hark! a vagrant

We appreciated finding out about the long-term art project of Jenny Polak that makes the complacent classes perhaps take more notice of those in precarious situations—especially migrants who live in terror constantly that an immigration officer might bash the doors in and rip their family asunder. Like a floor-plan outlining a fire escape route, Polak’s series of posters tip people off on which paths to avoid during an ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid and struck us as the sociological and marginalised heir to the system of subtle markers that vagrants (hobos) developed in the late eighteen-hundreds to cope with the harshness of their existence and perhaps make the way less treacherous for those that follow.
Vagabonds (and perhaps those under the threat of deportation have done the same) contrived a vocabulary of symbols and signs to help orientate fellow travellers. For instance, a triangle with hands warned of a homeowner with a gun, interlocking circles represent handcuffs and the expectation to be arrested for vagrancy, a top-hat signifies a wealthy family and a picture of a cat meant that there was a kindly woman around these parts. I wonder if we might not advance a whole system of signs pointing to helpers to guide our imperilled community members, whatever their conferred status.

autograph hound

Public Domain Review informs of the unique, multi-year project of a rather star-struck seventeen-year old quilter from Rhode Island.
From 1856 to 1863, Adeline Harris solicited by post the autographs of leaders and luminaries of her day and received back not only the signatures on little silk squares as requested but was rather overwhelmed with some households sending other historic artefacts to incorporate into the quilt—three hundred and sixty autographs, many personalised with a short epigram. This is far better than a selfie with a celebrity or a vaunted re-tweet or mention, we think. Contributors included Abraham Lincoln, Jacob Grimm, Charles Dickens, Alexander von Humboldt and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Be sure to visit Public Domain Review at the link up top to learn more about the project’s signatories and its creator.

director’s cut or the selfish gene

We enjoyed this gallery of the past year’s Academy Award-nominated films (plus a few non-canon contenders) presented memetically.
Though this gauge of cultural influence is not among the twenty-four categories of artistic and technical merit that the organisation holds this gala to recognise annually (once there were prizes for novelty and uniqueness but those have been since discontinued), we’d love to know your picks from the previous year in motion pictures. The model for the coveted gold-plated statuette incidentally was the prolific and pioneering Mexican cinema producer and director Emilio Fernández Romo, who was persuaded to pose nude to be stylised as an Art Deco knight.

the great belzoni

On this day two centuries ago, and with the express permission of the Pasha of Egypt, adventurer and pioneering archaeologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni became the first person since Antiquity to penetrate and explore the Pyramid of Chephren, the second largest structure of the complex at Giza—though looters from nearly a millennium before had already partially plundered the burial chambers. How the Great Belzoni, as he styled himself, came to be there is a pretty intriguing tale in itself—born one of thirteen siblings to a father who was a barber in Padua—he went to Rome as an apprentice plumber with the intent on taking monastic orders but his career path was suddenly diverted by the occupation of the city by the forces of the Napoleonic armies and abduction of the Pope.
After a stint as a barber in the Netherlands, Belzoni moved to London and found his wife and joined a travelling circus (as you do), incorporating magic lanterns into his acts. After nearly a decade of performing with the circus, they allowed him on the international circuit, touring with shows on the Iberian peninsula and Malta—where he happened to meet an emissary of Ottoman Egypt. Informing Belzoni of the pasha’s public works scheme which included large-scale irrigation and land-reclamation, the sideshow actor offered his expertise in in hydraulics and presented the ambassador with a proposal. Ultimately, Belzoni’s damming project was not undertaken but it was enough to get him to Cairo and a relationship with the governor of the county. After a demonstration of engineering prowess and appreciation for the conservation of artefacts with the successful removal (again with the pasha’s permission), transportation and installation of a monumental bust of Rameses II (at the British Museum) and his exploration was partially underwritten by the British consulate. Belzoni embarked on several excavations, making several discoveries. Contracting dysentery, he died en route to explore a dig underway in Timbuktu.