Petica's posterous http://peticawatson.posterous.com a place to plonk stuff posterous.com Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:50:25 -0700 BBC series on maps http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/04/25/bbc-series-on-maps http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/04/25/bbc-series-on-maps I'm really loving the BBC series on maps... (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s5m7w_ ) I've always been overly-interested in maps, poring over medieval maps which document the Christian known world and the strange, beast-ridden lands further afield, to Google Earth which in one click allows me to see my front door, or search the jungle ruins of Angkor Wat just before I visit them, from my iphone! Maps have helped us make sense of the world, and communicate the world view of the humans who made them; they've been tools for propaganda, showing the way to Heaven, exerting control; navigation, understanding how to deal with poverty,  disease, populations... and so fascinating to see what the maps of different societies, over thousands of years, reveal about the political and cultural forces that created them. Here are some important maps everyone should know about. Here's Tupaia's navigation map from the British Library. He's always been thought of as a mere interpreter on Captain Cook's expedition, but in fact his role was crucial and they would have probably been killed and eaten without him - Polynesians saw him as the expedition leader.

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Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:50:35 -0700 Spotted on Springwise: the Green school http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/20/spotted-on-springwise-the-green-school http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/20/spotted-on-springwise-the-green-school
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There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among their goals, but a new school opening this fall in Bali will be entrepreneurially green from top to bottom. The Green School, which will offer preschool through year eight, aims to provide a place where students can become more curious and more passionate about their education and the planet. The school's eight-hectare campus in Sibang Kaja is divided by the Ayung River, on whose western bank are the school's classrooms, libraries, laboratories and kitchens. Aquaculture ponds, organic vegetable gardens, edible mazes and permacultural gardens are interspersed throughout the vast campus, which is built entirely of low-impact and environmentally conscious materials such as bamboo, alang-alang grass and traditional Balinese mud walls. For energy supplies, the school is experimenting with micro-hydro power generation as well as producing methane from cow manure to fuel stoves and developing a gasification unit that will use rice husks and other organic materials to produce electricity. A working organic chocolate factory, large sports fields, gymnasium, high ropes course and a network of bicycle paths are also part of the campus. The Green School's curriculum, meanwhile, combines demanding academic content taught through a holistic approach that aims to inspire and enhance all of a child’s capacities. The school's Learning Village, for example, gives students a chance to apply lessons to specific disciplines and real business situations, making abstract ideas come to practical life. Students are involved in everything from manufacturing their own chocolate to helping manage the organic fields, bamboo plantations and rice paddies that are integral to the campus. The Green School is open to children from all over the world, with boarding available starting next year for those in seventh grade and up. Villas are available for international families whose children attend the school. Tuition ranges from roughly USD 4,000 to USD 9,000 per year, depending on grade. It doesn't get much more eco-iconic than a thoroughly green school, and eco-minded consumers with the means to afford it will surely find the Green School compelling. Of course, the concept seems like one that could also work in other parts of the world. One to watch! Website: www.greenschool.org Contact: info@greenschool.org Found on http://www.springwise.com/education/index.php?page=8

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Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:29:14 -0800 Fun with my stamp collection http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/09/fun-with-my-stamp-collection http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/03/09/fun-with-my-stamp-collection I've never purposefully collected stamps but somehow I seem to have ended up with a collection of thousands. There's no way I'm going to sort through them, though they all seem fascinating, from hundreds of different countries, some very old. Who knows what their value is. Collections are worth much more when they're displayed properly. So, I sorted them into colours and I have started to make my own displays, see below. But it's not just the aesthetics that please me, it's what they represent...
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Global Saliva Hundreds of tiny pieces of paper and ink passing through thousands of hands into mine..Doesn't it make you think? How many people? How many lives? Each stamp has journeyed through time and space to be here now...How far, where from, how old? Where were you made? By whom? The stories we'll never know - the contents of a letter long ago - lost now. A collection of ghost fingerprints and global saliva... I am their keeper.  From Russia, Vietnam, the Congo, you name it. From professors, and perhaps lovers daughters and friends and colleagues. Collected for me by my family, also long gone. Mama, and Zizzie, and Ronnie Grandpa, me here now. Digging them out of an attic to jumble and reassemble and examine and stare and appreciate and feel ...and touch the people, once important. Found, lost,  found, lost, remembered, forgotten This is me. This is humanity, actually. --
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Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:36:17 -0800 Children of Laos http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/02/16/children-of-laos http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/02/16/children-of-laos
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Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:31:50 -0800 Day 2, Fast and detox Koh Samui http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/01/14/day-2-fast-and-detox-koh-samui http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2010/01/14/day-2-fast-and-detox-koh-samui Oh dear. Had to get up with tummy troubles 4 times in the night... there certainly won't be anything to come out of me now. Also got woken up by the wierdest sounding animal I have EVER heard! I had to record it on my iphone. Turned out to be a 1 foot long gecko-y type thing. Got up at 6.45am, went to the detox bar to collect my bucket and pills and have my first detox drink of the day. Geez, there are so many thin brown healthy-looking Ozzy girls here. And giant fat old men with walking sticks. Jolly strange. Pity it's pouring with rain since I arrived - absolutely typical of my luck, destined to be white.. It's becoming clear that I am going to be very busy with this routine! 7am detox drink - psyllium husks and bentonite clay to absorb toxins from gut and provide bulk for the Gunk to adhere to, with a nice pineapple flavour. Drink quickly, or you cant drink it at all.  Pick up my designated bucket with coffee solution in it. Go back to room and start "rigging up" the bathroom! 7.30 to about 8.30 (except it took much longer!) give myself a colema - more here. 8.30 pills - herbs to loosen the Gut Gunk Optional yoga / chi gung 10am detox drink number 2. Take bucket from room back to colema bar. 11.30  - 6 more pills and liver flush drink or a carrot juice or a coconut water or a veg broth 1pm - another detox drink number 3 2.30pm - 6 more pills 4pm another detox drink 5.30 6 more pills and liver flush drink or a carrot juice or a coconut water or a veg broth. Collect Bucket and prepare bathroom for evening colema... 7pm  last detox drink . Take bucket back to detox bar. 8.30 pm 6 more pills 9pm 1 white pill for good bacteria And this routine is basically repeated every single day. You can get takeaway detox drinks if you want to go off an do stuff.. but everything takes a lot of energy! First colema I did was wierd, ok, not very satisfying, but interesting. Second one - Oh. My. God. This is the first time I really believed. Just wierd as hell that this stuff was coming out of me. It wasn't poo. I resolved to keep photographic records logged and catalogued with date and time... To see what happens when you give yourself a colema, click here. Click here for Day 3

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Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:36:38 -0800 Nicaragua - the people of El Cacao http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/12/15/nicaragua-the-people-of-el-cacao http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/12/15/nicaragua-the-people-of-el-cacao
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Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:05:41 -0800 Nicaraguan charity work http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/12/15/nicaraguan-charity-work http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/12/15/nicaraguan-charity-work In 2003 I spent time working for a charity in Nicaragua. In this very poor village in the North, we toiled in heat and dust to create a community centre with the villagers. Their village is part of a Cooperative which used to produce sesame oil for The Body Shop, so they all asked me if I was friends with Anita Roddick. A year later, I met her to get a vox pop from her about plastic bags, and was able to convey their messages personally.. I had planned to make a film about them - but in the end I could not get a good enough camera, plus I was working far too hard to have spare time. Pity..but I did take 3000 photos.
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More photos of Nicaragua here:

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Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:09:58 -0700 The carbon footprint of the art world's Biennale industry http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/09/19/the-carbon-footprint-of-the-art-worlds-biennale-industry http://peticawatson.posterous.com/2009/09/19/the-carbon-footprint-of-the-art-worlds-biennale-industry [gallery link="file" columns="2"] As I work on a project about Venice's Art Biennale, I'm thinking about what a massive carbon footprint it has. For those not in the know, the art biennale which happens every 2 years in Venice is the world's oldest, and has spawned a whole industry of  biennales all over the world - Istanbul, Manifesta, Documenta, being just some. Thousands of art lovers and critics and artists and Venice lovers from all over the world converge on the water-logged city, planeload after planeload, private jets galore; and of course let us not forget the environmental impact of the transportation of the artworks themselves. To get to the Venice biennale, particularly in the stressful-sounding opening week when you just HAVE to be seen at all the parties, is arguably the hottest ticket in the art world's calendar. Millions of pounds gets pumped into these exhibitions, and the spectacular nature of the event is fueled by the stage within which it exists - Venice itself, cultural crossroads of the globe, steeped in centuries of cutting-edge art, architecture and historical significance. The media go wild. But it all feels a bit exclusive and elitist. Who really goes? What proportion of the world is actually helped by spending all this money and creating all these carbon emissions? Traditionally organised by national pavilions, the number of countries exhibiting this year is around 77,  many of which have no designated pavilion in which to exhibit. These are the later entrants to the art scene - forced to exhibit elsewhere in a spare palazzo in a far flung corner of Venice rather than in the coveted Giardini or Arsenale. Sometimes they end up lucky - the Comorros Islands, represented by Italian artist Paolo Tamburella (an old friend of mine from Rome incidentally), couldn't even get a patch on land to exhibit, but was allotted a patch of water - which is right next to the Giardini entrance. Paolo catches the eye of the visitor immediately drawing attention to their exclusion, with a crumbling Comorros old boat, banned by Comoros authorities in favour of modernisation - on which rests a modern cargo container. So the Comorros Islands get some attention. But what if all this money was instead spent on the poorer countries to help local artists and galleries? It might get spread around a little better. The jostling for exhibition space by competing nations, around Venice, just shows how significant these countries think it is to be included in the Venice Biennale, which demonstrates the globalisation of the art world in many ways. The Biennale's strength is that it breaks the dominance of the western European and American art scene so that we hear and see a more diverse range of voices, in turn bringing a new range of political, social and economic issues to the world's attention. But the negative is perhaps that it ain't cheap, and perhaps fosters gentrification, it is an industry like any other with certain political and economic imperatives, and of course my original point - the environmental impacts are gi-normous.

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