The northern port town of Su-ao, Taiwan, is a surreal fishing village with colourful boats docked right next to a bustling open air fish market. The boats’ aesthetic appeal is thanks not only to the bright contrasting painted trim and the faded Chinese characters adorning the stern of each ship, but also an undeniable rugged utility that makes each ship as unique and authentic as the village itself.
Ko Ware High-stemmed Bowl, Yüan Dynasty (1279-1368)
I’ve just returned from Taiwan for a family trip, and one of the many beautiful places we visited was the National Palace Museum. The museum holds an ever rotating treasure trove of Chinese antiquities that Chiang Kai-shek first safely stashed in the Chinese country side during the second Sino-Japanese war, and later shipped in unthinkably large quantities to Taiwan when his Nationalist party broke off from the Chinese Communist party. While Chinese arts and culture are beloved for its ornate beauty, I was somewhat surprised to find many pieces on display with a quiet, stark simplicity. Pictures are strictly prohibited within the museum, but the museum’s website has a healthy selection from the collections currently on display.
Photographer Timothy Allen retells his trek to visit the abandoned Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria, and shares some haunting images of Bulgaria’s largest ideological monument to Communism. The building, designed by Guéorguy Stoilov in 1981, was made up of a huge main hall containing 500sq metres of mosaic fresco once depicting Bulgarian and Soviet communist themes. One of the most curious features of the exterior, Socialist slogans written in large concrete Cyrillic letters, was captured by Allen in breathtaking detail.
San Francisco-based Obscura Digital produced this jaw dropping video documenting the the exterior surface of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. The architectural projections were replayed every 30 minutes for five days starting on November 29, 2011 in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates National Day.