Things We Like

Our weekly round-up of things we like here at Design Week.

Gary Hustwit’s Urbanized

Urbanized

Urbanized is the final film in director Gary Hustwit’s design film trilogy, following 2007’s Helvetica, a feature film about, yes, typography, and Objectified, which was released in 2009 and examines the role of everyday objects and the people who design them.

Urbanized investigates how the design and planning of cities impacts people’s everyday lives, with interviews from the people who live in the cities that form its case studies. There are also insights from architects, planners, policymakers, and thinkers, including Sir Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Jan Gehl and Oscar Niemeyer.

Urbanized will be released by Plexifilm on 13 February

Joan Mitchell

River

This week sees an exhibition of final works from the wonderful American Abstract Expressionist, Joan Mitchell. Cleverly titled The Last Paintings, the exhibition will be showing works created in the last decade of Mitchell’s life, dating from 1985 to 1992.  The vibrant colours and bold brushstrokes make for cheery paintings, influenced by the French countryside and the lush landscape of Vétheuil.

Joan Mitchell The Last Paintings runs from 3 February – 28 April  at Hauser & Wirth, 196 Piccadilly, London W1J.

Crochet Lions

Lionheart

Crocheting is really coming into its own lately, possibly thanks to the unofficial face of the V&A’s Power of Making show, the Crochet Dermy bear by Shauna Richardson.

Now Richardson has created three crochet lions for her Lionheart project, and in May, the trio will be travelling the country in a 16m-long illuminated glass case. The feline troupe will tour the East Midlands before arriving at the Natural History Museum in London in time for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As well as giving people a glimpse of the lions, the project aims to ‘get the nation crocheting’, with a number of online activities such as ‘Guerrilla Crochet’ for people to take part in.

For more information visit www.lionheartproject.com

The Other Cinema

From the people who brought us Future Cinema comes The Other Cinema, which is making its debut on Valentines Day.

The Other Cinema is a global network of pop-up cinemas, aiming to ‘bring back a sense of community, passion and a social experience to cinema-going’ with a different film screened each month in non-traditional venues such as libraries, churches, prisons, oil rigs or army camps.

The Valentines film will be David Lean’s Brief Encounter, screened in what promises to be a stunning immersive experience. Participants are expected to, naturally, dress in black tie, and carry ‘a flower for a lover or a stranger.’

Brief Encounter

Simultaneous screenings on 14 February will take place in Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham and Norwich, among others around the UK and globally. The film will be screened at The Troxy in East London from 14 – 18 February. Visit www.theothercinema.org for more information and click here for tickets.

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