Text & Photo © M Lilja, JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014
Reflections on black, white and gold
Christmas advertising for Metro, ca. 1981.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
When I was young my mother worked in the advertising industry. Between the ages of five till about twelve and then again at around sixteen I got to model in several Singapore print adverts that included Metro, McDonald’s and Nintendo.
In one photoshoot, several girls were lined up neatly in a row, the purpose of which was to get us to take a hop forward and land on one foot, looking excited and into the camera. Out of twenty odd takes I looked up only once, much to the exasperation of the photographer, “Why can’t you look forward? There’s nothing on the ground! Look forward! Look forward!”
Even at the age of six, I found myself curious as to why it was that I just could not look up when I jumped. I simply had to see (and thus know) where I was going! I concluded that it was due to the rules of hop-scotch, a game that I played almost everyday when growing up at the Convent that I could only look down whilst hopping. You always watched where you hopped because stepping on a line would get your turn forfeited in the game, plus, that you had to re-draw the rubbed off area of the squares in the sand once you had stepped on the lines and recess time was only that brief.
For one photo shoot a large number of fluffy small yellow chickens was brought in.
Featured in the picture above is just about a third of the feathered little things. My mother brought home two little darlings from this shoot, one each for my brother and I to care for.
Art, wine and a reading
The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III, by a Swedish Marine artist, Niklas Amundson.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
The smiles were friendly and the smell of – what? – newly lacquered frames? filled the air as I walked through the solitaire gallery. Bright lights, strategically placed, to accent the finest of details whether of paint on canvas or the deep burgundy of the wines against the glasses in hands.
I studied frame after frame of paintings on the walls of the gallery, my gaze pausing slightly longer at – a surrealistic Miró. With wine swirling in the glass in hand, that wasn’t for my drinking, the picture on the wall sent my mind into a vortex of thoughts, with the words of Charles Bukowski’s South of No North (1973:85-86):
Continue reading “Art, wine and a reading”
Autumn equinox
Itinerizing Hong Kong
Street in Hong Kong.
The moment you realize that navigating this scene will require much more
tacit knowledge skills than years of actually living in Asia affords.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
– Don’t worry, once you’ve learnt how to ride a bicycle, you’ll know it forever. Bicycle riding becomes you. You are the bicycle!
So I was told when I was about five or six years old at the time, riding a bicycle with small trainer wheels at each side of the back wheel, that gave me no security in feeling in balance with the mechanism because I felt I was going to tip over one side or another at any one time.
Perhaps I’m not of the adventurous sort.
Bicycle riding proved traumatic enough for me as a child that was compounded by the fact that as I grew up, I never really got to keep any of my bicycles for one reason or another. I still mourn the demise of my muffin cute pink, purple and white racer, and no, it doesn’t matter if the colours of the bike has nothing to do with its function, that bike looked good enough to eat and as a little girl, that’s all that made my day just staring at it, not wanting for it to get a slick muddy in the monsoon seasons of Asia.
So at the back of my mind, not only was I worried I would never be able to balance without trainer wheels on a bicycle, but I wouldn’t actually have the contraption to ride anyway. Why spend time mastering riding then when I could be playing with my Cabbage Patch kid?
Continue reading “Itinerizing Hong Kong”
Summer perennials
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
A noticeable feature of the houses found in the Swedish west coast archipelago are the picturesque gardens that look unkempt. Seemingly forgotten and left wild, it is this visual feature that I find gives the gardens their defining, core beauty.
Since settling in Sweden more than a decade ago, I have now had ample opportunity to admire these grounds whether it is via seasonal garden parties or from long evening strolls around the neighbourhood.
The garden closest to my heart, was once under the care of a professor in botany. To that extent, set in an undulating landscape, this garden has some interesting varieties of plants from Iceland Poppies (papaver nudicaule) that every year shed red petals after only a week of intense efforts of drawing attention to themselves from the local bee population, to sprawling crawlers such as the Grape Ivy (parthenocissus tricuspidata), that come autumn covers nearby branches and facades in a fiery red and green.
Continue reading “Summer perennials”
Summer lilacs
In a floral summer wrap dress by Swedish designer Camilla Thulin.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
A Swedish fika over cinnamon rolls
Cinnamon rolls, well loved at Swedish fika sessions.
Text © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
It is usually around the small gatherings along corridors and the Swedish fika or coffee sessions that you’ll get a chance to candidly exchange ideas. Today’s fika sessions revolved around puntarella salads, a salad that I would never have discovered before today and might never have if one of us did not walk in with a delicious looking light garlic and anchovies infused box of puntarella leaves.
§1: so what else goes into this salad
§2: i don’t know / just found this yesterday / looked up the internet for a recipe [and i have it here today]
§3: [you don’t know] // but that’s very swedish isn’t it / to not know things / or / not know everything
[@all: laughter]
§4: but we have the structures in place / and that’s pretty solid
§2: think of us like a big ship / slow steering / but most certainly going somewhere // and there are many captains
§5: too many captains sometimes / and some not knowing the structures
[@all: laughter]
The North Sea
At the diving board, along the Swedish west coast.
It seemed I stood there for the longest time. In the wind.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2002 and 2013
This series of pictures were taken in the first summer that I was here in Sweden in 2002 and just before my very first swim in the North Sea, and just about my last too.
The average temperature of the waters in the North Sea in summer is 17°C (63°F) and 6°C (43°F) in the winter. I believe on this occasion it was a reported cozy 18°C. I much prefer if waters were a tepid 26°C, like those along the East Coast of Singapore or pick any white sanded beaches of the tropics from Langkawi to Bali.
The winter months see frequent gales and storms along the Swedish west coast, and apparently on this occasion, it was the usual windy – and cold.
Just before the push. It seemed I needed some encouragement.
Else, I was just taking too much time on the plank.
I think I saw the sea come rushing right up at me. No time for further thoughts!
Easter spring breeze 2013
Feeling bohème in a light spring breeze, March, Swedish west coast, 2013.
In a cashmere top, made in Japan, and silk-mix dress, made in Italy.
A belt with two long strands of cultured pearls bound as one, in light pink to deep purple lustre.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013
As the earth turns on its axis, the Land of the Midnight Sun is awakening to spring at a cozy -4 to 1 centigrade outdoors. Not warm by any standards but sunlight is here to stay for the next few months in a stretching of daylight.
The colour yellow marks Easter in Sweden, as red marks Christmas. And while in previous years, Easter decorations on tables consisted of the sunshine marigold of Easter Lilies with likewise colourful feathers and eggs, the symbols of the spring equinox, of new beginnings and fertility, this year in shops – black feathers – that were fetching enough for me to bring home where they immediately found a place on the dining table together with the bright Easter lilies.
Black feathers, available at the florists, find their way to interior decoration in Sweden this year at Easter.
On Swedish tables this Easter weekend would be piscatorial staples such as sill, herring and anchovies in the form of Janssons Frestelse (Janssons Temptation), a potato gratin laced with heavy cream, sauteed onions and anchovies.
And eggs.
Apart from the moulded bacon and eggs dish I’ve prepared, I would love spending exquisite time exploring some of the more delectable looking egg recipes. Softly poached and creamy to the palate, Eggs Benedict makes it high on the breakfast list and Shakshuka on the lunch list.
Cooking is as therapeutic as it is an adventure to the senses. Poached eggs are not always easy to prepare to perfection, but I figure after some experimenting, I might finally get it right.
With a not too impressive zero degrees in the shade, there is always a fairly warm spot to seek out in the sun. Strange for me, to try to seek out a warm spot when in Singapore the basic rule is to stay in the shade whenever possible.
An annual fun thing to do at this time of year is to sit and decorate Easter Eggs, where one of my first art classes in primary school in Singapore when I was six, was to decorate egg shells with paint or crayon – any design, any colour of choice.
The result from the class of an average of 40 girls, each with their own colourful painted egg, all collected at the back of the class in large baskets rendered such a pretty picture, I still remember it till today.
Art class: Easter Egg decorating techniques got really advanced this year.
Easter in Singapore in primary school was also marked by the annual Easter Egg hunt in mid-morning recess!
Teachers at the convent where I grew up would paint and hide hard boiled eggs, perhaps as many as ten eggs, in a small cordoned off garden that was situated between a rectangle of classrooms. This garden in particular, had low cultivated fruit trees, where girls could climb up and sit if they wished, though we were never encouraged to behave in such tomboyish ways.
I think I only ever picked up one Easter Egg in my years in primary school on such egg hunts. I remember spotting several pretty eggs, but never tried to pick them up as ‘prizes’, always preferring to watch as someone else picked it up and what delight she got from having that egg in her hands. Priceless.
Easter Lilies.
I remember that closed garden fondly because while it was surrounded by classrooms, very few girls would choose to spend their recess time playing in that garden, preferring instead to play in the large field adjacent to the school canteen.
Wonderful memories from school days at the convent, in Singapore.
From the Swedish west coast, Glad Påsk 2013!