Galleri Andersson/Sandström in Stockholm has added Michael Johansson’s piece Self Contained to their sculpture park this year.

Stockholm is also famous for having hosted Niki de Saint Phalle‘s giant nana HON – en katedral at the Moderna Museet back in 1966.

Thanx for the tip, Gizmo.

Doing some research for the “old news, still good” department, I came across the Atlantic garbage patch story again. But wait, there’s more! Look here to see all five known gyres. Today’s find is this trashpicking blog I came across, The Repurpose-Driven Life. I filed it under “shopping.”

I gotta say that trashpicking only rocks if you have the luxury of doing it for fun, not when your life depends on it. Then it pretty much sucks. Go check out everydaytrash.com for a juicy link on Agbogbloshie . . .

Mad Scientist Matt Jones and a friend made this.

Thanx for the tip, Carol.

A documentary about the plight of the Cairo waste pickers – Garbage Dreams. Here they are at recycling school.

Thanx Rolando!

Rolando Politi went to Copenhagen this summer for cap activism.

It’s part of the Plastiki project…  recently arrived in Sydney. Click here for an entertaining critique.

Atlanta, GA had a “Summer of Drum” as part of Art on the Beltline. Performances took place under bridges around Atlanta. For the last one, Klimchak Composer and Mario Schambon designed a long tabletop gamelan made from scrap metal they found along the beltline. Underneath is an array of foot pedaled bass drums, on the sides are a group of gongs and cymbals. Here’s soundcheck – hammers are the mallet of choice. Lots more pics here.

photo and groovy poster: Anne Cox

King Leopold II of Belgium was a greedy and cruel colonial rapist – fuck him. I say take down all his statues. But Brussels knitta-gang “Tricot Trottoir” knit a string of plastic hands to place around his statue behind the Royal Palace to commemorate the atrocities of the colonial period. Atrocities like this: “Villages who failed to meet the rubber collection quotas were required to pay the remaining amount in cut hands, where each hand would prove a kill.” The Democratic Republic of Congo won independence from Belgian rule on June 30, 1960, and soon-to-be-assassinated Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a kick-ass speech to mark the occasion. Oh, but back to plastic: love the hood-mask this plastiekfabrique girl’s wearing!

I used to be a packrat, but I’m working on it. This is the garage at my grandmother’s house where I store all my junk. Getting rid of it, little by little, aiming for minimalism. Accumulation is the first step in the cycle of excess. Let go.

and O is for organized

There’s still too much crap here, but I managed to get rid of some and organize what’s left.

Billie Maciunas is coming out with a book soon, The Eve of Fluxus. She also recently published a book of poetry, Unsettled Oranges, written in the wake of the death of her husband George Maciunas. Here she is in a trash outfit fittingly entitled “the return of the repressed”. Billie has had no TV since 1972.