechanical” [2], I’ve always been technologically intelligent and been quick to grasp new concepts but that is not the focus of my project. I don’t want to be a machine I don’t want everything to look the same. If anything I stress the importance of finding a workflow and manipulating your work in post-production to amplify what you are trying to say. However the repetition with settle changes in my digital work is amplified to me when I look at galleries which contain 20 copies of the same image.
[1] Ristau, David. "The Daily Discourse: The Amazing Success of Pixar Films - Creating Dreams - The Oxen Group -- Seeking Alpha." Stock Market News, Opinion & Analysis, Investing Ideas -- Seeking Alpha. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/429248-the-oxen-group/76765-the-daily-discourse-the-amazing-success-of-pixar-films-creating-dreams>.
[2] "Pop Art - the art of popular culture." free art lessons - learn how to draw, paint and design. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm>.
This picture is very literal in it's interpretation of personification but it certainly gives something to an image that would be otherwise boring. I hope through the use of light that I can bring life to my my objects in a less literal manor.
I hope that by showing a collection of found furniture that a sense of personification will be conveyed to the viewer. To me these objects are very much living and breathing entities. We can only begin to image what they have witnessed. I’m sure a lot of us formalized with Pixar movies and the magic they bring to ordinary objects. David Ristau comments that give normal human stories to fantastical characters and make you love them. I hope that I can bring people interested to something that goes over looked. Maybe they would even be prompted to do something with found objects as well and make there own found art. On continuing my thoughts on my images I had realized my annoyance with the constant lighting setup I was creating. Now I shoot in many different styles of lighting. When I look at the gallery it almost reminds my of work by Andy Warhol. However unlike Andy Warhol we said “I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like” I do not want my work to seem mechanical” [2], I’ve always been technologically intelligent and been quick to grasp new concepts but that is not the focus of my project. I don’t want to be a machine I don’t want everything to look the same. If anything I stress the importance of finding a workflow and manipulating your work in post-production to amplify what you are trying to say. However the repetition with settle changes in my digital work is amplified to me when I look at galleries which contain 20 copies of the same image.
[1] Ristau, David. "The Daily Discourse: The Amazing Success of Pixar Films - Creating Dreams - The Oxen Group -- Seeking Alpha." Stock Market News, Opinion & Analysis, Investing Ideas -- Seeking Alpha. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/429248-the-oxen-group/76765-the-daily-discourse-the-amazing-success-of-pixar-films-creating-dreams>.
[2] "Pop Art - the art of popular culture." free art lessons - learn how to draw, paint and design. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm>.
This picture is very literal in it's interpretation of personification but it certainly gives something to an image that would be otherwise boring. I hope through the use of light that I can bring life to my my objects in a less literal manor.
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| Barrett, Conor. "Day 275 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!." Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2010. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/colonelchi/4441966241/>. |
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Artist Entry 2: Anne Loss
Anne Lass
Upon viewing Anne Lass's work I picked up on the interesting nature of many of the images. Many of the images used an interesting juxtaposition of new and old objects. In an interview with NYMPHOTO Anne said “At the moment I feel drawn to situations which seem staged, yet it is not a dogma that my photographs have to be "real"" [1]. This idea is apparent in her work. In my studio project I permit myself to ‘stage’ the objects but only to a tiny a degree. I am very reluctant to move anything more than a few feet to get a better composition. One of my favorite series of images by Ann Lass is the “Geography of Nowhere.” She said that title was driven by the fact that the images have an “absence of any reference of place and the randomness of shown locations.”[2] The idea that these photos could have been taken anywhere is something I would like to incorporate into my series. Lauren and I discussed whether or not location is important to me. My response was absolutely not. I would love to get some shots away from the city but this could be a little difficult. I can’t recall having seen much furniture dumped in my home town.
Biography
I grew up in northern Germany being part of the Danish minority. Our family has always enjoyed to travel and discovering all these unknown places as a child has had a great impact on me. After high school I moved to London, then to Copenhagen where I attended different art schools. Hereafter I began my Diploma Studies in Essen, Germany, where I studied Documentary Photography with Jörg Sasse. I was lucky to be in a group with quite a few very talented photographers - we still have good exchange and collaborate in different projects. Right now I am based in Berlin, am the proud mother of a one year old boy and enjoy to live in this diverse city.[1]
[1]"Nymphoto: A Conversation with Anne Lass." Nymphoto. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. <http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-for-anne-lass.html>.
[2]Loss, Anne. "About the projects - Anne Lass." Anne Lass. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. <http://www.annelass.de/?page_id=300>.
Images
Interview:
http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-for-anne-lass.html
artist website:
http://www.annelass.de/
Upon viewing Anne Lass's work I picked up on the interesting nature of many of the images. Many of the images used an interesting juxtaposition of new and old objects. In an interview with NYMPHOTO Anne said “At the moment I feel drawn to situations which seem staged, yet it is not a dogma that my photographs have to be "real"" [1]. This idea is apparent in her work. In my studio project I permit myself to ‘stage’ the objects but only to a tiny a degree. I am very reluctant to move anything more than a few feet to get a better composition. One of my favorite series of images by Ann Lass is the “Geography of Nowhere.” She said that title was driven by the fact that the images have an “absence of any reference of place and the randomness of shown locations.”[2] The idea that these photos could have been taken anywhere is something I would like to incorporate into my series. Lauren and I discussed whether or not location is important to me. My response was absolutely not. I would love to get some shots away from the city but this could be a little difficult. I can’t recall having seen much furniture dumped in my home town.
Biography
I grew up in northern Germany being part of the Danish minority. Our family has always enjoyed to travel and discovering all these unknown places as a child has had a great impact on me. After high school I moved to London, then to Copenhagen where I attended different art schools. Hereafter I began my Diploma Studies in Essen, Germany, where I studied Documentary Photography with Jörg Sasse. I was lucky to be in a group with quite a few very talented photographers - we still have good exchange and collaborate in different projects. Right now I am based in Berlin, am the proud mother of a one year old boy and enjoy to live in this diverse city.[1]
[1]"Nymphoto: A Conversation with Anne Lass." Nymphoto. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. <http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-for-anne-lass.html>.
[2]Loss, Anne. "About the projects - Anne Lass." Anne Lass. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. <http://www.annelass.de/?page_id=300>.
Images
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| © Anne Lass |
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| © Anne Lass |
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| © Anne Lass |
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| © Anne Lass |
Interview:
http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-for-anne-lass.html
artist website:
http://www.annelass.de/
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Idea Entry #2 - Nostalgia
Nostalgia
In the article “The Man Who Invented Nostalgia,” we are introduced to works of Wallace Nutting. Wallace “embarked on a series of photographs depicting interior scenes of an idealized Colonial existence.” “These quaint images, suggesting a time when home, family, and simple pleasures were at the center of American life, were highly sentimental and likely far from reality [2].” It seems to me that people have a desire to hold on to the past and glorify it. The article showed that Wallace had an interest in glorifying these classical scenes. In my series of images it was my plan to draw attention to objects that people would most likely not pay attention to. The objects have served a purpose and it’s interesting to see the difference from one object to the next; they are all in different stages of disrepair.
In reference to the book Found Polaroids Schwarbsky states “But for its author, Jason Bitner, the medium had always been “instant nostalgia—framed and faded, a picture that already looked decades old.”” This is a comment on the uniqueness of the Polariod and alludes to what the meaning of Nostalgia may be. If you have ever seen a Polaroid in person you can attest to the fact that the color is rather flat and washed out, and the image isn’t razor sharp like some of the lenses today. As I continue to think about my project I have to wonder if shooting with something that would give me a softer, aged look would aid me in achieving my goal or just be distracting.
[1] SCHWABSKY, BARRY. "How Soon Was Now?." Nation 290.2 (2010): 35-36. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Sept. 2010.
[2] Riedel, Catherine. "The Man Who Invented Nostalgia." Yankee 74.4 (2010): 60-62. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Sept. 2010.
Jason Powell's into the past series comments on the Nostalgia by building a relationship between old scenes by placing them in the frame with the modern scene.
In the article “The Man Who Invented Nostalgia,” we are introduced to works of Wallace Nutting. Wallace “embarked on a series of photographs depicting interior scenes of an idealized Colonial existence.” “These quaint images, suggesting a time when home, family, and simple pleasures were at the center of American life, were highly sentimental and likely far from reality [2].” It seems to me that people have a desire to hold on to the past and glorify it. The article showed that Wallace had an interest in glorifying these classical scenes. In my series of images it was my plan to draw attention to objects that people would most likely not pay attention to. The objects have served a purpose and it’s interesting to see the difference from one object to the next; they are all in different stages of disrepair.
In reference to the book Found Polaroids Schwarbsky states “But for its author, Jason Bitner, the medium had always been “instant nostalgia—framed and faded, a picture that already looked decades old.”” This is a comment on the uniqueness of the Polariod and alludes to what the meaning of Nostalgia may be. If you have ever seen a Polaroid in person you can attest to the fact that the color is rather flat and washed out, and the image isn’t razor sharp like some of the lenses today. As I continue to think about my project I have to wonder if shooting with something that would give me a softer, aged look would aid me in achieving my goal or just be distracting.
[1] SCHWABSKY, BARRY. "How Soon Was Now?." Nation 290.2 (2010): 35-36. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Sept. 2010.
[2] Riedel, Catherine. "The Man Who Invented Nostalgia." Yankee 74.4 (2010): 60-62. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Sept. 2010.
Jason Powell's into the past series comments on the Nostalgia by building a relationship between old scenes by placing them in the frame with the modern scene.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Artist Entry I - Laurie Simmons
While researching new artists online I discovered Laurie Simmons work. Art21 has always been a good site for finding up and coming artists with a strong drive of creativity. While I don’t have a desire to mimic her I feel a huge link between her imagery as far as subject matter. It’s partly the ideas that are presented and partly the look of the imagery that interest me in her work. In an art21 interview Laurie said, “the whole notion of frozen time was completely new—and that’s what I was doing,” [1] which is something I am doing in my work as well. In my current project I am stopping an object from it’s continued path of decay and asking the viewer to engage with it: think about it’s past, present, and the exact moment captured. They have a nostalgic feeling to them -- something that I’m drawn to and tend to incorporate without thinking about it in my own work. I really want my visual to be a commentary on the past, where they have been and possibly where they are going to. “I never think in terms of narrative. Never. There are certainly moments that occur but the pictures aren’t loaded with a what-came-before/what-came-after attitude. They’re almost moments you happen upon: somebody standing somewhere, or riding somewhere. They’re not meant to be loaded with the tension of things about to occur, or things that have occurred.”[2] I’ve always had a hard time working in the “series” mind frame, I tend to work in the mindset of making a solid image that stands on it’s own. It would be a contradiction for me to say I wasn’t concerned with what came before or what after, but that certainly wasn’t why I started photographing objects that were thrown out. It just was really interesting to me how in the city you could find just about anything in the trash, something you would never see in a small town like the one I grew up in.
[1]"Art:21 . Laurie Simmons . Interview & Videos | PBS." PBS. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Sept. 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/simmons/clip1.html>.
[2]Yablonsky, Linda. "BOMB Magazine: Laurie Simmons by Linda Yablonsky." BOMB Magazine: Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Sept. 2010. <http://bombsite.com/issues/57/articles/1985>.
Artist Biography
Laurie Simmons was born on Long Island, New York, in 1949. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (1971). Simmons stages photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as “living objects,” animating a dollhouse world suffused with nostalgia and colored by an adult’s memories, longings, and regrets. Simmons’s work blends psychological, political and conceptual approaches to art making, transforming photography’s propensity to objectify people, especially women, into a sustained critique of the medium. Mining childhood memories and media constructions of gender roles, her photographs are charged with an eerie, dreamlike quality. On first glance her works often appear whimsical, but there is a disquieting aspect to Simmons’s child’s play as her characters struggle over identity in an environment in which the value placed on consumption, designer objects, and domestic space is inflated to absurd proportions. Simmons’s first film, “The Music of Regret” (2006), extends her photographic practice to performance, incorporating musicians, professional puppeteers, Alvin Ailey dancers, Hollywood cinematographer Ed Lachman, and actress Meryl Streep. She has received many awards, including the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome (2005); and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1997) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1984). She has had major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); Baltimore Museum of Art (1997); San Jose Museum of Art, California (1990); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1987); and has participated in two Whitney Biennials (1985, 1991). Simmons lives and works in New York.
Images by Laurie Simmons:
All images © Laurie Simmons
Interview: http://bombsite.com/issues/57/articles/1985
Gallery:http://www.skarstedt.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=80
Laurie Simmons: http://www.lauriesimmons.net
[1]"Art:21 . Laurie Simmons . Interview & Videos | PBS." PBS. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Sept. 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/simmons/clip1.html>.
[2]Yablonsky, Linda. "BOMB Magazine: Laurie Simmons by Linda Yablonsky." BOMB Magazine: Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Sept. 2010. <http://bombsite.com/issues/57/articles/1985>.
Artist Biography
Laurie Simmons was born on Long Island, New York, in 1949. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (1971). Simmons stages photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as “living objects,” animating a dollhouse world suffused with nostalgia and colored by an adult’s memories, longings, and regrets. Simmons’s work blends psychological, political and conceptual approaches to art making, transforming photography’s propensity to objectify people, especially women, into a sustained critique of the medium. Mining childhood memories and media constructions of gender roles, her photographs are charged with an eerie, dreamlike quality. On first glance her works often appear whimsical, but there is a disquieting aspect to Simmons’s child’s play as her characters struggle over identity in an environment in which the value placed on consumption, designer objects, and domestic space is inflated to absurd proportions. Simmons’s first film, “The Music of Regret” (2006), extends her photographic practice to performance, incorporating musicians, professional puppeteers, Alvin Ailey dancers, Hollywood cinematographer Ed Lachman, and actress Meryl Streep. She has received many awards, including the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome (2005); and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1997) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1984). She has had major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); Baltimore Museum of Art (1997); San Jose Museum of Art, California (1990); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1987); and has participated in two Whitney Biennials (1985, 1991). Simmons lives and works in New York.
Images by Laurie Simmons:
All images © Laurie Simmons
Interview: http://bombsite.com/issues/57/articles/1985
Gallery:http://www.skarstedt.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=80
Laurie Simmons: http://www.lauriesimmons.net
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Idea Entry #1
Decay
Decay may be a hard term to come to grasp with everything has a life spend everything has a prime. To me understanding what has been and what will be is very important to an understand of life. "Jay explains in Dice:Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck (Quantuck Lane Press, 2003), “To record the death of my dice I called Rosamond Purcell, doyenne of decaying objects, photographer of taxidermological specimens, memorist of Wunderkammern. Her studio in Cambridge is bedizened with objets trouvés (found objects) in various stages of decomposition: Rescued sheets of discarded metal and weather-beaten books that are transformed – by design, by vision, by respect – into objects of great beauty."[1] I think this statement reflects what I am trying to convey which is despite this process of decay or aging there is still beauty to be found. "The photographs expose urban decay and remain amidst a long gone charm amidst hopeless people and empty lots, markers of the economy downturn."[2] Lukatz comments on the documentary nature of which photography can stand for. Documentation is one of the many themes that I find constantly running through my work. But i'm also trying to paint a picture of beauty in the objects which I work with much like Lukatz. Lukatz said that he would shot these landscapes of decay objects "against the shinny skyline." I don't hope to convince everyone that these objects are beautiful but rather that they should not be forgotten because the have served a purpose.
[1] Bloomfield, Amanda. "Eloquent Eggs & Disintegrating Dice: Photographs by Rosamond Purcell ." www.silvereye.org. Silver Eye Center for Photography, n.d. Web. 2 Sep 2010. <http://silvereye.org/documents/RosamondPurcellPressReleaseforWEBandPRINT_000.pdf>.
[2] "The Photographs Lukatz, Oren. "Oren Lukatz Photography." Oren Lukatz Photography. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Sept. 2010. <http://www.orenlukatz.com/index.php#mi=1&pt=0π=7&s=0&p=-1&a=0&at=0>.
The following image by Jonas Tegnerud was selected due to fact that I feel it conveys a mood and expression of beatuy despite the fact that the room is in state of needing serious repair.
Decay may be a hard term to come to grasp with everything has a life spend everything has a prime. To me understanding what has been and what will be is very important to an understand of life. "Jay explains in Dice:Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck (Quantuck Lane Press, 2003), “To record the death of my dice I called Rosamond Purcell, doyenne of decaying objects, photographer of taxidermological specimens, memorist of Wunderkammern. Her studio in Cambridge is bedizened with objets trouvés (found objects) in various stages of decomposition: Rescued sheets of discarded metal and weather-beaten books that are transformed – by design, by vision, by respect – into objects of great beauty."[1] I think this statement reflects what I am trying to convey which is despite this process of decay or aging there is still beauty to be found. "The photographs expose urban decay and remain amidst a long gone charm amidst hopeless people and empty lots, markers of the economy downturn."[2] Lukatz comments on the documentary nature of which photography can stand for. Documentation is one of the many themes that I find constantly running through my work. But i'm also trying to paint a picture of beauty in the objects which I work with much like Lukatz. Lukatz said that he would shot these landscapes of decay objects "against the shinny skyline." I don't hope to convince everyone that these objects are beautiful but rather that they should not be forgotten because the have served a purpose.
[1] Bloomfield, Amanda. "Eloquent Eggs & Disintegrating Dice: Photographs by Rosamond Purcell ." www.silvereye.org. Silver Eye Center for Photography, n.d. Web. 2 Sep 2010. <http://silvereye.org/documents/RosamondPurcellPressReleaseforWEBandPRINT_000.pdf>.
[2] "The Photographs Lukatz, Oren. "Oren Lukatz Photography." Oren Lukatz Photography. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Sept. 2010. <http://www.orenlukatz.com/index.php#mi=1&pt=0π=7&s=0&p=-1&a=0&at=0>.
The following image by Jonas Tegnerud was selected due to fact that I feel it conveys a mood and expression of beatuy despite the fact that the room is in state of needing serious repair.
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| Jonas Tegnerud "old memories." Web. 2 Sep 2010. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_tegnerud/3076705380/>. |
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