Bali Paradox – A Bali Point of View Channelled to You
I have been intending to write more about Bali from the inside-outsider’s point of view. Being inside and outside often makes me feel inside-out and often alienates me from the many non-Balinese people here (expats) and sometimes from the Balinese, too. Its a tricky tightrope.
I intend to share periodically, digests from the local newspaper, the Bali Post, which is biased toward the indigenous Balinese point of view (probably rightly so, as someone needs to take up the torch). I read it daily, one could say religiously. Occasionally I will post full translations of important pieces of writing from this newspaper, which does a very good job of voicing the points of view of the majority of Bali, the Balinese. This is a majority swiftly being displaced and marginalised in a variety of ways. Visions of Tibet anyone? Different encroaching agents, but similar results? Worth thinking about.
The following is a direct translation from Indonesian to English, of a piece which appeared on the font page of the Bali Post yesterday, and which echoes many other articles in this newspaper and other media in recent months.
In Bali Kite Season = Party Season
It’s kite season in Bali, when strong trade winds from the east bring dry weather. Kite season means two things. It means crazy colourful skies. And it means crazy colourful parties. The good weather brings global party-goers and party-makers in droves. The Sleeping Tiger has had little sleep of late, and this high season doesn’t look like it will let up for weeks. The winds are blowing, and the parties are roaring. This past weekend we were at several of them.
The pinnacle of high season hi-jinks was Saturday night’s masquerade bash celebrating Jasmine and Davina’s birthdays in a villa on the Bukit. A Rocky-Horror-Village-People-Freddy-Mercury theme was declared on the invitations. Madness ensued.
Get Met Mania This Summer : Radiance from the Rain Forest
Here is another special summer exhibition on at the Met that’s a crowd-pleaser, a kid-pleaser, and also pleasing to serious connoisseurs. Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, which stays up until 1 September.
Many of these seventy-or-so masterpieces of featherwork are a millenium and a half old. That tropical rainforest feathers could survive so long, and remain so brilliant is amazing. Also amazing is how such ancient works of art can correspond so strongly to tastes which we now call “modern”.
Images, ©2008 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Condé Nast Just Gave Us a Nod
Oh, what a heady pleasure to be in such company, in such a rarefied atmosphere! We happened to be spotted by a Condé Nast stringer trawling Bali, and have just been featured in Travel+Leisure. At least our galleries have been. Of course, for those who know Bruno and I, you understand the galleries are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Travel+Leisure team describe us, not inaccurately, as treasure hunters exploring obscure corners of Southeast Asia to uncover outstanding artefacts. Well, there I am (above) scouring a dusty corner of the dusty but lovely highland town of Pyin U Lwin in Burma. Our last selections from Burma have just arrived in Bali by ship and I can’t wait to unpack them.
Prowl Singapore Architects’ Studios by Night (without risking arrest)
Singapore is the main stopover on Bali flights from Europe and America, and it’s the top shopping destination for Bali residents. Should you have plans to be in Singapore this October, schedule your trip to coincide with this amazing archi-tour, part of the city’s 2008 Archifest.
The tour trawls through the working spaces of some of Singapore’s most interesting architectural practices, and hits the bars and shops that they frequent. Offered on three consecutive weekends (3 October – 18 October), these exclusive backstage tours start at 7pm and end at 11pm, exposing “the interfaces these offices have with bars and shops,” and “the extension of working life into night life”.
Mid-Century Moderns for Rent
A fantastic compendium of exceptional vacation rentals appeared on if it’s hip it’s here yesterday. They must have trawled a lot of luxury rental agency sites to select these gems (plus many others).
Get Met Mania This Summer : Special Exhibitions Galore
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has outdone itself this year with a schedule of summer exhibitions to amaze its seasonal sea of visitors and keep the revolving doors turning at 78rpm until “back to school” time comes around.
We don’t usually go Baroque here, but must make note of Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe, on show in the Met’s special exhibition galleries until 21 September.
Goetheian Crayons = Pure Beauty
From Better Living Through Design, we discovered these German-made chunky crayons of pure beeswax and natural pigments. The box is so beautiful, it makes sense to buy two, one to use, and one to keep. The 25 colours are derived from Goethe’s Theory of Colours. How very German. Buy them at Design Within Reach. We don’t usually post about modern product design, as there are already too many design blogs covering the territory too thoroughly. But this was too good to keep quiet about.
Kunzru: The Expensive Search for What Money Can Never Buy
“Self-fashioning through shopping is a perfect pastime for the modern control society – non-threatening and solipsistic.” (Hari Kunzru for The Guardian)
Kunzru just wrote a piece for The Drawbridge (also excerpted in The Guardian) on the vacuousness of “luxury”. This is not an earth-shaking article and most of its points are self-evident to the aware. Nevertheless, it bears reading as a succinct essay on obvious truths that too many have somehow managed to overlook, look over, and choose not to look at. Also, it is by an author whose first novel I enjoyed tremendously, and whose subsequent ones I also enjoyed.
Tropical Modern Master : Ossipoff
Tropical residential design for a changing world is a topic we pursue with a passion. In this pursuit it has been impossible to overlook Vladimir Ossipoff, hailed as the master of Hawaii modernism. His principles and programs for creating homes that manifest an enlightened approach to appropriateness, aesthetics and comfort are well worth studying. Particularly for all of those who are involved in the intense development boom in tropical havens like Bali, the Caribbean, the South Pacific and elsewhere.
So do take note of a seminal exhibition of Vladimir Ossipoff’s work which opened at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and is coming 2 September – 24 October to the newly renovated exhibition gallery of the august Yale University School of Architecture.