2 artists: Sandra Nakamura & François de Sabourin

As I am in art stasis at the moment (Studio overhaul) I am still doting on art I love and checking out the work of friends as a healthy past time. Sandra and I studied at UCSD (uni of California San Diego)in 2002, and lived together, and thought about putting bubble bath in the fountain together etc..François I met randomly in Belfast, Ireland. I watched him draw, so perfectly, but only a nose. So I think of Gogol, The Russian Novelist and I treasure it because I will never be sure if it is incomplete or not. It sits perfectly looking normal, ambiguously on the top left of the page...tbc when I am at my own pc and able to upload some images. In the meantime:
SANDRA NAKAMURA
Working with everyday materials and situations, Sandra Nakamura creates temporary interventions in which she seeks to actively engage the public. Many of her works are based on the gathering, accumulation, and distribution of objects...

MY CONTRACT STIPULATES 15 DAYS OF VACATION February 2007
Jena, Germany


Thinking about the significance commuting has in our daily lives, I calculated that if a given person in a city like Jena spends an hour per day on public transportation, after the course of one year, this would amount to 15 days of travel time.

During 15 days, the lights on the inside of a streetcar on Line 1 (Zwäten – Winzerla) were made pink. This route was selected for this intervention because it best illustrated the relationship between commute and work, traveling from a residential neighborhood and through the city center, to the industrial area of Jena. On the other hand, pink lighting offered stark contrast to the bland, office-like atmosphere of white fluorescent lights, brown seat covers, and tan fixtures on standard streetcars in hope that the experience of commuters would be transformed.

I had never before thought that a color alone could embody the feeling of vacation until I stood on Jena’s Paradise Bridge. Although I have never been to Miami, the bridge made me think of pink flamingos and an extravagant weekend in Miami. And it was just because the bridge was pink, all of it.


François de Sabourin