Days in between | Happy April

Street Art in Amsterdam and more cool stuff, in your every-1st-of-the-month newsletter

Apr 01, 2021

Happy April!

How are you? Here, in Italy, spring has sprung and I’m savouring my own time of transition.

Last year, spring surprised me -not only because sunshine is rare in The Netherlands, but also because, one month into my first lockdown, I was staggered at the fact that for blossoms and birds everything was going on exactly the same.

Although the past year has been all about adapting to events, today I’m once again astonished that the birds, the blossoms, and the sunshine are happening. It shows significant determination, which clashes with my own state of limbo: I’m in between jobs, countries, priorities and emotions -and shapes, since I’ve been making pizza at home every other day ;)

Regardless of how long have you been sticking around (and big ups to the 27 of you who are here since the launch of this newsletter in 2014!), you might know that I live on fresh starts. This transition, though, is different. This time I’m trying to honour the space in between, using this “interruption of the business” to disassemble and reassemble my life like children do with toys.

This month I’ve disassembled my life in Amsterdam, and here I’m exhibiting the findings. Enjoy the reading and let me know how you are doing by replying to this email.

Until next month,

Giulia

NEW on Blocal blog!

As Seen on The Streets of Amsterdam: a Street Art Guide

I’ve always found it difficult to write about the city where I live in. This is why so far I’ve shared Amsterdam street art only on Instagram but, now that I live somewhere else, I could smoothly dive into my Amsterdam street art archive and write about graffiti and street art in the city I called home for two and a half years.

Read it on the blog!

Handpicked by yours truly

Stuff I liked this month

To stick to the Amsterdam theme of this month’s newsletter, here is a compilation of songs about dogs written by the art collective The London Police. If you are not familiar with the duo, on top of what you can read about them in the Amsterdam Street Art Guide above, you should know that Chaz and Bob are as fun and upbeat as their iconic characters, which makes this compilation of “dog songs” just hilarious.
The movie “Martha: a picture story” by Selina Miles is now available on Apple TV/iTunes. As I wrote on the blog after attending the Scandinavian premiere in 2019, I highly recommend it not only to graffiti lovers, but to anyone who enjoys a good story. What I’ve learnt from this documentary is that Martha’s photography goes way beyond the now legendary book “Subway Art”. To put it in her words:
I’ve been a photographer for more than 70 years. It’s a long time. I do think people don’t realize how skillful I am, that I know how to use the camera. The common assumption is that I just take ‘snapchats’ of graffiti. Rather, I did work hard on my photos.
The Mural of The Month is this powerful installation made by French artist JR on Florence’s renowned museum Palazzo Strozzi, titled “La Ferita” (the wound, in Italian). By showing the interior of the building, the scar reflects on the limited accessibility to cultural institutions in the past year, due to Covid-19 restrictions:
La Ferita (2021) by JR
In addition to having been the designated place for uprisings, riots and public demonstrations, streets are also chosen by many artists to provide commentary on issues in a society. In response to the tragic murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer in London, street artists painted a series of murals in Waterloo’s Lake Street Tunnel to demand safer streets for women:
More photos on my friend Stuart’s blog Inspiring City
This independent urban installation by Italian artist and activist Biancoshock. Made a few days before the national strike of Amazon workers (is that a coincidence?), “Old Stone, New Slavery” provocatively reflects on the working conditions of riders, who are among the “essential workers” during lockdown and -yet- they are not granted labour protection rights:
Biancoshock, 2021
I’ve been hearing politicians discussing about the urgency to reduce plastic consumption since my childhood in the 1980s, and yet nowadays it seems to me that there is even more plastic around. I’ve recently found the explanation of this “paradox” in the documentary “Plastic Wars”. Spoiler alert: plastic pollution will double by 2030.
This month I’ve read “La solitudine dei numeri primi” (The solitude of prime numbers), which is the story of two outsiders, both survivors of childhood trauma, majestically written by Paolo Giordano. The relationship between Mattia and Alice is compared to prime pairs: always together, but never touching. The novel won several prizes, and was also adapted to cinema, so I guess there are English translations available. Highly recommended!
This video about Keith Haring’s Stairwell to Grace mural in New York, which kicks off a four-video super-informative panel curated by Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA Denver):
Thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Jon Reid for sending me this suggestion!
I really would like to know what you liked in the past month. Just reply to this email to send over your suggestions ;)

You somehow stumbled upon my blog and subscribed to the newsletter, but you have no idea who I am and how my blogging journey has unfolded so far? Here I share the ups and downs of my first 9 years of blogging :)

From the Archive

Kings Spray 2019, or what the hell I’m doing in Amsterdam?

The birthday of King Willem-Alexander is celebrated all around The Netherlands with huge street parties. On my first King’s Day, I was member of the crew of Kings Spray 2019, a graffiti culture event where national and international artists paint on containers-installations scattered all around NDSM wharf in Amsterdam Noord.

Because my colleagues were all busy with the museum, while I had joined the team only a few months earlier, I was involved in Kings Spray festival at an early stage of planning and kept coordinating both the artists and the press until the last spray-can was emptied.

Read the article on the blog

Collaborations

Stuff I do when I’m not here

Do you remember my friend Ana from the first episode of the pandemic-shortened series “Be Local in Amsterdam”? Before leaving The Netherlands I wanted to return the favour, and so I made an appearance in Ana’s youtube channel with this funny video about street art in Amsterdam.

Places that have inspired my writing

Top 55 Blocal’s destinations