Influences / Resources

A list of resources and projects that directly inspire me for this project:
(this list will be eventually updated)

Graphic Novels
• Persepolis *especially
A graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian graphic designer, which tells her experience in Iran in times of rebellions and war. According to an interview with her, the aim of her book was to make people realise that anyone could be that person. Showing that the girl in Iran has dreams, fears, etc, just as other girls around the globe. It makes it more human, in a world full of wars in every side.
[read about what influenced me in this]

• Maus, by Art Spiegelman
A graphic novel that tells the story of Spiegelman's father and his life during the Second World War as a Jew in Poland. Spielgelman represents the characters as animals: Jews are represented by mice, the Germans by cats, the Poles by pigs, the Americans by dogs, etc.

• The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar
The story is told by a rabbi’s cat that, by swallowing a parrot, can speak and wants to convert to Jew. It questions be beliefs of the religion. The rabbi, his daughter and the cat go from Algeria (where they come from) to Paris and encounter the differences of the other country.
[read about what influenced me in this]

• The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
A graphic novel just with images (no dialogs at all) about a man who leaves his family (wife and child) to go abroad. Beautiful drawings and each scene is very well done.

Other Books
• Colour Notebook: Violence, by Fabrica
A collection of notebooks that was given for people from different parts of the world for them to write and draw whatever they wanted in them.
“As Colors says, they are ‘Thousands of people like you, yet different from you.’ A kaleidoscope of faces, temperaments, history and culture.” (Robert Ménard in ColorsNotebook)
[read about what influenced me in this]

• 1000 Journals Project
An experiment that a thousand of blank journals were unleashed into different parts of the world for people to put their thoughts and creativity and return the journal.

• PostSecret, by Frank Warren
An ongoing art project in which people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of the home-made postcard and send it to Postsecret.

• You are here: Personal Geographies and other maps of the Imagination. By Katharine Harmon
Good image resource for seeing different experiments on maps.
[see my book shelf]

Essays
• "Toccata and the fugue for the foreigner" from the book "Strangers to ourselves" by Julia Kristeva. *especially
[read about what influenced me in this]


• "Lecture on Nothing" from Silence, lectures and writings p.111 - fourth part, by John Cage
[read about what influenced me in this]


Music
• Gabriel o Pensador
A Brazilian artist and rapper which lyrics are about social concerns.

Websites
• Iced Game
An online game by Break Through, a human right organization, about U.S. immigration. The aim of this project was to make people aware of the problems and difficulties with immigrants in US.

• Strange Maps
Blog showing different kinds of maps made by people.
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/

[see my favorites websites]

Movies
• Edifício Master, by Eduardo Coutinho
A Brazilian documentary by Eduardo Coutinho. The movie shows story of different people who lives in a big residential building in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. Stories of "normal people" of low middle class put in a very human way.

• Paris Je T’aime: Quais de Seine, by Gurinder Chadha
A short movie that shows a Parisian boy falling in love with a Muslim woman.

[see the movies I watch]

[see other cultural input]