Kiev, Ukraine

This conceptual “anti-smoke pack” by Reynolds and Reyner employs dark humor that goes straight to the point. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco use kills more than 5 million people per year—that’s 1 death every 6.3 seconds. It is responsible for 1 in 10 adult deaths, and among the five greatest risk factors for mortality, it is the single most preventable cause of death.

(Quote by George Orwell | illustration by the inimitable Mr. Fish)

Toronto, Canada

“A series of site-specific, portrait-based works that combines the abrasive charm found in the distressed surfaces of modern cities with the intimate familiarity of the prominent features of the human face. As the walls and surfaces of the city define its physical character and spatial identity, the faces of its inhabitants provide the city with its personality, disposition and magnetism. The fusion of these two entities will simultaneously expose the frailty of urban architecture and to a certain extent human existence, while conversely exploring the idea that beauty lies in the scars, wrinkles and blemishes of places we live and people we meet.”

—Dan Bergeron (aka fauxreel)

New York City

My friend Luba Lukova‘s exhibition Graphic Guts opens at La MaMa La Galleria (6 East 1st Street, between Bowery and 2nd Ave.) this Thursday, 16 February, from 6-8 pm.

Internationally renowned, Lukova is regarded as one of the most distinctive image makers working today. Poignant and unrelenting, her arresting images grab the viewer and don’t let go. In her third solo exhibition at La MaMa, she will present a new collection of social commentary and theater inspired art. Lukova’s work is included in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York; The Library of Congress, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; and the World Bank.

Image above: Delta Blues, 2012, silk-screen, ©Luba Lukova

(quote by André Malraux | original image sources unknown)

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Many thanks to the event’s volunteer organizers and all the folks who have expressed interest in more information about the talk I gave at TEDxManitoba on Thursday. Solace House is the super-insulated passive-solar home I designed and built in the woods of eastern Manitoba in 1980, and that I’ve been living in (without a furnace) for the last three decades.

My talk comes up at 02:51:53 in TEDxManitoba’s livestream morning session which you can access here. (Individual videos will be processed and put online within the next few weeks).

You can also access most of the visual resources and notes from my talk in a Facebook album entitled ‘Solace House’ that I’ve set up here. (I’m on FB at www.facebook.com/welcome.change ).

(thanks to Richard Ray for the photograph)