Greetings gorgeous email friends, this week we’re going to get all caught up in the small stuff.
Miniature: In defiance of the ongoing gentrification of central London, there are still a few neon signs in open doorways or first-floor windows promising ‘models’. So it was with a little trepidation, during a trip to Japan last year, that I took an elevator up to the higher floors of a central Tokyo building adorned with a similar sign.
As I’d hoped, this was a large but well-concealed shop for model-builders. I’m not one myself, but I can’t help admiring the breadth and complexity of their tiny world, and the store was far bigger than any at home. Although this was then eclipsed in December, when I visited the world’s largest model railway: Hamburg’s spectacular Miniatur Wunderland. Why do all this? As Simon Garfield explains in his book In Miniature, there’s just something enduringly appealing about the world made small.
I’d expected Miniatur Wunderland to be full of dorky kids-at-heart. While that might describe its founders, twins and techno/trance label founders Frederik and Gerrit Braun, its visitors were greatly more diverse. Seemingly all human life was there, united by the sheer joy of the place. For scaling reality down allows us to appreciate it in a whole new way: at once familiar and new.
Perhaps it’s this new perspective that makes working in miniature attractive to artists. The short film Life in Miniature profiles miniature-makers Kath Holden and Margaret Shaw who sculpt dollhouse-sized goods as diverse as mobility scooters and packaged foods. Opening soon in Melbourne, the Miniature Art Group Show is an exhibition of small scale paintings, scratch-built models and tiny sculptures from 30 artists from around the world. And a recent exhibition in Brighton titled Urban Miniatures displayed tiny buildings and train cars hand-painted with graffiti and colourful murals. 🎨
👚 Do You Know the Right Way to Sew a Button? Let’s Double Check: Seems simple enough, right? But is it? This article looks at both flat buttons and shanks. Yeah, you see: already more complicated than you thought.
💨 Humans are producing a far larger share of methane emissions than we thought: According to a new study, we’re responsible for 25% to 40% more of the total emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than previously estimated.
❣️ Tampon wars: the battle to overthrow the Tampax empire: For decades, one company has ruled the world of tampons. But a new wave of brands has emerged, selling themselves as more ethical, more feminist and more ecological.
🔥 Climate change poses “ecological and existential threats” to children across the globe: According to the WHO and UNICEF, children in every country in the world face “environmental and existential threats” related to human-caused climate change. See also: The Year of Greta.
🗞 The Wall Street Journal joins The New York Times in the 2 million digital subscriber club: The number of people paying for quality journalistic content delivered online seems to be steadily growing. Many factors contribute, but this growth correlates with people’s willingness to spend online generally. Ten years ago newspapers were amongs things digital had doomed; I wonder what else people would now pay for.
💚 This simple crib cost $28,885 because it used zero fossil fuels: No part of its manufacture or shipping resulted in any fossil fuel emissions. It highlights how dependent we are on our current operating models, but that change is possible.
Earth, from heaven: It’s been a few weeks since I included a KLF reference, but of course Jimmy Cauty’s dystopian model village, The Aftermath Dislocation Principle, went further than just showing us our world in a new way. Cauty, who casts himself as an outsider, toured the post-apocalyptic work in shipping containers, and those who peered in were just as drawn into the micro-world as with a more conventional model village.
There’s a practical application to miniature-making, to plan buildings and the urban landscape. Buildings are increasingly modelled and rendered digitally, seducing planners with reflective surfaces on otherwise meritless buildings exactly filling the plot on which they’re erected. London is steadily filling with buildings that clearly looked good in the render. But there are still practices, like Made By Mistake and Model Platform, making real, glorious, architectural miniatures. 🏢
Finally: While we’re looking from above, artist Jim Darling paints an ongoing series of scenes that may be familiar if you’re a fan of the window seat. Windows mimics the view from 35,000 feet: lush landscapes, rocky gorges and dense urban areas. ✈️