All the artists!

Hello everyone,

We have been underground for a bit but, work has been going on at an exciting pace. We now have a consolidated group of artists creating some beautiful shoes for us.

We now also have the shoes uploaded onto the Bookie flickr site. Keep a eye out for more uploads!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bokkie_shoes/sets/72157622908199504/

Exciting updates from Wandering Geography

Hello everyone!

I have exciting updates which I want to share with you!

Wandering Geography has been upto a lot!

We were invited to exhibit at Watermans for Enter09 this october. The exhibition went off very well well and the response to Wandering Geography was great!

Take a look at the images on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29053924@N03/sets/72157622693705656/

If you in London please do visit, the show is on up until the 1st of December. I am attaching an invite to this mail.

Apart from this we have substantially grown in the number of participants for Wandering Feet! Its a very exciting time for this project because the shoes are near completion and will be up for sale soon!

If you are interested in being a part of Wandering Feet or want to share this project with another, you can read all about it and follow our blog by scrolling down

The Wandering Feet shop is now up and selling. Take a look!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=8292259

Now artists can contact us if they are interested in being a part of our Wandering Feet project and can directly buy the shoe by clicking on the above link.

We are closing the Wandering Feet project by the 30th of November 2009 and we are hoping to get support from people on all our networks in either buying or creating the shoes- all for the good causes we believe in.

The project will re-start in January 2010. Keep checking our blog for updates on the exact dates!

Stay tuned for more updates on the project!

Mail us with any questions and queries.

Happy wandering!

Niharika Hariharan

WANDERING FEET ARTISTS OF LONDON!

James Chen-Feng Kao

James Chen-Feng Kao was born in Taipei, Taiwan and relocated to the United States when he was ten years old. He studied for his BA in Art Practice at University of California, Berkeley. He lived and worked in New York before moving to London to study for his MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. After his MA, he participated in the arts residency The Florence Trust in London. He currently lives and works in London.

James describes his work as

'I want my work to capture the viewer and take them to another place. I try to provide the spark, the impetus for this journey, but I do not dictate the destination.

In my art I use cartoon abstraction and suggested narratives to place characters and the audience within a complex interactive environment. I create graphic cartoon-style characters and draw them using ink strokes inspired by Chinese calligraphy. These hybrid characters are placed into drawings in specific positions alongside photo-transferred elements to suggest conceptual stories that do not progress. I also have created character sculptures that are placed in suggestive formations or painted with abstract patterns. The drawings and sculptures form glimpses of a character-world that interact with the audience and are also reflections of my self-perceived identity as a constant stranger/outsider.'

You can take a look at his work on

www.jianfone.com

GUILIA SALA

Trained as Industrial Designer in Florence, Italy, Giulia spent the last years in London, where she successfully graduated at Central Saint Martins in the MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environment. Giulia is inspired by the poetics of everyday life, and she loves digging up stories from the urban textile.

http://giuliasala.wordpress.com/

Giulia’s focus is in the design and production of installations, exhibitions, and immersive environments based on narrative pathways. She worked with different architectural studios in Florence and her portfolio ranges from projects of product and interior design to exhibitions and digital media. Recently she is working on site-specific projects, exploring the concept of “home” through the eyes of residents in neighborhoods in transformation.

WANDERING FEET ARTISTS OF LONDON!

Like we said before, we have received really good response for Wandering Feet! Artists and designers from all over are now wandering and making fabulous shoes. Over the coming few weeks, we would be posting their bios as well as images of their work in progress shoes.

Here is a little bit about artists who are wandering with our shoes in London.

Carmen Vela Maldonado

Carmen was born in the south of Spain a place where Sun, and human relationships are basics in the lifestyle. After falling in love with different cities and enjoy having breakfast with diverse people from all over, she decided to move to London and express herself as a graphic designer in the shape of images, drawings, prints, books, magazines, posters… First, she took a graduate diploma course in London College of Communication, then she meet Proboscis Studio and its fun group of artists-thinkers and learnt and enjoyed around their studio. Currently Carmen is taking her MA course in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins while combining with freelance jobs, bike rides, and cappuccino drinks around East London.

You can see some of her work on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodkapje/

Bokkie Shoes

Check out the Bokkie shoes for Wandering Feet.

On participating these are the shoes that you would be designing on!

I am going to start working on mine soon :)

WANDERING FEET!

Hi everyone,

So as you all probably know that lots has been happening at the Wandering Geography front.

There is the Waterman Gallery exhibition in a few months and work on the new website is starting soon!

We are developing another sub-set of Wandering Geography called 'Wandering Feet'.

The project is open for all artist and designers to join in.

Here is the Wandering Feet- what? how? when? and where?

Give it a read and let me know if you are interested.

Hello! Hello!
As super creative upcoming artists, illustrators, dreamers and designers we hoped you might be interested in this proposal. Feel free to distribute this email, as the more artists the merrier!


INTRODUCTION
'Wandering Feet’ is a collaborative project initiated by designer Niharika Hariharan with Bokkie Shoes (http://www.bokkieshoes.co.za) This project is an extension of ‘Wandering Geography’ (www.wandering-geography.com) exploring fun and intuitive ways of moving through cities. ‘Wandering Feet’ invites artists and designers to explore their cities and share their journey through artwork mapped on shoes.

BACKGROUND
‘Wandering Feet’ emerged from the online platform ‘Wandering Geography’, containing three essential templates that people can use to create, use and share way-finding methods that are not guided by city structures. It encourages people to explore their cities based on their interests and intuition instead of following routes and maps.

The ‘Wandering Geography’ (www.wandering-geography.com) online platform showcases some of the wanderings done by people from various cities. Similarly artists work produced by ‘Wandering Feet” will be featured as artist profiles on ‘Wandering Geography’, and supported by similar mini-sites on the ‘Bokkie Shoes’ website, Etsy, and Flickr.


WANDERING FEET CALL TO ARTISTS
‘Wandering Feet’ invites artists, illustrators, dreamers and designers from all over the world to use these templates to explore their city and record their ‘wanderings’ through their footprints, using the white canvas of the Bokkie Shoes boot.

Participants are free to develop and interpret the ‘Wandering Geography’ templates as they choose, using any variety of unique visual aesthetics and approaches as appropriate. These templates are inspired by alternative ways of navigation such as celestial mapping and way-finding using personal landmarks. Each of the these templates are open-ended and allow the user to add their own experience and journey to them. The templates come with a brief background and explanation of how they might be used. More information can be found on the website.


DESIRED OUTCOME
The ‘Wandering Feet’ project hopes to create fun and interesting shoes that people can use as maps to explore their environment and to explore cities from the eyes of another. They can then add their own story and experience onto the shoes and make it their own.

Three criteria of 'Wandering Feet' are:
• Wandering Feet will be marketed as a series of foot-art-wear that has a one off appeal and a unique illustrated quality, representative of different artists and cities at a global level.
• Wandering Feet will create foot-art-wear that people can use to explore cities in a new and exciting way.
• Wandering Feet will encourage people to add their own routes and memories to the artwork on the shoes.


WANDERING FEET FOR A CAUSE
This project is initiated primarily as a way of getting creative practitioners to work together and also have the chance to contribute valuably to issues that are of concern.By creating and then auctioning a series of unique shoes created by artists/designers, we intend to use any proceeds as a donation to charities of their choice. With an exception of the donation of the canvas shoes from Bokkie Shoes, the project does not receive funding and will rely on the goodwill and interest of the artists and designers to keep momentum. However, we are open to any funding opportunities, preferably in terms of the printing and distribution of shoes.


PROCESS (THE SMALL PRINT)
• Each artist/ designer receives a pair of shoes and downloads the templates from ‘Wandering Geography.’
• The shoes are a blank white canvas and provide an opportunity to have fun with a new material.
• The artists and designers are requested to send us photographs of the making of, as well as their completed shoes. Upon receiving these, we will be responsible for publicity, marketing and auctioning of the shoes and their artists. Artists are also required to submit a profile picture and a 500 word biography used to promote the shoes and the artists online.
• Over the period of 1 year, the shoes will be then set up for auction. The artists/designers can choose the minimum cost for the shoe which would include the postage cost.
• On making a sale, the buyer would get in touch with the artist and the fee for the sale will be directly sent by an online payment organization to the charity foundation. We will provide support with the transaction and ensuring that the amount is received by the specific chosen charity organization.
• In return, the artists would receive publicity of their work on all our artist networking sites including Etsy, Wandering Geography and Bokkie Shoes.

This is an opportunity for you to be freely creative, have fun with a new medium and contribute to a cause that you think is worthy. In addition the project will create a network of similar artists with the potential to open up new possibilities for interaction with other similar creators at a global level.

Please free to contact us for any questions or ideas that you may have.
If you are interested, please send us an email with your name and location so we can arrange a Bokkie boot drop off.

Thank you,
Niharika Hariharan
E- wandering.geography@gmail.com

Wandering Geography at Waterman Gallery

Wandering Geography has now been selected to be exhibited at Waterman Gallery in London as part of Enter09.
Enter09 annual showcase of the year's finest work by South Asian New Media Graduates which includes films, animation, interaction design etc.
Read more about the show at
http://www.watermans.org.uk/zdev/enter/

cheers
niharika