Chest of Wonders

Thursday 17 January 2013

Wunderkammer

After two years I have decided to update my blog on a more regular basis, and also to rename it as "Giulia's Chest of Wonders" which is a derivation from the famous "Cabinet of Wonders" otherwise known as the German term of "Wunderkammer" which literally means "Room of Wonders".

For me this blog is going to a pure escape from my everyday life which will obviously entail some bits of my daily life but mainly is an escapism in a realm of ideas, dreams, images and fantastical stuff to me eyes.

Imagine opening a chest of drawers filled with the most interesting, peculiar and wonderful objects you have ever seen, like in a dream imagine unicron horns, African voodoo dolls, pocket watches, fluorescent insects, old treasure maps, underwater ship relics, pieces of coral, peacock feathers, palm sized Chinese enamel paintings, ancient Arabic daggers, exotic shells and fine water pearls. This is what I aim with my blog so stay tuned and watch this space!

Yet All was not Chaos ....

Monday 25 April 2011

Confessions of Dangerous Minds

Hello there all my great followers... I must first of all apologize for my absence in the last months. I have been away on various travels and also have been hibernating during the last cold winter months! However now that the summer has officially started, the tights are gone and the bare legs are out... I am now back so please stay tuned all Blog followers as the exciting season has begun and I am at my best!

Suggestion of the day:

Head to Chelsea and come visit "Confessions of Dangerous Minds" on the last floor at the Saatchi Gallery on Duke of York Square. This is a super exciting show featuring Contemporary Art from Turkey which will run until April 30th. The selling exhibiton is a fantastic collaboration between London based curators Jason Lee and Carlo Berardi (Artnesia) and auction house Phillips de Pury. I am such an art sucker and I have been so lucky to be involved in this great exhibition. The show has had a lot of extremely good press and has been featured in a wide range of magazine and papers, from Vogue Italia, to Vogue Turkey to the Telegraph and much more!

Come and see the show for yourselves!

Monday 10 January 2011

The Sand Dollar

Growing up in Ivory Coast as a child, my family and I would spend all our weekends on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. One of my major memories of this coast was my fascination with the Sand Dollars. I would spend hours strolling on the beach and looking for these curious objects, I treasured them like gold! During Christmas we would spray paint them in silver and gold and use them to decorate our Christmas tree. I was also given a gold necklace with a golden Sand Dollar pendant which I would never take off until I moved to Europe and my best friend Alexandra (who lived in a different country to me) convinced me to "exchange" necklaces until we next saw each other, I saw and still see Alexandra regularly every year but never saw the necklace again! She did the same exchange with one of her teenage boyfriends and then broke up with him and he now has my necklace.

But what are these curious objects really?

I used to believe they were actual dollars that had traveled the Atlantic ocean from America and were eventually washed out on the coast of the Cote d'Ivoire! Other legends say that Sand Dollars are pressed sand that has been dried or even the money of mermaids washed-up from the deep. The Sand Dollar is also a Christian Easter and Christmas legend, the five slits representing the wounds on Christ when on the cross, the Easter lily with a star in the middle representing the star of Bethlehem and on the back is the outline of a Poinsettia, the Christmas flower. The Legend of the Sand Dollar also tells of the 5 dove's that are inside and how when the sand dollar is broken open it spreads good will and peace.

In reality, this fragile disk is the skeleton or "test" of a marine animal. By the time the test washes up on the beach it is missing its velvety covering of minute spines and appears somewhat bleached from the sun. It is hard to believe it was once alive.
Sand dollars are from the class of marine animals known as Echinoids, spiny skinned creatures. Their relations include the sea lily, the sea cucumber, the star fish and the sea urchin. When alive, the local species, Echinarachnius parma is outfitted in a maroon-colored suit of moveable spines that encompass the entire shell. Like its close relative the sea urchin, the sand dollar has five sets of pores arranged petal pattern. The pores are used to move sea water into its internal water-vascular system which allows for movement.

I am still very fascinated with the Sand Dollar and browsing on the internet I came across this Victoria's Secret bikini... a must have for Sand Dollar lovers!