An urban initiative by MINI

During the next 15 days you can spend sometime pondering on the 'Creative use of Space' and come up with a cool and appropriate design for minispace.com expressing your thoughts about the subject. Apart from getting the chance to feature your artwork on mini's site, you may also win some interesting goodies (including a 32GB iPod touch). More details here

If on the other hand you are too busy to participate, you may still want to have a look at this creative initiative from MINI

Alexandra Pace's Top 5 Projects

It is not the first time that Alexandra Pace was mentioned on Blab, but this time I've asked her to choose her top 5 favourite works...a very difficult task for any artist. What follows is her contribution to Blab.

My Top 5 Projects

These are my favourite 5 projects. I wouldn’t say there is any order of preference; they all represent important and special parts of my life and career.



Slideshow of Alexandra Pace's works

1. Aquarium: Aquarium is a collection that was photographed at the start of this year. The Aquarium collection has just been chosen to be exhibited at EUROPEAN NIGHT – Photographical Identities of Europe, consisting of a night of photographic projections on a public industrial site in Arles, France. This event is being organised by "Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles" and will be held in July 2008.

The project is a series of photographs depicting urban life created using a plastic fish-eye lens film camera. This collection is made up of urban scenes, abstract creations and movement. The concept behind this project is that of pseudo fish bowls depicting different scenes from city life. As an outsider looking in, the viewer is invited to look into these little windows of other people’s worlds.

2. Reza Deghati: Last summer I had the pleasure of photographing National Geographic photographer Reza Deghati together with his wife and two lovely children. I met Reza at an exhibition of his works which he exhibited here in Malta. I invited him to visit my studio where I offered to do a set of family portraits for him to commemorate his visit to Malta. Unfortunately we had less than an hour to do this portrait session since he visited my studio on his way to the airport to fly back to Paris; although the result of this session was a set of lovely character studies of Reza and his family, all photographed on black and white negative film.

3. Niki Gravino: One of my favourite projects of 2007 was working with Niki Gravino on his album “Politics of Doublebeds” launched in November 2007. Besides designing all the artwork for the album itself as well as all promo material that went with it, we also did a photoshoot of Niki Gravino and his band The Vile Bodies.

The location used for this photoshoot was none other that the studio of the fantastic Maltese artist Raymond Pitre. The concept of this shoot was that of placing the band members “within” Pitre’s installations as if they were joined together.

4. London Eye Collection: The London Eye Collection is all about the interesting world of the London Underground. This project was done quite a few years ago but still remains one of my favourites. I literally spent the best part of two weeks hopping on and off trains and going from station to station on the Tube.

The collection was exhibited as a collection of hand printed silver gelatin photographs and consists of studies of the architecture, trains, people and details found in the London Underground stations and trains.

5. UNHCR assignment: When Dr. Katrine Camilleri, Assistant Director Jesuit Refugee Service Malta, was awarded the prestigious UNHCR Nansen Refugee award, I got a call from the United Nations office at Geneva requesting me to create a photo documentary of Dr. Katrine Camilleri, her family and her work.

This award, now in its 53rd year, is given to an individual or group for outstanding services in supporting refugee causes. One of the main functions of this assignment was visiting a number of refugee camps around Malta and amidst all the suffering and hardships seen in these camps there is nothing more beautiful than the happiness I saw appear on these refugee’s faces when they see Katrine and her crew coming to visit them.

more info: Alexandra's Website and blog

The Stone Soup Story

I think this story justifies in a few lines why professional people should blog, share and not build their own 'political silos' at the workplace:

Many years ago, three soldiers,hungry and weary of battle, came upon a small village. The villagers, suffering a meager harvest and the many years of war, quickly hid what
little they had to eat and met the three at the village square, wringing their hands and bemoaning the lack of anything to eat.
The soldiers spoke quietly amongst themselves and the first soldier then turned to the village elders. "Your tired fields have left you nothing to share, so we will share what little we have: the secret of how to make soup from stones."

Naturally, the villagers were intrigued and soon a fire was put to the town's greatest kettle as the soldiers dropped in three smooth stones. "Now this will be a fine soup," said the second soldier; "but a pinch of salt and some parsley would make it wonderful!" Up jumped a villager, crying, "What luck! I've just remembered where some's been left!" And off she ran, returning with an apron full of parsley and a turnip. As the kettle boiled on, the memory of the village improved: soon barley,
carrots, beef, and cream had found their way into the great pot, and a cask of wine was rolled into the square as all sat down to feast.

They ate and danced and sang well into the night, refreshed by the feast and their new-found friends. In the morning, the three soldiers awoke to find the entire village standing before them. At their feet lay a satchel of the village's best breads and cheese. "You have given us the greatest of gifts: the secret of how to make soup from stones," said an elder, "and we shall never forget." The third soldier turned to the crowd, and said: "There is no secret, but this is certain: it is only by sharing that we may make a feast." And off the soldiers wandered, down the road.

The source (which I plan to blog about next): http://www.cultbranding.com/viewpdf.php?file_id=4

In the meantime, Alexandra Pace's top 5 favourite works and an interview with Jonathan from EbusinessMalta are waiting to be put up in the next BLABs!