SUMMER HOLIDAY HOBBIES AT HOME

Atanasio, Gildo, Rejao, Soley, David and Dagmar on the Mac that Jonni managed to get for us.

Being properly back in Maputo starts off the many activities that are needed here to keep up the pressure for more results and learning. It so happened last Sunday when I went to Nucleo, a colony of artists here in Maputo, to listen to some life music that I bumped into a Belgian film maker, Dagmar Duportail.

Invited him home to look at what we are up to, the material that the guys have been accumulating during the study trip to Iceland and Norway. It so happens that Dagmar Duportail is a very capable and amiable guy so he promised to run a workshop in Final Cut and After Effects (video making software for those of you that are not into this jargon). Since the schools are still on holiday and ENAV is actually being moved the workshop took place in the now abandoned home and newly born media-lab in the living room. The photo shows part of the students following Dagmars exposition. I kind of like the chaos of capulanas, high technology and the straw furniture that I designed and endless wires as shown earlier.

February 5, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Design  Comments Closed

MY OTHER SITES

February 4, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: PONDERINGS  Comments Closed

INSTITUTO SUPERIORE DE ARTE CULTURA

Karina (design), Maimuna (visual arts), Victor Sala (everything) comparing notes after the interviews with the applicants and going through marks and portfolios.

INSTITUTO SUPERIORE DE ARTE CULTURA has run its semester zero and now it heads into first semester with most of the staff in place and the second intake of students is just happening. The plan is that the regular school week starts on March 1st, and there are many exciting things to look forward to for the next coming months.

Here are images of the activities of today in ISAC.

Lists of the names of all those that applied for work in ISAC are posted on the windows on campus. Those that have been deemed appropriate are waiting for the final decision of the recruitment committee. This is a long and democratic process with evaluation of each capability and social skills involved.

February 4, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Design  Comments Closed

ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT

The house in rebuilding stage. Photo taken from the graveyard.

One of my drawings of the complete project, graveyard wall on the right with a roofed gate.

I have now over a year been working on a project in the north-west of Iceland, rebuilding a farm, an old concrete structure since ca 1925 and landscaping the surroundings. It is very important to farms, how they stand in the landscape. This house is in a very harmonious position with a mountain peak in the distance, a view to the sea in the other and next to a redundant graveyard. We decided to rebuild the concrete building although early ideas were that it should be torn down and a new timber structure erected instead. But my argument that history is an important element in the soul of a building helped convince the clients that rebuilding is more successful and does actually sympathize with the wider countryside. Rebuilding the dry stone churchyard wall will also play an important part in the complete picture. This Christmas we went to visit the site and actually stayed in a nearby house for one night to enjoy the complete winter in Iceland with stars and Northern Lights.

The drive to the farm  in the winter snow, mountain and a view to the sea.

January 29, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Design  No Comments

CHRISTMAS SUMMER HOLIDAY

Rejao waiting for tomorrow in London Underground

This year Christmas break has been dominated by the project on sustainability that David and Rejao are doing by traveling and living with us for 5 weeks in the North. We have met great many people and are thankful for all the support that we have got. The blog reports are on the Nordic/Moz page.

The great fun of waiting. David, advertizment, escalator on the London Underground

Waiting for bags in Maputo Airport. Uff! That was some experience, we had with us the two new imacs that Dinamo advertizing company in Norway has given, the hard work of Jonni, and we had invoices with zero on them for import since they were gifts. Great fun for all, customs officers, us and local helpers!

January 29, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: PONDERINGS  No Comments

CIRRUS MEETING OF TEACHERS

We had a great meeting of teachers of design and art in Reykjavik last week. It was a 3 day event with ca 40 international delegates visiting the Iceland Academy of the Arts mixing with the local academics. The meeting looked specifically at three different areas: Gender Equality and Design; Post-Crisis and Design and Common MA Education in the Scandinavian-Baltic countries. Here is a link to the program.

Meeting in plenum, Jóhannes dean of the design faculty in Iceland is talking

The event took place for the fourth time and has been very successful in knitting together the people that are dealing with the master education in the Cirrus region. People had time to mingle and exchange ideas and develop further cooperation. Now I have to start making the annual funds application to the Nordic Council of Ministers and wait proposals from the different members.

Image from the Design Innovation for Gender Equality workshop, developing further the website for the project. Teo, Lorraine, Birgitta and Soley working hard

January 28, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Design  Comments Closed

I AM REDEVELOPING MY WEBSITE

These days I am redeveloping my website from the old windows based system to a wordpress platform. The aim is not to change the site much to those that visit the site, but this will simplify for me how I post material on the site. The old site will then appear in the archives if anyone needs older posts.

Here I post one photo that I took in Hugmyndahús Háskólanna, an innovation centre in Reykjavik

January 23, 2010   Posted in: PONDERINGS  No Comments

SKETCH-BOOK WORKSHOP ICELAND

As I have maintained time and again the sketch-book is fundamental to the reflection and creative process of designers. It is the interface between thought and experiment, thought and thought and thought and others. In it we can test and store ideas. Therefore I have always tried to promote the sketch-book to students and recently I have myself enjoyed making my own books. I used to buy my favourite size in England always when I was there, but now I make my own have great fun making books with students. Here is a link to the workshop that we did in ISAC, Mozambique.

We (me and Soley) ran a workshop yesterday in the Iceland Academy of the Arts yesterday for Rejao and David, each of us making a book. Anna, a family friend also participated but she has been making books since last year when we started this. Very good friends in Norway and UK, Gillez and Cecilie taught us how to make books and we are very thankful for this. The photos show the fun we had yesterday.

January 21, 2010   Posted in: Design  No Comments

HUGMYNDAHÚS HÁSKÓLANNA

There is always great excitement in more space. Activity comes after. Hugmyndahus Háskólanna is a great activity in Reykjavik, where lots of young and enterprising people converge to start up companies, run through projects and generally just be creative.

The new space that has been made available for the creative enterprises

Here are images from the industrial (fisheries) space that they are adding to their estate. The collection of paper mache statues are in the corner and you might notice that the professor of graphic design in the Iceland Academy of the Arts is also there.

Goddur and friends

Students in the Iceland Academy of the Arts doing cross-faculty group work in the space

January 20, 2010   Posted in: Design  No Comments