Cēsis, Part 1.

From rq: Cēsis is a very historical city up to the north of us – very beautiful, parts of it are very well-preserved, never mind the major wars that it has survived. Not sure when it was founded exactly, but it does have a 13th century stone castle  (well, the ruins). Here’s a few of the old town itself, some views of the castle up next. The adorable building in the last is now a children’s kindergarten/daycare facility. Pretty awesome, if you ask me. (We went because Eldest Child is in the school folk dancing group and there was a major event that weekend in Cēsis – something like 5000 school age folk dancers congregating into one city!) Click for full size!

© rq, all rights reserved.

Old Mill.

From rq: This is in the same township that had the burnt out abandoned house. The township used to be a member of the Hanza Alliance, so it was a major stop on a river trading route, and business boomed. Now it’s a small out-of-the-way place with a lot of beautiful history but the same economic issues as most rural places in the country. Click for full size!

© rq, all rights reserved.

Looking for Knives.

Morissa Maltz.

Morissa Maltz.

Visiting Hot Springs, Arkansas is like walking into the past. A city stuck in time, it’s known as much for its history and naturally heated springs buildings as its mix of 1800s architecture and Art Deco—structures that are slowly crumbling yet still magical. One of the city’s iconic buildings, the gigantic and once abandoned Majestic Hotel, was recently demolished. A week before its dismantling, however, artist and filmmaker Morissa Maltz shot a video inside the hotel. Equal parts documentary, performance art piece, and music video for Dyan’s “Looking for Knives,” it is the final document of a space that held huge amounts of history.

In “Looking for Knives,” Maltz’s camera drifts through the hotels innards. Though The Majestic suffered a fire in 2014, the video focuses instead on paint peeling off walls and floors turning into dirt. Inspired by female artists like Pipilotti Rist, Francesca Woodman, and Maya Deren, for whom the body expresses emotion inside a space, Maltz also performs in the video, moving through the hotel’s crumbling corridors and interacting with its surfaces.

A lovely, haunting video and song. You can read and see more at The Creators Project.