souvenir de Sarajevo

a brief visit to Sarajevo, a place with friends I had never met before. Little and charming city with strong legacy and heritage. You cannot not enjoy the streets, the people and the artisans in the streets still handmaking some common use items. It is impossible not see the effects and remember those sad days of horror not that long ago and hope it will happen never again.
It was also a journey of first times: the first time that I met somebody flying from the first time, the first time that I met so many poets altogether and who welcomed me in their group, the first time I had a cut-throat shave and the first time I had some handmade bespoke boots.
Some of the poets I met were the Croatian poet Katica Felštinski and the Italian poet Giuseppe Napolitano (their pictures below). They and other poets were in Sarajevo for the UNESCO World Poetry Day and poetry marathon organised by the cultural organisation Diogen.

Finally, somebody did really make a difference to this trip, somebody most friendly and helpful: Juliet, a young Anglo-Australian woman that has decided to make Sarajevo her home and you can see here her visual journal of her life in her new town.

 

 

it was a festival launch

continuing the collaboration with Jelly, the latest 3rd Thursday event in March introduced and officially launched the Outside:Inside Festival 2011 in Reading.

print it!

print your photos, don't just keep them in a computer or mobile phone, put them on a book, an album, a wall and look at them. Create a story and read it together your loved ones, can't beat sitting next to each other while going through those prints and the rollercoaster of memories or talking about ideas and projects. And yes, you can find the time to do it if you want to.

Dig out those old negatives buried in those old shoe boxes in the cupboard. Make some prints, enlargements.
Think about beautiful printed images on quality paper, beautiful darkroom handmade black and white, understated and sophisticated at them same time, moody, evocative or just graphic or that tell a story. Think about displaying them, for you and for the others and the great contribution they give as an element of interior decor for our houses, making them more our living homes.

Handmade

I am a great supporter of handmade products and considering that in my own work and activity I adopt those handmade approaches often referred to as traditional, how could I not be?
I am a great fan especially of those that provide a much more interesting and challenging alternative to mass produced items sold in the high street and by the big distribution giants. 
I personally see several reasons for it and of course they are all personal points of view, some are:

• I support local/small entrepeneurs hence helping in supporting local economies (i appreciate how naive this may sound to some people...), "local" in a broader sense
• I give my money to people that use their personal talent and creativity to give us something different, that breaks this mould of cliche and sameness imposed on us nearly everywhere (is not depressing to travel all over the world and see the same chain shop everywhere selling exactly the same item?)
• The individuality even though part of the same community
• It support ideas, thinking, culture, skills development and exchanges, creativity, communication within the community
• It gives us a choice: it is not "you can have any colour you want as long as it is black" and we can choose whom we want to buy from.

Of course as with everything it also a matter of finding the right balance as one side of this story must not or cannot exclude the other and there is a place and a role for both aspects of the economy. But we could carry on forever talking about this.

As you probably know in the past few months I have worked quite regularly with local art organisation Jelly and I was very pleased when I was asked about using some of my photos to illustrate an interview with its founder and director Suzanne Stallard. I can only recommend reading this inspirational interview and the rest of the magazine and the back issues, a great display of handmade talent and creativity. This and past issues of the magazines are here.

Finally I would like to invite you to join their campaign to buy Handmade, I did join.