my work

Here are some pictures of the place where I work. It’s maybe still unclear for somebody what my job is and how it looks like in a graphic workshop, so here some pics! I happened to have my camera at work the other day, so I took some photographs before going home. This one up here is a poster from the entrance wall, completely covered in all sorts of cards and gallery fliers.

This is how my work station looks like – my “office space” – that day I was using black ink to print the artwork. Today was violet. Sometimes is many different colors, often in what looks like a big mess…

You can see the etching ink and the scraper on the glass surface of my work table. More pics from my work space…

Above you see – in the background – the linolie (olio di semi di lino – linseed oil in English), used to make some colors more smooth. Etching inks can be very clumpsy. They don’t smell and they’re pretty natural, based on pigments and flaxseed oil.

And this is one of the presses, the one I was using the day I took the pictures:

This press is very old, from the 19th century, but luckily has been automatized. The building where my work is at is a huge loft, part of an old chocolate factory. The floor above us used to be the storage for the cacao beans…now it’s an acting studio.

The crusty old radio…We have many radios and stereos, but this is the worst as you can tell. We keep it in this position ‘cause is the only way we can get the frequency clearly…

Some of the colors we use…They are mainly French.

The view from the window by my work station. It was 16.40. Sunset time.

We are located very very close to the sea, right opposite Sweden. But you can’t tell from this photo, the windmills in the sea are visible from the kitchen window, but it was too dark to take a decent picture. This is the view from the terrace:

This is our kitchen:

We make our food together, lately my boss has fun cooking – and the day I took these photos he happened to cook pasta with fresh Icelandic mussels (cozze) and chili for lunch! I’ve never tried Icelandic mussels before, they are so delicious, so delicate! I HAD to take a picture by the way, but it was just when we devoured the whole thing.

What a show off I am! ahahaha! but is amazing to get this for lunch! Well, sometimes we just eat bean salads or smoked salmon on bread.

And here is some of the work I’ve made : this is now in the permanent collection of the museum of contemporary art, ARKEN, the picture is kind of small though! I made the last 25 images. It was my first big project, I finished it last year before christmas.

I love my job, even though sometimes is very challenging. I’m learning a lot and it’s a very unconventional environment…I hope you can come eat some mussels with us soon! :-) Come visit!

Orto Botanico

This is Copenhagen! Inside the most wonderful palm tree house, at the Botanical Gardens in town. It’s one of my favourite places here, all year long. And when it’s too cold out – you can just spend some time in the palm houses…at first my camera lens got all steamy, that’s why the picture above looks like that.

I went there with Andreas and his father. More steamy pics.

They had a lot of botanical discussions going on.

I don’t know why, but I really like botanical names a lot. I like to write them down, I found some of them really great. Like these ones:

I would spend the whole winter in the palm house!

Too bad it closes at 3 pm. So they kicked us out and broke all my dreams of wintering under the palms.

When DK gets noir

Today, around 17.30, I realized it was completely dark outside. It’s just going to get darker and darker from now until december…I took this picture from the window of the living room, and despite my basic camera it turned out very nice.

Old DK

I took these pictures in a trip to the beautiful Frilandsmuseet, or National Open Air Museum, 20 mins by train from Copenhagen.

Spread across 86 acres of land today the museum houses more than 50 farms, mills and houses from the period 1650-1950. Virtually every region in Denmark and the Faeroe Islands as well as the former Danish provinces of southern Sweden and northern Germany are represented.

I love the colors of this old farms. And I wish I had a house with grass and all sorts of flowers growing on the roof, just like these.

Somebody really likes to live at the Frilandsmuseet.

There was even a danish dance party in the fields. I love the outfits, my favourite accessory is the men’s red hat! Wow! I’ll knit one for Andreas, as soon as I learn how to knit.

The houses and farms interior decor also reflected the authentic Danish style back in the days. All the furniture, utensils, fabric, paintings were authentic pieces from the past. Needless to say there is a lot of amazing craft work to be seen.

I particularly liked this fabric piece, I think from the 19th century. I want it!!!

They appeared to be a lot into dog art back in the days. A lot of dog statues too.

A detail I really liked was the use of cut out books and newspaper pages to make nice decorations for the kitchen and the pantry.

And the little cabinet-beds, they seemed to present in most farms. I think I like them, they give me an idea of slightly claustrophobic coziness, but I bet it was the best option to endure the cold in the winter (or in September, for that matter…).

Home sweet square

We moved to Nørrebro a couple of months ago. It’s a lovely neighborhood even though it is currently attracting media attention for some shootings and gang fights. At times it is set on fire during riots. It is definitely a place with an important history of social fights, particularly the square we live in – Blågårdsplads. It is probably one of the best places to live in town! The following pictures of the square are from our neighbor – and Andreas’ cousin – Bodil.

Anyone can use the harbor

We went to the Black Diamond library to check out the Sally Mann exhibit yesterday afternoon. I’m not a big fan of this ultra cool new library. I don’t like the dramatic big black pharaonic architecture and honestly the photo show was incredibly small. But the truth is, the harbor and canals area of CPH are pretty stagnating when it comes to fun places to hang out, at least in my opinion. There are a lot of new buildings coming up, like the new opera and the new theatre, but they all look the same to me, modern cold and boring.

Then we biked to this weird little spot by the canal at Langebro bridge, there were some people hanging out, a green floating seasick seamonster, a floating little museum, a homemade wooden xylophone and some water bikes ready to be used…

A sweet girl welcomed us bringing some homemade cakes, and for the next hour we just hung out at the Harbor Laboratory, the collaborative experimental project started by the collective Parfyme. You can hang out and if you want you’re welcome to write your own ideas on how the harbor should be used and developed. So if you happen to be in CPH before October 2008 don’t miss it! It’s right by the Langebro bridge that connects to Amager.
“As we see it, the harbor has a great potential to be a cultural, and inspirational area for the residents of Copenhagen. We will do our best to facilitate and realize this goal using the Harbor Laboratory as a platform/catalyst for innovative change.” Parfyme takes part in U-Turn, the Danish quadriennale of contemporary art that is taking place right now in Denmark!