seen from United States
seen from Chile
seen from Slovakia
seen from Chile
seen from Germany
seen from Vietnam
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from Japan
seen from Nicaragua
seen from Italy
seen from Estonia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Nicaragua
seen from Australia
seen from Italy
seen from Australia
seen from Australia
seen from Australia
#Cultured
Museum Visits
1. National Gallery/Veletrzny Palac
2. Rudolfinum - Matt Collisaw: Standing Water
3. Leopold Museum
Culture Markers
1. The House of Black Madonna
2. Viennese Cafe House Culture
Local Delights
1. Evening Opera: Verdi – La Traviata
2. Symphonic Motown Concert at Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (My fave one!! Talking about a black experience in a predominantly white European city.!)
LST: Lectures, Talks, Q&A’s, OH MY!
Prague
Meeting Director Filip Remunda
This was the most rewarding lecture of the week. We had watched Filip’s documentary while in Denmark and we were able to inquire about his documentary style, point of view, and cultural significance his contributions entailed.
The Avant Garde with Nick Hudac
This was also an informative lecture about the Avant-Garde in Czech history. Nick was a great lecturer and I enjoyed it very much, but we did feel like we already covered most of the information in class before the travel break.
Vienna
Choreographed Lectures with Mariella Greil
This was probably most confusing and experimental lecture I’ve attended. I don’t remember the content any more than I did directly after the lecture, but it was nice that everyone in the class (except for one) was as confused as I was.
Long Study Tour Posts, Coming Soon!
2 weeks, the last half of the core courses embarked on their study tours to different parts of Europe. My core course, Art & Visual Culture, split our time in Prague and Vienna. In the coming weeks, I will regale you with the interesting and the less noteworthy aspects of our study. Stay tuned!
Living History.
I followed our tour guide through a narrow alleyway into a small courtyard. As we walked, my classmates and I looked around inquisitively. Why did our tour guide take us here? The courtyard was nondescript — nothing special. Apartment buildings surrounded the small outdoor area. Grass grew through old red brick.
Our tour guide then pointed to the wall next to us, “This is believed to be a remnant of the wall that once surrounded the Warsaw Ghetto.”
Suddenly, the nondescript courtyard took on new meaning.
This meager, brick wall once imprisoned over 400,000 Polish Jews within a small 3.4 km² area. From this area, Polish Jews were deported to Nazi camps and mass-killing centers. After the Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated, the area was destroyed. The Nazis tried to hide their crimes, which obliterated Warsaw’s once thriving Jewish population. Yet, this meager, brick wall survived.
Throughout my six-day study tour, I was met with many moments like this one, moments of living history. We saw ghetto walls in Warsaw, Poland and bunkers in Berlin, Germany. We saw the historical remnants of cities heavily affected by war and political conflict. Often these remnants were small, easy to miss: a bullet hole in the side of a building. Yet, these small historical remnants continue to maintain importance in the current political dialogue.
Throughout our study tour, we met with locals and heard how they grapple with their countries’ past. These individuals told us of the strong ties between their past and present.
As a Californian, I was surprised to encounter these moments of living history. The suburb where I live was blueprinted and planned only several decades ago. The natural landscape was wiped clean. Imperfections were erased. Even painting one’s house requires adherence to a given color scheme.
Yet, the residents of Warsaw and Berlin encounter their history every day. It is not a stale history, contained between dusty pages, but a history that is ever-present.
As we left Berlin, a 500-kilogram World War II bomb was discovered beneath the city grounds. This discovery led to the evacuation of an 800-meter area, which included the city’s main train station. We worried that this discovery would disrupt our travel plans. Yet, the bomb was diffused in less than three hours. This occurrence has become normal for the residents of Berlin.
In both Warsaw and Berlin, residents continue to confront their history. It is a history contained in bullet holes and cracked walls and unexploded ordinances. It is a history that is still very much alive.
My core course, Competing Narratives: Modern European History, has been leading up to this study tour all semester. We have discussed in-detail the competing narratives contained in the cities of Warsaw and Berlin. Yet, it wasn’t until we stood on hallowed ground and witnessed this living history that I truly understood the importance of these competing narratives.
Why We Study History.
When I tell people I study History, I am usually met with, “History? I hated History in high school.”
While this response is disheartening, I must remind myself that most people do not have the same view of history as I do. Most people have only viewed history through the lens of a textbook. I, on the other hand, have had the opportunity to experience history. My love for history was forged in these experiences, experiences such as watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed in Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford upon Avon or analyzing primary source documents in the Rhode Island Historical Society or speaking with a Navajo jewelry maker in the Northern Arizona desert about her tribes’ past. I feel privileged to have had these experiences, which have made history palpable to me. Through these experiences, I have come to view history as a narrative, a collection of shots heard around the world, of characters and their decisions, of yellowing documents, and first-hand accounts.
My love for history has been reinvigorated by my core course at DIS — Competing Narratives: Modern European History. In February, I traveled with my core course to the Danish town of Sønderborg as well as the German town of Flensburg in order to learn more about the contested border region between Denmark and Germany.
We visited several historical sites over the course of the three-day tour. One of the most impactful was the Frøslev Internment Camp, located in Padborg, Denmark. Frøslev was built during World War II when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. There, Danish resistance fighters were imprisoned. After the war, Frøslev was used to house Nazi collaborators. Today, Frøslev Internment Camp is a museum.
One of the most interesting artifacts I saw at the Frøslev Internment Camp was a wedding congratulations. This wedding congratulations was given to a couple name Kurt and Ulla by fellow prisoners. I later learned several couples were married in Frøslev Internment Camp. I was struck by this wedding congratulations —its humanity amidst such darkness.
We had just spent the past three weeks of class learning about relations between Denmark and Germany — from the War of 1864 to World War II. Yet, being on the soil of the borderlands made my studies that much more palpable. Over the course of the three-day trip, we visited battlefields, museums, monuments. We saw our studies firsthand.
I have always said my love of history lies in its humanistic aspects. History is a story. It is our story and; in my opinion, it is the most amazing story of all, of fate, of man and mankind.
CCW: Kunstforeningen GL Strand
On the second day of the core course week, we went to the Kunstforeningen GL Strand. It’s a historic contemporary and modern art museum in the center of Copenhagen. The feature exhibition that we focused on were: Jesper Christiansen – Touchstone and Yazan Khalili: No One Saw the Colors.
The primary focus personally was Jesper Christiansen’s exhibition that spanned two floors. As someone who isn’t familiar with visual art history, I was excited to go to an exhibit and apply our theoretical work.
Walking around the exhibit with our sketchbooks to create imitations of the artwork in front of us was a new experience I never had.
Christiansen’s work is heavily inspired by the experience of reading and his influences are referenced heavily within the pieces. He uses typography and image perspective paired with curatorial sceneography to recreate the experience for the viewer.
The viewer is very much a participant in the overall effectiveness of the work as a whole. You are invited to touch the texts of inspiration and gaze upon the paintings to simulate the same mood in which they were created.
It is certainly an inspirational model that Christiansen has created and as evidenced by the amazing sketches and text accompaniments that my classmates created it’s safe to say we left inspired.
a week of dutch design (study tour to Netherlands)
For the second travel week, our graphic design course took a trip through the Netherlands, stopping at Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Rotterdam. Dutch design definitely has a different, louder, and more unexpected vibe than Danish design does, and it was exciting getting to compare the two!
Our class met at the airport (shoutout to DIS for coordinating travel, lodging, and events SO seamlessly), and before long, we were in Amsterdam. We first headed to FOAM, a beautiful photo museum. My favorite exhibit was one that had all these posters about protecting the European Union, along with some for viewers to take.
Afterwards, we had dinner at De Culinaire Werkplaats, which was a food design & eat-spiration restaurant that served courses based around a theme. The meal we had was titled “Spoonful of Honesty,” and it was a four course meal with each dish revolving around honesty or dishonesty. Definitely one of the most interesting and thought provoking meals I ever had, and it was great getting to chat with other students over interesting plates and wine.
The next day in Amsterdam, we visited a publishing company and a few art and design museums such as the Stedelijk Museum and MOCA. In the afternoon, we took a canal tour through the city and finished the night at an Indonesian restaurant.
Our last day in Amsterdam began with visiting LAVA, a design agency that did some amazing work with dynamic visual identities. Afterwards, we went to the Eye Film Museum and the NDSM Art Warf area. There was free time given to us as well, so I was able to meet up with a friend in the Netherlands who showed me some of the more classically Dutch things to do and eat in Amsterdam.
The next day, we headed to Utrecht! We stopped by Studio MOAN and chatted with the founders to learn what starting an agency was like, and then we visited the Centraal Museum and Rietveld Schroder House. I was really excited to visit the Schroder House because I had studied it a lot in my architecture course back at Emory, and it was amazing to see the building come to life through the different ways that the walls could be rearranged.
Thursday and Friday were spent in Rotterdam, which was a city that surprised me because it actually had a very modern feel to it, compared to the more traditional European architecture of Amsterdam and Utrecht. Rotterdam had plenty of skyscrapers and newer architecture, and one of the first places we stopped by was the Market Hall, which had this beautiful ceiling mural of food and flowers.
Rotterdam was more studio visits and museums (surprise!) Overall, the trip to the Netherlands was beautiful, rejuvenating, exhausting, packed, and a fun time.
core course week: pt. 2
For the second part of my core course week, the graphic design classes took a three-day tour around Western Denmark, hitting up cities such as Odense, Kolding, and Aarhus! Each day was packed from around 8am-8pm, so I’ll be sharing some highlights from each day for you.
Day 4: Dragged my suitcase through the snow to our bus bright and early (sun wasn’t even up yet!) Our first stop was Sanderum Kirke, a church from the 1200s that has some *controversial* murals inside. We sat and sketched while enjoying the stillness around us.
After lunch and wandering the city of Odense for a little, we headed to Brandts Media Museum, where we learned about the history of printmaking in Denmark and explored a multitude of exhibits. The one that stuck out to me the most was a simplistic white room on the top floor of the museum with a glass tank housing an axolotl, and it was a commentary on the impacts sustainability will have on future generations.
Day 5: After a yummy breakfast at our hostel, we got on the bus and headed to the city of Kolding to go to the Trapholt Kunstmuseum, a modern art museum. From there, we went to a delicious smørrebrød place for lunch before we walked to the Designskolen Kolding, a school focusing on textile and advertising design. A student there gave us a tour of the facilities and it was amazing to see the (busy) lives and thought processes of design students in Denmark.
Afterwards, we got back on the bus to head to Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city and one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2017! Our first stop was LYNFabrikken, a co-working space in the city. There are a bunch of similar workspaces like these back in Atlanta so it wasn’t a new concept to me, but listening to the co-founder talk about the benefits of having a small network of officemates who can vouch for your abilities when new opportunities arise made me appreciate the co-working concept a lot more. They also have a cafe within the office that is open to the public, and they talked about how they designed this to be an extremely inviting, work-friendly, and chat-inducing environment. They also have a rad rooftop lounge that we braved the cold to take a peek at.
After a really long day, we had a group dinner at this restaurant downtown and wow were we in for a treat; the food was delicious, the wine was nice, and everyone had really warmed up to each other and gotten to know one another a lot better by then. The professor for my studio, Jeanette, came along with us on the study tour, and it was wonderful chatting with her outside of class time. She even joined us for drinks at a bar during both nights on our tour, which is something that you wouldn’t find a ton of American professors casually doing.
Day 6: Our last day! We spent the whole day in Aarhus, and we first stopped by the Dansk Plakatmuseum, a museum full of vintage and contemporary Danish posters. After so many different art exhibits, it was nice to see something so consistent, and after a brief tour we sat down to sketch in our visual journals.
Afterwards, we stopped by Aarhus Rådhus, a modernist town hall that was designed down to the most minute detail by Arne Jacobsen. Then we walked to the ARoS Museum, which is the largest modern art museum in the Nordic countries and possibly my favorite visit of the whole study tour. There are incredible exhibits here; I recommend starting from the bottom floor and working your way to the top. It’s also where you’ll find the rainbow panorama that everyone instagrams photos of. I recommend taking some photos but then doing some laps and enjoying the panorama gadget-free to experience the incredible views and tricks it plays on your eyes.
Overall, this trip was incredible, super busy and fun, wonderful bonding, lots of journaling, and meticulously planned out by the Architecture & Design department. I’ll leave with some post-trip thoughts: - The bus rides become something that everyone really looks forward to; after mentally processing so much art and walking so much at each site, it’s nice to just unwind and have time to yourself. Have some good playlists on hand. - Good pens to sketch with make all the difference. I picked up some Pigma Micron pens at Designskolen, and my sketching game really stepped up once I had different thicknesses to play around with. - Visual inspiration is everywhere, but not everything will be inspiring to you. That’s okay; remember and grow from the design and ideas that stick out to you. Don’t just accept everything at face value. Really think about whether this is something memorable and then figure out why. You’re going to come across so much on this trip that you can’t hold onto everything anyways. - Chat with people who are at the sites you’re visiting. They really love to share and hey, everyone likes a chance to talk about themselves so ask them what about the site is important to them. - Jeanette (our professor) is a gem; your dreams and aspirations are always welcome to her ears.
