#Steffen Dam

[craft2eu]

Studioglas aus Dänemark: Coburg bis 19.11.2023

Die Ausstellung vereint gut 50 über einen Zeitraum von 40 Jahren gefertigte Werke von 27 Künstlerinnen und Künstlern sowie Entwerferinnen und Entwerfern, die in Dänemark geboren sind, in Dänemark leben oder gearbeitet haben. Finn Lynggaard | https://glasmuseum.kunstsammlungen-coburg.de/ Dänemark hat eine lange Tradition des mundgeblasenen Glases, die auch in der Ausstellung deutlich wird. Am…

[grabsomeironmeat]

Steffen Dam

[604kevin]

④ Curiosity Cabinets

1. Luca Cacciapuoti

Arranged objects taken with a scanner.

2. Carmen Winent

3. Simon Evans

4. Connie Hüsser

5. Deborah Sussman

6. Kija Lucas

7. Ena Kosovac

8. Steffen Dam

9. Studio 5982

10. George Harris

[darylelockhart]

Never mind Cleopatra – what about the forgotten queens of ancient Nubia?

by Yasmin Moll, University of Michigan

Jada Pinkett Smith’s new Netflix documentary series on Cleopatra aims to spotlight powerful African queens. “We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them,” the Hollywood star and producer told a Netflix interviewer.

The show casts a biracial Black British actress as the famed queen, whose race has stirred debate for decades. Cleopatra descended from an ancient Greek-Macedonian ruling dynasty known as the Ptolemies, but some speculate that her mother may have been an Indigenous Egyptian. In the trailer, Black classics scholar Shelley Haley recalls her grandmother telling her, “I don’t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was Black.”

These ideas provoked commentary and even outrage in Egypt, Cleopatra’s birthplace. Some of the reactions have been unabashedly racist, mocking the actress’s curly hair and skin color.

Egyptian archaeologists like Monica Hanna have criticized this racism. Yet they also caution that projecting modern American racial categories onto Egypt’s ancient past is inaccurate. At worst, critics argue, U.S. discussions about Cleopatra’s identity overlook Egyptians entirely.

In Western media, she is commonly depicted as white – most famously, perhaps, by screen icon Elizabeth Taylor. Yet claims by American Afrocentrists that current-day Egyptians are descendants of “Arab invaders” also ignore the complicated histories that characterize this diverse part of the world. A relief depicting the Nubian Kandake Amanitore in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Sven-Steffen Arndt/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Some U.S. scholars counter that ultimately what matters is to “recognize Cleopatra as culturally Black,” representing a long history of oppressing Black women. Portraying Cleopatra with a Black actress was a “political act,” as the show’s director put it.

Ironically, however, the show misses an opportunity to educate both American and Egyptian audiences about the unambiguously Black queens of ancient Nubia, a civilization whose history is intertwined with Egypt’s. As an anthropologist of Egypt who has Nubian heritage, I research how the stories of these queens continue to inspire Nubians, who creatively retell them for new generations today.

The one-eyed queen

Nubians in modern Egypt once lived mainly along the Nile but lost their villages when the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s. Today, members of the minority group live alongside other Egyptians all over the country, as well as in a resettlement district near the southern city of Aswan.

Growing up in Cairo’s Nubian community, we children didn’t hear about Cleopatra, but about Amanirenas: a warrior queen who ruled the Kingdom of Kush during the first century B.C.E. Queens in that ancient kingdom, encompassing what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, were referred to as “kandake” – the root of the English name “Candace.” A comic inspired by the story of Amanirenas. Chris Walker, Creative Director, Lymari Media/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Like Cleopatra, Amanirenas knew Roman generals up close. But while Cleopatra romanced them – strategically – Amanirenas fought them. She led an army up the Nile about 25 B.C.E. to wage battle against Roman conquerors encroaching on her kingdom.

My own favorite part of this story of Indigenous struggle against foreign imperialism involves what can only be characterized as a power move. After beating back the invading Romans, Queen Amanirenas brought back the bronze head of a statue of the emperor Augustus and had it buried under a temple doorway. Each time they entered the temple, her people could literally walk over a symbol of Roman power.

That colorful tidbit illustrates those queens’ determination to defend their autonomy and territory. Amanirenas personally engaged in combat and earned the moniker “the one-eyed queen,” according to an ancient chronicler of the Roman Empire named Strabo. The kandakes were also spiritual leaders and patrons of the arts, and they supported the construction of grand monuments and temples, including pyramids. A pyramid of Kandake Amanitore amid the Nubian pyramids of Meroe. mtcurado/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Interwoven cultures and histories

When people today say “Nubia,” they are often referring to the Kingdom of Kush, one of several empires that emerged in ancient Nubia. Archaeologists have recently started to bring Kush to broader public attention, arguing that its achievements deserve as much attention as ancient Egypt’s.

Indeed, those two civilizations are entwined. Kushite royals adapted many Egyptian cultural and religious practices to their own ends. What’s more, a Kushite dynasty ruled Egypt itself for close to a century.

Contemporary Nubian heritage reflects that historical complexity and richness. While their traditions and languages remain distinctive, Nubians have been intermarrying with other communities in Egypt for generations. Nubians like my mother are proudly Egyptian, yet hurtful stereotypes persist. Hafsa Amberkab, right, and Fatma Addar, Nubian Egyptian women who compiled a dictionary, show off a Nubian lexical chart near Aswan in upper Egypt. Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images

Today, some Black Americans embrace Cleopatra as a powerful symbol of Black pride. But the idea of ancient Nubia as a powerful African civilization also plays a symbolic role in contemporary Black culture, inspiring images in everything from cosmetics to comics.

Egyptian voices

Researchers do argue about Cleopatra’s heritage. U.S. conversations about her, however, sometimes reveal more about Western racial politics than about Egyptian history.

In the 19th century, for example, Western interest in ancient Egypt took off amid colonization – a fascination called “Egyptomania.” Americans’ fixation with the ancient civilization reflected their own culture’s anxieties about race in the decades after slavery was abolished, as scholar Scott Trafton has argued.

A century later, a 1990s advertisement for a pale-colored doll of queen Nefertiti sparked debate in the U.S. about how to represent her race.

Nefertiti’s bust – one of the most famous artifacts from ancient Egypt – is on display at a German museum. Egypt has called for the artifact’s return for close to a hundred years, to no avail. Even Hitler took a personal interest in the bust, declaring that he “will not renounce the queen’s head,” according to archaeologist Joyce Tyldesley. The famed and fought-over bust of Queen Nefertiti. Francis G. Mayer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Even today, contemporary Egyptian perspectives are almost absent in Western depictions of ancient Egypt. Only one Egyptian scholar is interviewed in the new Netflix series’ four episodes, as he himself notes, and he is employed not by an Egyptian university, but by a British one.

For many Egyptians, this lack of representation rehashes troubling colonial dynamics about who is considered an “expert” about their past. The Netflix series “was made and produced without the involvement of the owners of this history,” argues the Egyptian journalist Sara Khorshed in a review of the series.

To be sure, there is anti-Black bias in Egyptian culture, and some of the social media reaction has been slur-filled and racist. Educating people about the stories of Nubian queens like Amarinenas might be a way to encourage a more inclusive understanding of who is Egyptian.

Yet I believe Egyptians’ frustrations about portrayals of Cleopatra also reflect long-standing concerns that their own understandings of their past are not taken seriously.

That includes Black Egyptians, like my mother. When I asked her if she planned to see the Cleopatra series, she shrugged. She already knows that queen’s story well from its many portrayals on screen, whether in Hollywood films or Egyptian ones.

“I will wait for the series on Amanirenas,” she said.

Yasmin Moll, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

[pinkfrogbreathing]

Exquisite Marine Life Specimens Imagined in Glass by Steffen Dam — Colossal (thisiscolossal.com)

[protoslacker]

If the Titanic realises that it’s in trouble and it has about 5km that it needs to slow and steer the ship, but it’s only 3km away from the iceberg, it’s already doomed.

Will Steffen quoted in an article by Asher Moses in resilience, originally published by Voice of Action. ‘Collapse of Civilisation is the Most Likely Outcome’: Top Climate Scientists

I don't know what to do with articles like this. I do know that I feel very sad.

When I was a boy in first grade on a walk home from school my sister told me that one day the sun would die. I felt quite angry about that. One spring day not far from the place where she'd revealed the awful truth about the sun one day dying, I was startled by a bush. It must have been a Forsythia in bloom, anyhow it seemed to be vibrating. Pausing to ponder the sight, my musings turned to the enormity of the universe. And then I imagined the cells and atoms in my own body like the vast universe too.

Seeing pictures of the flooding in Greece made me profoundly sad. When I saw pictures of Dema after the dam collapse I felt numb. Numbness pricks at me probably more than feelings of sadness.

One spring day many years ago I was in my garden on my bottom weeding when my ruminating thoughts turned to the prediction that cascading climate tipping points would mean the extinction of all flowering plants. The visage of an Earth where no grasses grow weighed so heavily I could not stand. I sat crying for a long time.

Somehow I could read about Sergei Karaganov who recently called for Russia to launch limited nuclear strikes on Western Europe somewhat dispassionately. But a toot noting in a paper Karagnov proposes deporting "1-2 million" people from occupied Ukraine and Russia to Siberia, overwhelmed me with sadness.

Most of the time I live pretending that I don't notice the predicament we're living. And sometimes I grieve.

[rachelrai604]

Week 4

10.08.23

The Creative Communities

Who are the local and global creatives, designers, illustrators, and photographers that you want to connect with?

Tyrone Ohia

McCarthy Studio

Catherine Griffiths

George Haijian

Emil Ruder

Communities Shown In Lecture:

Natalie Robertson - Photographer

Rosanna Raymond

Emil McAvoy

Cecilia Faumuina

Bede Bennett

Ezra Baldwin

Cherise Cheung

Curiosity Cabinet:

"Cabinets of curiosities, sometimes known as 'wonder rooms,' are modest collections of exceptional things that, like modern museums, aimed to categorise and convey stories about the natural world's wonders and oddities."

Stefan Dam

2. Eiji Watanabe

3. Johnson Witehira

4. Studio Von Morgen

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Von Morgen (@studiovonmorgen)

5. Hannah Jensen

6. Mark Newsom

7. Nelly Nadav

8. George Haijan

9. Tyrone Ohia

10. Cambio

https://www.cambio.website/

Possible Collections:

Passport

Bible

Church

Indian / Western Money

Childhood Photos

Punjabi Suit

Punjabi Shoes

Punjabi Jewellery

Journals

Indian Cutlery

Clock / Watch

Candle

Tufting Mat

Bag

Street Sign

Teddy Bear

Dried Flowers

Pens

Drawing Tablet

Headphones

My 20 objects all relate back to me whether it be culturally, spiritually and objects I cherish. There is not a particular theme I am looking at but by putting everything together, the three main themes and messages I realised was actually mainly around my values and morals. For example, my bible and journal play a big role in my identify as a creative.

[designresearch604-ahnesshim]

Week 4: Existing Visual Inventory

Cabinet of Curiosities

A mode of collecting and organizing physical storage of rare objects. The cabinet "amasses" a collection of curiosities.

Cambio

Collection of wood - the extraction, production and distribution of wood products. The website cambio collects reseach outcomes, compiles archive of documents, videos and books and articles related to wood.

https://www.cambio.website/

100 Chairs in 100 Days - Martino Gamper

Collaged bits of chairs - not necessarily functional but created new forms of chairs. I thought this was interesting because I personally love collages and to collage bits of physical objects to create another new chair was interesting.

Shelly Nadav

Dads Tool kit

Mum's sewing kit

This was an interesting way to see a visual inventory, laid out carefully and not exactly orderly but creates forms.

George Haijan

This is George Haijan's workspace, he collects many magazines, and creates bodies of collage works.

Brooms Wanted - Samantha Cheng

This was an installation of brooms - this was her visual inventory, in was more like an infographic, that she designed.

Tyrone Ohia

Series of sketches and concepts and ideas that are drawn in sketchbook. Arrows and notes are made.

Johnson Witehira

It's interesting to see the similarities in how Johnson Witehira and I work. I always like to start my work off analogue, make notes, reflect on it then take it onto digital space, if needed.

Its also interesting to see how Johnson takes existing work like the tec device, and makes notes on the visual appearrance of the tech device - getting to know, familiarising yourself with the object - for what you would be possibly designing for.

Steffan Dam

This artist fell in love with working with glass, be believes it is "quixotic” blend between the carefully calculated and the absolutely haphazard.""

Dam’s own grandfather was “an amateur naturalist”. He looked around his old books, which became the blueprints for his own work.

Hannah Jenson

It's beautiful the much analogue work of Hannah, she carves her designs and prints them on material. Her designs seem to stem from nature itself, as she take photographs of them in her journal.

[grad604-amber]

Week Four: Curiosity Cabinet

For our week four lecture we were looking different creative communities our lecturers are part of and want to direct their work towards. We began looking at Visual inventories, such as a curiosity cabinets, it is a way of showcasing a collection of ordinary objects. We were tasked to find ten different examples of one:

1. Steffen Dam

A cabinet dedicated to the creation of a whole new genus of sea creatures — all made of glass.

https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/05/09/an-artists-beautiful-obsession-with-cabinets-of-curiosity/

2. Eiji Watanabe

“Butterfly’s Eye View”, images cut from field guides by Eiji Watanabe.

https://www.booooooom.com/2011/05/05/butterfly’s-eye-view-by-eiji-watanabe/

3. Johnson Witehira

Art process, sketching everything out.

https://www.johnsonwitehira.studio/process

4. Studio Von Morgen

Von Morgen’s modern take on a curiosity cabinet.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiITl7qKftO/?img_index=3

5. Hannah Jensen

https://hannahjensen.co.nz

6. Marc Newsom

https://marc-newson.com/cabinet-curiosities/

7. Shelly Nadav

https://www.instagram.com/shelly_nadav/

8. George Haijan

9. Tyrone Ohia

10. Cambio

https://www.cambio.website

[pearl-nautilus]

Steffen Dam - “Specimen Block” (2017), 
glass, 
11 3/8 x 11 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches

[gothcoffee]

Group of 10 Jars | Steffen Dam

[craft2eu]

Lene Bødker, Stories to Be Told & Steffen Dam, come Fly with Me: Ebeltoft (DK) bis 30.2.2022

Lene Bødker, Stories to Be Told & Steffen Dam, come Fly with Me: Ebeltoft (DK) bis 30.2.2022

Das Glasmuseet Ebeltoft zeigt in diesem Sommer 2022 zwei ambitionierte Einzelausstellungen mit zwei der bekanntesten Glaskünstler Dänemarks: Steffen Dam und Lene Bødker. Beide sind international für ihre einzigartigen Glasarbeiten bekannt und gehören zur absoluten Elite. Steffen Dam und Lene Bødker nehmen die Besucher in ihren Ausstellungen aus ihrer jeweiligen künstlerischen Perspektive mit auf…

[campsis]

STEFFEN DAM, NEW MEDICINE (2017)

[nettculture]

Amazing glass artworks from Danish glass artist Steffen Dam at https://steffendam.dk/ Botanical Panel 2019, H: 55 cm, © Steffen Dam

[crystalradiance]

[backupbrainarchive]

Heller Gallery

Known for their sculptural collection, mainly focusing on class, Heller Gallery keeps a permanent rotating display as well as smaller showcases of artists. (Image below is Toots Zymsky). 

See Steffen Dam here, http://www.hellergallery.com/march-01-2019 and here http://steffendam.dk/ for his sea glass creatures carefully constructed through multiple layers and techniques.