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Langenberg Municipality (Germany)
Gemeinde Langenberg, Kreis Gütersloh, Northrhine-Westphalia
Keywords: langenberg | benteler | corn-flowers(2) | pale(blue) | cross(tau) | bell |
3:5 image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2010
approved 15 December 1977
Langenberg Municipality
Benteler Village
Benteler Coat of Arms
Gütersloh County
County and Municipal Flags (North Rhine-Westphalia/ Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany)
North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen,Germany)
Description of flag:
The ratio is 3:5. The flag is vertically divided blue - white -blue with ratio 1:2:1. The coat of arms is in the white stripe slightly shifted to the top.
image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2010
Description of banner:
The flag is vertically divided blue - white - blue with ratio 1:2:1. The coat of arms is in the white stripe shifted to the top.
Description of coat of arms:
The sinister side of the silver(=white shield) is divided by a blue pale. Upon the dexter side there are two blue blossoms of corn-flowers.
According to Veddeler 2003, p.163 the blossoms are symbolizing the two settlements of Langenberg and Benteler, which formed the new city. The pale is symbolizing the highway connecting both cores from North to South.
Flag, banner and coat of arms were approved by Regierungspräsident Detmold on 15 December 1977.
Source: Veddeler 2003, p.438
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2010
approved 1966
It is a red over yellow over red horizontal triband with ratio of stripes approx. 1:4:1. The coat of arms is in the middle of the central stripe.
Shield off centred parted per pale wavy (approx. 4:1), at sinister Argent (with two wavy lines Sable in pale), at dexter Gules, couped per pale a forearm Or holding a Tau-cross with a bell, all Or.
The flag colours red and gold (yellow) had been the colours of the Bishopric of Münster (Benteler even today belongs to the diocese of Münster, while Langenberg belongs to Paderborn). The scene on the dexter side is alluding to St. Anthony, the local patron saint. Tau-cross and bell are among his attributes. Benteler since 1816 had been part of Liesborn-Wadersloh, it seceded in 1898 and since 1970 became part of Langenberg.
The arms wereapproved in 1966 by Minister of Interior of Northrhine-Westphalia.
back to Gütersloh cities and municipalities click here.


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Friends, supporters and project partners mark WLT's 25th Anniversary SEARCH NEWS
World Land Trust (WLT) celebrated a milestone when Sir David Attenborough joined special guests in central London to celebrate the Trust's 25th Anniversary on 6 May 2014.
Sir David is one of WLT's Patrons. In his opening address he described why he fully supports WLT's conservation model of protecting whole ecosystems through land purchase and protection.
He stressed that WLT raises fund to buy land, but that ownership rests with local organisations. He emphasised how vitally important it is that the land saved belongs to the people in that country, and that they take on the responsibility of protecting it with support from WLT.
"WLT is always on hand to give assistance and advice when called upon and helps overseas partners with the protection of their endangered wildlife by sending funds to employ rangers," he said.
Five of WLT's overseas project partners spoke at the event. Marco Cerezo, representing Fundación para el Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación (FUNDAECO) in Guatemala spoke about working with local communities and how women's' health and education can save wildlife.
Vivek Menon from Wildlife Trust of India went on to talk about ethics and human-animal conflict and solutions.
Alberto Yanosky of Guyra Paraguay, talked of the challenges facing his organisation in protecting a mosaic of different habitats from Dry Chaco, Pantanal wetland and Atlantic forest.
Dr Isabelle Lackman of Hutan explained the problems of saving land for Orang-utans and other threatened species in Malaysian Borneo.
Later in the evening Lou Jost from Fundación EcoMinga in Ecuador talked about the race to recognise and name species of orchids new to science before we lose them forever. He presented an evocative film made by Jonny Lu in search of rare orchids on Fundación EcoMinga's reserves.
John Burton, WLT CEO, concluded the evening by paying tribute to all the Trust's overseas partners, particularly partner representatives in the audience. He thanked all supporters who had contributed towards saving more than half a million acres of threatened land during WLT's 25 year history.
Unfortunately there wasn't time to include a questions and answers session with Sir David and partner representatives, as planned. However, Sir David has received questions and promises to answer them over the coming weeks. His responses will be published on WLT's website in due course.
The event, Saving Paradise: an acre by acre journey, took place at the BAFTA's Princess Anne Theatre in Piccadilly. WLT has plans to release a film of the event later in the year.
You can help protect reserves that WLT has helped create with a donation to Keepers of the Wild.
Donate to Keepers of the Wild »
25th Anniversary Conservation News David Attenborough Project Partners
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Remarkably timed the day after the start of the Conservation Optimism Summit, World Land Trust is pleased to report an …
David Attenborough speaks out against bridge through Borneo project 15/03/2017
In a letter to the Chief Minister of Sabah, Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman, WLT Patron Sir David Attenborough …

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home/New York/5 Top-Rated Midtown Manhattan Places You Have to Visit
5 Top-Rated Midtown Manhattan Places You Have to Visit
Whether you live in New York City or are just planning a visit in the near future, it's always fun to check out all the wonderful Manhattan landmarks. So, if you're looking for exciting things to do in midtown NYC, here's a short list of just a few of the many great places to visit in Manhattan.
5 Top-Rated Midtown Manhattan Places
A gift to the American people from the citizens of France, and dedicated in 1886, the Statue of Liberty stands proud as an iconic symbol of freedom. It was designed by Frederic Bartholdi.
She holds a torch in one hand and displays July 4, 1776 — written in Roman numerals — in the other, in honor of our Declaration of Independence. If you look closely, you will see the gracious lady stepping away from broken chains, as she journeys toward a life of freedom.
Building the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty grew so costly that Joseph Pulitzer started a fundraiser to complete the worthy project. More than 120,000 eager individuals donated to the effort — most giving approximately a dollar, and a few sacrificially giving 15 cents.
The Statue of Liberty was shipped by crate (in pieces) from France and put together atop the newly funded pedestal, before being dedicated, with great honor, by President Cleveland.
Maintained by the National Park Service, you can access this iconic symbol of the Statue of Liberty at Liberty Island via a ferry from Battery Park in lower Manhattan.
However, if you wish to climb the Statue staircase, additional tickets will be needed as availability to climbers is limited to a few hundred people a day. And even if you plan to climb the stairs of the great Statue of Liberty, don't plan on climbing too high. Access to the torch tier has been prohibited since 1916, due to public safety concerns.
There's no doubt: Her priceless beauty continues to shine for the entire world. The Statue of Liberty is a must-see attraction for anyone visiting Manhattan.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or as locals like to call it — "the Met," is by far the largest art museum in America and the third most visited museum worldwide.
Originally opened in 1872, the Met is now divided into 17 large areas displaying art, historical artifacts, and even architecture.
Whether you want to see classic paintings. modern art, ancient Egyptian work, African creations, detailed pieces from Asia, European sculptures, musical instruments, massive library collections — including a reading area set aside just for children — and fine photography, the Met's your perfect destination place.
For pure enrichment, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also presents two annual costume galas where they showcase rotating themes from their collection of over 35,000 amazing costume pieces. Past galas have presented rock and roll wardrobe exhibits which included pieces worn by The Beatles and Madonna, and a Chanel fashion exhibit of the classic designer's iconic work.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located at 1000 5th Avenue. It is open Sunday – Thursday from 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM, and Friday – Saturday from 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM.
The Theatre District
With 41 large professional theatres, Broadway is a tourist destination for travelers and is considered a crowned jewel to local New Yorkers.
From the early days of Shakespeare presentations to the, now, mostly musicals, the live entertainment in the theatre district is a thriving New York City attraction.
It was once feared that the invention of films would create grave competition for live theatre, but because movies were silent in the beginning, this did not occur. However, when films added sound, the fear of losing live theatre as an art form grew stronger. In the end, the love for live theatre won out — with its anything can happen nature, extravagant performances, elaborate costumes, and song and dance performances, the Theatre District continues to thrive.
During the Great Depression, after another difficult decade, the Broadway hit, Oklahoma!, and a new booming economy, once again, brought fresh life back to a struggling Theatre District.
With present hit shows like Aladdin, Pretty Woman/The Musical, The Lion King, Wicked, and a multitude of other great productions, The Theatre District continues to be a must-visit location in Manhattan.
With tens of millions of visitors annually, one of the most filmed locations in the world, Central Park, is abundant with beauty. Located between the Upper West and the Upper East side of Manhattan, the park was originally founded in 1857 and created on 778 acres. A national landmark, Central Park is now covering 843 spectacular acres, operated by the Central Park Conservancy.
Often compared to London's Hyde Park, Central Park's beauty served as inspiration for the creation of San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Park. Central Park maintains an individual police precinct with officers who patrol, along with park service officials, to ensure visitor safety.
Within the grounds, you'll find lush landscaping, sculptures, lakes, and ponds — the perfect location for a family picnic, bicycling, jogging, a morning stroll, photography opportunities, or even a romantic proposal.
Two and a half acres of the park have been specifically dedicated to the late John Lennon who was tragically killed outside his New York City apartment. The area called "Strawberry Fields" is beautifully landscaped with shrubs gifted from around the world, and an Imagine mosaic donated by the nation of Italy.
Renovations for the park have occurred numerous times over the years, but in 2012, hedge fund manager, John A. Paulson, donated 100 million dollars to the conservancy to ensure its long term care.
With over 25,000 trees and spectacular wildlife, this open space treasure is a priceless sanctuary to city dwellers everywhere.
Often called "the Crossroads of the World" and "the Center of the Universe," Times Square offers vast entertainment, immense shopping experiences, and casual to fine dining for locals and tourists.
Originally called Longacre Square, the area was renamed after the New York Times newspaper moved their offices to the location. With over 300,000 daily visitors, Times Square definitely has something for everyone.
And you don't have to wait to visit Times Square for the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. There's plenty to do all year round.
A few things to see are the Times Square Studio — where Good Morning America and ABC News is filmed — the spectacular architecture of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, The Orion, The New York Times Building, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount Theatre.
Restaurants in Times Square offer everything from simple, comfort food to exotic cuisine, and you can shop for hours before enjoying a spectacular and memorable Broadway play. From being a family outing and a tourist stop to a perfect place for a romantic date night, Times Square has a lot to offer — and there's a lot to love about it, too.
While you're at it, be sure to add High Bar to the great places to visit in Manhattan. We offer more than classic and exotic cocktails and tasty small plates. We also offer spectacular skyline views of New York City. Visit us on the rooftop of the Doubletree at 346 West 40th.
For reservations, call us at 646.362.7363
By highbar|2019-03-13T13:19:11+00:00March 13th, 2019|New York|0 Comments
About the Author: highbar
10 Most Beautiful Manhattan Parks You Should Visit
The Best Places to See Manhattanhenge in 2019


Attendees at the Web Summit in Lisbon.
Asana, the productivity management application established by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, sees a bright future for its Irish operations as it looks to boost international revenues.
The fast-growing productivity management software firm whose other co-founder Justin Rosenstein is famous for creating Facebook's 'Like' button, was established in 2008.
It has raised about $90 million to date with big name investors including Andressen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital and well-known individuals such as PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Mr Moskovitz's former roommate Mark Zuckerberg.
Asana currently derives about 45 per cent of its revenues from outside the US and is looking to expand on this with the rollout of foreign language versions of the platform.
Last week, it announced French and German editions with Spanish and Portuguese ones to follow shortly.
Mr Moskovitz told The Irish Times at the Web Summit in Lisbon that he expects to see further hires in Ireland as Asana increases its presence in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The platform is currently available in 192 countries worldwide and it has 25,000 paying customers.
"More than 40 per cent of our revenues are now coming from outside the US and sign-ups in Europe are growing four times faster than the rest of the world, he said.
"We really see our market as all knowledge workers of the world and there are about one billion of them so that is who we are targeting," Mr Moskovitz added.
Asana is essentially an easy-to-use enterprise app that lets people set and track projects and other tasks. The co-founders established the company while working at Facebook to help employees manage their work better.
"We're really spent a lot of time in terms of design in making what is an enterprise product but one that feels in many ways more like a consumer one," said Mr Moskovitz.
"We have a great bunch of customers and the list is growing all the time," he added.
The company employs about 300 people across San Francisco, New York and Dublin. It customers include Airbnb, Deloitte, Lyft, NASA, GE, Spotify and the New York Times. In Ireland its counts State broadcaster RTE and Bord Bia as among its clients with the team also supporting the likes of Tesco, Sky, Santander and Trivago from Dublin.
Mr Moskovitz was a roommate of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and co-founded Facebook with him in 2004.. Now aged 33 years old, Forbes named him as the youngest self-made billionaire in history in 2011 due to his 2.34 per cent share in the social media giant, which floated the following year.
Speaking of the early days of Facebook, Mr Moskovitz said the founders were surprised by its initial uptake at Harvard but after seeing how quickly it grew in popularity there they knew they were on to something.
"It was hard to imagine that there would be two billion users and that it would have the kind of impact it has had though," he said.


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Support Artfully Learning
Artfully Learning
The Artful Environmentalist
Susan Hoenig, Connected, 2019, black walnut ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
How many types of trees and plants can you identify in your local ecosystem? Do you know what specimens are native to the region? How can we become more ethical and sustainable environmentalists, while maintaining a thriving practice as creatives? The multidisciplinary art of Susan Hoenig helps us to answer the aforementioned questions, and become attuned to forming a balance with our natural resources.
Hoenig's artistic practice is environmentally sustainable, which is an essential solution to the ecological problems that confront a materials-based artist. Making art has many social, emotional and cognitive benefits for individuals, but the media used to create art can have negative outcomes on the environment if not treated properly or sourced sustainably. Hoenig uses organic materials, and profoundly transforms the physical environment while treading lightly within nature. Her work has an overarching pedagogical framework that compels us to learn more about the world around us and develop empathetic responses to the ways we interact with natural settings and lifeforms.
Tulip Poplar Leaf Sculpture. Courtesy of the artist.
Susan Hoenig, Tulip Poplar winged seeds printed with Black Walnut ink. Courtesy of the artist.
Two ongoing bodies of Hoenig's work, which have activist, aesthetic and pedagogical implications, are her Ecological Leaf Sculptures at Graeber Woods Preserve Frankin Township, New Jersey and her ecologically themed black walnut ink paintings.
Susan Hoenig, Red Oak Leaf Sculpture, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.
The Ecological Leaf Sculptures (2016-) are large stone outlines of leaves displayed beneath the tree within Graeber Woods that they represent. There are eleven sculptures in total among 96 acres of trails winding through a diverse ecosystem of forest, meadow, marsh and stream. Hoenig leads walking tours to educate the public about the understory (flora growing beneath the canopy) of the forest. Ten of the leaves are from a common tree, native to the Eastern United States (Red Oak, Bigtooth Aspen, American Beech, Black Birch, Tulip Poplar, Shagbark Hickory, Red Maple, Sassafras, Flowering Dogwood and Black Walnut). The one cultivar (a plant produced by selective breeding) is the Liberty Elm, which has been selectively bred to resist Dutch elm disease. The scale and graphic simplicity of the sculptures makes future identification of these tree species much easier.
Hoenig's series of Black Walnut ink paintings is another body of work that aesthetically raises our consciousness about the natural world we collectively occupy. During mast years, she collects walnuts from the leaf sculpture site at Graeber Woods Preserve, and transforms them into ink. She also collects and uses other nuts like acorns, winged-seed pods, husks and other small seeds to create prints that make associations to many diverse species of leaves. In the painting Connected (2019), Hoenig overlaid an image of a tree trunk and roots on top of a silhouette of the artist's arm and hand. While the trunk is a darker shade than the hand, everything seemingly blends together as the roots and fingers conjoin. This painting symbolizes an interconnection between ourselves and the natural world, which is a relationship we need to foster by realizing that our actions have tangible consequences on the climate and environment. If we disrupt nature's due course, then the whole cycle of life is in danger of being ruptured.
In the Anthropocene, we are at risk of losing many natural resources that we rely on each day. Whether it is because we are ignorant or willfully ignorant, we are taking our ecosystems for granted. Susan Hoenig's art makes it possible to reflect on environmental transformation and climate change in both a symbolic and very real manner. It also encourages us to find creative ways to depict and express both subtle and profound properties of our natural surroundings. It is an understandable impulse to want to document the beauty that envelops us. Art has a longstanding tradition of visually expressing the relationship between humans and their habitats. Doing so using sustainable materials, helps to ensure that current and future generations might be able to enjoy and maintain an interconnected and artful collaboration with nature.
The environment is changing before our eyes, both due to natural cycles and our interference with natural rhythms. Art helps us to become careful and discerning observers of physical environments. When utilized to make connections between the Earth and our connections to it, art can evoke empathetic responses to the impact of ecological issues and the affect that it has on us all.
Posted on December 10, 2019 December 10, 2019 by Adam Zucker Posted in Art Education, Contemporary Art, cross disciplinary, Curriculum, Education, Materials, Public Art, STEAM	Tagged Anthropocene, Art Education, Contemporary Art, drawing, Earthworks, Ecoart, Ecology, Environmental Art, sculpture, STEAM, Susan Hoenig, Trees	7 Comments
Still Climbing Booker T. Washington's Ladder
Martin Puryear. Ladder for Booker T. Washington, detail, 1996. Installation view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. Production still from the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" Season 2 episode, "Time," 2003. Photo © Art21, Inc. 2003.
One of Martin Puryear's most iconic artworks is titled Ladder for Booker T. Washington (1996), which is a reference to the influential 19th century activist and educator, Booker T. Washington.
Puryear is known for creating large scale sculptures out of wood and other materials that challenge our modes of perception. In Ladder for Booker T. Washington, Puryear represents forced perspective, which is an illusion that makes something look farther away than it actually is. The thirty-six foot sculpture ascends up to the very high ceiling in the gallery where it is displayed (at the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Texas). The sculpture is a stylized ladder, which curves and gets narrower at the top. While the bottom rungs are similar in size to conventional ladders, they narrow to a surreal 1 1/4 inches at the top. The ladder is lifted several inches off the ground, which gives it the feeling of being suspended in air. Its organic form (the naturally curved side rails were created from a golden ash sapling) and ethereal installation portray a spiritual essence.
Puryear acknowledges that the title of the artwork was realized after the sculpture was finished (Art21, 2011). The conceptual nature of Puryear's sculpture and the title leave ample room for interpretation. Although Puryear considers the work to be abstract (meaning that there is no intended narrative element), the sculpture's physical form and perspective might allude to Booker T. Washington's point of view and influence on African-American culture during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era.
Washington was highly successful in facilitating the development and success of black businesses and educational institutes in an era where African-Americans were denied equal and equitable access to many economic, social and cultural opportunities. However, Washington was also viewed in a controversial manner by some of his activist peers, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, because of his reluctance to advocate for immediate nationwide equality and equity for African-Americans. While Washington's activism provided black individuals with black-centered institutional and business benefits (such as Tuskegee University and the National Negro Business League), he struck deals with prominent white politicians to gain support for these organizations. One particular deal, known as the Atlanta compromise, was made in exchange for the political submission to white policies, such as segregation. Although Washington's contributions made significant headway for African-Americans, his reliance and advocacy for blacks assimilating to white policies upheld the status quo.
Puryear describes Washington as "someone who made enormous contacts with people in power and had enormous influence, but he was what you would call a gradualist" (Art21, 2011). While the sculpture is asserted to largely confront aesthetic issues, it also addresses ongoing social conditions. The idea of initiating, maintaining and eventually achieving a goal is symbolically represented via the use of forced perspective. The essential question Ladder for Booker T. Washington asks is: where are we in the progression of equality, equity and social justice? The abstracted organic form, asymmetry and scale of the artwork suggests that the path to obtaining these goals is uncertain and difficult. The floating nature of the sculpture might also allude to the spiritual motif of the ladder (i.e. Jacob's Ladder/God's promise of the promised land) and its symbolism during slavery as a means to resist oppression and gain freedom and salvation. We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder is a spiritual hymn slaves sang to express the hope that they will one day climb to God and defeat their slave-owners. Each rung of the ladder (Ev'ry round goes higher higher) signifies tests of spiritual strength that will get them closer to God and deliverance from slavery.
The exquisite handmade craftsmanship of Puryear's sculpture reflects Washington's educational philosophy regarding the importance of work to be viewed as dignified and beautiful. In his 1901 autobiography, Up From Slavery, Washington favors a form of education that teaches students to see "not only utility in labour, but beauty and dignity."
Washington advised African-Americans to value industrial labor in an intellectual and personal manner. He supported this ideology by writing: "when the student is through with his course of training he goes out feeling that it is just as honorable to labor with the hand as with the head" (Washington, 1900). This tenet was a major component of the curriculum at Tuskegee University, because Washington believed that developing professional labor skills and industrious knowledge would lead to self-preservation. The idea of building self-worth through one's work and the need for industrial and mechanical knowledge is fundamentally sound. The argument that schools are not preparing students for the 'real-world,' is still a common critique in educational discourse. It would behoove all schools to provide pragmatic skills and knowledge such as agricultural management and other forms of highly skilled technical labor.
By urging his contemporaries to temporarily accept systemic discrimination in order to concentrate on elevating themselves economically through hard work, Washington's policies ignored the affect that trauma and oppression have on educational, social and economic development. Despite Washington's aspirations that systemic conditions would gradually change, unequal and inequitable situations still persist. Some educational environments remain segregated (Meatto, 2019) and there are less opportunities for black and brown individuals to advance economically than their white counterparts.
Puryear contributes to the contextual analysis of his sculpture as "the kind of gradual, illusory notion of upward progress that Washington encouraged blacks to adopt in the nineteenth century against an overwhelming set of obstacles to our advancement" (Powell, 2007).
Over a century later, society is still attempting to climb Booker T. Washington's ladder…
References, Notes, Suggested Reading:
Art21 and Puryear, Martin. "Abstraction and 'Ladder for Booker T. Washington,'" Art21, Nov. 2011. https://art21.org/read/martin-puryear-abstraction-and-ladder-for-booker-t-washington/
Meatto, Keith. "Still Separate, Still Unequal:Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality," New York Times, 2 May 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/learning/lesson-plans/still-separate-still-unequal-teaching-about-school-segregation-and-educational-inequality.html
Powell, Richard J. "A Conversation with Martin Puryear," in the exhibition catalogue Martin Puryear by John Elderfield, Richard J. Powell, et al, Fort Worth: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007.
Washington, Booker T. "Signs of Progress Among the Negroes," Century Magazine, 59 (1900), pps 472-478. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/washington/signs-of-progress.txt
Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1901.
Posted on November 11, 2019 November 11, 2019 by Adam Zucker Posted in Art Education, Art History, Contemporary Art, Education, Materials	Tagged Art Education, Booker T. Washington, Contemporary Art, Education, Education Policy, equity, Jacob's Ladder, Martin Puryear, sculpture	Leave a comment
Seeing is Feeling – Art & Experience for Visually Impaired Individuals
Unknown photographer, Rebecca Soyer touching Chaim Gross' Sculpture Young Girl, 1926, archives of the Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation.
Contemporary culture is permeated with sensory experiences that envelope our daily lives. Educational reformer, John Dewey (1938), stated that knowledge is formed by assigning meaning to the sensory experiences that bombard us. We learn when we take notice of sensory information (qualities) that are present in our environment and can attach language to these experiences so we can store them for later recall and sort them into categories so we can see connections between this experience and other experiences. Since just the act of living causes us to experience qualities (sensory information) we are often oblivious of it. It is only when we act upon, assign feelings and react to the information that we form a learning experience.
Learning is not a passive event, therefore we have to actively participate with the incoming information and do something with it in order for this information to hold meaning for us. We draw upon our past history of experience with these sensory qualities and over time form habits, which connect these experiences with feelings and act and react to these sensory qualities. Moreover, Dewey and other Constructivist and progressive thinkers uphold the theory that knowledge is derived from social interactions with others.
Taking this into account, I wanted to investigate how the field of art education addresses pedagogy of active learning that is inclusive of individuals who are either legally blind or visually impaired. These issues have always been of interest to me as an artist, art historian, curator and educator, because I believe that everyone should have accessibility to the visual arts. Art enriches people's lives and gives them an expressive means for communicating symbolically.
In an earlier post, I discussed how Sculpture for the Blind, by the Blind (2017) by the artist Lenka Clayton, utilizes sensory, inquiry and collaborative learning techniques to re-present the work of Brancusi's Sculpture for the Blind (1920) in a manner that is accessible and relevant to viewers who are blind or visually impaired.
The aforementioned post also discusses the work of seminal art educator Viktor Lowenfeld and psychologist John M. Kennedy, whose experiential and multisensory pedagogical processes can be utilized to prompt aesthetic responses from visually impaired individuals. Through innovative methods, theories and techniques, artists, art students and art appreciators who have trouble seeing, can immerse themselves in both the creation and viewing of art in profound and personal ways.
Because the arts are so important to our social, emotional and cognitive development, many significant programs have been introduced to make art accessible to the population that is most vulnerable to being left out of aesthetic experiences. It is entirely possible and necessary to include resources in museums and in educational settings that can be accessible by sighted and visually impaired people alike. In fact, including more sensory based learning and viewing opportunities is beneficial for everyone, because as Mitchell (2005) asserts, there are no uniquely visual media even in the most obviously arguable instance of a painting. Mitchell argues that painting is associated with other forms of language and the act of painting isn't purely visual at all. He states, "seeing painting is seeing touching, seeing the hand gestures of the artist, which is why we are so rigorously prohibited from actually touching the canvas" (Mitchell, 2005, p. 258).
Major museums, like the Cooper Hewitt and Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) have implemented programs for the public that include 'touch tours' where visually impaired visitors are able to feel the works of art while lecturers give detailed aesthetic descriptions of the piece. Ideally, these descriptions and proceeding discussions paint a picture in the 'mind's eye' of the visitor.
Visitors are engaged in tactile observations of a sculpture by Chaim Gross. Courtesy of The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, New York.
One recent example of an educational curriculum being developed and implemented for blind and visually impaired individuals is the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation's "Tactile Transmissions," a public educational program that is in conjunction with their current exhibition Teaching Through Touch: Works By Chaim Gross, curated by Sasha Davis and Brittany Cassandra.
During his illustrious career as one of the preeminent American Modernist sculptors, Chaim Gross (1904-1991) implored viewers of his sculptures to engage with them in both a visual and tactile fashion. As a part of his artistic philosophy, Gross wanted viewers to be able to interact with his art through touch, in order to learn first-hand about sculpture and connect to it in a more personal way.
Because sculpture exists in the same dimension as we do, touching sculptural works enables us to experience its three-dimensional form in a profound and engaging way. Additionally, Gross made many of his sculptures using natural materials such as wood, which he hand carved. Therefore, the surface areas of many of his sculptures are brimming with exquisite texture and other elements of art. You can literally feel the artist's hand and tools that he used for making all of the intricate marks and forms. Allowing all viewers to touch these works of art, provides an intimate hands-on experience that gives insight into how Chaim Gross worked in his studio.
Along with teaching artists (Nitza Danieli, Pamela Lawton, Annie Leist and Deborah Lutz), participants in the at the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation's "Tactile Transmissions" workshops analyze sculptures and drawings by Gross through multisensory activities and then create their own tactile works of art based on a specific theme (the topic is different each session).
Another seminal organization for developing curricula and technology to facilitate artistic learning for visually impaired students is Art Education for the Blind (AEB). AEB was founded in 1987 by museum educator, Elisabeth Salzhauer Axel, as a reaction to the lack of widely available programs and resources for blind and visually impaired individuals to access and appreciate the fine arts. AEB has published many resources to rectify this issue, including a comprehensive multimedia package titled Art History Through Touch and Sound: A Multisensory Guide for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The publication combines audio narrative with an interactive book on the history of art that uses tactile diagrams to guide the reader's recognition of specific works of art. AEB's resources and materials are widely used in museums and institutions throughout the world. AEB also works within school environments.
Psychologist John M. Kennedy has also been highly influential in developing contemporary practices for integrating tactile and other sensory explorations within visual art making and appreciation. According to Kennedy, "blind people are intuitively capable of understanding the visual world, even without training or education." However, with instructional scaffolding and proper sensory resources, the blind and visually impaired individual's experience with visual art can be just as replete as it is for sighted people.
Kennedy's (in Bird, 1991) work with blind individuals creates an equal learning situation for them in the classroom. He used malleable rubber drawing boards, which allowed students to touch their drawings that they carved into the rubber sleeve. Using a simple ballpoint pen creates enough pressure to create a raised line on the board. Through this process, students learned about many of the important formal elements of art (line, shape, texture, pattern) and also formulated a comprehension of symbolic meaning, i.e. the changing shape of a car's wheel to suggest motion (Bird, 1991).
Using raised line drawings and/or three-dimensional models enables blind students to experience the qualities (sensory information) of a work of art or architecture. This also can be helpful in providing context if for example, when learning about the Gothic cathedrals, the students can feel the shape and outline of either a drawing or model, which along with a historical and detailed description from their teacher will provide a vivid aesthetic sensibility in the student's mind. The haptic experience coupled with a trip to a cathedral and/or the student's previous encounter(s) inside of a church or place of worship, provides conditions for the type of perception that Dewey (1938) described as assigning meaning to an experience.
Pompano (2007) described how tactile learning, such as touching an object like a chair, allows visually impaired students to understand an object's formal qualities as well as its essence. Her research with blind students explored the possibilities of learning through tactile and systematic approaches while studying the design of chairs. In other words, teachers can guide the students through the physical experience by describing the different parts of the chair while the student's hands are touching it. In addition to the physical experience, the teacher will impart historical and technical knowledge upon the students regarding the chairs. While the students are engaging in the tactile discovery of the chair, the teacher can have them think about the common parts of the chairs they are engaging with and then list them. Teachers should coach the student along in their discoveries by asking the students questions about what they're observing so that the experience of sensory perception and formal analysis become learned habits.
Art educators can make the leap from their students' recognition of an object to their perception of an experience through social interaction and situated learning in the classroom. Verbal communication from the teacher is a key component to both recognition and perception. It can be equally helpful for sighted and blind students in the same classroom to hear the teacher describe an aesthetic object in terms of its features, which include but are not limited to physicality, location, history and narrative.
According to Castellano (1996), the goal is to have the blind student become a full participant both inside school and in their community. She suggests an increased verbal communicative approach in the classroom, wherein the teacher describes what is going on in the classroom in great detail so that the student can get as clear a picture of the lesson plan as the sighted students. Paying attention to details can help the visually impaired student construct a mental picture within the art classroom. It is through instructional scaffolding that the arts educator can help the blind student associate certain aesthetic qualities of an artwork with their own life experience.
Kuell (2009) describes a case study of a blind student named Melissa who was encouraged by her art teacher, Verna O'Donnell, to create art in the same capacity as sighted students. O'Donnell's methodology came through trial and error, but she always had several backup plans if one method wasn't working or engaging. She came up with a way that Melissa could explore art making through sensory perception such as focusing in on the smell and feel of the art materials. O'Donnell also organized her art classroom with very tactile objects (vibrant masks etc.) that both her blind and sighted students would appreciate. She also chose art units that would tap into the student's personality and creativity such as mask making and imaginary landscapes. Through encouragement of both the teacher and her classmates, Melissa built up her confidence in addition to developing artistically along with the rest of her classmates. In fact, the other students asked O'Donnell about ways they could make their artwork more tactile, so that they would be appreciated and become accessible to everyone in the class.
In conclusion, it is definitely possible for blind individuals to comprehend visual media similarly to those who can see it. Classroom teachers and museum educators should understand how they can create an atmosphere in the classroom or museum that will support and prompt students/visitor's awareness of the sensory information we are often oblivious or refrained from employing when interacting with art. Every museum collection can be combed through in order to find works of art that would be stable and captivating enough to be handled and expressly interpreted in a tactile manner.
Through both classroom/gallery conversation, tactile exploration and studio time, visually impaired individuals can relate haptic information to their experiences and connect essential qualities to these experiences that are necessary for learning. As educators, we can enhance the experience by asking engaging questions, passionately describing aesthetic qualities by incorporating a wide variety of sensory images and encouraging students to express themselves by forming habits of artistic learning. This will give a wide range of people the confidence and joy that art and art education should have on their lives.
Art Education for the Blind and American Printing House for the Blind . Art History Through Touch and Sound: A Multisensory Guide for the Blind and Visually Impaired. 1998. Louisville: Optical Touch Systems Publishers.
Bird, K. (1991). The Possibilities of Art Education for the Blind. Future Reflections, 10 (3). Retrieved from https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/fr/fr10/issue3/f100325.html
Castellano, C. (1996). The Blind Child in the Regular Elementary Classroom. Future Reflections, 15 (3). Retrieved from https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/fr/fr15/Issue3/f150302.html
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York: MacMillan.
Grimm, D. (2010) Teaching art to the blind student. Art Education Daily. Retrieved from
http://arteducationdaily.blogspot.com/2010/12/teaching-art-to-blind-student.html
Kuell, C. (2009). Tapping the Creativity of Blind and Visually Impaired Students. Dialogue, 45 (2) Retrieved from https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/fr/fr28/3/fr280307.htm
Lowenfeld, V. (1939). The Nature of Creative Activity. New York, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Mitchell, W.J. 2005. "There Are No Visual Media." Journal of Visual Culture, 4 (2).
Pompano, J. (2001). Teaching Art to the Blind / A Study of Chairs. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Retrieved from http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/2001/2/01.02.07.x.html
Posted on February 11, 2019 October 14, 2019 by Adam Zucker Posted in Art Education, Art History, childhood art, collaborative learning, cross disciplinary, Curriculum, Education, Embodied Learning, Exhibitions, Materials	Tagged Art Education, Art Education for the Blind, Blind, Chaim Gross, John Dewey, John M. Kennedy, sculpture, Sensory Learning, The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, Viktor Lowenfeld, Visually Impaired	2 Comments
Mosaics and Murals, Celebrating the Plural
Murals and mosaics have a unique place in the collective culture of a society. Like all forms of art, the purpose of public art is to communicate, however, the mural and mosaic speak in an especially elaborate manner due to their size and where they are displayed. Since these works of art are intended to be highly visible in the public space, the design and implementation of a successful public artwork should incorporate elements of the environment where it will be on view. These details might include (but are not limited to) honoring historic moments or figures, addressing public health concerns (see: Keith Haring's Crack Is Wack, 1986), raising environmental awareness and celebrating particular achievements of the local community.
Some examples of community focused public art projects include murals, mosaics and site-specific relief sculpture created by artists and arts organizations such as Mural Arts Philadelphia, the Chicago Public Art Group, John T. Biggers, Kerry James Marshall, Pedro Silva and CITYarts', John Ahearn, Rigoberto Torres and the various contributing artists to the Audubon Mural Project. These projects illuminate ideas/hopes/dreams, important community personalities, inspirational achievements, pertinent issues and other relevant topics.
Murals and mosaics are a vibrant source of enjoyment and efficacy for cities across the world, which is why you're likely to encounter them nearly everywhere you go. Besides being a destination and attraction for art aficionados, murals and mosaics celebrate diversity and multiplicity of identities and heighten our consciousness to complex conditions in our social and cultural environments.
The desire for public arts beneficial role within society was evident during the Great Depression (1930s-1940s) when the United States government introduced the Work Projects Administration (WPA). The majority of the WPA's focus was to provide jobs for the large percentage of unemployed individuals by initiating ambitious projects that included the construction and expansion of infrastructure and housing. The ambitious program also included the Federal Art Project, which provided financial stability for artists who were commissioned to design and implement public artworks. The idea was that having art in public spaces would increase pride, optimism and civic engagement throughout the population. Besides giving artists a stable income, the Federal Art Project livened up municipal buildings such as hospitals, schools and public spaces. There was also an important educational component to the Federal Art Project that employed artists from the Art Teaching Division in settlement houses and community centers where they taught classes to nearly 50,000 children and adults.
Community-based art projects remain a key element in providing inspiration, motivation and creative collaboration among diverse individuals and groups. One of the longest operating public arts organizations in the United States is in the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection, also known as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia's rich history as a major hotbed during the 1970-80's graffiti movement, makes the city an ideal place for collective mural-making, which strengthens inner city relationships and enhances economic opportunities for local communities. Mural Arts Philadelphia was founded by Jane Golden in 1984 with a mission to ignite change through the collaborative production of murals throughout the city. The organization's work " is created in service of a larger movement that values equity, fairness and progress across all of society." Through a wide variety of public art-centered programs, Mural Arts Philadelphia empowers individuals to be agents of change through the cathartic and educational avenues. Major contemporary artists such as Kent Twitchell, Hank Willis Thomas and Meg Saligman, have worked with Mural Arts to create public artworks that address local themes of unity and provoke progressive social, economic and political dialogue. Restorative justice is a major focus of Mural Arts' creative force. Through a transformative creative process, members of the community, victims of violence and formally incarcerated individuals work together with an "aim to restore and rebuild communities affected by crime, maintain inclusivity and sensitivity for victims and to reduce the current recidivism rate." The program realizes arts important role as a restorative medium that brings people from all facets of life together to create symbolic meaning, exhibit empathy for one another and take action to make transformative changes (see: Educating Through Art).
Another influential and longstanding community focused arts organization is the Chicago Public Art Group, which was founded in 1971 by a group of artists who desired to incorporate public art with public service by working alongside residents from Chicago's urban communities. Each public art project that the Chicago Public Art Group takes on is informed through democratic discourse and participation between professionally trained artists and local residents from Chicago's multicultural neighborhoods. These projects are prominently displayed in public spaces such as on the walls of buildings, highway underpasses, or railway viaducts. Among the organization's core members is Olivia Gude, an influential and renowned contemporary artist and arts educator. Gude is also a founder of the Spiral Workshop, an experimental art education program, which provides art programs for teens, as well as a research platform for art educators to hone and develop contemporary visual arts curricula. In addition to working with the Chicago Public Art Group and teaching (she is currently a professor of art education at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Gude wrote a comprehensive survey on Chicago's public art scene, which is titled Urban Art Chicago: A Guide to Community Murals, Mosaics and Sculptures. Gude's book is an in depth resource for the powerful usage of public art as a form of placemaking, social engagement and education.
Wall of Respect (1967-1971) corner of 43rd Street and Landley Avenue, Chicago, IL.
One of the major sources of inspiration for the city's public artists like Gude and the Chicago Public Arts Group was the Wall of Respect. The Wall of Respect was a mural painted in 1967 on the side of a building at the corner of 43rd Street and Langley Avenue. The project was organized by the Visual Arts Workshop of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and fourteen visual artists contributed to the mural's formation. The subjects of the landmark mural were inspirational figures from the African American past, present and contemporary history, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Nat Turner, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Gwendolyn Brooks, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Aretha Franklin and Harriet Tubman. The mural's fate was ultimately sealed in 1971, after a fire damaged the building's structure and it had to be torn down. However, the mural's status has been largely cemented into the hearts and minds of Chicago's citizens, and additional efforts have been taken to create digital resources that make the mural's imagery accessible to current and future generations. According to Gude, the Wall of Respect largely catalyzed the creation of a community mural movement throughout the city.
Like Philadelphia and Chicago, New York City has developed an impressive past and present narrative in regards to public art. Between 1972 and 1974, visual artist Pedro Silva and architect Phillip Danzig worked in conjunction with the Cityarts Workshop (an organization incorporated in 1971, which is now known as CITYarts, Inc.) to empower local children in the design and implementation of mosaic scenes for a 400 foot bench (titled Rolling Bench) encircling the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant (W. 122nd St & Riverside Dr, New York, NY). Silva and his young collaborators created both fictional and fantastical imagery that symbolically represented their individual and collective personalities. The juxtaposition of the whimsical bench with Grant's stark Neoclassical tomb presents a valuable discourse between the past and present in the context of America's distinctiveness as a melting-pot of cultural identities. Grant was a Civil War General who led the Union Army to victory against the Confederacy. As a result of the war, the enslavement of African-Americans was legally abolished. While the war ended slavery, the fight social justice and Civil Rights for minority citizens such as African Americans and Latinx is still ongoing. Many of the youthful participants who worked on the mosaic with Silva lived in upper Manhattan (and Bronx) neighborhoods predominantly consisting of black and Latinx individuals. This project provided an opportunity for them to become involved in the world around them through realizing their artistic potential and transforming their community.
Marthalicia Matarrita, Black Vultures, 2014, Located at 3627 Broadway, New York, NY, 10031. Photo courtesy of Audubon Mural Project.
A recent and ongoing public art project based in upper Manhattan is the Audubon Mural Project, which utilizes contemporary art to raise awareness of the natural environment, which is often obscured within urban settings. The project, a collaboration between the National Audubon Society and Gitler &_____ Gallery, commissions artists to paint murals of 314 species of North American birds that are threatened by climate change. The location of these murals are within the neighborhood where famed ornithologist, naturalist and painter, John Audubon lived. While New York City has a diverse ecology, it is often overshadowed by towering buildings and covered by concrete pathways. The Audubon Mural Project places vibrant depictions of these vulnerable birds in a manner that is unmistakably visible to all members of the community. Seeing beautiful and uniquely rendered bird species painted on the sides of bodegas and apartment buildings, breaks up the urban aesthetic uniformity. The project embraces arts ability to foster our empathy towards environmental awareness, prompt us to reflect on how we can make a difference by preserving our ecosystem. Marthalicia Matarrita, an artist born and raised in Harlem, New York, painted a mural of the black vulture, a species of scavenger birds that are enduring significant habitat loss. Regarding the social and emotional connection between the species of vultures and the world at large, Matarrita stated:
"I found that this particular bird gets many negative reactions from people. Not many people understand that its natural survival methods are not predatory—they're scavengers. They are ones that have the leftovers. Every animal has a role to play and the vulture plays an intricate role in the cycle of life. Helps me sympathize to other beings that struggle daily to live."
Another important New York City based organization is Groundswell, which was founded in 1996 by a contingent of artists, educators and activists. Groundswell fosters artistic collaboration and learning by means of visual literacy, in order to improve relationships and cooperation, as well as inspire activism among youth from neighborhoods throughout the city's five boroughs. Groundswell's team of teaching artists work directly with school-age groups on projects that aim to empower their voice and develop pride in order to make transformative changes in their community.
In addition to dedicated public arts organizations working in the urban environment, municipalities are involved with commissioning public art projects for permanent or long-term display within the metropolis. For example, Chicago's Public Art Collection includes over 500 public artworks exhibited throughout more than 150 municipal facilities across the city (its most iconic work is Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, located in Millennium Park).
In 2017, the city of Chicago produced its first "Year of Public Art" with proposals for new public artworks, a Public Youth Corps, a Public Art Festival, city-wide exhibitions, performances and tours. The city commissioned several major public art projects including a mural conceptualized by Kerry James Marshall, which was funded by Murals of Acceptance. Kerry James Marshall is a contemporary artist that recently transferred his successful studio practice to the street by creating a monumental mural titled Rushmore (2017), which adorns the west side of the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL). Marshall grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. His work is widely exhibited and collected and he is considered among his generation's most renowned painters. Marshall's paintings are typically very large, however, the 132-foot-wide, 100-foot-tall Rushmore represents his largest work to date. The mural pays tribute to twenty women from Chicago's past and present, who have made vital contributions to the city's cultural scene.
Marshall's aesthetic composition resembles the formation of Mount Rushmore, which is a massive stone monument in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, depicting the carved faces presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. In Marshall's painted version of Rushmore, the faces are carved out of the trunks of gargantuan trees while cardinals carrying white ribbon fly around them. In the background is Chicago's city skyline with its notable architecture. Overall, this mural offers the public an enlightening perspective that shifts away from the mainstream patriarchal paradigm. In a monumental way, Rushmore addresses the gender gap in the subject matter of public art, where women are not represented as equally or equitably as men in works of public art.
Marshall's devotion to the city he calls home is a sentiment felt by many other artists such as John T. Biggers, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres. These artists have contributed public artworks in order to raise the collective consciousness of their local community and celebrate its multicultural identity.
The murals of John T. Biggers address a myriad of issues affecting the lives of black Americans in domestic settings. Biggers was not only a brilliant muralist, as a professor of art education, he taught generations of artists and art educators. His devotion to community engagement and creating works of public art that are symbolic of African American history, was influential in Rick Lowe's development of Project Row Houses in Houston (See: Want to Make Art and Education Great? Start with Community). Biggers' public artwork are a response to racism, patriarchal structures and social inequality. They represent uplifting domestic and spiritual scenes, inspired by symbolism from African myths and legends. Realizing the importance and the need to portray women more prominently in society, his murals often feature seminal African American women such as The Contribution of Negro Women to American Life and Education (1952), which depicts vignettes of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Phillis Wheatley. The painting envelops the wall of a room at the Blue Triangle Multi-Cultural Association's headquarters in Third Ward, a historic and culturally rich African-American community in the southeast Houston management district.
Another iconic Houston mural by Biggers' is History of the International Longshoreman's Local 872. Biggers painted this massive mural in 1957 to celebrate the labor contributions by African American longshoremen working on Houston's docks and ports. It was initially dedicated to the International Longshoreman's Local 872, a predominantly black worker's union. For years it covered a wall within their union hall, until black and white unions were integrated. The painting is currently displayed on a wall in the second-floor auditorium of the ILA Local 24's headquarters. It is an awe-inspiring testament to the endurance and pride of black local laborers.
John T. Biggers, History of the International Longshoreman's Local 872, 1957, casein on Masonite panels, 48 x 288 inches.
Collectively, Biggers' Houston murals, which he painted in historically black neighborhoods, make up an important part of Houston's multicultural fabric. They express and symbolize the spirit, strength, compassion and ingenuity that African American groups and individuals had in shaping the American landscape.
John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have devoted the majority of their artistic careers to representing the South Bronx community in a personal and unique manner. After meeting at Fashion Moda, an influential community center and art gallery in the South Bronx, Ahearn and Torres collaborated throughout the 1980 and 90s and occasionally still work together, although Torres relocated to Florida.
Ahearn and Torres frequently worked outside of their studio on the sidewalk where they interacted with passersby and invited members of the neighborhood to pose for their relief sculptures, which were created using a lifecasting process. Ahearn and Torres made two copies of each cast and gave one of the sculptures to the sitter. The duo also created large scale murals, which are affixed to the facade of neighborhood tenement houses, which makes them an integral part of the community's landscape. These murals, made between 1981 and 1985 are: We Are A Family (Layman, Victor and Ernest, Kate, Towana and Staice, Felix and Iris and Smokey) located at 877 Intervale Avenue; Life on Dawson Street (Thomas, Barbara, Pedro with Tire and Pat and Lelena at Play) located on Dawson Street at Longwood Avenue, Bronx, NY; Homage to the People of the Bronx: Double Dutch at Kelly Street I (Frieda, Javette, Towana and Stancey) located on Intervale Avenue at Kelly Street, Bronx, NY; and Back to School (Maggie and Connie, Kido and Ralph, Jay with bike, Titi in Window) located on Walton Avenue at 170th Street, Bronx, NY.
John Ahearn, Ismael Ismael (Tire Shop) 2017
epoxy enamel on fiberglass (L) and Monxo BX 2017, acrylic on plaster (R)
In 2017, Ahearn teamed up with a local South Bronx business and a local college professor to create two relief sculptures that are installed on the facade of the Marwa Tire Shop (250 E. 139th St., Bronx, NY). The figure on the left is a local mechanic named Ismael. Ismael works at the tire shop that his likeness presides over. He holds an impact wrench for changing tires and wears a yellow Superdry t-shirt. To Ismael's right is a relief of Monxo Lopez, a Puerto Rican born professor who resides in the Bronx and teaches Latinx culture at Hunter College. The two sculptures are part of a dialogue about the unique and diverse nature of the neighborhood, which is mix of small businesses, industry, residential housing and academic institutions. Through the subjects he has depicted, Ahearn's public artworks highlight the importance of keeping local businesses thriving and honoring the essence of the neighborhood's diverse residents.
In the educational sphere, murals are a popular school placemaking project across the country because of their overarching benefits such as expressing unifying messages, diversity of identity and pride. Planning murals involves organizing students and faculty in a democratic decision making process, which eliminates the banking model of education in favor of problem-posing pedagogy. Mural making embraces studio habits of mind such as making connections, creating meaning, taking action and assessing/reflecting. The initial discussions, research and delineation of teamwork is as equally important as the final product. The fruits of the creative and collaborative labor are generally exhibited in a highly visible location in order to engage the school community, creating a public display to rally around (see Andrea Mastrovito's Kickstarting project: Collaborating with Kids: Problem-posing Models for Profound Works of Art). Murals might also inspire further inquiry and activism into important themes and issues that affect student's lives both in school and in their neighborhoods. Overall, public art in schools is elementary, my dear readers!
Do you have experiences creating murals or public art within a particular community? Are you an educator that has collaborated with your students on the creation of a mural? I'd love to hear about it so please comment below or send me an email.
Brennan, Geraldine. "Using school space innovatively brings creativity to the curriculum." Jun, 2014. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/zurich-school-competition/school-space-curriculum-benefit-students-community
Capps, Kriston, "The Gender Gap in Public Sculpture." 24 Feb. 2016. CityLab. https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/02/the-gender-gap-in-public-sculpture/463170/
Chan, Yuki. "5 Ways School Wall Graphics Build Community and School Pride." 27 Oct. 2016. RainMaker Blog. https://www.rainmakersigns.com/blog/5-ways-school-wall-graphics-network-with-students-and-stimulate-morale
Cohen, Michele. 2009. Public Art for Public Schools. New York: Monacelli Press.
Goodyear, Sarah. "Can Murals Change a Neighborhood?" 2 Jul. 2014. CityLab. https://www.citylab.com/design/2014/07/can-murals-change-a-neighborhood/373831/
Gude, Olivia (2000). Urban Art Chicago: A Guide to Community Murals, Mosaics, and Sculptures. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Kennedy, Roger G.; Larkin, David (2009). When Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and Democracy. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
Miss Rosen. "A Portrait of love, life, and community in the South Bronx." 30 jul. 2018. huck. https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/a-portrait-of-love-life-and-community-in-the-south-bronx/
Posted on November 15, 2018 October 14, 2019 by Adam Zucker Posted in Art Education, Art History, collaborative learning, Contemporary Art, cross disciplinary, Education, Materials, Multiculutural, Public Art	Tagged Art Education, Audubon Mural Project, Chicago Public Art Group, Groundswell, John Ahearn, John T. Biggers, Kerry James Marshall, mosaic, mural, Mural Arts Philadelphia, Olivia Gude, Pedro Silva, Public Art, Restorative Justice, Rigoberto Torres, sculpture, Wall of Respect, WPA	Leave a comment


Yes people. I was there. On the Rive Gauche in Paris. In Hermes. In Paris. On the Rive Gauche.
As I piled on the layers this morning and trudged through this crazy cold weather out to my formerly cute, now salt-covered and ice-storm-damaged VW bug, it seems REALLY REALLY far away.
But I was there. Eating crêpes and drinking wine and walking through Paris in the spring. Actually it was freezing cold and snowy, but I'm going to leave that out of the memory for now.
I flipped through some Paris pics today and I thought I would share these shots of the Hermes flagship store. Even if $1200 scarves are not in your budget, you will enjoy the stunning interiors of this former pool turned luxury boutique.
I walked in sopping wet from the rain, and the doorman silently handed me a special umbrella bag to hold my wet umbrella. I was actually pretty happy about that since the bag had a nice Hermes logo on it, which meant I would be walking out with something from Hermes.
Right after I entered I saw a very fashionable and slightly scary woman attendant at a desk. I nervously approached and asked permission to take some photos. Because if you're a blogger who has been in Paris more than 2 days, you know that only barbarians take photos without first asking permission. Those same barbarians who try to hail cabs from anywhere other than an official taxi stand.
Here is a shot of the main staircase, where you descend into the pool area to start your shopping. Or staring. Whatever the case may be.
I discretely took these photos, which was fine with Hermes until I got too close to the actual luxury merchandise, photos of which are apparently not permitted. No matter, just seeing the interior made the visit worth it.
This boutique is located in the former pool of the Hotel Lutetia, built in the 1930s and the location of Paris' oldest swimming club. You can see the original mosaic tiling and wrought ironwork. Designed by French architects RDAI, the highlights of the space are three giant woven ash huts that create sculptural enclosed spaces.
This is the view inside one of the huts.
This store is a must see on any trip to Paris. And make sure to ask for an umbrella bag.
aahhhahahhahaha! That gave me a good laugh!
And a tiny shudder when I thought about the candleholders.
Now you've got me thinking. I might try making an umbrella bag instead for my annual Valentine fail.
I am green – GREEN, I tell you – with envy. Next time you go, if you need a stowaway companion I just want to let you know I'm available. Seriously. Any time.
I always love a travel buddy! Having a pal beside you makes these places MUCH easier to handle!
It was a little over-the-top but a fun thing to see.
Very intimidating for me, but still fun to do! It was actually pretty easy to see that it was built inside a pool from the top of the stairs. The photos don't really show this. And, yes, I can actually truthfully say I have a Hermes bag!
WOW I was lost in those pictures! Europe is on my list to explore one day. $1200 scarves? Really? OK I barely like spending $15 on scarves. haha!
Dani my hubby and I are planning a getaway in 2015 to Italy. It is the place I dream about going. We are slowly learning Italian now. Did you grow up there?
I came here when I was a baby, but I spent a lot of time there growing up and visit regularly as an adult. It is always an amazing trip, I'm sure it will be everything you dream of. Where are you thinking of going?
DH wants to see the history in Rome, but besides that we haven't planned any others. We love to eat and plan on eating our way through it as much as possible! Maybe drive the countryside and check out some wine villa's and olive trees.
Looks like an interesting store to browse, not crowded like most of the other retailers. Now if only I can convince hubby to take a trip back to Paris!
wow that is all kinds of incredible! like a museum! So interesting that it's converted from a pool! some creative thinking going on there!
It was very cool. A little scary, but cool!
As always you amaze me with your worldly sophistication! The guts it must have taken to ask to take photos in this beautiful space! Well you've done them justice, stunning design, I love seeing design with an almost unlimited budget.
Thanks so much! I think a trip to Paris is definitely life bucket list material! And as far as this Canadian winter, I was good with it for a while, but now I'm feeling like we've had enough! Dreaming of warm sunshine….
Here: have a little tulip sunshine to hold you over.
Stunning store! I think they need to charge $1200 for scarves just to pay for the architecture. Perhaps you can look at it as an admission fee as well. Going some day!


For other uses, see Rapperswil (disambiguation).
Rapperswil-Jona is a municipality in the Wahlkreis (constituency) of See-Gaster in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Besides Rapperswil and Jona, which were separate municipalities until 2006, the municipality includes Bollingen, Busskirch, Curtiberg, Kempraten-Lenggis, Wagen, and Wurmsbach.
The official language of Rapperswil is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.
Rapperswil Castle Zeitturm (clock tower). View from Hauptplatz (main square).
On January 1, 2007, the municipalities of Rapperswil and Jona merged to form a new political entity. After the merger Rapperswil-Jona had a population of 25,777 (17,799 from Jona and 7,601 from Rapperswil). This makes it the second largest town in the canton after the capital St. Gallen itself. On 31 December 2017 the population was 26,989.
Rapperswil-Jona is one of the most significant traffic junctions in the region, and Rapperswil railway station is a nodal point for the Swiss Federal Railways, Südostbahn and S-Bahn Zürich lines. Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft (commonly abbreviated to ZSG) operates passenger vessels on the Lake Zürich, connecting surrounding towns between Zürich-Bürkliplatz and Rapperswil. The Seedamm, a dam across Lake Zürich, links Rapperswil with Hurden (SZ) on the other side of the lake. This connection has been part of old pilgrimage routes. From early centuries, a wooden footbridge led across Lake Zürich. At a later stage, the bridge was replaced by a stone dam. In 2001, a new wooden footbridge was opened alongside the dam for the first 840 meters of the crossing. It was built in the same place as the original bridge and links Rapperswil with the nearby bridge chapel (Heilig Hüsli) built in 1551.
The main sights are concentrated in the centre of Rapperswil and can be seen while strolling through the medieval alleys. The main sights of Rapperswil are its roses, the castle, the reconstructed wooden bridge to Hurden with its bridge chapel, and a Capuchin monastery. There are also a number of churches, chapels, and the nearby Wurmsbach Abbey. In the surroundings of the town there are a number of churches. St. John's Church in Rapperswil was built around 1220 and became Rapperswil's parish church in 1253, the Chapel St. Ursula in the village of Kempraten was built around 885. The St. Dionysius Chapel, dedicated to Denis, the first bishop of Paris, was reconstructed in 1493 and attracts pilgrims. The nunnery at Wurmsbach (Wurmsbach Abbey) was established in 1259 and today houses an institute for girls, and St. Martin Busskirch is the former parish church of Rapperswil.
Bollingen is known for the "Tower" built there by Carl Jung. Kempraten is one of the most important archeological sites in the canton of St. Gallen and is located at the eastern parts of the upper Lake Zürich. Jona river is flowing through the municipality in the upper Lake Zürich. In 2006 Rapperswill-Jona hosted the World Orienteering Championships.
Settlements in the region of Rapperswil date back at least 5000 years. Atop the Lindenhof hill overlooking a former small village (Endingen), Rapperswil Castle was built around 1220 by the Counts of Rapperswil and is first mentioned in 1229. The town was founded when the nobility of Rapperswil moved from Altendorf across the lake to Rapperswil. The town was soon acquired by the Habsburg family who, in 1358/60, built the wooden bridge across the upper Lake Zürich. Later, the town bought itself free, and ending Old Zürich War made an alliance with the Swiss Confederation. Because of its strategic location along important infrastructure the town grew rich because of flourishing trade. This allowed a certain degree of freedom which was ended with the formation of Swiss cantons by Napoleon. Rapperswil was at first part of the Helvetic canton of Linth. After 1803's Act of Mediation, it joined the canton of St. Gallen. The locational advantage of the place attracted the national Circus Knie who built its headquarters in Rapperswil in 1919. The circus is now also responsible for the Knie's Kinderzoo and the Circus Museum.
Rapperswil-Jona has an area, as of 2006[update], of 22.2 square kilometers (8.6 sq mi). Of this area, 37.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 30.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 28.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (3.4%) is non-productive (rivers or lakes).
The municipality is located in the See-Gaster Wahlkreis and was formed from the merger of Rapperswil (SG) and Jona.
Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (86.9%), with Italian being second most common ( 3.1%) and Serbo-Croatian being third ( 2.1%).
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 30.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (19.3%), the SP (17%) and the FDP (13.1%).
In Rapperswil-Jona about 74.6% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule).
As of 2007[update], Rapperswil-Jona had an unemployment rate of 1.84%. As of 2005[update], there were 183 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 56 businesses involved in this sector. 3,898 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 231 businesses in this sector. 8,340 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 1,077 businesses in this sector. Among other companies, Geberit, LafargeHolcim, Obersee Nachrichten and Radio Zürisee are situated in Rapperswil-Jona.
The municipality of Rapperswil-Jona is served by four railway stations, of which the main one is Rapperswil railway station. This is served by lines S5, S7, S15 and S40 of the Zürich S-Bahn, the first three of which provide frequent (6 trains per hour) and fast (36 minute journey time) links to the city of Zürich. It is also a calling point of the Voralpen Express, running hourly between Lucerne and St. Gallen, and the terminus of an hourly regional train that operates south-east to Linthal via Ziegelbrücke.
The other three stations are Jona railway station, served by lines S5 and S15 of the Zürich S-Bahn, Kempraten, served by line S7 of the Zürich S-Bahn, and Blumenau, served by the regional train to Ziegelbrücke and Linthal.
The municipality is served by a local bus service provided, since 2008, by the Verkehrsbetriebe Zürichsee und Oberland (VZO).
As of 2016, an average of 26,000 road vehicles cross the Seedamm causeway and the Bahnhofstrasse in Rapperswil every day. Rapperswil-Jona is expected to participate as the first Swiss city in a pilot project for so-called Mobility pricing in order to relieve the traffic on road and rail during rush hours.
National League team, Rapperswil-Jona Lakers plays in the 6,200-seat St. Galler Kantonalbank Arena.
After the Seedamm was built in 1878, the Heilig Hüsli chapel was the only remaining structure of the medieval wooden bridge. It stood isolated in the lake and was not accessible to visitors until the reconstruction of the former wooden bridge was erected in 2001. The reconstructed wooden bridge is listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance as part of the Seedamm area including Heilig Hüsli and the remains of the prehistoric wooden bridges respectively stilt house settlements.
Located on Obersee lakeshore at the Seedamm isthmus between the Zürichsee and the Obersee lake area, the area was in close vicinity to the prehistoric lake crossings, neighbored by four Prehistoric pile dwelling settlements: Freienbach–Hurden Rosshorn, Freienbach–Hurden Seefeld, Seegubel and Rapperswil-Jona–Technikum. Because the lake has grown in size over time, the original piles are now around 4 metres (13 ft) to 7 metres (23 ft) under the water level of 406 metres (1,332 ft).
As well as being part of the 56 Swiss sites of the UNESCO Worl Heritage Site Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, the settlements are also listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a Class object.
There are further sites that are listed as in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as Class A object: The chapel of St. Dionys, Schloss Rapperswil with the Polish Museum and its archive and the Rathaus (Town Council house) of Rapperswil are the more recent structures. The Roman Vicus Centum Prata at Kempraten and the Seedamm region and historical bridge (which had existed in some form since the prehistoric era through the Middle Ages with the most recent bridge in 2001 and Heilig Hüsli) round out the five.
^ a b map.geo.admin.ch (Map). Swiss Confederation. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^ a b "S-Bahn trains, buses and boats" (PDF). ZVV. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^ "Marktgebiet" [Market area] (in German). VZO. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
^ "FOKUS: Mobility Pricing soll Pendlerverkehr entlasten" (in German). 10vor10. 30 June 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
^ a b "A-Objekte KGS-Inventar". Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, Amt für Bevölkerungsschutz. 2009. Archived from the original on 28 June 2010. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
^ "Sites Switzerland: Freienbach–Hurden Rosshorn (CH-SZ-01)". palafittes.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
^ "Sites Switzerland: Freienbach–Hurden Rosshorn (CH-SZ-02)". palafittes.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
^ "Sites Switzerland: Rapperswil-Jona/Hombrechtikon–Feldbach (CH-SG-01)". palafittes.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
^ "Sites Switzerland: Rapperswil-Jona–Technikum (CH-SG-02)". palafittes.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Rapperswil.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rapperswil-Jona.
Bollingen in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Busskirch in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Jona in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Kempraten in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
This page was last edited on 22 December 2018, at 21:34 (UTC).


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Home > Search Results: Xu, Y.
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Effect of Stand Age on Fine Root Biomass, Production and Morphology in Chinese Fir Plantations in Subtropical China
Pei, Y.; Lei, P.; Xiang, W.; Ouyang, S.; Xu, Y.
© 2018 by the authors . Despite the great importance of fine roots, which are referred to as roots smaller than 2 mm in diameter, in terms of carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, how fine root biomass, production, and turnover rate change with stand development remains poorly understood. Here we assessed the variations of fine root biomass, production, and morphology of trees and understory vegetation in Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook) plantations at the ages of 7 years old, 17 years old and 25 years old in southern China, representing the sapling, pole and mature stage, respectively. Fine roots of trees and understory vegetation were sampled with sequential coring method to a depth of 60 cm and sliced into 4 layers (0-15, 15-30, 30-45 and 45-60 cm). Fine root biomass and necromass were highest in the pole stages among these three different aged Chinese fir plantations, although the significant differences were only detected for fine root necromass between 25-year-old and 7-year-old plantations. Fine root biomass of Chinese fir was heterogeneous in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Seasonal variation of fine root biomass in three age groups showed a similar pattern that the standing fine root biomass reached a peak in January and fell to the lowest in July. Vertically, the fine root biomass decreased with the increase of soil depth, but this extinction rate decreased with stand development. The effects of stand age on either total fine root length and surface area, or specific root length were not significant. However, the root tissue density increased significantly with Chinese fir stand ages, which suggested that the fine roots on Chinese fir may resort more to the mycorrhizal associations for the nutrient and water acquisition in the later stage of Chinese fir plantations. In addition to the stand age effect, the fine roots exhibited highly spatial and temporal variations in Chinese plantations, indicating different root foraging strategies for soil nutrient and water acquisition. Therefore, the fine root research not only helps to understand its role in carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystem under global climate change, but can also improve our understanding of nutrient management in forest ecosystem. At the same time, the research on the productivity of the Chinese fir growth stage provides guiding significance for the construction and management of Chinese fir
Risks of Developing Concentrated Rural Settlement after the Wenchuan Earthquake in China
Peng, Y.; Li, X.; Huang, L.; Jiang, S.; Xu, Y.; Lai, Y.
Concentrated rural settlement (CRS) reconstruction was promoted as a sustainable rural reconstruction way after the Wenchuan earthquake in China . Despite the various benefits of CRS, haphazard CRS reconstruction presents risks to future sustainable development. However, such risks have been rarely investigated. Thus, this study examines the risk factors with eight CRS reconstruction cases after the Wenchuan earthquake. The existence and interactions of economic, social, environmental, and disaster relief risks are observed after reconstruction. A conceptual model is proposed for systematically interpreting the risks. Results obtained can help the local government judiciously consider the risk factors in order to achieve sustainable development when initiating rapid reconstruction. © 2018 by the authors
Statistical Assessment of Water Quality Issues in Hongze Lake, China, Related to the Operation of a Water Diversion Project
Wu, Y.; Dai, R.; Xu, Y.; Han, J.; Li, P.
© 2018 by the authors . The Hongze Lake serves as the first important transfer and storage path along the East Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP-ER). After the Project began operating in 2013, eutrophication in the lake has created increasing public concern regarding the direct effect on water quality from the project. In this paper, we used multivariate statistical methods to examine the variances between water quality variables at four site groups (inlets and outlets in the study area) and during three seasons (wet, normal, and dry seasons) in Eastern Hongze Lake. We also used redundancy analysis (RDA) to analyze environmental factors' impact on water quality. We found that (1) the concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus were exceeding the standard values; (2) No significant spatial heterogeneity regarding nitrogen and phosphorus among the inlet/outlet of Eastern Hongze Lake existed in normal and wet seasons, and there was no evidence demonstrating that SNWDP-ER could improve eutrophication or even contribute to eutrophication in the dry season; (3) Environmental factors (land use, water diversion, and population) have limited influences on water quality, which was possibly caused by the overly-high river input and artificial input of nitrogen and phosphorus. Thus, it is critical to reinforce the control of pollution sources and enhance the ecological restoration
The Prospective of Nuclear Power in China
Xu, Y.; Kang, J.; Yuan, J.
From scratch to current stage, China's nuclear power technology has experienced rapid development, and now China has begun to export nuclear power technology . As a kind of highly efficient and clean energy source, nuclear energy is also a priority option to solve energy crisis, replace traditional fossil fuels and reduce air pollution. By analyzing the short-term and long-term development trend of nuclear power in China, the paper has reached the following conclusions: (1) Under the current situation of excess supply, due to high investment cost of first-kind reactors, the decline of utilization hours and the additional cost of ancillary service obligations, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the third generation nuclear power will significantly increase, and the internal rate of return (IRR) will significantly fall. In the short term, market competitiveness of nuclear power will be a major problem, which affects investment enthusiasm. (2)With technology learning of third generation technology, the LCOE of nuclear power will be competitive with that of coal power in 2030. (3) The CO2 emissions reduction potential of nuclear power is greater than coal power with CCS and the avoided CO2 costs of nuclear power is much lower. Therefore, nuclear power is an important option for China's long-term low-carbon energy system transition. The paper proposes to subsidize the technical learning costs of new technology through clean technology fund at the early commercialization stage. When designing power market rules, the technical characteristics of nuclear power should be fully considered to ensure efficient operation of nuclear power. © 2018 by the authors
Flooding Hazards across Southern China and Prospective Sustainability Measures
Lyu, H.-M.; Xu, Y.-S.; Cheng, W.-C.; Arulrajah, A.
© 2018 by the authors . The Yangtze River Basin and Huaihe River Basin in Southern China experienced severe floods 1998 and 2016. The reasons for the flooding hazards include the following two factors: hazardous weather conditions and degradation of the hydrological environment due to anthropogenic activities. This review work investigated the weather conditions based on recorded data, which showed that both 1998 and 2016 were in El Nino periods. Human activities include the degradations of rivers and lakes and the effects caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam. In addition, the flooding in 2016 had a lower hazard scale than that in 1998 but resulted in larger economic losses than that of 1998. To mitigate urban waterlogging caused by flooding hazards, China proposed a new strategy named Spongy City (SPC) in 2014. SPC promotes sustainable city development so that a city has the resilience to adapt to climate change, to mitigate the impacts of waterlogging caused by extreme rainfall events. The countermeasures used to tackle the SPC construction-related problems, such as local inundation, water resource shortage, storm water usage, and water pollution control, are proposed for city management to improve the environment
Changes in Extreme Precipitation Events over the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region During 1961–2012
Zhan, Y.-J.; Ren, G.-Y.; Shrestha, A. B.; Rajbhandari, R.; Ren, Y.-Y.; Sanjay, J.; Xu, Y.; Sun, X.-B.; You, Q.-L.; Wang, S.
Based on a new multi-source dataset (GLDP-V1 .0) recently developed in China Meteorological Administration, we employed precipitation indices including percentile-based indices of light (below the 50th percentile), moderate (between the 50th and 90th percentile), and intense (above the 90th percentile) precipitation, maximum 1-day, 3-day, and 5-day precipitation amounts (RX1DAY, RX3DAY, and RX5DAY, respectively), and consecutive wet and dry days (CWDs and CDDs) to analyze variations in extreme precipitation events in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) during 1961–2012. The main results are presented as follows. Firstly, there was a significant increase in the amount of light and moderate precipitation and number of associated days over various parts of India and northern Tibetan Plateau during 1961–2012; but the intensity of light precipitation decreased significantly in the Hindu Kush and central India, and the regional average intensity also decreased. Secondly, the amount and frequency of intense precipitation mostly increased significantly on the Tibetan Plateau, but there was a heterogeneous change over the remainder of the HKH, and regional average annual intense precipitation amount and frequency significantly increased over the HKH during 1961–2012. Thirdly, regional average RX1DAY, RX3DAY, and RX5DAY all showed significant upward trends during 1961–2012, and there was a significant increased tendency of consecutive wet-days in most parts of the study region; however, trends of consecutive dry-days were mostly opposite to those of consecutive wet-days, with regional averaged consecutive dry-days showing no noticeable trend
Changes in Extreme Temperature Events over the Hindu Kush Himalaya During 1961–2015
Sun, X.-B.; Ren, G.-Y.; Shrestha, A. B.; Ren, Y.-Y.; You, Q.-L.; Zhan, Y.-J.; Xu, Y.; Rajbhandari, R.
This study uses the CMA (China Meteorological Administration) global land-surface daily air temperature dataset V1 .0 (GLSATD V1.0) to analyze long-term changes in extreme temperature events over the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) during 1961–2015. Results show there was a significant decrease in the number of extreme cold events (cold nights, cold days, and frost days) but a significant increase in the number of extreme warm events (warm nights, warm days, and summer days) over the entire HKH during 1961–2015. For percentile-based indices, trends of extreme events related to minimum temperature (Tmin) were greater in magnitude than those related to maximum temperature (Tmax). For absolute-value based indices, maximum Tmax, minimum Tmin, and summer days all show increasing trends, while frost days and the diurnal temperature range (DTR) show significant decreasing trends. In addition, there was a decrease in extreme cold events in most parts of east HKH, particularly in Southwest China and the Tibetan Plateau, while there was a general increase in extreme warm events over the entire HKH. Finally, the change in extreme cold events in the HKH appears to be more sensitive to elevation (with cold nights and cold days decreasing with elevation), whereas the change in warm extremes (warm nights, warm days, and maximum Tmax) shows no detectable relationship with elevation. Frost days and minimum Tmin also have a good relationship with elevation, and the trend in frost days decreases with an increase in elevation while the trend in minimum Tmin increases with an increase in elevation
Observed High-Altitude Warming and Snow Cover Retreat over Tibet and the Himalayas Enhanced by Black Carbon Aerosols
Xu, Y.; Ramanathan, V.; Washington, W. M.
\textlessp\textgreaterHimalayan mountain glaciers and the snowpack over the Tibetan Plateau provide the headwater of several major rivers in Asia. In-situ observations of snow cover fraction since the 1960s suggest that the snow pack in the region have retreated significantly, accompanied by a surface warming of 2–2.5 °C observed over the peak altitudes (5000 m). Using a high-resolution ocean–atmosphere global climate model and an observationally constrained black carbon (BC) aerosol forcing, we attribute the observed altitude dependence of the warming trends as well as the spatial pattern of reductions in snow depths and snow cover fraction to various anthropogenic factors. At the Tibetan Plateau altitudes, the increase of atmospheric CO\textlesssub\textgreater2\textless/sub\textgreater concentration exerted a warming of 1.7 °C, BC 1.3 °C where as cooling aerosols cause about 0.7 °C cooling, bringing the net simulated warming consistent with the anomalously large observed warming. We therefore conclude that BC together with CO\textlesssub\textgreater2\textless/sub\textgreater has contributed to the snow retreat trends. Especially, BC increase is the major factor in the strong elevation dependence of the observed surface warming. The atmospheric warming by BC as well as its surface darkening of snow are coupled with the positive snow albedo feedbacks to account for the disproportionately large role of BC in high-elevation regions. These findings reveal that BC impact needs to be properly accounted for in future regional climate projections, in particular on high-altitude cryosphere.\textless/p\textgreater
Himalayan mountain glaciers and the snowpack over the Tibetan Plateau provide the headwater of several major rivers in Asia . In situ observations of snow cover extent since the 1960s suggest that the snowpack in the region have retreated significantly, accompanied by a surface warming of 2–2.5?°C observed over the peak altitudes (5000?m). Using a high-resolution ocean–atmosphere global climate model and an observationally constrained black carbon (BC) aerosol forcing, we attribute the observed altitude dependence of the warming trends as well as the spatial pattern of reductions in snow depths and snow cover extent to various anthropogenic factors. At the Tibetan Plateau altitudes, the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration exerted a warming of 1.7?°C, BC 1.3?°C where as cooling aerosols cause about 0.7?°C cooling, bringing the net simulated warming consistent with the anomalously large observed warming. We therefore conclude that BC together with CO2 has contributed to the snow retreat trends. In particular, BC increase is the major factor in the strong elevation dependence of the observed surface warming. The atmospheric warming by BC as well as its surface darkening of snow is coupled with the positive snow albedo feedbacks to account for the disproportionately large role of BC in high-elevation regions. These findings reveal that BC impact needs to be properly accounted for in future regional climate projections, in particular on high-altitude cryosphere
Integrating a Glacier Retreat Model into a Hydrological Model – Case Studies of Three Glacierised Catchments in Norway and Himalayan Region
Li, H.; Beldring, S.; Xu, C. Y.; Huss, M.; Melvold, K.; Jain, S. K.
Summary Glaciers are crucial in many countries where meltwater from glaciers is an important source of water for drinking water supply, irrigation, hydropower generation and the ecological system . Glaciers are also important indicators of climate change. They have been significantly altered due to the global warming and have subsequently affected the regional hydrological regime. However, few models are able to parameterise the dynamics of the glacier system and consequent runoff processes in glacier fed basins with desirable performance measures. To narrow this gap, we have developed an integrated approach by coupling a hydrological model (HBV) and a glacier retreat model ( Δ h -parameterisation) and tested this approach in three basins with different glacier coverage and subject to different climate and hydrologic regimes. Results show that the coupled model is able to give satisfactory estimations of runoff and glacier mass balance in the Nigardsbreen basin where the measured data are available to verify the results. In addition, the model can provide maps of snowpack distribution and estimate runoff components from glaciers
1 Xu, Y.-S.
Xu, Y. in TERI


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Glyphocrangon atlantica is een garnalensoort uit de familie van de Glyphocrangonidae. De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1939 door Chace.

Glyphocrangonidae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia