BALANCE of CULTURE

Yuan Xikun, artist and environmentalist

Yuan Xikun is yet another important and exciting Chinese artist who is extremely well known in his home country but also a familiar face in the international context. Xikun recently opened an exhibit in the Maldives' National Art Gallery and also made a stop in New York City last week for his US exhibit "Two to Three Dimensions: Blend of Contemporary Chinese Art and Western Aesthetic," which was co-hosted by The China Institute in America and E.G.G. Strategic Alliance at the CUE Art Foundation.

"Two to Three Dimensions: Blend of Contemporary Chinese Art and Western Aesthetic" features 25 of Xikun's lauded contemporary paintings and sculptures provided by the Yiyuan Society, which is China's largest private museum. Yiyuan Society's mission isn't simply to showcase art by both established and upcoming artists, but also to promote cross-cultural understanding and international exchanges between China and the rest of the world. The museum highlights both art history as well as contemporary art through its myriad interdisciplinary conservation and education programs.

Xikun, distinguished as both an artist as well as environmentalist, speaker, educator and philosopher, has been heavily involved in the progression of China's pollution control and environmental protection issues for decades. In the 1990s he facilitated an important loan between the World Bank, Yunnan province, and the Kunming Municipal government which went towards Dianchi Lake's pollution efforts and has since been active with multidisciplinary approaches to such public campaigns.

Recently at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, Xikun was recognized by UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme Achim Steiner with an award for "UNEP Patron for the Arts and Environment."

Xikun's public education of the environment continues all around the world today. The UNEP in Kenya and Beijing Zoo have installed his works to support their own aims at educating the youth and general public on local environmental issues. He continues to exhibit his multidisciplinary work within both museum and institutional walls as well as the public outdoor sphere -- Xikun's upcoming work is a highly anticipated "sand sculpture" in the Maldives, which will be comprised of sand from five different continents and water from the two Arctic Poles. This will surely be an amazing sight to experience!

Be sure to keep up with Xikun's future projects -- he is a substantial figure in art and the environment, as well as a leading creative mind in China's compelling contemporary culture and soft power.

Related:

Fabien Cousteau & Yuan Xikun bring more awareness to the Maldives

BoC Dérive: 11-11-11

 

Online Dérive:

COMPETITION: Korea's notoriously difficult annual college entrance exam day is such a huge deal in the country that even its plane schedules and traffic change on this day.

ACCOUNT: The alleged first victim in the disgraceful Penn State scandal spoke out and is called a hero.

BORDERS: The PMs from Pakistan and India met in the Maldives to open a "new chapter" in the relationship between the longtime contentious states.

CHAOS: A piece on the challenging balancing act of dealing with the internet's order and "borders."

ELUDE: A group of North Korean defectors brought with them the first ever pair of dogs to escape Kim Jong-il's regime; many believe this as a sign that the dictator is cracking down again.

SARTORIAL: Jakarta gets hipster-ed out.

The influence of ballet pointe shoes

Ballet pointe shoes as technological artifacts -- quite an entertaining thesis presented over the weekend at the Society for the History of Technology conference.

I'm not sure if we should be giving the innovation kudos solely to George Balanchine, but the renowned choreographer's contributions to developing pointe shoes that enhanced the dancer's body and movements is undeniable and surely worthy of further exploration.

Ballet is a relatively older form of dance in the Western world, and the path to honing your skills is even more old-fashioned. As an eager ballet dancer since the age of 4, there's one thing about pointe shoes that I won't soon forget: even with all the "technology" that has gone into them all these past years, the archaicness of pointe shoes is part of the challenge of the craft.

There isn't much way around the clunkiness or the extremely precise way you need to "install" (or "wear") them, even if you're putting on the latest pair from Bloch or Capezio. And, frankly, if you don't put in the hours --daily -- it really doesn't matter what kind of pointe shoes you dance with.

All the years of dance training have inevitably left me with a formidable collection of dance shoes of all kinds, from pointe to character to jazz (minus the tap shoes!), as well as adopting the outlook of human bodies as "IBM machines." I've always attributed dancing en pointe to not only my love and familiarity for high-heeled shoes but also my strangely innate clumsiness in flat shoes, as strange as that sounds!

Google hungry for a piece of the K-pop pie

In response to the worldwide fanaticism that is K-pop, or Korean pop music, Google's latest mission is to set up a YouTube channel exclusively for K-pop. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google, is in Seoul this week to meet with President Lee Myung-bak as well as a slew of top executives at several major IT organizations in order to gain support for this project.

The K-pop trend burst onto the Asian music scene years ago but unlike other genres of Asian pop music, K-pop has clearly been adopted as the choice dance/pop style not only within Asia's borders but in the Western sphere as well.

Distant Europe, South America, and the Middle East may be some of K-pop's most surprising fan bases, but even last month's sold-out Madison Square Garden K-pop extravaganza in New York City is testament to this phenomenon. And recently on MTV.com, the most viewed article on the site was actually about K-pop group Girls' Generation--not Jay-Z, Kanye, or Robert Pattinson.

In recent years, even I have noticed the increasing amount of strangers I meet (both Asian and non-Asian) who become keenly interested in me once they confirm I am Korean: What is Seoul like, do I watch Korean movies, what are my favorite Korean foods, who are my favorite music groups, do I know any of them...etc. etc.

I'm becoming less and less surprised when I meet so many non-Koreans who are so fascinated with me and Korean culture. I'm not saying this is the sole result of K-pop music, but the initial platform of most of these conversations are based upon either Korean pop music or Korean films.

Interestingly, I've also encountered a few skeptics of K-pop's influence along the way the past couple of years--but it's hard to take them seriously when: a) their opinions clearly stem from a predominantly racial approach to the subject, and b) their taste levels are so mainstream that there is no way they'd be aware of trends and cultural currents that were not yet adopted by big corporations and media.

But that questionable era is pretty much over. Once the suits at MTV and Google are on board a trend, said trend is no longer cutting-edge, obscure, nor underground or peripheral. No wonder the South Korean government has recognized Korean pop music as a soft power tool for cultural outreach, diplomacy and cultural engagement with the world.

Related post:

K-pop at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France

Food blogs around the world

Exploring new and foreign foods is a wonderful way to be introduced to a country's traditions and culture, and I always try to have the most authentic culinary experience possible while traveling abroad.

Back at home though, I often enjoy reading various international food blogs for useful dining tips on future trips, recipes to cook in between travel, and other miscellaneous information.

This international food blog list is a useful place to start your journey of scrumptiousness, where you can find blogs dedicated to cuisines all over the globe, including the Philippines, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, and more.

Happy eating/cooking!!

The geopolitical hip hop conversation

From "Leveraging hip hop in US foreign policy":

US diplomacy's embrace of hip hop as a foreign policy tool has sparked a heated debate, among artists and aficionados worldwide, over the purpose of hip hop: whether hip hop is "protest music" or "party music"; whether it is the "soundtrack to the struggle" or to American unipolarity; and what it means now that states - not just corporations - have entered the hip hop game.

Hip hop activists have long been concerned about how to protect their music from corporate power, but now that the music is being used in diplomacy and counterterrorism, the conversation is shifting.

This "shift" in conversation is to be expected as nothing can be excluded from the evolving dynamics of the relationship between today's geopolitics and pop culture. The concerns of hip hop activists who have always tried to "protect" their music from corporate influence may be quite real but what about the myriad hip hop artists (and most artists in all genres, I should add) who constantly seek out corporate sponsorship?

Hicks.com

Italian-American model Vanessa Hessler was fired this week from her biggest contract with European telecommunications conglomerate Telefonica, after her very public comments supporting the Gaddafi family (she had a 4-year relationship with Mutassim Gaddafi, the son of dictator Muammar Gaddafi).

International models like Hessler are common now in our globalized world. Lots of models opt to work exclusively overseas for better pay and travel opportunities, and such experiences definitely add interesting elements to their careers even when they are not even known as models in their home country.

What is unfortunate is not only how Hessler failed to remember that "faces" for large companies often can't say whatever they want publicly (especially when it comes to an abhorred dictator and his family), but how this simply adds to the flighty image of international models, whether it's warranted or not.

But the lack of education logic is not the problem of only international models like Hessler -- this week, double Academy Award winner Hilary Swank has also been under the spotlight for attending a birthday party in Chechnya for president/despot Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov is a known Chechen leader with a slew of accusations for torture, abductions, executions, and other egregious human rights violations under his belt. But apparently nobody in Swank's team of agents/managers/assistants (or even Hilary herself) could be bothered to perform a simple Google search on either the region they flew out and partied in, or even the name of the guy whose birthday they celebrated. Nobody?

Swank wasn't the only celebrity to attend -- Jean Claude Van Damme and Seal also celebrated in the ignorant spectacle -- but unfortunately she has been the one to receive the brunt of the public blame. She has since given up her six-figure paycheck to charity and has also fired much of her staff, except her agent boyfriend.

So the word "Chechnya" doesn't ring a bell…at all? To any of these privileged individuals? With all the people and money involved in these big jobs, you'd think these flashy characters at least have someone on their team who advises them on the things these stars are not interested in enough to google on their iPhones -- things like what goes on in the rest of the world outside of their bubble, who is involved, etc.

A few minutes of cursory research could have easily saved Swank and her staff a load of trouble for tainted branding and damage control mongering, but it's probably going to take a few more of cases like Swank's and Hessler's to make all of these insular personalities realize the actual scope of their roles when it comes to taking on jobs abroad.

But I suppose this is the inevitable process when the parochial bourgeois attempt to get involved with the global politics game -- it ends with a big, embarrassing spanking.

"If You See a Bandwagon, It's Too Late"

Artist? Designer? At this point Shepard Fairey is almost like a lawyer...he can "argue" both sides.

Just a little harmless fun and irony for those who understand economics, politics, and marketing -- even if this Stanford professor disagrees...

Banksy's Monopoly at Occupy London

This should stoke out the protesters shivering on the London streets: artist Banksy has created a new public artwork for the Occupy London movement. His Monopoly game street installation can be found at St. Paul's Cathedral, so if you're in London these days be sure to check it out!

All photos by Beth PH.

Where To Find The 1% in the US

Ever wonder exactly where the 1% lives in the United States? This interactive map shows you some of the surprising locations as well as their median incomes.