At Paris’ Slick Art Fair in October, CH discovered the work of several young galleries that reflect the ever-evolving nature of the industry. Beyond the traditional role of representing artists, their more proactive approach leads them…
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Photography isn’t a practice that’s conducive to duos; in fact, from a more general perspective, most contemporary visual artists are solitary figures. Thus, the story of duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin is a slightly peculiar…
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by Sabine Zetteler Throughout his career, artist Darren Cullen has forced his audience to question their views of social acceptability and culpability. Citing the “Spitting Image Komic Book” as one of the most formative influences on…
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Surveying the design details of the world’s newest notorious hideout
Like any media-obsessed normal person, we’ve been riveted to the coverage surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and especially interested in the descriptions of whereabouts that overnight went from “cave” to “McMansion.” Curious about what exactly goes into sheltering an international terrorist for six years, we focused on what architectural details have surfaced so far. In other words, what kind of a fortified compound does a million bucks get you in the “affluent suburb” of Abbottabad, Pakistan?
Built in 2005 and described by local residents as the “Waziristan Mansion,” the three-story house looms eight times larger than neighboring buildings and was one the first shocking clues indicating that the place was significant to the mission.
Concrete retaining walls topped with barbed wire surround the building, reach 18 feet on the southeastern side of the compound, and range 10-12 feet high on remaining sides. Anyone trying to get past the towering walls would also face reported armed guards and numerous security cameras.
Located at the end of a narrow pathway, opaque windows obstruct the view inside from onlookers and a seven-foot-tall privacy wall hides anyone up to, oh about 6’4″.
The courier that led the U.S. to the location was the sole way Osama communicated with the outside world; the compound had no telephone or Internet connections.
Describing it as “surprisingly permanent and surpassingly Urban,” LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne ranks Osama’s crib up there with Saddam’s as one of the “most notorious examples of hideout architecture in recent memory.”
via the New York Times and DailyMail
Images from top to bottom: European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), Diagram by NYT, EPA, EPA, AFP/Getty Images, T.Mughal/EPA
Edited by Graham Hiemstra, Ami Kealoha and Tim Yu
Pittsburgh’s take-out dining concept serves food from countries in conflict with the U.S.
by Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi
Who thought international disputes could leave a sweet, mouthwatering aftertaste? Well the minds behind Conflict Kitchen—Jon Rubin, Dawn Weleski and John Pena see the savory in skirmish, intending to whet palettes and satisfy appetites while educating the city of Pittsburgh on the tenets of conflict. A truly novel (and tasty) installation, the experiment is a take-out restaurant meets public art project, serving food from countries that the United States is at loggerheads with, although overt combat is not a prerequisite.
For Conflict Kitchen, food serves as the main cultural communicator—a “seduction for engagement [that] opens up a space of conviviality and comfort for people,” as Rubin puts it. However, the initiative goes beyond comestibles, intending to spur conversations about the social contexts of the conflicts within these nations. Rubin envisioned a space that “could not only add some culinary diversity to the city, but, more importantly, could create a public platform for a more empathic discussion about the places and cultures that many people are not familiar with outside of the relatively narrow and polarizing lens of the mainstream media.”
Currently called “Bolani Pazi,” today’s iteration of Conflict Kitchen looks to Afghanistan, but the country rotates every four months and I had the chance to check it out when it was representing Iran. Taking on the name Kubideh Kitchen in reference to the staple Persian dish, the restaurant served kubideh—ground beef duly spiced with turmeric and cinnamon, garnished with aromatic basil and mint, and served atop freshly baked barbari bread. “We like to work with simple street food; something that you could make and get easily regardless of your social position within a culture,” says Rubin. “The draw of our food has opened up a curiosity amongst our customers that leads to conversations about politics that might not happen otherwise.”
Conversations really did spill forth from each bite of the kubideh, as the meals at the concept come wrapped in paper printed with opinions and facts about each culture, in this case with bits about the importance of tea and the sui generis New Year custom of Nowuz. Just the other day I shared an extra kubideh wrapper with a close friend of mixed Persian heritage who was both enamored and touched by the words and efforts of Conflict Kitchen, exclaiming excitedly that she was going to share this with her mother. That, like the heady thinking behind it, goes far deeper than the meal itself.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
