Crocheted Toasts, Ramen, and Turkey Dinners Are Prepared with Rich Fibers by Maria Skog

All images © Maria Skog, shared with permission

Maria Skog guarantees her orange slices, turkey, and eggs won’t spoil. She crochets fiber-based creations with preservation in mind, ensuring that every berry and bagel stays as fresh as the day they were made.

Based in  Närpes, Finland, Skog began crafting the fare for her two daughters about 12 years ago when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The practice was meditative and calming. “If I wouldn’t survive, I wanted the girls to have living memories of me, and I thought that they would remember us playing together with the food I crocheted myself,” she says.

Skog sells her toasts and other treats, along with patterns for each piece, which you can find more about on Instagram.

 

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Watercolor Accentuates the Surreal and Metaphorical Nature of Annalise Neil’s Cyanotypes

“State Change” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper mounted on wood panel, 10 x 10 x 1.5 inches. All images © Annalise Neil, shared with permission

A “pursuit of the unknown” grounds Annalise Neil’s practice. An enduring curiosity and a desire to find answers shape both her approach to and the form of her works, which layer watercolor accents atop cyanotypes. The pieces depict the unassuming and magnificent, “the tender yet muscular emergence of mushrooms from soil, the brittle and also supple curve of a snail’s shell, the translucent husk of a crinoid on the beach.”

Constructed with hundreds of hand-cut negatives, the composites veil flora and fauna in shades of blue, evoking the color’s ubiquity within the natural world and the mysteries humans have yet to uncover. Lined with yellow or rusty-colored pigments, the works feature familiar subject matter with positions and scale that veer toward the surreal: large hands descend upon an arid desert landscape, birds escape from a trio of shapes that evoke a mushroom cloud, and flowers, butterflies, and dewy spores encircle a central bloom.

These unearthly pairings allow “for a re-thinking of the human’s relationship to reality and our surroundings,” Neil shares, an impulse that also informs her desire to reconsider and better understand change and possibility. “I believe metaphor is the most effective illuminator of new concepts and is an excellent midwife for empathy. One of the most fecund qualities of the human mind is our ability to ask questions, be curious, and make adjustments.”

Neil’s solo show Holobiont is on view through March 30 at Herrick Community Health Care Library in La Mesa, California, where she lives. The artist is currently preparing for a February residency at Playa Summer Lake and will open an exhibition at Sparks Gallery in San Diego this summer. Until then, explore an archive of her cyanotype series on her site and Instagram.

 

Left: “Recalibration” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper mounted on wood panel, 24 x 18 x 1 inch. Right: “Vivify” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Hahnemuhle Sumi-e paper mounted on wood panel, 7 x 5 x 1 inch

“San Diego/Sequoia National Forest/Cleveland National Forest: Chandelier Drops, Salp, Velvetleaf Pods, Wood Knot, Son, Sierra Tiger Lily, Corn Lily” (2020), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper mounted on wood panel, 11 x 14 x 1 inch

“Latitudinal Flow” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper mounted on wood panel, 6 x 6 x 1.5 inches

“Propulsive Molt” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper mounted on wood panel, 10 x 10 x 1.5 inches

“Ancestral Accretion” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Mohachi Shikishi paper, 11.5 x 9.5 inches

Detail of “Dynamic Mutuality” (2021), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper, 8.75 x 16.75 inches

“Extremophile Corridors” (2022), watercolor and cyanotype on Hahnemuhle Sumi-e paper mounted on wood panel, 11 x 14 x 1 inches

“Dynamic Mutuality” (2021), watercolor and cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper, 8.75 x 16.75 inches

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A Chinese Village’s Breezy New Library Uses Traditional Construction Techniques to Make a Social Impact

All images © Condition_Lab and UAL Studio. Photograph by Sai Zhao

Modeled after a traditional Dong timber house, a new local library designed by Chinese architecture firm Condition_Lab highlights the region’s architectural heritage through elegant, contemporary details. Pingtan Book House is located in the village of Pingtan, Tongdao Province, Hunan, and nestles into the courtyard of a primary school that serves 400 children. The studio saw an opportunity to complement the school—a 20-year old blocky, concrete construction—with an addition that was more empathetic to its cultural and natural surroundings.

Condition_Lab conceived of the idea for a pitched, tiled roof and mortise-and-tenon construction from the local vernacular, drawing attention to the region’s disappearing historic construction. “Entire villages built over centuries from a single sustainable material, indigenous China Fir, are rapidly losing their identity,” the studio explains in a statement. “Dong’s cultural DNA is being challenged by contemporary living and the quest to modernize.”

Connection and interaction within the space and with one another is an important facet of Condition_Lab’s ethos. “Social impact does not require large amounts of financial investment, design is not limited to high-end projects, and architecture must have a purpose,” the studio says. To make the interior space inviting for children to explore, sit, and read, the designers devised a unique plan: instead of rooms and doors, the layout consists of two staircases that wrap around one another in a double helix. Landings between staircases provide wall space for books and top-to-bottom windows that peer out into the surrounding landscape. The steps provide seating for the children, with views up and down the three-story structure through airy balustrades.

Condition_Lab focuses on purposeful design as a vehicle to make change, and you can explore more of the studio’s work on its website and Instagram.

 

Photograph by Sai Zhao

Photograph by Sai Zhao

Left: Photograph by Xiaotie Chen. Right: Photograph by Sai Zhao

Photograph by Sai Zhao

Left: Photograh by Sai Zhao. Right: Photograph by Xiaotie Chen

Photograph by Sai Zhao

Photograph by Sai Zhao

Photograph by Xiaotie Chen

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All of Us Skin Tone Crayons Reflect the Planet’s Diversity with Eight Different Pigments

All images © All of Us

How can you accurately draw the human population without an appropriately diverse array of colors? The team at All of Us offers a counter to traditional boxes of Crayola with its skin tone crayons in eight different hues. Made from beeswax and natural pigments, the collection is entirely hand-poured and is available in three shapes: triangles, rounds, and blocks. “I started making crayons in my kitchen because all children deserve to be seen,” All of Us founder Sabine says. “They deserve to have their smiles drawn on paper, in shades true to their identity.”

Only block-shaped crayons are available in the All of Us shop at the moment, although you can follow the company on Instagram for stock updates and a glimpse into how the tools are made.

 

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Elaborate Towers Emerge from Basic Building Blocks in Raffaele Salvoldi’s Architectonic Installations

All images © Raffaele Salvoldi, shared with permission

In January 2021 in the middle of Italy’s second Covid-19 lockdown, photographer and director Raffaele Salvoldi’s work took a different turn. “That was a tough time since I wasn’t working and had a lot of free time. So, I started to build small forms to keep my hands and mind busy,” he tells Colossal, sharing that he tapped into the nostalgic, childhood activity of tinkering and stacking simple wood blocks.

At the base of Salvoldi’s towering, temporary installations is a single component: KAPLA planks. Devised by a Dutch antique dealer in the late 1960s, KAPLA are an alternative to chunkier blocks that make it easier to build long or horizontal features like lintels and roofs. Initially, Salvoldi started with a set of 1,000 of the wooden construction bricks, and as he amassed thousands more, his constructions became increasingly voluminous. Spiraling columns, delicate towers, and airy apertures emerge gradually from a foundation on the floor, and the structures are often illuminated from inside and reveal dramatic effects in cavernous spaces. Each piece responds to its environment, drawing the eye upward to unique settings like the historic, neoclassical Casa Bossi. “The only limit is your imagination and, of course, gravity,” he says.

One of Salvoldi’s installations can take between three weeks and four months to complete, and rather than opening a show with a completed work, viewers are invited to observe as he adds piece after piece over time. “I believe it isn’t just a performance, rather a kind of a window on an artistic process,” he says. “That’s why I like to define it as a living, mobile room or atelier that people can visit and see the installation growing day after day, week after week.” When a show closes and the work must be disassembled, visitors are invited to deconstruct the installation by throwing additional planks at it until it crumbles, or the artist will devise a domino-like path of KAPLA that strikes at the foundations.

In May 2022, Salvoldi founded the project Wood Arc through which he continues his research into architectural and structural forms. Between February 12 and April 2, he will exhibit a new work at the 16th-century Villa Bono, just north of Novara, Italy. Find videos and more of his work on Instagram, and learn more about the project on his website.

 

   

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A Documentary Chronicles the Work of Adolfo Kaminsky, Who Saved Thousands of Lives Forging Documents in the Nazi Resistance

When Nazi troops invaded France in 1940, the teenage Adolfo Kaminsky became an essential figure of the resistance. His first jobs at a dairy testing lactic acid with blue ink and scrubbing stains at a dry cleaner taught him key skills for altering identification cards, passports, birth certificates, and other papers the the Nazis used to arrest Jewish people. He forged countless documents aiding those facing persecution during his lifetime and is thought to have helped save about 10,000 people in World War II alone.

Kaminsky died this week at 97, and a short documentary chronicles his life and critical work. “The Forger” shows him at home in Paris, where he reveals boxes of stamps and documents he created during the war. Black silhouettes by Manual Cinema—read our conversation with the Chicago-based collective for more on the process behind its puppetry—help to share his story, depicting his confrontation with Nazi officers and the time he was tasked with producing 900 birth and baptismal certificates and ration cards in just three days to save 300 Jewish children. “In one hour, I made 30 documents,” he says in the film. “If I slept for one hour, 30 people would die.”

The New York Times released “The Forger” in 2016, and it remains a profound and astounding look at the power of one courageous person. Watch the full documentary above or on YouTube.

 

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The National Library of France Reopens with Renovations That Add 21st Century Details to the Beaux-Arts Gem

All images © Bruno Gaudin Architects

After more than a decade of renovations by architect Bruno Gaudin, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France reopened last fall with more light and space to view both the massive collections and the original Beaux-Arts features of the space.

Spread across two sites, the Richelieu and François-Mitterrand, the now-updated repository at Richelieu dates back to the 18th century. French architect Henri Labrouste originally designed the main reading room, known as the Salle Ovale, which is largely preserved with a vaulted glass ceiling spanning 60 feet, mosaics cloaking the ceilings, and hundreds of thousands of volumes lining the perimeter and interior shelves. The regal space is now open to the public for the first time.

For the renovation, Gaudin added a large, steel and aluminum staircase that spirals toward the upper floors, which house a museum and the nearly 150-foot-long Mazarin Gallery with its Baroque frescoed ceiling. A glass walkway with an angular, sloping roof connects the east and west sides of the library, and the architect added a new entrance for greater accessibility.

Alongside books, the library also stores a vast array of historical documents and artworks totaling 22 million objects. Inside its halls, you’ll find the second-largest collection of Greek vases in the world, original prints from Rembrandt and Picasso, an engraving by Matisse, a Gutenberg Bible, and Charlemagne’s ivory chess set, to name a few. 

 

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