Today is James Baldwin's birthday

He was born in Harlem in 1924, became an accomplished writer in his twenties, moved to France and got involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank, achieved massive success in his thirties with Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room, returned to the United States and became a social and political activist. Aside from novels, Baldwin wrote tons of essays, plays, and poetry during his lifetime. He died from Esophageal cancer in 1987 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and was buried in New York.

To commemorate Baldwin's birthday, here's I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a free-form, feature-length documentary produced in 1982. The film, made by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, follows the writer as he revisits the settings of civil rights struggles of the 1960s in the Deep South and reexamines the movement's ideals twenty years later.

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Thai artist paints on mosquito nets

I find them quite intriguing, these ghostly portraits that Uttaporn Nimmalaikaew paints on mosquito nets. His creations look like a hologram, changing form depending on where the viewer stands. Overall, they're gloomy, haunting, and endlessly fascinating. I could stare at them for ages. [h/t: Colossal ]

Experiencing Flight Through an Eagle's Eyes

Have you ever looked up and wondered, "What does it feel like to soar majestically like an eagle?" This video offers a captivating glimpse. Expert bird handler Lloyd Buck attached a small 360-degree camera and a GPS tracker directly to the back of one of these magnificent predatory birds. The entire setup creates a stunning, first-person virtual reality experience—only this one is real and features a creature with an impressively large wingspan. However, this isn't just for cool footage. The real mission is to capture valuable scientific data: examining how quickly an eagle can gain altitude and precisely how its incredible wings are adapted to achieve such breathtaking, effortless lift.

Drawn, layered and torn

Tin-aw Art Gallery led me to Lui Gonzales . This UP graduate creates stunning works of art by drawing, layering and eventually tearing them. The result is a riotous, visual feast. Her work is a reminder that before you can experiment, you have to have the skills. And, before you can be a rebel, you have to understand what you're tearing apart. No pun intended. Lui starts by drawing on tracing paper after deciding how many layers of illustrations would be included in the piece. The average is five. But she once made a 32-layer work that took a year to finish. Then, after layering one over the other, she rips the paper from top to bottom. Lui was one of the delegates who represented the Philippines at the 2010 ASEAN Youth Camp for Visual Arts in Vietnam. She had her first solo exhibition in 2018 at Eskinita Gallery titled Colorless Confetti , followed by a group show, Simulcra , in Singapore last February. If you happen to be in Metro Manila, I suggest y...

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