I have A LOT of assessment right now for uni so I won't be blogging for about a week. :(

Fifty people, one question.

Fifty People, One Question: London from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

I was supposed to be doing homework SO I decided to watch all these videos instead. These short clips made me feel sad but it could just be my mood at the moment. I like the ones in America too. I also like seeing everyday people on the street. To see the other videos you can go HERE

Berber Girls

Heart of the city

 

Barcelona had some great graffiti art but I don't know how this happened. I have no idea how you achieve 'ghosting' with film... this seemed to happen by itself.

Vegan Treats

Today I made a vegan Lemon Bundt Cake which actually worked out (surprise!) When it comes to my diet, I try to be as ethical as possible but I don't think Vegan is always the answer. I do, however, believe that we should be making use of all the food that is available to us and so I've had heaps of fun lately putting strange ingredients in my recipes. Vegan recipes are a really good way of experimenting with food. Once you realise that eggs and diary are not always necessary in your baking you can start to learn a lot more about how you can use fruit and vegetables in your cooking! For example: everyone should try putting beetroot in their chocolate cakes, its an amazing way to keep it moist and gives your cake a beautiful browny red colour.

I felt better about leaving out the eggs in this recipe, its not that I don't think eggs can be healthy, but I'm not satisfied that the free range I'm buying is actually treating the chickens better. (see Peter Singer on this one...) That said, I think if you farm your own chicken eggs, or can guarantee they are coming from an ethical farm then you should go for it.

I think that when the population relies on one type of food or foodgroup, its hard to make sure the industry stays ethical and sustainable when such mass production is going on.  I try to eat and use vegetables and fruit in as much of my cooking as possible. I also think its great to be self sufficient and grow and make lots of your food yourself. Its quite simple to grow your own vegetables in your garden. It's less simple to raise a cow in the suburbs...

I really liked this  explanation of why this blogger doesn't consider herself plain vegan:

I think a strict vegan diet isn’t necessarily the most ethical diet- I know vegans who drink Coca Cola from Safeway and buy tofu imported from Japan. I know omnivores who eat roadkill and grow their own vegetables. I try to be an ethical eater/consumer, because that’s why I went vegan in the first place, not for taste/spiritual/discipline/hxc, whatever, reasons. I feel like claiming “vegan” can be a bit of a cop-out because you don’t have to look past the ingredients list.

Also, before I get too high and mighty I should mention, I love feta. I would find it very very VERY hard to give it up...  I also find it hard to stay enthusiastic all the time and end up buying lunch at uni quite a bit. Luckily we have a lovely food co-op that serves some great stuff! point is, I congratulate anyone who cares enough to try to make a difference because I think its really hard to keep up. My pet hate is hardline Vegans giving others a hard time. Especially when they smoke...

Photo Books vs. Photo Blogs

These photos are from the Dazed and Confused Photo Book that a friend gave me for my birthday.

Here's hoping.

 

I would like to start knitting in the near future. I'm not going to make any promises here so if you never hear of this again, I failed. Still, I'm pretty inspired by it all and hope that I can pick it up quickly. I'll probably ask my mother for help as she is quite a good knitter. Also, I found a lovely group called 'Brown Owls' that I could join (see side links). I'd love a bike too but I think that will have to wait.

Islamic Tiling

These pictures are from a Medersa I visited in Fez, Morocco. I only got to take a few pictures before my camera jammed (faulty film) and so I only have these photos. It was a really beautiful place, and would have been an amazing place to study in!

Higher Education

The other day I went to visit my friend at her uni. She is doing printmaking so she gets to work in her own little studio space.  I'm so jealous. I'm in an arts degree and my workspace is pretty much my laptop on the dining room table...so borrrinnggg.

Inside/Outside

Pictures found here and here

Are your cosmetics safe?

Lately I've been taking an interest in what exactly I'm putting on my face. It started when I became concerned about Palm oil showing up in my products see here but before long I started to wonder what all these other scary chemical names were doing on products that were supposed to be "natural" or "organic".

I've found a great site where you can enter brands, ingredients or companies and get a full ingredient list and analysis of the product. It doesn't have all the brands on its database but it has quite a few. I was shocked to learn that some of the brands that are considered to be good for you can also contain harmful ingredients like parabens! Or that your lipstick could contain traces of lead...I don't want to harp on but if you are interested in skincare and haircare that isn't going to affect your health I would strongly advise visiting this site!

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

When I see how hard it is to find makeup that won't put my health in danger its really tempting to say FUCK YOU to the racist, sexist cosmetic industry altogether... but I'm not that strong or confident yet. I still feel a lot better with a little help from makeup but I'd really like to change that some day. I'm all for using makeup in creative ways to help play with your identity or challenge gender stereotypes (instead of just enforcing them) but I think there's a real problem when we rely on it to feel normal/attractive. Are our priorities a bit fucked if we continue to wear it even though we know it's linked to cancer? I'm now on a search to find safe, affordable products that are honest about what ingredients they contain. (I just hope they actually work! It would be a real shame if we couldn't look like Ziggy anymore.)

I also found this ARTICLE which is pretty interesting.