FEAST OR FAMINE

  Ukrainian artist Pinhas Fishel is exhibiting his collection “Resistance” in the Davioud Pavilion in Paris as part of the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden) Summer season from 3-14 July 2024.    Pinhas Fishel, born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and now residing in Paris, describes his works as “an exploration around the notions of conformity, rebellion, and the balance between the individual and society” to “raise questions about our relationship to authority, creativity, and decision-making.”   Here his intention is to blur the boundaries between obedience and rebellion; conformity and creativity; individual aspirations and collective responsibilities; and resistance and self-affirmation.      MARTINA NICOLLS MartinaNicollsWebsite    I    Rainy Day Healing    I    Martinasblogs    I    Publications    I    Facebook    I    Paris Website    I  ...

  In Quicksands – A Memoir  by Sybille Bedford (2005), the German-born English author, wrote at 92 years of age. It was published a year before her death at the age of 94. It is the account of the author’s fascinating life from her birthplace in Germany to post-war Italy, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom from the 1950s.   Born Sybille Aleid Elsa von Schoenebeck (1911-2006), she married British army officer Walter Bedford in 1935 to avoid deportation to Germany, and to obtain a British passport, when the Nazis found out about her Jewish ancestry. The marriage was short-lived and she left France during the invasion and headed to America with British writer Aldous Huxley and his wife Maria. From the 1940s, Sybille lived in Europe, settling in London with American novelist Eda Lord (1907-1976). This memoir recounts those years from her starting point – 1953 – or as she says: “I shall begin as I hope to continue: from the middle.”   Her memoir is in three sections...

The Garden of Evening Mists  by Tan Twan Eng (2013) is set in Teoh Yun Ling’s garden in Malaya from the 1950s to 1980s.   Before the war, when Teoh Yun Ling was a teenager, her sister told her about Aritomo, the extraordinary Japanese woodblock print artist and gardener, who was once gardener to the Emporer of Japan, now living high on a misty mountain in Malaya. His garden was called Evening Mists. After the war, at the age of 27, Yun Ling set out to visit the gardener, and to ask for his assistance.   In the ten years between first hearing Aritomo’s name and finally meeting him, a lot had happened in her country and in her family. Japan occupied the British colony of Malaya after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and took control until its surrender to the Allies in 1945. It was the dividing line between the past and the future, between the old order and the new order. During the war, Yun Ling’s sister Yun Hong was killed.   Now, Yun Ling wanted to hono...

  Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music  by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards (2023) is Henry Threadgill’s autobiography. He predominantly focuses on his formative years in the 1960s, as well as New York City in the 1970s and 80s.   American jazz composer, saxophonist, and flautist Henry Threadgill, born in 1944 in Chicago, Illinois, is writing his memoir at the age of 79. He talks about his childhood, education, inspiration, saxophonist Charlie Parker, history, military service in Vietnam, music, race relations, capitalism, art, establishing the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and much more.    He surrounded himself with choreographers, writers, musicians, and creatives in various collaborative projects all his life, but his closest connections were with his relatives. The first person to inspire him was his grandfather Peyton Robinson, and the first sense to be ignited was sound – the radio was on all day long. It was his mother who took hi...

In the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris is The Nagasaki Angel. It is a stone carving of an angel’s face that was originally on the facade of the Urakami Roman Catholic Church in Japan, destroyed by the atomic bomb in Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.    There were two atomic bombs dropped in August 1945 on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hiroshima bomb was approximately 15,000 tons of explosive power, and the Nagasaki bomb had a power of about 20,000 tons. ‘The Nagasaki Angel’ was the only remnant of the church intact after the blast.   In 1976, ‘The Nagasaki Angel’ was presented to UNESCO by the City of Nagasaki and is preserved as a symbol of peace. It is located near the Japanese garden in the UNESCO site.    MARTINA NICOLLS MartinaNicollsWebsite    I     Rainy Day Healing    I    Martinasblogs    I     Publications     I     Facebook    I    Paris Websit...