Visual artist Hannu Huhtamo has been creating art with the dark night as his “canvas’ and light as his “brush”.
Using a technique known as light painting, the Finnish artist makes his works with a photographic technique based on long exposure times that vary from a few seconds to hours. While the cameras shutter is open, the artist is able to draw in the air by moving different kinds of light sources in front of the camera.
Light painting typically requires a dark environment and it’s usually made at night. Hannu Huhtamo has created numerous light paintings of symmetrical light flowers, fauna, and luminous sculptures which he draws into various locations along the elements of the current environment and ambient lighting.
The artist’s light paintings have lit up spaces including forests, abandoned places reclaimed by nature in the city outskirts, and even the Namibia Desert.
Hannu Huhtamo says: “The symmetry in nature has always fascinated me more than anything else and I started developing floral shapes in order to create light sculptures that look organic.
“My light flowers and luminous beings represent hope and a bit of order in the middle of the chaos. I tend to be a bit restless soul and rush from things to another quite fast. That way I might seek balanced things, like symmetry, through my art. It’s more than just creating images, it’s a form of meditation.”
The Helsinki based artist has been light painting since 2008 but it was back in the 1990’s when he shot his first light painting image. Whilst at a gig, Hannu Huhtamo wanted to draw out a pentagram with a lighter so he opened the shutter of his camera and created his first light painting image.
With your hands, baby. If you do it with your mind, instead of relieving pain, it gets even harder.
With the hands grandma?
Yes, our hands are the antennas of our soul.
If you move them by knitting, cooking, painting, playing or sinking them into the earth, you send signs of care to the deepest part of you. And your soul lights up, because you’re paying attention to it.
Then signs of pain will no longer be necessary.
Are hands really that important?
If my daughter, think of babies, they begin to know the world, thanks to the touch of their little hands.
If you look at the hands of old people, they tell you more about their life than any other part of the body.
Everything that is done by hand, is said to be made with the soul. Because it’s really like that, hands and soul are connected.
Think of lovers, when they touch hands, they make love in a sublime way.
My hands grandma… Long time haven’t worn them like this…
Move them my love, start creating with them and everything inside you will move.
The pain won’t pass.
And instead whatever you do with them, it will become the most beautiful masterpiece.
And it won’t hurt anymore.
Because you’ve been able to transform their essence.
As we were having our morning breakfast we chose to paint what we were eating this morning. Everything we see around us in nature has a purpose, symbolic meaning and has its own magick. It’s how we choose to perceive our world. If you just eating a banana for health that’s great but look beyond to know what all it has to offer you spiritually. When we get our spiritual world in balance is when our physical world comes to be in balance also. Use bananas for being open to change in order to become resilient, romance, money, and more! . Our custom Art by Nisha Designs are always painted with intention and purpose. Having a banana painting in your home will offer you it’s energy and Magick to what you need in your life. . For custom Art DM, Call or Email Nisha Desai
Magickal Benefits. . Resilience through change: Make yourself comfortable with change and able to pivot quickly by working with bananas! . Wealth + Increased Money: Not only is the banana nice to your wallet, but its energy can be nice to your bank account, too! . Increased luck: Plant a banana plant around your house in order to inspire good luck in your household. . Increased your spirituality: Eat bananas before embarking on a new spiritual quest to connect your energy to the universe, or carry a banana charm on your person. . Increased sexual stamina in men: Once upon a time, bananas were only allowed to be eaten by men, and these phallic fruits worked wonders on increasing lust. Simply eat a banana to increase the libido. . Symbol for the God: The phallic shape of bananas supplies incredible masculine energy to the space.
Magickal Correspondences of Bananas | Banana Materia Magicka
Latin name
Musa (many hybrids and variants exist under this genus. The outdated scientific name is Musa sapientum.)
Intùiti is a pack of 78 cards that really helps you dive into your deepest creative process.
It was born as a project of the Polytechnic University of Milan and it represents a new way of living the subject of creativity, an issue that is often superficially tackled. Instead of forcing the user to find an idea, as it happens with some techniques like brainstorming or the mind map, Intùiti invites to sit calmly and to feel what one has to give, remembering that creating must be a source of joy and satisfaction.
Intùiti proposes pointed suggestions, obtained from the analysis of classic tarots, that are a rich collection of archetypes. It has no divination purpose: each card is related to a thinking model that belongs to our culture, a powerful incentive that can put in motion creative and inspirational processes.
Intùiti is a synthesis of Design, Tarots, Numerology and Gestalt Psychology. It is both a serious game and a powerful tool that brings out the brightest side of creativity without employing rigid schemes.
Visual incentives and Tales
In the pack you will find two series of pictures: the primary intùitiand the secondary intùiti. The first ones are extensive inspirations; the second ones are more specific. To each picture corresponds an evocative tale that intensifies its sensation.
Each card represents a powerful incentive and is designed using Gestalt principles so you can recognize emotionally the related archetype.
You can play as you see fit. There are no main rules. It’s a tool for creative thinking based on visual and imaginary associations, so you just have to shuffle the deck, pick a card, and “let it speak”.
Give it a look: these cards are truly gorgeous!
Backstage
It took over one year of study and development and then other 6 months for enhancement. All the drawings are handmade and later digitalized for the industrial production.
Foto di Attilio Marasco
Intùiti is not an answer!
People often want to find the solution to their “creative problems” in a tool or in method; they would like to have an equation, an algorithm able to solve the real issue of Creativity: to create something new. But using a “recipe” for writing a novel means to have produced something, not to have invented something.
It’s important to reiterate: Intùiti is not an algorithmic function that can “make people creative”, or a scientific method able to produce thousands of brilliant ideas. It’s an inspirational tool: it’s not an answer, but a continuos question.
The WOM collective, an all female group of street artists, put on their first paint jam of the year in the Leake Street Tunnel. First formed in August 2019 the collective aims to support local women artists. One of the ways of doing so is to host events such as this one. WOM collective, according…
Magickal and mystical beings are a vast and varied crew, and tribes around the world have preserved their awareness of these beings through stories and graphical representations over centuries.
Artist Iman Joy El Shami-Mader has called on that wisdom asking people from around the world to share their awareness of magickal and mystical beings so she can add them to her illustrated bestiary – drawing one magickal and mythical creature per day, which she then shares on Instagram.
The self-prophesed “mythical creaturologist” has drawn more than 600 mythical creatures since beginning her task in October 2017. To create her inventory of creatures, Iman Joy El Shami-Mader initially sought information from various sources including the book Phantasmagoria and others, researched online, and tried her local library in the small town of Merano in the Italian Alps.
Over the years her bestiary has expanded since requesting people from around the world send her their local beasties. Among the creatures Iman Joy El Shami-Mader has illustrated include the Rashi, a winged horse from Georgian mythology; the Eyefooters from Botswana mythology, who were a race of men that had their eyes on their big toes instead of on their heads so they could see all the things that were dangerous at grass level; elephant dragons from Nepal, otherwise known as Kishi Malaw who protected sacred temples from natural disasters; and the Aziza, a race of fairy race beings that live in forests, which according to legend from the Republic of Benin, were the first to have taught about fire and its uses.
Some of the magickal and mystical beings Iman Joy El Shami-Mader has illustrated are well-known and others not, and includes creatures that are good, bad, evil or neutral.
In an interview with Atlas Obscura, Iman Joy El Shami-Mader explained: “I am generally a history buff and I love fairytales, sagas, myths and legends. In this already pretty epic realm, these beasts feel even more magical. I find them extremely interesting for so many reasons. They can give you an incredible insight to different cultures—what people were afraid of, and what simply was inexplicable at the time and needed to be put into a physical form.”
Iman Joy El Shami-Mader encourages people from around the world to share their knowledge of local creatures with her by sending an email to: mythical.creaturologist@gmail.com.
Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyles including sustainable and green living. She also offers content services to businesses and individuals at Rosamedea.com
Visual artist Denilson Baniwa is using art to communicate the thinking and struggle of indigenous people in Brazil and around the world today by mixing traditional and contemporary indigenous references with western, non-indigenous references throughout his artworks.
Denilson Baniwa of the Baniwa indigenous people uses canvas, installations, digital media and performances to highlight the experience of being indigenous in present times.
A native of the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, the artist, who currently resides in Niterói, incorporates graphics, animals and references to Baniwa life and cosmology with western cultural references such as pop art, Hollywood, and “popular” culture.
Among his artworks are iconic images of Mona Lisa and Queen Elizabeth II with tribal markings. He illustrates the coming together of native with non-native species in a colourful artwork, entitled Diabetes, where a young indigenous man is drinking a can of Coca Cola, highlighting the harm caused through non-native things including products and people.
As a youth, Denilson Baniwa engaged in the struggle for the rights of indigenous peoples and moved through the non-indigenous universe, seizing references that would strengthen their resistance.
His artworks always highlight the plight of indigenous people and animals, including the jaguar, and the artist also uses his art to highlight the damage being caused by the likes of agribusiness and the current Brazilian president Bolsonaro’s position on mining on indigenous lands.
In a digital media performance entitled Azougue 80, the artist eats artificial fishing lures from a plate next to a glass full of mercury (called azougue in Portuguese), the poisonous metal used in gold prospecting that contaminates rivers, including those in the Yanomami indigenous territory. In the background, there’s a soundtrack of Bolsonaro chatting with someone, praising gold prospecting and comparing it to fishing.
In an interview with IHU, Denilson Baniwa said: “We are living in that time where the destruction of human beings is very likely, because we are destroying everything that we find ahead: the oceans full of garbage, the forests that have become lifeless pastures, the polluted cities, the diseases that are derived from the style current life, the violence caused by the maintenance of power.
“It is likely that this world will end soon, if we are not more aware. The good news is that right after the destruction, there will be a renewal where the world itself will heal itself, because the world’s poison is the human being, where all sorts of evil resides.”
Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyles including sustainable and green living. She also offers content services to businesses and individuals at Rosamedea.com
Mushrooms like most things that come from Mother Nature are incredibly versatile – they can be eaten, they can bring on hallucinations, they can be used as a material in the design of furniture and clothes, and they can even eat through plastic.
Now the humble mushroom is the subject of a new exhibition, Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi, whichcelebrates the rich legacy and potential of the remarkable organism, the ideas it inspires in the poetic, spiritual and psychedelic, and how it is inspiring new thinking around design and architecture.
The exhibition, which is currently on at London’s Somerset House until 26 April, features the works of over 40 artists, designers and musicians who take a look at fungi’s colourful cultural legacy, exploring sustainability and our relationship with the planet.
Mushrooms is split into three themes – Mycophilia, Magic Mushrooms, and Fungi Futures – and includes sculpture, hand-cut collage, painting, drawing, photography and film, and bio-based materials.
Among the works on display is a specially commissioned mycelium-based chair from British designer, Tom Dixon; a solar-powered mushroom suitcase from conceptual artist, Carsten Höller; a decomposable mushroom burial suit by Jae Rhim Lee designed to reduce the damaging environmental impact of the funeral industry; and a sustainable shoe design using mycellium by Belgian shoe designer Kristel Peters.
There will be a number of events to coincide with the exhibition including TABLE, a mushroom-inspired pop-up dining experience from chef and Spring restaurant founder Skye Gyngell.
Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi is currently on at London’s Somerset House until 26 April 2020
Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyles including sustainable and green living. She also offers content services to businesses and individuals at Rosamedea.com
The Brighton Waste House – made from 20,000 toothbrushes, 4,000 DVD cases, two tonnes of denim jeans, 2,000 floppy discs, 2,000 used carpet tiles, and construction waste – continues to inspire six years after it was constructed.
A permanent building, the award-winning waste house, designed by the architect and University of Brighton lecturer Duncan Baker-Brown, was opened in June 2014 and continues to be a “live” on-going research project and design workshop.
Situated on campus at The University of Brighton’s College for Arts & Humanities in the South of England, The Brighton Waste House was constructed from approximately 90% waste, including surplus material and discarded plastic gathered from the construction industries and homes.
In the construction of the Waste House, 10 tonnes of chalk waste and 10% of clay was used to create a rammed chalk wall. Rammed earth can contribute to the overall energy-efficiency of buildings. The density, thickness and thermal conductivity of rammed earth make it a particularly suitable material for storing passive solar energy as well as that given off by occupants of the building.
The “carbon negative” building, which was built by students and volunteers, also draws attention to the huge environmental consequences of throwing away everyday domestic objects. Therefore the Waste House also “locks away” other sources of waste material, such as duvets, toothbrushes, music cassettes and old plastic razors, that were slotted into wall cavities to help with insulation in the house.
Now an open design research studio, the Brighton Waste House is also available to schools, colleges and community groups for “green” themed events.
Image Credits: The Brighton Waste House and BBM Sustainable Design Limited
Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyles including sustainable and green living. She also offers content services to businesses and individuals at Rosamedea.com
Two new murals from Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada have appeared in Madrid. The new pieces feature themes of climate change and the fight of indigenous people to save their lands. Gerada choosing once again to use his art in order to draw attention to social issues and the rights of minorities. The murals have in part been inspired…
A series of artworks emphasising the changing global climate and the importance of glaciers is currently on display at London’s Horniman Museum.
The temporary exhibition, entitled Meltdown, aims to emphasise the importance of glaciers in a scientific, illustrative and dramatic way. The show features work from every relevant continent, leading the viewer on a journey in three chapters – The Importance of Glaciers, Current Issues and Meltdown Consequences.
Among the works include artist Peter Funch’s use of vintage postcards as a model for his images of American glaciers to capture the effects of glacial recession; Norfolk + Thymann’s images of part of the Rhône glacier covered in geo-thermal cloth to limit melting; Richard Mosse’s photograph of the ice cave under the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland; and Noémie Goudal’s large-scale photographic installation mirroring the shifting glacial landscape, printed on biodegradable paper.
The exhibition – organised by climate change charity, Project Pressure – is on until 12 January.
Project Pressure, since 2008, has been commissioning world-renowned artists to conduct expeditions to document changes to the world’s vanishing glaciers, the consequences for billions of people, and efforts made to limit melting.
Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyles including sustainable and green living. She also offers content services to businesses and individuals at Rosamedea.com
moriyuki ochiai architects sets a constellation of tea rooms under the stars, a cluster of tea rooms offering a view of the surrounding scenery and the starlit sky as a teahouse connecting people to the stars and nature located in the town of bisei, okayama prefecture, japan, known as a sanctuary for stargazing. the site is surrounded by rolling hills and distant mountains and offers a view of a spectacular landscape.
tea room in the fog
moriyuki ochiai architects’s pieces are able to host a variety of events held throughout the year by the astronomy club and the tea ceremony club as well as a performance stage for concerts and plays. named after two rivers running through it, the town of bisei (jap. ‘beautiful stars’) is found in okayama prefecture which is also known for being the birthplace of eisai, a japanese buddhist priest, credited with introducing green tea to japan. in alignment with its heritage, the constellation of tea rooms is also in harmony with the surrounding undulating terrain, thus creating a landscape in which the indoor and outdoor expand seamlessly like the flow of a river under the milky way.
uster of tea rooms offering a view of the surrounding scenery and the starlit sky
the japanese tea room was developed as an enclosed microcosm called ‘enclosure’, and as such, each unit is designed as a spatial installation where one can perceive minute changes in its natural surroundings and experience the wonder and mystery of natural phenomena. meanwhile, mirrors placed on the exterior walls reflect the ever-changing outdoor environment like the water surface of rice paddies scattered across bisei, thus modifying the look and perception of the constructions throughout the day.
the constellation of tea rooms is also in harmony with the surrounding undulating terrain
visitors can experience the project as a galaxy of tea rooms built independently as they move in and around them freely. the outdoor space, taken as the space comprised between the tea rooms, the surrounding nature and the starry sky are beautifully intertwined to form a new landscape that comes in and out of view through the openings and gaps cut out from the multiple structures. the loose gathering of tea rooms forms an extension of the landscape and creates an environment enhancing the fun and joy derived from human activities. by merging together this newly formed belt of tea rooms with the idyllic hills, mountains and starry skies of bisei, the studio sought to realize a tea house that reshapes the town’s panorama.
creating a landscape in which the indoor and outdoor expand seamlessly like the flow of a river under the Milky Way.a cluster of tea roomsthe loose gathering of tea rooms forms an extension of the landscape and creates an environment enhancing the fun and joy derived from human activitiestea ceremonytea ceremonytea ceremonythe open arrangement of the structures forms a stageconducivee to various events and activities by creating a space where multiple indoor and outdoor activities become possiblevisitors can experience the project as a galaxy of tea rooms built independently as they move in and around them freely
the surrounding nature and the starry sky are beautifully intertwined to form a new landscape that comes in and out of view through the openings and gaps cut out from the multiple structures
project info:
design firm: moriyuki ochiai architects
team: moriyuki ochiai, jillian lei, xingguang li, marie uno, haruka amano, yuta takahashi
use: teahouse
location: bisei-okayama and awajiiland, japan
client: irbisei, nijigennomori/pasona group
constructor: takei construction, ca leading (osami hiroyama, masakazu hirose, yoshiko makabe, kazuya okuno, sanae iwamoto), soken group
special paint: osamu yamaguchi
paint: masanao uchida lighting: color kinetics japan (masaki yamashita, koki yano, miyahara yusuke)
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
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