…the Fringe enjoyed a record-breaking 2,695 different shows staging 42,096 performances in 279 venues by 22,457 performers from over 47 countries..
To kick off this year’s festival, some of the theatre companies were out on the street hamming it up for passers by and handing out flyers.
In keeping with previous years, we aim for the visually appealing.
So in good Fringe style we start coverage with a low key, restrained image of Plato, as played by Sam Ereira, a cast member in the DEM Productions production of A Theory Of Justice.
We shall be posting regularly from the Fringe – with photos – so look out for more articles.
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This frieze is in a sweeping arc above the concourse that leads to the European Parliament in Brussels.
It was designed by Larkin Zahra as his entry in a competition to publicise the European Union being given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 for transforming Europe from a continent at war to a continent at peace.
At the time he won the prize, Zahra was 23 years old and living in his hometown of Zebbug in Malta. He has a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from the University of Malta and a Master’s in European Public Affairs from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.
Significantly, Zahra won the competition on a public vote on Facebook.
He was invited to the opening ceremony in Strasbourg (not Brussels – see this article about the rivalry) where he was called to the podium by Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, who said:
Next to me, you can see a young man, Larkin Zahra. This is the young man who won our competition organised before the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony. For the Nobel Peace Prize we thought to invite young people all over Europe to send us their proposals, the question being: What are your thoughts, spontaneous feeling for this honour and decoration for the European Union? And Larkin was the winner and we became friends during the last 3 days. Isn’t it so?
Zahra replied:
My quote was that my grandparents would have said peace in Europe would be a dream. My parents would have said it is a process, and I can say that, thanks also to the EU, it is my everyday reality.
The Thread That Links The Images
The thread of the frieze is the move out of the abyss towards freedom, democracy, and prosperity.
The concourse at the European Parliament is a doubly-fitting place for the exhibition because it is named after Simone Veil, who is a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen camps.
She is a French lawyer and politician who was the Minister of Health under Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and has served as a President of the European Parliament and member of the Constitutional Council of France.
The frieze actually proceeds in a semicircle, but when I processed the individual images in Photoshop, it flattened out the perspective in the process of stitching several photos together to make this panorama.
And I didn’t take photographs the whole way around – there are a few scenes at the end that I didn’t get. Perhaps next time.
The frieze is entitled:
Out of the abyss: How Europeans built peace together – a prize recognising 60 years making peace in our continent.
The scenes then proceed:
Looking into the gates of Auschwitz, with a caption that reads ‘The depths: Auschwitz, 1940-1945’
Ruined buildings, and a caption that reads ‘The depths; War destruction in Warsaw, 1945’
A soldier being greeted by civilians, and the caption ‘Hope: Liberation for many, 1944’
A boy, a woman, and a man, and the caption ‘Hope: Postwar homecomings’
A crowd before a building, and a caption ‘A way forward: Creation of the European Movement, 1948’
A border post in Germany, and the caption ‘Still divided: Border control 1948’
Four European leaders and behind them a flag that reads L’Europe – and a coption that reads ‘Political leaders: For once they agree, 1950’
A view around the table, and a caption ‘Project for peace: Schuman declaration 1950’ (Schuman was the French foreign minister who guided and promoted the declaration).
Railway workers on a train with flags, and the caption ‘On the ground: European Coal and Steel Community in action, 1951’
A worker in a steel works, and a caption ‘Peace and prosperity: Industrial boom, 1955’
Civilians hoisting a flag on a tank, and the caption ‘Desire for freedom: Hungarian revolution, 1956’
Civilians on the street listening to a news broadcast, and the caption ‘Self-determination: Cyprus Independence, 1960’
A man holding an umbrella looking over a barbed wire topped wall, and the caption ‘Cold War: Berlin wall, 1961’
A man riding a motor bike at what looks like some kind of presentation – and a caption that reads ‘Working together: Worker mobility, 1964’
Cars in an assembly line, and a caption ‘Prosperity grows: Economic development, 1965’
A crowd and a banner, and the caption ‘Yearning for a better future: Prague Spring, 1968’
The German chancellor kneeling, with a crowd behind him, and the caption ‘Facing the past: Willy Brandt kneels in Warsaw, 1970’
A crowd with banners, and the caption ‘End of dictatorship: Democracy in Greece, 1974’
A sailor holding a flower, and the caption ‘End of dictatorship: Carnation revolution in Portugal, 1974’
Whither Democracy?
Fascism in Greece, state surveillance all across Europe, minorities such as the Roma under threats of violence in Eastern Europe, populist versus conservative national governments in Europe: No one is quite sure how golden the future is in the European Union.
Of course, we know that compared to some countries around the world, any of the EU countries is heaven.
But history is a fluid state, and what seems protected and entrenched in one decade can be torn apart in other.
We have to ask, for example, for whose benefit are the surveillance cameras above the frieze on the concourse of the European Parliament? Do they protect the citizens or protect the state against the citizens?
Instagram is a smartphone application used by millions to upload photos to the Instagram community site that you can view on your phone or on the Web.
Facebook bought Instagram a while ago and now, hot from the press on the The Instagram Blog comes the following:
Today, we’re excited to introduce web embedding for Instagram content and bring you an easy way to add Instagram photos and videos to the stories you want to tell.
Now, when you visit an Instagram photo or video page on your desktop web browser, you’ll see a new share button on the right side of your photo (just under the comments button). Click the button to see the embed code. Copy the block of text it gives you and paste it into your blog, website or article.
Use Instagram Embed To Get More Exposure From Instragram
If you are on the web, if you have a blog, if you have any way of embedding the embed code onto a page where your stuff appears, then you can get more exposure for your Instagram images with the embed feature.
Or looked at the other way around – get more exposure for your blog by being able to display your Instagram photos.
Important For WordPress.com Bloggers
Note that the Instagram embed code uses iframe code.
WordPress.com blogs do not allow iframe code and will strip it out if you try to embed an Instagram image and you will not see anything.
Note: See the update at the end of this article. WordPress.com blogs allow the normal oEmbed and Instagram photos now show up in the body of posts.
No Pinterest Pinning
Because the images are within an iframe, another thing you cannot do is to pin the images in Pinterest.
If You Like These Images
I joined Instagram in November 2010 and have used it regularly ever since then.
Naturally therefore, I am glad to be able to take advantage of the opportunity to use the hew embed feature to put some of my images here on the Quillcards Blog.
If you like these images, please feel free to click through to Instagram and like them 🙂
Hover over the word ‘Instagram’ and it will change to ‘View On Instagram’ and you can click that.
Update 14 July
I have taken out the other three photos and just left one of them. I found that the call on the image isn’t always as quick at rendering as the rest of the page – and so it leaves a big gap on the page when there are several images.
However, I have also found that inserting just the URL (rather than the iframe) does make the image itself linkable, rather than just the word Instagram above the image.
In fact with the non-iframe method, the word Instagram above the image disappears completely and only the image is shown. What’s more, the image is clickable and goes straight through to Instagram.
I have to figure out why the image displays smaller than the default 612px size. I suspect it is something to do with the Media settings on this blog (Settings > Media) and the ‘allowed’ sizes for rendering that Instagram enables.
I have also learned that pasting the URL in on WordPress.com blogs now works. Thanks due to JenT from GammaGirl following it up with the WordPress support staff.
