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On The Cover:
Flying kites purchased from the Kite Collective’s kite vending machine at Rockaway Beach, New York.
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Table of Contents
November 2012
- From The Editors
- Contributors
- The Art to Float in Beijing: An Interview with Xiaowei Wang and Sibel DEREN GULER
- Tom Van Sant ALI FUJINO
- Exploring the Victorian Kite KATRIEN VAN RIET
- The Star Farker is Dead! SCOTT SKINNER
- Playing With Paper HELEN HIEBERT
- The Kite Collective LEE DARES
- Kites and Pirates in Argentine Literature PROF. MARIA ELENA GARCÍA AUTINO
EDITORS
Scott Skinner
Ali Fujino
Laurie Leak
Erin Schiedler
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Scott Skinner
Martin Lester
Joe Hadzicki
Stuart Allen
Dave Lang
Jose Sainz
Ali Fujino
BOARD OF DIRECTORS EMERITUS
Bonnie Wright
Wayne Wilson
Keith Yoshida
Discourse is published on the Drachen Foundation website several times a year and can be downloaded free at www.drachen.org by clicking “browse” then “articles.”
From The Editors
Join in the fun of the Kite Collective as they roll out their kite machine to introduce kites to an inner city audience ready for the thrill. Then travel across the world to Beijing, China, and join Xiaowei Wang and Sibel Deren Guler as they sample air quality in their FLOAT Beijing project. Here are two very dif- ferent projects that use the positive power of kites to change people’s lives.
From two vastly different places come academic studies of the kite: Professor Maria Elena Garcia Autino’s study of kites in Argentine literature, and Katrien van Riet’s absorbing study of kites in Victorian literature. Wonderful kites, stories, and im- ages grace both studies.
Finally, artist Helen Heibert describes her fascination with all things paper and gives us a preview of her new book, “Playing with Paper”. You’ll see that Helen is a kindred spirit, fascinated by the magic of manipulating paper into flying creations.
In this issue of Discourse, the contributors are all women (with a whisper here and there from me). Ali Fujino writes about Tom Van Sant and his visionary kites of the early 1970s and how they returned to the sky on the Santa Monica beach. She contributes to the lore of the AKA’s Star Farker as it starts a new chapter of life with new AKA President, Jon Barresi.
Scott Skinner Board President
Drachen Foundation
Contributors
Michael Elmquist
LEE DARES
New York, New York
Lee was born in Toronto, Canada. She modeled internationally for seven years before moving to New York City. She does cultural projects for the Kite Collective and attends the Fashion Institute of Technology. In her free time, she practices yoga and plays the fiddle.
Erin Schiedler
ALI FUJINO
Seattle, Washington
From work at the Smithsonian to her present status as executive director of the Drachen Foundation, Fujino is an expert in archival practices.
Adrian Dubisnky
PROF. MARIA ELENA GARCÍA AUTINO
Buenos Aires, Argentina
A Barriletes a Toda Costa (BaToCo) member, Autino is a retired professor who taught for many years at the University of Buenos Aires. She has won national and international awards for her work in education.
CMU.edu
SIBEL DEREN GULER
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sibel Deren Guler is a master’s candidate in tangible interaction design at the Computational Design Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. She has a degree in physics and in addition to working on the FLOAT Beijing project she is also the founder of ReplayMyPlay, an organization that creates playgrounds that generate electricity as children play with the equipment.
Stephen Funk
HELEN HIBERT
Vail, Colorado
Helen Hiebert is a Colorado artist who constructs installations and creates sculptures, films and artist books using handmade paper as her primary medium. She teaches and exhibits her work internationally. Her next book, “Playing with Paper,” will be published by Rockport Publishers in January, 2013.
Jose Sainz
SCOTT SKINNER
Monument, Colorado
A former Air Force instructor pilot, Drachen’s board president has flown and designed kites for three decades. Today, Skinner is known as a world class, visionary kite artist.
Joris Hiemstra
KATRIEN VAN RIET
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Katrien van Riet has a master’s in art in comparative literature. Her focus was the kite as a symbol in nineteenth-century literature. She currently works as an English teacher at a language institute in Utrecht. In her spare time, she designs and builds kites, as well as researching their presence in Romantic and Victorian literature.
Xiaowei R. Wang
XIAOWEI R. WANG
Boston, Massachusetts
Xiaowei Wang is currently studying at Harvard Graduate School of Design and hopes to graduate with a master’s degree in landscape architecture in 2013. She collaborated with Sibel Deren Guler on the FLOAT Beijing project.
Learn more at xiaoweiwang.com.
Articles
- The Art to Float in Beijing: An Interview with Xiaowei Wang and Sibel DEREN GULER
- Tom Van Sant ALI FUJINO
- Exploring the Victorian Kite KATRIEN VAN RIET
- The Star Farker is Dead! SCOTT SKINNER
- Playing With Paper HELEN HIEBERT
- The Kite Collective LEE DARES
- Kites and Pirates in Argentine Literature PROF. MARIA ELENA GARCÍA AUTINO
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