Looking at Upscaled Art on Environment Day

On this World Environment Day, thought of sharing some pieces of art created out of things that would have probably been trashed. “Upscaled” is what this is called today. They’re exceptional enough to have made it to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum in Copenhagen.

Made of used automobile parts, this futuristic robot was created by Simon Blades of Italy, inspired by The Terminator. It was fun trying to identify parts of vehicles that went into the assembling the robot’s anatomy.

The wedding dress looked elegant and dignified and I’d have been happy to have worn it some 22 years ago! It’s made of recycled trash including plastic bags, egg cartons, cotton balls and toilet tissue. Susan Lane of USA also makes bouquets out of trash.

Despite the face being partly hidden in this pic, one can tell it is Abraham Lincoln. What makes it different from other statues is that it’s made of worn-out dollar bills that the US government threw in the trash. The Indian government has something to replicate here given that they have crores of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes with them.

All those torn clothes we’ve thrown out surely had buttons on them. Where did they all go? This Button Woman statue was created by Irene Freidhof and her daughter Theresa of USA. It took them 960 hours over six months to assemble and has exactly 7,989 common clothing buttons.

Almost everything we tend to throw away can have a new life somewhere. By saving them from landfills we’ll be doing a small bit in saving our environment. A little creativity is all we need.

Information gathered from the museum
Pics taken in Copenhagen, May 1 2018

Birds seen in Europe (Part 3)

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

The most seen bird in Bangalore during our childhood was easily the sparrow.  They’d be all over the backyard, bathing in the open tank, picking at the sun-dried grain and nesting right in our house in-between the roof tiles. It seems that sparrows have vanished from our homes in Bangalore, so whenever I see them in other places, I always stop to watch (though I still have the pleasure of seeing them in Mumbai where I now live).

House Sparrow

The sparrows we saw in Denmark and Norway were much fluffier than the ones we have in India, overweight by our sparrow standards, and better equipped to tackle the low temperatures they encounter.

House Sparrow female, Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen Metro Construction Site

The Copenhagen Metro is a quick and efficient way of getting around the city and neighbouring municipalities. Having started operations in 2002, this driverless system complements the local trains, buses and water buses that together form one of the world’s best public transport networks that operates 24/7. And it is being improved with the construction of two new metro lines to add to the existing two lines.

Underpass to one of the metro stations

Copenhagen’s public transport is also expensive. In fact, it was declared to be the most expensive with the average price of a single journey ticket costing the equivalent of about $4.30 (Source: Worldatlas.com, Aug 2017).

Birds spotted in Europe (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

The King’s Garden is the oldest park in Copenhagen, established in the 17th century, abutting the Rosenborg Castle of King Christian IV. On our first morning in Copenhagen, we spent some time walking through this 12-hectare park, taking in the sights and smells of the Danish spring.

King’s Garden, Copenhagen

Hooded Crow

Here and there, strutting around on the green grass of the King’s Garden with authority were these birds that behaved like our Indian House Crows, but they looked different – dominant light grey plumage with glossy black restricted to head, throat, wings and tail. They were bigger but with the same boldness, not hesitating to walk close to humans. We didn’t see many crows during the rest of our trip.

Little Mermaid and Merman

On a boat ride down the canals of Copenhagen, we briefly stopped in the waters at Langelinie pier and the guide pointed out to the statue of the Little Mermaid, created by sculptor Edvard Eriksen in 1913. It took a while to find her (looking from the boat) as there were crowds of people that sunny evening, some right on top of the rocks on which she sits. The size of the statue is small (about 4 feet) so she doesn’t stand out, so all we got was an unsatisfying view of her rear. The guide went on to point out that this Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale is not a ‘happily ever after story’ as the mermaid does not win over the prince, and it in fact ends tragically with her becoming an immortal soul.

How can one visit Copenhagen and not see the Little Mermaid? Properly that is. So before we left Copenhagen, on a chilly rainy day, we made it a point to take a walk to the pier from our ferry point.

We first encountered a tall polar bear with two cubs. The plaque at the bottom says it was made by Holger Wederkinch, in 1929.

Birds spotted in Europe (Part 1)

Where there is food and water, there will be animal life. This is particularly true for birds for whom there are no boundaries… the sky is their limit!

On our recent 15-day trip to Europe, specifically The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, we spotted many birds, a few that we see in our backyards and neighbourhoods in India, but many that I hadn’t seen before. Whenever possible, I tried to capture them on my camera.

Our first stop was the tulip gardens of Keukenhof, The Netherlands. With the millions of flowers, I guess our attention was on them and not on the birds that were possibly around. At one point many were looking way up high to check out a distinctive knocking sound. It was a woodpecker hammering away, scarcely visible among the trees. Before I could focus, it had flown away. We didn’t see a woodpecker again on our trip.