Dedicated to clever and innovative trends of art and design in activism.

Elena Corchero’s LOSTVALUES “explores the beauty and melancholy of craft to challenge the aesthetics and function of smart fabrics and this way emphasize the emotional value of keepsakes, garments and toys.” Her latest effort, We Will Become Silhouettes, fuses traditional craft with high technologies like solar panels and LED lights. From her website:

The pieces are charged while used outdoors during the day. When brought indoors in the evening they transform into a decorative ambient light display for the home, powered only by energy stored earlier.

Electronic components like solar cells, resistors, and LEDs are integrated directly into the textile and wired together into working circuits using conductive thread. Organic prints and embroidery motifs recall endangered birds.

So far she’s tried it with accessories like a parasol and a handheld fan. With these items, she is targeting a clientele she recognizes is not well represented in the wearable computing market: women. Further applause for her success in not hiding technology, but disguising it in a “beautiful and stylistic way.”

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Solar Connect Association (SCA) is a nonprofit promoting solar cooking in Uganda. Solar cookers are small, portable metal ovens powered by the sun. Succeses are reported in poverty reduction, improving the status of the world’s women, and protection of environmental resources, in line with the organization’s goal to improve health and prosperity, reduce deforestation, and limit global warming.

Their highly organized efforts have been directed at the developing world and refugee populations.

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Saffron Revolution has posted a PDF graffiti stencil in support of the Burmese monks who have recently taken to the street to demand democracy in their country.

It’s an exciting and worrying time, and their cause is deserving of our attention and concern.

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The Muddy River: Boston’s Environmental Film Series already happened. And I wish desperately that I had found it sooner. Multiple films showcased what the Coolidge Corner Theater billed as “interests that make our community great: our cultural and our natural resources.” The three-day event highlighted a different aspect of environmental justice each day. Sunday’s theme was food, with a screening of Boston-based ilmmakers Curt Ellis’ and Ian Cheney’s King Corn, documenting Ellis and Cheney’s experiment in growing one acre of Iowa corn, and demonstrating the multi-faceted use and abuse of America’s most-productive, mostsubsidized grain. Appropriately, Mondovino was also shown after an organic wine and sustainable popcorn reception.

Monday’s featured event was The One Degree Factor, an National Geographic produced, Edward Norton narrated documentary on the day’s theme, climate change. It was followed by a Q&A with featuring Adam Wolfensohn, Co-producer, Ross Gelbspan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author,and Beth Daley of the Boston Globe.

Closing the series on Tuesday, was a presentation of The Sounds of Science, featuring a live musical performance from the renowned (and awesome!) band Yo La Tengo to the projected, rarely seen underwater films by the pioneering French avant-garde filmmaker Jean Painlevé. This show has only been performed a handful of times since the band composed the original score in 2001. The presentation was preceded with an introduction by Fabien Cousteau, filmmaker/explorer, a Boston University graduate and grandson of the famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.

A more extensive write-up of the event is available at their website.

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Our friend Bridget’s record label, Wyld Stallions Records, released their latest effort on September 11.  Titled “Line In the Sand: A Compilation in Support of Iraq Veterans Against the War,”  the CD features 18 anti-war tracks, all in strong support of our generation’s Veterans.  Contributing artists include Ryan Harvey, Jonah Matranga, Cloud Cult, Tom Morello (courtesy of Epic Records) and our own Witt Wisebram.

Their release show in Washington, D.C. was a success, as was the follow up in Burlington, VT.  You can get the disc over at CD Baby.

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