For the fourth day we were in Shanghai, we roamed around the city without any itinerary and surprisingly ended up going to pretty interesting places. Before lunch, we headed to East Nanjing Road, which is closer to the city’s center, if I’m not mistaken. We went to The Bund, from which we could see the infamous Shanghai skyline from across the river (Wusong, I think).

We were then able to go see an interesting exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was very near a nice park in People’s Square. At night, we went to Xintiandi, which is gorgeous. It’s a very popular area with lots of restaurants and bars. Most interesting: the architecture and feel of the place. Very traditional meets modern; I quite loved looking around here.

Then, we had excellent shao mai and dumplings for dinner.

Brother.

I don’t know, I like taking photos of strangers.

More photos under the cut; of the exhibit, Xintiandi and some more
from The Bund, and the walk back home.
Continue reading PHOTO POST; Shanghai: Day 4….

On our second day in Shanghai (June 8th), we went to the World Expo. To be honest, I thought the interior parts of the pavilions were a little underwhelming (but then again, I had no idea what to expect anyway), but the architecture and designs were insanely good. We didn’t get to see a ton of the insides of the pavilions; mostly because the place was packed and the lines were super long, but it was worth it to see what different places all over the world came up with.

I don’t have photographs of all the pavilions, because it was hard to get great shots without people blocking the way, and I wasn’t used to the 35mm lens I was using (no wide angle shots, I’m afraid) but I hope these photos give you an idea of how massive it all was.

On the way inside.

Family picture, minus me. LOL.

Expo ticket with the mascot.

China Pavilion.

Brother & Sister.

UK.

Italy.

U.A.E.

Denmark. (I loved Denmark’s.)

They flew in The Little Mermaid for the Expo!

And made a short film of her journey.
There were other excellent short films.
Made me want to visit Denmark and/or move there.

More photos under the cut. I hope you look at the photos,
because there really were some beautiful things that I saw that day.
Continue reading PHOTO POST; Shanghai: World Expo 2010….

I just came back from Shanghai last night, after six days in the city. We went to Beijing about three years ago, and have always meant to see Shanghai. The World Expo seemed like a good excuse to go this year. We only spent one day there, but that’s just because the rest of the city is pretty magical by itself.

Here are photos from the first and third day. We went to the Expo on the second day (June 8th), but that is such a huge photo post, it deserves its own post.

My sister, chillin’ like a villain.

Hong Kong stop-over.

Day three under the cut.
Continue reading PHOTO POST; Shanghai: Days 1 & 3….

Neon lights read: “This Music Thing Has to Stop”

Siren’s Hall is a group show arranged and curated by Mariano Ching. Here’s an excerpt from the write up from the Mo Space website:

Visual arts and Music have always had a particular link. What with all the music one needs to listen to while making art, to the reference artists have been making in their art works. [...] Siren’s Hall came up as a way to tie up music and art together not as cover art to a band’s album but as a separate project that talks about music in a visual way.

Sleepyheads!

A music video! Drawn by Louie Cordero.

Mariano Ching!
My brother has a piece like this (but, of The Talking Heads) in his room.

Pretty cool, right? Well, it gets even cooler. My brother and I get there pretty late because he is a slowpoke, and by the time we reach the place, it is packed and the Sleepyheads are playing a pretty entertaining set. We go around the place, and there is such an excellent variety of works, I still get excited as I am writing this.

MM Yu.

Mawen Ong & Geraldine Javier.
This is such a creeper photo, I’m sorry.
But allow me to flail!

There’s a lot of mixed media work, installation pieces, paintings, photos, collages and videos. And none of them look excessively alike. I don’t know what it is about the collection, but it just seemed so fresh to me. It was pretty exciting to see how differently music moves people, and how people respond to music. I hope you get to check it out, it was amazing to be around so many different sorts of people, even if I didn’t really know a lot of them.

I don’t know, everything was just so pretty. Which maybe explains this pretty gigantic photo post. Apologies if your internet is connection is slow. I just wanted to take photographs of everything.

And then, it was kind of a win-win, because my brother bought me cupcakes.

Continue reading Siren’s Hall at Mo Space; Or, a Pretty Frakking Cool Exhibit That You Must See…

Ever since I could remember, the question I get asked most often when people find out my parents are artists is this: “Oh, so you paint, too?” And, while I am flattered that people think that artistic skills are automatically passed on to artists’ offspring, I have had to answer that question with a “no,” for more than two decades. All bias aside, I think my parents are good artists. They know how to render things in amazing detail, and they pick subjects that aren’t cheesy or pseudo-intellectual. They just paint beautiful things, and quite frankly, they do it pretty darn beautifully.

So, I don’t know what possessed me to try my hand at painting. I’m not particularly gifted artistically… I mean, I can put together a decent collage, and I left college with a fine arts degree. But that doesn’t mean that I can paint. I am twenty-one years old (BRB, crying) and I still cannot keep my colors within the lines (BRB, crying some more). Everything I touch—and I’m not even joking—ends up a mess. I can name artists, and come up with okay layouts and ideas, but when it comes to painting and drawing and crap like that, I’m not very good.

I’m not fishing here, okay. So, shush.

Anyway, because I am sometimes ambitious, I took a square, 3-foot canvas last Sunday and attempted what is ridiculously impossible for me. As if that weren’t silly enough, I picked a subject matter with a face (thankfully, they are asleep, so I don’t have to deal with making the eyes look not-dead) and also, spots. Kill. Me. Now.

I’m going to post some photos, and periodically, progress updates. Because I’ve learned that announcing stuff online makes it harder for someone (i.e. me) to back out of stuff.

Grid of death. I had to draw the darn deer using a grid.
And then I had to erase the grid because it would show through the paint.
Curses!

Eraser nub. My hands still hurt.
(I had to use three different ones.
Who knew pencil marks were so stubborn?)

Eraser dust.

My dad and his paintings. I am angry at him because they are pretty.

Me! Just because I’m going to get rid of my hair tomorrow.
This is here for, you know, posterity. Or whatever.

Anyway, I’ve since erased the damn grid, colored the background with the base (grey), and colored the deer with the base (yellow oxide). I’m not posting any photos of it yet, because it, quite literally, looks like a piece of turd in front of grey space.

Wish me luck and such! I am so going to need it. I foresee lots of angry Tweets and tears in the near future.

“I AM NOT A QUITTER.” — Carina Santos, 2010.