The Underwater Fairy Tales of Andreas Franke

Red Riding Hood by Andreas Franke

This is a different exhibit: Andreas Franke, who is well known for his underwater fantasy photography, has most recently turned his attention to fairy tales for a unique set of venues for a unique cause.

Here's the press release:

Plunge into the strange, surreal and mysterious world of award-winning visual artist Andreas Franke and experience his photographic Phantasy Fairytale underwater art exhibition at Huvafen Fushi and NIYAMA in the Maldives.

Each photographic piece has been submerged in the Indian Ocean and can be seen from inside the underwater music club Subsix at NIYAMA and inside the underwater LIME spa at Huvafen Fushi. Should you decide to purchase a piece to take home with you a percentage of proceeds will be donated to Per AQUUM’s Coral Regeneration Program. 

Snow White (yes, NOT Sleeping Beauty)

The exhibition magically combines photography, nautical exploration and digital mastery to produce compelling underwater dream worlds where Western fairytale characters are creatively superimposed against the backdrop of the Indian Ocean. Each photographic art piece evokes a feeling of folklore and magic with Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Star Money exhibiting at both NIYAMA and Huvafen Fushi, while the Snow Queen features exclusively at NIYAMA and The Last Unicorn features exclusively at Huvafen Fushi. 

The Last Unicorn

How cool is that? Using the sea floor as a gallery? Not only that, underwater algae and other microorganisms are encouraged to organically become part of the painting. It's fascinating!

Star Money

Mr. Franke is completely passionate about diving and underwater sea life, so it's really wonderful to see his art supporting what he's most passionate about - the underwater realm and all that he loves about it. All his creations (not just these fairy tales) are magical and otherworldly and I really love how he takes care to incorporate the"normal life of sea creatures" in his photos as well. The reality of them existing in these other-underworlds take these from interesting to wondrous.

Here's a description on how the paintings were created:

The images are created by Andreas undertaking two separate photo shoots; one using an underwater backdrop followed by a secondary studio shoot with real life models that bring the final visual to life. These secondary shots are then superimposed onto the original images to create the finished Phantasy Fairytale. To secure the art underwater, they’ll be encased in Plexiglass and suspended from the underwater structures of Subsix at NIYAMA and the LIME Spa at Huvafen Fushi. 

Snow Queen 

Andreas says his creative input is just the first part of the process. Once the images are submerged, it is up to the sea and nature to create the final finished product. Together with algae and microorganisms, the salt water adorns the pictures from the world above. It is the individual signature of the ocean that embellishes the photographs, a bizarre and beautiful touch of impermanence.

How did you imagine the scenes for Phantasy Fairytale?Andreas: While I was diving, fairy-tale like scenes appeared in my mind’s eye, like Little Red Riding Hood walking through coral reefs resembling trees. The moment I start the photo shoot, everything becomes clear: the concept, the realisation, even the post-production. It is only the interpretation that I leave to the spectators.

Here's a couple of photos of the installation process:

Here's a much more detailed look at how Mr. Franke goes about the dives, the set-ups and the layers of photography. If you love diving and the sea, you will LOVE this video!:

And here's how the Phantasy Fairytale paintings are currently being viewed: 

 

When I first saw these I, on a whim, looked up the prices for an overnight stay and just about fell off my chair. Needless to say, the main resort mentioned is a popular celebrity retreat BUT I'm very happy to know that while I will never see these works in person, the important work of coral regeneration gets a boost in money and resources every time monied visitors indulge themselves, while the exhibit is on display.

The Phantasy Fairytale exhibition by Andreas Franke first premiered on March 4 and will be on display until the end of May this year. To find out more about visiting the exhibit in person you can find more information HERE.

Sources: HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE

Grim Before Grimm - A Brief (Audio) History of Cinderella, Rapunzel & Beauty and the Beast by Dr. Michelle Smith

Heckedy Peg (illustrated) by Don Wood

Here's a lovely little delicious dish for your ears: the history of three well known fairy tales summarized with their less-than-delicate origins intact (don't worry - the language is family friendly).

Each audio is very short, only 3 to 5 minutes long, and does a great job of entertainingly imparting the basic facts fairy tale students quickly learn about in their first year, and without overwhelming.

The text and audio is by Postdoctoral Fellow of English at the University of Melbourne Dr Michelle Smith.

First up, Cinderella (just click on the play button in the "box" to listen):

We know Cinderella as having a fairy god mother, but the earliest known version of the story features a ten foot long fish who grants her food, jewellery and fancy clothes.

 

 Next, Rapunzel:

Rapunzel has a saucy past says University of Melbourne's Dr Michelle Smith - a parsley sauce, to be precise.

 

And last, but not least, Beauty and the Beast:

The 'Beauty and the Beast' comes from a long European history of animal bridegroom stories where girls are wedded to bears, dogs, wolves, pigs, hedgehogs, snakes, frogs and sheep.

  

I hope you took the time to listen as it's well worth it. ( If you're short on time, you can easily do your Pinterest/Instagram/Tumblr browsing while Dr. Smith entertains you. ;) )

This special short series was released on Thursday by ABC Melbourne (Australia) to help promote a live broadcast (by Libby Gorr) for the Annual Children's Book Festival happening on March 23rd. More information can be found about the series and the upcoming live broadcast HERE.

I'd love to see (hear) more series like this! Brief, summarized, with a good sense of humor and especially, accessible to the general public.

Exhibit: "Beware a Wolf in the Alley" by Red Grooms

I'm squeaking this in right before the exhibit finishes, I know but wanted to at least mention it before the end of the week.

Marlborough Broome Street

Red Grooms: Beware a Wolf in the Alley

February 19 - March 23, 2014.

 This particular exhibit is, essentially, two past works of art presented together in a new way. One is the 3D representation of a notorious alley he knew well 'back in the day', along with the characters populating it, and the second is a film his family made together, retelling a darker version of Red Riding Hood. The two are both juxtaposed and blended together, making the idea of an urban Red Riding Hood very concrete.

 The artist, Red Grooms, is known for his "sculptopictoramas" more than anything  which are essentially 3D sculptures blended with naive-like cartoony(ish) drawings and paintings. His style isn't one I'm drawn toward but I do love the work put into The Alley part of this. I can't find any footage of his family filmed version of a grim Red Riding Hood to show you but it seems to have been created with a similar sensibility (ie high/fine art isn't the objective - it's more experimental and hands on).

The press release is below in two parts, and I'm posting it in its entirety as the behind-the-scenes details are completely fascinating, even if the visuals don't immediately appeal to you.

For my part, I have no doubt seeing it in person would be quite an interesting feeling, and appropriate for the tale in many variant forms. I only wish the 30's-like children's illustrative style at the very end blended better with the Alley work. Even some used tires with flowers on top to sit on to watch the film would have made a good difference. It feels a little disjointed to me, with the palette not quite meshing as well, but then I'm only working with my response to photos and this is clearly supposed to be experienced.

I appreciate more the concepts behind the work and the manipulation of space,as well as the multi-media aspect, rather than the art on its own. But then I guess that's why modern art in particular is so subjective.

I can easily see, though, that this representation of our Little Red would definitely stay with people in the days, months and years to come after walking through the exhibit and that's a success as far as I'm concerned. :)

Sources: HERE & HERE

The 'Frozen' Hotel You Can Stay In + 'Frozen' Released On Blu-ray & DVD this Week (But No 3D Yet)

I've been meaning for a while now to do a post on the "sudden increasing popularity" of ice castles and particularly of the Hotel de Glace (aka The Ice Hotel) in Quebec City* that created a special Frozen themed suite. This was THE 'livable' structure created from snow and ice that the Frozen team visited but didn't stay the night in as originally planned. (??!! Wha..? Never mind..)

Although I don't have time to write the article I originally planned...

... there's a whole company who, though they've been building ice castles for a while, has now developed a technique very similar to what Elsa does in Frozen, albeit it at a much slower rate, but it can accurately now be described as ice castle growing....

“We’re technically farmers,” Livingood said. “We grow icicles, we handpick them, harvest them, take them out and hand place them around sprinklers, and then we turn on those sprinklers and they grow more.” ...

... it turns out that the Directors of Frozen, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, recently returned to The Ice Hotel to visit the amazing Frozen themed work done there (and to promote the DVD/Bu-ray release this week - make sure you know what the options are before you buy - not all deals out there are the same content-wise and I haven't seen it in 3D anywhere, so you know that's still coming).

It's this real life application (done in cooperation with Disney but by the local specialists) that I find interesting in terms of people exploring the idea of the story specifically because it's due to this manifestation (The Frozen Suite, The Ice Hotel itself and similar projects) that people have gone back to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale and thought more about the Snow Queen character, her castle and how Kai might have fared there.

If Disney are going to insist on referring to Hans Christian Andersen's tale as the inspiration in the bold print below-title blurb, it can happen that the marketing will go both ways: the familiarity of The Snow Queen title (kept intact in many foreign interpretations, rather than colloquial-izing it to Frozen like in English) and name-dropping Hans Christian Andersen to make it 'sound' like a real fairy tale to draw in audiences, sometimes means that people will go back to find out what started all the fuss. In this case, the HCA tale, printed variations, theatrical adaptations and art is picking up in popularity again (something that didn't seem to happen anywhere near as much with Tangled and Rapunzel).

Needless to say (but I will anyway) we LIKE this development! *thumbs up*

Here are the two interviews with the movie's directors worth watching for glimpses of the Frozen Suite and a little reality check on the cold factor (yes they're different, despite the similar looking screens here):

For all the work and paper/computer research done, nothing quite compares to experiencing it person - and they STILL didn't stay the night! *eyeroll*

Since researching earlier in the year and seeing the creativity (and engineering expertise) used in snowy areas in Winter every year, I am incomplete awe of what people can create out of snow and ice. We all know about ice sculptures (and how they inconveniently melt at weddings in movies) but there are festivals of ice carving, snow structure building and much, much more that are held and celebrated every year in the coldest countries in the world and many of these things are worthy of any magical Snow Queen. The only difference a real Snow Queen might make is a way to stop them melting in fluctuating weather. It's when you discover these things that you begin to understand more about where those original stories came from, what their real core is, and how much of a triumph of the human heart those tales are. It's interesting watching the filmmakers, who did their best to translate some of those ideas to animation and film (and succeeded) being faced with that large, cold reality of their own imaginations.

That's a story right there. :)

What do you think? Would you stay the night?

*There are Ice Hotels in other chilly places in the world, including Sweden and Switzerland.

'Grimm' Just Got Renewed for Season 4 (Rated WIN!)

I am so very, very happy with this news, and yes, it's official. NBC's Grimm has been going from strength to strength. The fan base is strong and growing (more fan art - yay!), the cast is solid, the banter has been awesome and the story lines have had some delicious layering, especially since they've taken the focus off trying to "retell" a whole fairy tale or legend in a single swing, er, episode. In fact, as of March 18, 2014 "“Grimm” is the #1 scripted series of the night on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX in adults 18-49."(Source)

Due to a ridiculously long and ongoing bout of insomnia (lucky me!) I have been re-watching Grimm from the beginning in back-to-back episodes. Although I've enjoyed it from the start, I'm definitely enjoying it more now. The writing is better than I remember and the arc of female characters moving from victim to empowerment gets stronger episode by episode. While the initial promos were very "females are victims (and look pretty dead)" it's clear the writers immediately moved to depart from that mentality with the very first episode. While the lead, Nick, in particular, does take a while to find his feet, as soon as he "gets his Grimm on" and the Scooby-gang potential (ie ensemble efforts against the 'big bad' of which Nick is just the leader) starts building, things quickly get better and more complex. The more the writers took only a few key motifs from a tale and worked with those, the better those episodes got too, especially when they worked into the overall long term arcs building. It's the episodes that focus too heavily on completing a familiar tale in a recognizable form that tend to be the weakest.

That seems to be key, actually. Rather than trying to retell a whole fairy tale in a modern setting, Grimm works much better when the episodes only contain 'tale motifs' (or Aarne-Thompson tale-type touchstones), within an original and unique story, rather than whole familiar fairy tales. I thought The Little Mermaid themed episode did a great job of this. Despite it being clear what tale they were drawing from, it didn't stick to every story beat and make it frustratingly predictable. Instead it added a lot to the seasons themes and character development, rather than sticking out like a sore-thumb one-off episode. And has anyone noticed the Baba Yaga references in the B-story of Adelind trying to regain her witch powers? *happy dance* It brings to mind the premise of Seanan McGuire's Indexing, which does much of the same regarding the real world cases, even though the point of view in Indexing is from a very fairy-tale-savvy/immersed team...

Aside: I hope to write more on Indexing at another time as it really deserves it's own post - and a whole lot more fans. What Ms. McGuire has done with this is fantastic, and exactly the sort of thing fairy tale need to bring back the more obscure tales and variants to popular attention. For now: I recently read the (recently released) paper edition in a few sittings - overall the awesome is high, though it seemed to finish a little too hurriedly. I want more, much more, with more exploration, detail and more tale variants... aka, please let Ms. McGuire and her publishers know that we'd REALLY love to see "season 2" of her serial fairy tale! Also, this is begging to be made into a multimedia radio-like play... Seriously fun that includes nice and juicy TT [tale type] research and tidbits scattered throughout for avid fairy tale students.

But back to Grimm news.

I'm glad to see Grimm have continued with the opening quotes from texts and tales as well, though I would love to hear more from the creators and writers on how they choose what they do. (The first Grimm magazine issue had a wonderful double-page spread on those which I will try to remember to scan for you if I can't find an online version.) Those snippets, if you're paying attention and try to figure out their origin before watching the episode, make it even better and you never quite know when the text is referring to just that episode or to themes and key issues in one of the series arcs - or both.

Although some people's impression of Grimm is rather, well, grim, particularly due to the creatures, I find it very much has a fairy tale feel, albeit the darker version. I've been collecting images that reflect my impression of the show in a Pinterest board for a while, to try and show how varied it actually is, and how it has that all important fairy tale hope and "triumph against the odds" feel running through it as well. You can find that board HERE.

I can't believe season 3 is wrapping so soon. But yay season 4! Though you know they're going to have one of those cliff-hanger-y type endings again, don't you?

Oh, and by the way, did you know Grimm ALSO HAVE MULTIPLE WEB SERIES?! (the link takes you to one, but they're all on the official YouTube Grimm channel) *fistpump*
So they're only 7 or 8 minutes each, I don't care. More Grimm equals more happy. :)

Note for sensitive viewers: This is still a monster show and they've gotten particularly good with some of the scary stuff, (Aswang anybody? *shudder*) so do be prepared. I do detect a Buffy-air about it all - complete with some of that serious pathos of the darker and very powerful episodes contrasted with laugh out loud funny moments, or, alternatively, touching moments - but that's a good thing - real world scare with snarky repartee (or truly moving moments) equals win (and that shouldn't be surprising with David Greenwalt being one of the Producers). If you're sensitive to that kind of thing though, please take note. Some of the scenes may not be so easy to forget in the middle of the night. Viewer discretion is, indeed, advised.