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Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva records her curtain raiser speech for the 2021 Annual Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
3 October 2021
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH211003008.arw
Managed to visit Kennal Vale on my brief return to Cornwall. Glad I had my wellies as it was really wet and muddy. I spent most of the time wading upstream trying not to slip over and drop my camera in the water!
Website: www.robinhoskyns.co.uk
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Biennalist
Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.
About artist Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)
www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html
Biennalist :
Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.
-------------------------------------------
links about Biennalist :
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)
www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html
—--Biennale from wikipedia —--
The Venice International Film Festival is part of the Venice Biennale. The famous Golden Lion is awarded to the best film screening at the competition.
Biennale (Italian: [bi.enˈnaːle]), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).[1] The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale (for the Berlin International Film Festival) and Viennale (for Vienna's international film festival).
Characteristics[edit]
According to author Federica Martini, what is at stake in contemporary biennales is the diplomatic/international relations potential as well as urban regeneration plans. Besides being mainly focused on the present (the “here and now” where the cultural event takes place and their effect of "spectacularisation of the everyday"), because of their site-specificity cultural events may refer back to,[who?] produce or frame the history of the site and communities' collective memory.[2]
The Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, the first attempt to condense the representation of the world within a unitary exhibition space.
A strong and influent symbol of biennales and of large-scale international exhibitions in general is the Crystal Palace, the gigantic and futuristic London architecture that hosted the Great Exhibition in 1851. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk,[3][page needed] the Crystal Palace is the first attempt to condense the representation of the world in a unitary exhibition space, where the main exhibit is society itself in an a-historical, spectacular condition. The Crystal Palace main motives were the affirmation of British economic and national leadership and the creation of moments of spectacle. In this respect, 19th century World fairs provided a visual crystallization of colonial culture and were, at the same time, forerunners of contemporary theme parks.
The Venice Biennale as an archetype[edit]
The structure of the Venice Biennale in 2005 with an international exhibition and the national pavilions.
The Venice Biennale, a periodical large-scale cultural event founded in 1895, served as an archetype of the biennales. Meant to become a World Fair focused on contemporary art, the Venice Biennale used as a pretext the wedding anniversary of the Italian king and followed up to several national exhibitions organised after Italy unification in 1861. The Biennale immediately put forth issues of city marketing, cultural tourism and urban regeneration, as it was meant to reposition Venice on the international cultural map after the crisis due to the end of the Grand Tour model and the weakening of the Venetian school of painting. Furthermore, the Gardens where the Biennale takes place were an abandoned city area that needed to be re-functionalised. In cultural terms, the Biennale was meant to provide on a biennial basis a platform for discussing contemporary art practices that were not represented in fine arts museums at the time. The early Biennale model already included some key points that are still constitutive of large-scale international art exhibitions today: a mix of city marketing, internationalism, gentrification issues and destination culture, and the spectacular, large scale of the event.
Biennials after the 1990s[edit]
The situation of biennials has changed in the contemporary context: while at its origin in 1895 Venice was a unique cultural event, but since the 1990s hundreds of biennials have been organized across the globe. Given the ephemeral and irregular nature of some biennials, there is little consensus on the exact number of biennials in existence at any given time.[citation needed] Furthermore, while Venice was a unique agent in the presentation of contemporary art, since the 1960s several museums devoted to contemporary art are exhibiting the contemporary scene on a regular basis. Another point of difference concerns 19th century internationalism in the arts, that was brought into question by post-colonial debates and criticism of the contemporary art “ethnic marketing”, and also challenged the Venetian and World Fair’s national representation system. As a consequence of this, Eurocentric tendency to implode the whole word in an exhibition space, which characterises both the Crystal Palace and the Venice Biennale, is affected by the expansion of the artistic geographical map to scenes traditionally considered as marginal. The birth of the Havana Biennial in 1984 is widely considered an important counterpoint to the Venetian model for its prioritization of artists working in the Global South and curatorial rejection of the national pavilion model.
International biennales[edit]
In the term's most commonly used context of major recurrent art exhibitions:
Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, South Australia
Asian Art Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)
Athens Biennale, in Athens, Greece
Bienal de Arte Paiz, in Guatemala City, Guatemala[4]
Arts in Marrakech (AiM) International Biennale (Arts in Marrakech Festival)
Bamako Encounters, a biennale of photography in Mali
Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism
Beijing Biennale
Berlin Biennale (contemporary art biennale, to be distinguished from Berlinale, which is a film festival)
Bergen Assembly (triennial for contemporary art in Bergen, Norway)www.bergenassembly.no
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China
Bienal de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Biënnale van België, Biennial of Belgium, Belgium
BiennaleOnline Online biennial exhibition of contemporary art from the most promising emerging artists.
Biennial of Hawaii Artists
Biennale de la Biche, the smallest biennale in the world held at deserted island near Guadeloupe, French overseas region[5][6]
Biwako Biennale [ja], in Shiga, Japan
La Biennale de Montreal
Biennale of Luanda : Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace,[7] Angola
Boom Festival, international music and culture festival in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal
Bucharest Biennale in Bucharest, Romania
Bushwick Biennial, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
Canakkale Biennial, in Canakkale, Turkey
Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal [8]
Changwon Sculpture Biennale in Changwon, South Korea
Dakar Biennale, also called Dak'Art, biennale in Dakar, Senegal
Documenta, contemporary art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany
Estuaire (biennale), biennale in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, France
EVA International, biennial in Limerick, Republic of Ireland
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, in Gothenburg, Sweden[9]
Greater Taipei Contemporary Art Biennial, in Taipei, Taiwan
Gwangju Biennale, Asia's first and most prestigious contemporary art biennale
Havana biennial, in Havana, Cuba
Helsinki Biennial, in Helsinki, Finland
Herzliya Biennial For Contemporary Art, in Herzliya, Israel
Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, in Incheon, South Korea
Iowa Biennial, in Iowa, USA
Istanbul Biennial, in Istanbul, Turkey
International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, in Tehran and Istanbul
Jakarta Biennale, in Jakarta, Indonesia
Jerusalem Biennale, in Jerusalem, Israel
Jogja Biennale, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Karachi Biennale, in Karachi, Pakistan
Keelung Harbor Biennale, in Keelung, Taiwan
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, largest art exhibition in India, in Kochi, Kerala, India
Kortrijk Design Biennale Interieur, in Kortrijk, Belgium
Kobe Biennale, in Japan
Kuandu Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan
Lagos Biennial, in Lagos, Nigeria[10]
Light Art Biennale Austria, in Austria
Liverpool Biennial, in Liverpool, UK
Lofoten International Art Festival [no] (LIAF), on the Lofoten archipelago, Norway[11]
Manifesta, European Biennale of contemporary art in different European cities
Mediations Biennale, in Poznań, Poland
Melbourne International Biennial 1999
Mediterranean Biennale in Sakhnin 2013
MOMENTA Biennale de l'image [fr] (formerly known as Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal), in Montreal, Canada
MOMENTUM [no], in Moss, Norway[12]
Moscow Biennale, in Moscow, Russia
Munich Biennale, new opera and music-theatre in even-numbered years
Mykonos Biennale
Nakanojo Biennale[13]
NGV Triennial, contemporary art exhibition held every three years at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
October Salon – Belgrade Biennale [sr], organised by the Cultural Center of Belgrade [sr], in Belgrade, Serbia[14]
OSTEN Biennial of Drawing Skopje, North Macedonia[15]
Biennale de Paris
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), in Riga, Latvia[16]
São Paulo Art Biennial, in São Paulo, Brazil
SCAPE Public Art Christchurch Biennial in Christchurch, New Zealand[17]
Prospect New Orleans
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism
Sequences, in Reykjavík, Iceland[18]
Shanghai Biennale
Sharjah Biennale, in Sharjah, UAE
Singapore Biennale, held in various locations across the city-state island of Singapore
Screen City Biennial, in Stavanger, Norway
Biennale of Sydney
Taipei Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan
Taiwan Arts Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)
Taiwan Film Biennale, in Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art [el], in Thessaloniki, Greece[19]
Dream city, produced by ART Rue Association in Tunisia
Vancouver Biennale
Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) in the Philippines [20]
Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, which includes:
Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art
Venice Biennale of Architecture
Venice Film Festival
Vladivostok biennale of Visual Arts, in Vladivostok, Russia
Whitney Biennial, hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, NY, USA
Web Biennial, produced with teams from Athens, Berlin and Istanbul.
West Africa Architecture Biennale,[21] Virtual in Lagos, Nigeria.
WRO Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland[22]
Music Biennale Zagreb
[SHIFT:ibpcpa] The International Biennale of Performance, Collaborative and Participatory Arts, Nomadic, International, Scotland, UK.
—---Venice Biennale from wikipedia —
The Venice Biennale (/ˌbiːɛˈnɑːleɪ, -li/; Italian: La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation.[2][3][4] The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture (hence the name biennale; biennial).[5][6][7] The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.[8]
Organization[edit]
Art Biennale
Art Biennale
International Art Exhibition
1895
Even-numbered years (since 2022)
Venice Biennale of Architecture
International Architecture Exhibition
1980
Odd-numbered years (since 2021)
Biennale Musica
International Festival of Contemporary Music
1930
Annually (Sep/Oct)
Biennale Teatro
International Theatre Festival
1934
Annually (Jul/Aug)
Venice Film Festival
Venice International Film Festival
1932
Annually (Aug/Sep)
Venice Dance Biennale
International Festival of Contemporary Dance
1999
Annually (June; biennially 2010–16)
International Kids' Carnival
2009
Annually (during Carnevale)
History
1895–1947
On April 19, 1893, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to set up an biennial exhibition of Italian Art ("Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale") to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy.[11]
A year later, the council decreed "to adopt a 'by invitation' system; to reserve a section of the Exhibition for foreign artists too; to admit works by uninvited Italian artists, as selected by a jury."[12]
The first Biennale, "I Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia (1st International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice)" (although originally scheduled for April 22, 1894) was opened on April 30, 1895, by the Italian King and Queen, Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia. The first exhibition was seen by 224,000 visitors.
The event became increasingly international in the first decades of the 20th century: from 1907 on, several countries installed national pavilions at the exhibition, with the first being from Belgium. In 1910 the first internationally well-known artists were displayed: a room dedicated to Gustav Klimt, a one-man show for Renoir, a retrospective of Courbet. A work by Picasso "Family of Saltimbanques" was removed from the Spanish salon in the central Palazzo because it was feared that its novelty might shock the public. By 1914 seven pavilions had been established: Belgium (1907), Hungary (1909), Germany (1909), Great Britain (1909), France (1912), and Russia (1914).
During World War I, the 1916 and 1918 events were cancelled.[13] In 1920 the post of mayor of Venice and president of the Biennale was split. The new secretary general, Vittorio Pica brought about the first presence of avant-garde art, notably Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
1922 saw an exhibition of sculpture by African artists. Between the two World Wars, many important modern artists had their work exhibited there. In 1928 the Istituto Storico d'Arte Contemporanea (Historical Institute of Contemporary Art) opened, which was the first nucleus of archival collections of the Biennale. In 1930 its name was changed into Historical Archive of Contemporary Art.
In 1930, the Biennale was transformed into an Ente Autonomo (Autonomous Board) by Royal Decree with law no. 33 of 13-1-1930. Subsequently, the control of the Biennale passed from the Venice city council to the national Fascist government under Benito Mussolini. This brought on a restructuring, an associated financial boost, as well as a new president, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata. Three entirely new events were established, including the Biennale Musica in 1930, also referred to as International Festival of Contemporary Music; the Venice Film Festival in 1932, which they claim as the first film festival in history,[14] also referred to as Venice International Film Festival; and the Biennale Theatro in 1934, also referred to as International Theatre Festival.
In 1933 the Biennale organized an exhibition of Italian art abroad. From 1938, Grand Prizes were awarded in the art exhibition section.
During World War II, the activities of the Biennale were interrupted: 1942 saw the last edition of the events. The Film Festival restarted in 1946, the Music and Theatre festivals were resumed in 1947, and the Art Exhibition in 1948.[15]
1948–1973[edit]
The Art Biennale was resumed in 1948 with a major exhibition of a recapitulatory nature. The Secretary General, art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini, started with the Impressionists and many protagonists of contemporary art including Chagall, Klee, Braque, Delvaux, Ensor, and Magritte, as well as a retrospective of Picasso's work. Peggy Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her collection, later to be permanently housed at Ca' Venier dei Leoni.
1949 saw the beginning of renewed attention to avant-garde movements in European—and later worldwide—movements in contemporary art. Abstract expressionism was introduced in the 1950s, and the Biennale is credited with importing Pop Art into the canon of art history by awarding the top prize to Robert Rauschenberg in 1964.[16] From 1948 to 1972, Italian architect Carlo Scarpa did a series of remarkable interventions in the Biennale's exhibition spaces.
In 1954 the island San Giorgio Maggiore provided the venue for the first Japanese Noh theatre shows in Europe. 1956 saw the selection of films following an artistic selection and no longer based upon the designation of the participating country. The 1957 Golden Lion went to Satyajit Ray's Aparajito which introduced Indian cinema to the West.
1962 included Arte Informale at the Art Exhibition with Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Emilio Vedova, and Pietro Consagra. The 1964 Art Exhibition introduced continental Europe to Pop Art (The Independent Group had been founded in Britain in 1952). The American Robert Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Gran Premio, and the youngest to date.
The student protests of 1968 also marked a crisis for the Biennale. Student protests hindered the opening of the Biennale. A resulting period of institutional changes opened and ending with a new Statute in 1973. In 1969, following the protests, the Grand Prizes were abandoned. These resumed in 1980 for the Mostra del Cinema and in 1986 for the Art Exhibition.[17]
In 1972, for the first time, a theme was adopted by the Biennale, called "Opera o comportamento" ("Work or Behaviour").
Starting from 1973 the Music Festival was no longer held annually. During the year in which the Mostra del Cinema was not held, there was a series of "Giornate del cinema italiano" (Days of Italian Cinema) promoted by sectorial bodies in campo Santa Margherita, in Venice.[18]
1974–1998[edit]
1974 saw the start of the four-year presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. The International Art Exhibition was not held (until it was resumed in 1976). Theatre and cinema events were held in October 1974 and 1975 under the title Libertà per il Cile (Freedom for Chile)—a major cultural protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
On 15 November 1977, the so-called Dissident Biennale (in reference to the dissident movement in the USSR) opened. Because of the ensuing controversies within the Italian left wing parties, president Ripa di Meana resigned at the end of the year.[19]
In 1979 the new presidency of Giuseppe Galasso (1979-1982) began. The principle was laid down whereby each of the artistic sectors was to have a permanent director to organise its activity.
In 1980, the Architecture section of the Biennale was set up. The director, Paolo Portoghesi, opened the Corderie dell'Arsenale to the public for the first time. At the Mostra del Cinema, the awards were brought back into being (between 1969 and 1979, the editions were non-competitive). In 1980, Achille Bonito Oliva and Harald Szeemann introduced "Aperto", a section of the exhibition designed to explore emerging art. Italian art historian Giovanni Carandente directed the 1988 and 1990 editions. A three-year gap was left afterwards to make sure that the 1995 edition would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Biennale.[13]
The 1993 edition was directed by Achille Bonito Oliva. In 1995, Jean Clair was appointed to be the Biennale's first non-Italian director of visual arts[20] while Germano Celant served as director in 1997.
For the Centenary in 1995, the Biennale promoted events in every sector of its activity: the 34th Festival del Teatro, the 46th art exhibition, the 46th Festival di Musica, the 52nd Mostra del Cinema.[21]
1999–present[edit]
In 1999 and 2001, Harald Szeemann directed two editions in a row (48th & 49th) bringing in a larger representation of artists from Asia and Eastern Europe and more young artists than usual and expanded the show into several newly restored spaces of the Arsenale.
In 1999 a new sector was created for live shows: DMT (Dance Music Theatre).
The 50th edition, 2003, directed by Francesco Bonami, had a record number of seven co-curators involved, including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Catherine David, Igor Zabel, Hou Hanru and Massimiliano Gioni.
The 51st edition of the Biennale opened in June 2005, curated, for the first time by two women, Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez. De Corral organized "The Experience of Art" which included 41 artists, from past masters to younger figures. Rosa Martinez took over the Arsenale with "Always a Little Further." Drawing on "the myth of the romantic traveler" her exhibition involved 49 artists, ranging from the elegant to the profane.
In 2007, Robert Storr became the first director from the United States to curate the Biennale (the 52nd), with a show entitled Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.
Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum was artistic director of the 2009 edition entitled "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds".
The 2011 edition was curated by Swiss curator Bice Curiger entitled "ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations".
The Biennale in 2013 was curated by the Italian Massimiliano Gioni. His title and theme, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, was adopted from an architectural model by the self-taught Italian-American artist Marino Auriti. Auriti's work, The Encyclopedic Palace of the World was lent by the American Folk Art Museum and exhibited in the first room of the Arsenale for the duration of the biennale. For Gioni, Auriti's work, "meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite," provided an analogous figure for the "biennale model itself...based on the impossible desire to concentrate the infinite worlds of contemporary art in a single place: a task that now seems as dizzyingly absurd as Auriti's dream."[22]
Curator Okwui Enwezor was responsible for the 2015 edition.[23] He was the first African-born curator of the biennial. As a catalyst for imagining different ways of imagining multiple desires and futures Enwezor commissioned special projects and programs throughout the Biennale in the Giardini. This included a Creative Time Summit, e-flux journal's SUPERCOMMUNITY, Gulf Labor Coalition, The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project and Abounaddara.[24][25]
The 2017 Biennale, titled Viva Arte Viva, was directed by French curator Christine Macel who called it an "exhibition inspired by humanism".[26] German artist Franz Erhard Walter won the Golden Lion for best artist, while Carolee Schneemann was awarded a posthumous Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.[27]
The 2019 Biennale, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, was directed by American-born curator Ralph Rugoff.[28]
The 2022 edition was curated by Italian curator Cecilia Alemani entitled "The Milk of Dreams" after a book by British-born Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.[29]
The Biennale has an attendance today of over 500,000 visitors.[30][31][32]
Role in the art market[edit]
When the Venice Biennale was founded in 1895, one of its main goals was to establish a new market for contemporary art. Between 1942 and 1968 a sales office assisted artists in finding clients and selling their work,[33] a service for which it charged 10% commission. Sales remained an intrinsic part of the biennale until 1968, when a sales ban was enacted. An important practical reason why the focus on non-commodities has failed to decouple Venice from the market is that the biennale itself lacks the funds to produce, ship and install these large-scale works. Therefore, the financial involvement of dealers is widely regarded as indispensable;[16] as they regularly front the funding for production of ambitious projects.[34] Furthermore, every other year the Venice Biennale coincides with nearby Art Basel, the world's prime commercial fair for modern and contemporary art. Numerous galleries with artists on show in Venice usually bring work by the same artists to Basel.[35]
Central Pavilion and Arsenale[edit]
The formal Biennale is based at a park, the Giardini. The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale's director.
Initiated in 1980, the Aperto began as a fringe event for younger artists and artists of a national origin not represented by the permanent national pavilions. This is usually staged in the Arsenale and has become part of the formal biennale programme. In 1995 there was no Aperto so a number of participating countries hired venues to show exhibitions of emerging artists. From 1999, both the international exhibition and the Aperto were held as one exhibition, held both at the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. Also in 1999, a $1 million renovation transformed the Arsenale area into a cluster of renovated shipyards, sheds and warehouses, more than doubling the Arsenale's exhibition space of previous years.[36]
A special edition of the 54th Biennale was held at Padiglione Italia of Torino Esposizioni – Sala Nervi (December 2011 – February 2012) for the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unification. The event was directed by Vittorio Sgarbi
I managed to see two Cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) this morning at the northern part of the Peak District Moors. The old adage goes "In May he sings all day. In June he changes tune...." as by June they often add an extra note making a Cuck-cuck-coo sound. But on the 1st of June both birds were singing the standard Cuckoo. Must be the late spring.
Zambia Minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane and Head of IMF’s African Department Abebe Aemro Selassie participate in a Governor Talk during the 2022 Spring Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Allison Shelley
19 April 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: 651A8107.cr3
Explore Apr 21, 2011 #226
Once a year, I manage to catch a Common Skipper that's not skipping. Yes, they're beautiful but quite fast-moving so getting a good shot is a challenge... worth pursuing! I love the big black eyes and long supportive rear legs!
Despite its appearance and what most books say, it seems a Skipper is actually a butterfly, not a moth. Common Skippers (Hesperiidae) are distinguished from the higher butterflies by their large moth-like bodies, small wings and hooked antennae. Skippers have amazingly large, focused eyes and their bodies look like they're covered with a fine dust. Pruinescence, or pruinosity, is a "bloom" caused by pigment on top of an insect's cuticle that covers up the underlying coloration, giving a dusty or frosted appearance. The pruinescence is commonly white to pale blue in color, but can also be gray, pink, purple, or red; these colors may be produced by Tyndall (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndall_effect) scattering of light. When pale in color, pruinescence often strongly reflects ultraviolet.
Costus Ginger gives a delicate spicy flower to salads and adds color too. Pleasant for Skippers and for a gourmet too! Costus is a genus of perennial tropical herbaceous plants from the costus family (Costaceae). They are often characterized and distinguished from relatives such as Zingiber (true ginger) by their spiraling stems. The genus as a whole is thus often called spiral gingers, but this can also refer to C. barbatus specifically.
Costus spectabilis is the floral emblem of Nigeria; its flowers are represented (erroneously in red instead of yellow color) on its coat of arms. It is important not to confuse "Costus speciousus, C. spectabilis etc. with the herb known by the common name 'costus'. Some species are of importance to herbivores, such as caterpillars of the Restricted Demon (Notocrypta curvifascia) which feed on Crape Ginger (C. speciosus). The Crape Ginger is also a source of diosgenin, a compound used for the commercial production of various steroids, such as progesterone. On Trinidad and Tobago, a mix of Costus scaber juice and crushed Renealmia alpinia berries is used to treat dogs bitten by snakes.
Costus root has been used as an incense and perfume ingredient for thousands of years and is mentioned in Rabbinical writings as קשט koshet, reflecting its arrow head shape. It was used in Ketoret which is used when referring to the consecrated incense described in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. It is also referred to as the HaKetoret (the incense). It was offered on the specialized incense altar in the time when the Tabernacle was located in the First and Second Jerusalem Temples. The ketoret was an important component of the Temple service in Jerusalem.
In Tibet it was and is used extensively as incense and medicine, and as an aromatic stomatic in Chinese herbal medicine under the name "Mu Xiang" meaning 'wood aroma'.
Costus sp. ‘French Kiss’, Common Skipper, Monk Skipper
Biscayne Park, FL
At the Science Museum in Glasgow today and managed to grab this one whilst we were waiting to enter The Planetarium for one great show!
Glasgow has many great museums and after finishing our visit here we went off to the Riverside Museum, which is Scotland's Museum of Transport and Travel. Lewis loved his day but I'm museum-ed out!!
Our Daily Challenge ~ Known For ....
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... thanks to you all.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at IMF Headquarters prepares to welcome people back for the first in-person IMF/WBG Annual Meetings since 2019.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
28 September 2022
New York, New York, United States
Photo ref: KH220928060.jpg
Spending time in the countryside. On this occasion it was a 26 mile bike ride via High Bradfield and Ewden village. I was especially happy to have managed to cycle up the Cote de Bradfield although more hills were to come!
Finally managed to pry myself out of the house yesterday for a short spin on the bike. Didn't feel up to taking the camera, but onwards and upwards !
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva Meets with Green Entrepreneurs in Norrsken House, Kigali, Rwanda.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
26 January 2023
Kigali, Rwanda
Managed to drag myself out of the house and get my photo of the day shot, edited, uploaded and tagged way before you could even begin to say "organised". Winning!
This is between Northwood and Moor Park on the Metropolitan Line on London's Underground, which is never late and always a pleasure to be on. That last statement may have been sarcasm...
Managed to get out today and decided to take a trip to Pershore Abbey. Got there at 3.15pm and it closed at 3.30pm so had very little time to set up the tripod, change lenses and then take a series of bracketed images!
Good in Lightbox.
Managed to fulfill several things I wanted to do for a long time.
First thing first - build in blue. This colour isn't very common in Technic area - part variety is limited and some are harder to obtain.
Next thing I wanted to get my hands on, after seeing wonderful James Tillson builds, are these new Technic panels. Bought a bunch of them recently and finally had a chance to explore the possibilities. Ended up using 15 smaller and 4 longer panels. Some shapes are just wonderful thanks to them.
Last thing I wanted to incorporate were RC motor with SBrick. Model is medium sized and thanks to smaller battery box everything is well hidden. Thanks to that model has interior.
Model features opening doors and suspension. Rear is nothing special - RC motor is used as arm with two hard springs. The front is a bit special due to lack of space - it has torsion bar setup.
Our Daily Challenge 17-23 January : Comfort.
The old boy is feeling the cold nowadays even though I have managed to get his weight back up to what it should be.
I managed to get this set on ebay since I live in the sticks with no pretentious M&S shop. The scale ranges from 1:3 to 1:4 to 1:6 but as usual the details are very nice and I love using this realistic minis in backdrops
Managed a little more work on this one. I've had to order a 2nd Wheel 8 Tooth, another part added to the 'Hoard!!' Wishlist.
I have two other printed SW variations of this Canopy, I might swap for later...
Not sure if I'll keep the cheeze slopes. Looking at A-Wing images, & thinking about Vic Vipers...
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in a roundtable discussion on the subject of “Building a Resilient and Inclusive Future; Supporting Africa’s Climate Agenda” in the Convention Centre, Kigali.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
25 January 2023
Kigali, Rwanda
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva meets with President of Colombia Iván Duque Márquez at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
11 October 2021
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH211011024.arw
Managed a couple of hours climbing last evening with Edgar my nephew.. Got him to do his first ever outside climbing and his first outdoor lead.. The boy did good!
The route he did was Snail Crack a 18mt high climb graded at VDiff.
Climbing at Lawrencefield Quarry a very cool place to climb!
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Simply getting airborne at the start of the 20th century was an achievement, but getting back down to earth without ending up in a pile of broken wood and linen was an even greater one. Plenty of intrepid aviators met their end in homemade machines that managed one take off and no successful landings. Spectators in their thousands would turn up at the early airfields to watch young aviation pioneers pushing the limits of their flying machines.
Then came the Great War and with it galloping strides in aircraft development and flying skills. By the end of the war aircraft could fly higher and faster, were more reliable and their pilots more skilled. When the war was over there were hundreds of aeroplanes lying around that were no longer needed and that could be snapped up for peanuts by young daredevils who had caught the flying bug and weren’t very keen on spending the rest of their days working in an office. And so the flying circus was invented.
Airshows were staged at which members of the public could take joyrides for a few shillings or dollars. There were displays of terrifying loops and rolls and tricks like flying upside down. Naturally, the more outrageous and dangerous the stunt, the more the crowd enjoyed it, so if a young pilot wanted to make a living out of flying he had to come up with something a bit different Something that pushed the edges of the envelope a little further out.
In 1918 an American flier called Ormer Locklear came up with a stunt that was guaranteed to wow the crowds: he would climb out of the aeroplane and walk along the wing and even climb from one aeroplane onto to another. Apparently Locklear first clambered out of the cockpit to fix a technical problem while training during the war. A normal person would have landed and then sorted out the problem. Pretty soon you couldn’t operate a flying circus that didn’t have a wing walking act and Locklear was soon joined by numerous other daredevils including the wonderfully named Ethal Dare, the world’s first female wing walk who like Locklear would walk from plane to plane.
Not surprisingly there were a few mishaps. Ormer himself came a cropper while working on a film. These wing walk pioneers were operating without a safety net: no parachutes, no safety wires tethering them to the aircraft. A slip of the foot and it was the high dive for our brave showman or showgirl. In 1938 the authorities in America decided that parachutes had to be worn though by that time war was on its way and the show was about to close anyway.
Flying changed after the war. There were new goals like breaking the sound barrier, space exploration and the development of quiet, fast and comfortable airliners so that we could all go on foreign holidays relatively cheaply. In other words we’d got used to flying and some of the magic had gone out of it. There were still airshows with amazing displays of flying skills and some truly incredible modern jet fighter aircraft shattering greenhouse windows on high-speed fly pasts. But a little bit of the between-the-wars glamour had gone out of it.
But those barnstorming days of the ’20s and 30s and the characters who manned the flying circuses hadn’t been forgotten by those with a deep love of flying and a passion for its history. A few wing walking teams operated in America in the 1970s but it wasn’t until frustrated barnstormer Vic Norman founded his famous Aerosuperbatics wing walking team in the early 1980s that the sight of dare devils handstanding and flying upside down on the wing was seen in Europe.
Yes, the wing walkers are safely tethered to their Boeing Stearman biplanes, but the glamour, spectacle, sounds and atmosphere is just the same as it was when young and brave Ormer Locklear went for a dramatic 10ft stroll along the wing of his warplane in 1918.
Two girls getting ready for a night out. They are well used to spending the whole night on their feet in heels but tonight they are trying to go the extra mile (or inch) and are talking each other in to going for extreme 5 or even 6 inch heels
My parents' cat, Kenobi, enjoys shredding toilet paper whenever he gets the chance. And then he has the nerve to give me that innocent look.
Obi has his own catster page now: www.catster.com/cats/569556
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in a roundtable discussion on the subject of “Building a Resilient and Inclusive Future; Supporting Africa’s Climate Agenda” in the Convention Centre, Kigali.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
25 January 2023
Kigali, Rwanda
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva receives a Doctor Honoris Causa (DHC) Degree from the University of National and World Economy.
IMF Photo/Hristo Rusev
17 May 2022
Sofia, Bulgaria
Photo ref: HRR00488.JPG
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde visit recent earthquake damaged areas of Lombok, Indonesia on Monday, October 8. IMF Photo
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and Magdalena Andersson, Chairman for the International Monetary Fund and Financial Committee, participate in the IMFC Press Conference during the 2021 Spring Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.
Pictured is Managing Director preparing for the Press Conference.
IMF Photo/Eman Mohammed
8 April 2021
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: IMF-EMGDC-27
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva meets with President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, at the Presidents Office in Urugwiro Village in Kigali, Rwanda. The MD is on a two day visit to Rwanda
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
25 January 2023
Kigali, Rwanda
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in a roundtable discussion on the subject of “Building a Resilient and Inclusive Future; Supporting Africa’s Climate Agenda” in the Convention Centre, Kigali.
IMF Photo/Kim Haughton
25 January 2023
Kigali, Rwanda
Managed to get the gall wasp to walk onto a leaf and placed that on a wheelie bin lid- this meant I could take lower angle shots
Managed to get out this morning for a while before anyone else up and got some decent light for the first time in ages.
Managed to get some nice shots of this little bird, only the one present in the dunes. They have been there in numbers this year
Managed a trip to the former Coats Baptist Church in Paisley. Constructed in 1894, in memory of philanthropist Thomas Coats it is now a multi purpose venue. Yesterday it was hosting a wedding fayre. www.coatspaisley.com #paisley #coatsvenue
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva rehearses her IMFC Plenary speech at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
20 April 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH220420109.arw
Managed to snap these two in the back garden of John & Angies in Stroud, Gloucestershire......H.H., Pentax K10D, SMC DA 55-300mm ED lens
H.H.
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva talks with former First Managing Director of the IMF John Lipsky during the 2022 Annual Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Tom Brenner
12 October 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: TB221210665.jpg