by Jeannie on May 20, 2013
Every content creator from bloggers to businessmen have their tools. Lately I’ve become wildly enamoured with Instagram.
There is something exotic, almost inexplicable about a moment. How it trickles into being. A surreal sense that something is happening to you, part of your brain is watching it happen and then your memory fires to capture it.
That’s Instagram. It’s the kind of tool that’s a revolving map to those collective moments. How they all add up to where you are and what you’re experiencing.
I recall many a time when I’d encounter a person or a scene, turn to the air and ask “Did you just see that?” The stubborn air always kept silent.
Now you can see it. Share it. And ‘like’ it. Instagram may seem narcissistic, a venue for bad photographers to look capable or full of pointless dog photos, but I enjoy its immediacy.
As a traveler, events accelerate so quickly for me that it’s comforting to know when I’m decrepit and my mind is fading that the things I experienced are archived. That they did exist.
As for the company itself, creators Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram on October 6, 2010. By day one, there were 25,000 users signed up. By February of 2011, Instagram was valued at 25 million. Their product kept growing as Twitter and Facebook users uploaded the play-by-play of their lives at an exponential speed.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook had been watching them since the beginning and always anticipated the two companies melding together. By the time Facebook was ready to buy, 30 million iPhone users were using the app. I highly recommend reading a Vanity Fair feature on the inception and denouement when Facebook finally purchased Instagram.
On a deeply personal note, I follow certain people who take freaking stunning photographs or tell a story or simply prod me to take better photos.
The five I love right now…
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by Jeannie on May 15, 2013
I last left you with street art in Wuxi and Shanghai, promising to write about the commercial art galleries in Shanghai.
Known as 50 Moganshan Lu or M50, I had expected a small collection of galleries. After rallying her and her to join me for a wander, it became obvious M50 is an extensive creative park.
How apt that the map of the property also calls it a ‘creative park’. The art galleries that were once factory spaces are a labyrinth, offering a variety of artistic styles — from oil paintings, to mixed media, pure photography or sculpture installations.
I sunk back into this environment with surprising ease, after being permanently scarred all those years, carted around by my ex as his art ‘wife’.
For a change, art and I were alone, without the pompous airs. We lit candles to set the mood and held hands, which allowed me to make new discoveries about modern art in Shanghai.
Contrary to misconceptions about Chinese censorship, there seems to be a lot of freedom to express oneself. M50 is accessible by taxi (not really metro) and prepare to spend a few hours walking and unearthing some hot and happening work.
My friends and I searched by instinct. If an exhibition seemed worth a look, we went in. You can also gauge a map for what might interest you when you arrive or research online. There’s certainly no correct way to savior art, no matter what those pedantic art critics say.
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by Jeannie on April 25, 2013
“You have to look at it as a piece of artwork.” — Twist, on graffiti
In art, there’s nothing if not drama. After I revealed my tale of art woe… The great love, the loss that tore my heart to pieces, until I finally recaptured the flame. The time came to move towards bigger waters. Shanghai.
I ventured on a rainy Friday afternoon to 50 Moganshan Lu, or known as M50, to feast on more artwork.
If you’re unaware of M50, it use to be an industrial area along Suzhou Creek, in the downtown district of Jing’an. As the millennium unfolded, several Chinese artists found the large factory spaces and cheap rent appealing. Today, the quarter of M50 is flooded by international visitors and locals, and was named a must-see part of Shanghai to visit by Time Magazine.
However, before I got to explore the commercialized art of M50, my curious nature couldn’t help noticing a series of spray painted walls. Some of these walls housing nothing more than junk, replete with junkyard chickens.
Droplets of rain didn’t deter me from walking for several yards back and forth capturing some inventive street art.
You wouldn’t think such a nondescript street would have this, but as usual, China continually surprises me.
The street:
The chickens:
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