All posts filed under: Features

Short Film Gem: CODA

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It’s been film festival time in Edinburgh these past days so I guess treating myself to a heap of screenings made me a bit more aware of all these cinematic gems out there, waiting to be discovered. Lucky me, otherwise this beauty might’ve never popped up on my radar as I avidly browsed my Vimeo feed yesterday: CODA is an exceptional short by animation studio And Maps and Plans & director Allan Holly that has been taking home an impressive cluster of 20 international awards, including prizes at SXSW, Edinburgh Short Film Festival or Anca Festival and was among the 10 selected animated shorts at the Oscars 2015. The 9-minute piece tells the story of a lost soul who stumbles drunkenly through Dublin city. In a park, death finds him and shows him many things. It’s a beautiful film full of simple, hand-drawn imagery, a heart-wrenching plot & a moving view on the appreciation of life and the fear of death. Watch below! For more info on CODA, check these links here: andmapsandplans.com @andmapsandplans qlqn.ie …

Nomad Adventures: How Far From Home

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* Adventure * Travel * Photography * Instagram If you’re eagerly ticking all of these boxes, there’s a chance you’ve come across Chanel Cartell & Stevo Dirnberger’s free-spirited project ‘How Far From Home’. Good for you, it’s ace. All of you, who haven’t, heads up! Over the past 15 years altogether, the couple from Johannesburg worked in creative advertising and branding industries and enjoyed what you might call ‘the good life’: family, friends, great and steady jobs, shiny cars and a beautiful home. However, their lives seemed to have navigated them into a dead end. Everything felt a little too set, a little too perfect, with too much routine and too little challenge. So they decided to sell everything they own, set out into the big world out there, seek the adventure and fuel their creative needs. Or to make it short: Two creatives. One wanderlist. Zero reasons to stay home. And because they can’t just live off their adventures & experiences alone, Chanel and Stevo signed up for Workaway, which allows nomads like them to stay …

Desillusion’s The Life We Chose

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It’s one of my favourite things of inspiration ever. Yes, we’re talking about Desillusion Magazine. Fusing the worlds of street and beach, the collective straight from the shores of France’s surf Mecca of Hossegor pays tribute to the youth & a subculture raised on a surf and/or skateboard. Since kickstarting their project in 2002, la maison desillusion has shaken up the print and digital world, released dozens of print mags and documentaries, shedding some light on the many creative individuals who are devoted to their inherent lifestyle and culture. Sticking out with avant garde aesthetics and innovative stories, minimal advertising and great ambitions, they recently turned from regular bi-monthly print issues to hefty hardcover tomes of insightful content. Based on their article ‘Anything that can go wrong, will’ published in Desillusion Magazine 48, Tome 4, director Pierre David now created short film ‘The Life We Chose’ in cooperation with Converse. It features a day in the life of L.A.-based skateboard pro Don ‘Nuge’ Nguyen, talking about the local scene, its communal spirit, his decision to …

Visual Art Mixology: Carne Griffiths

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The great thing about art is the diversity of the field, the unwillingness to stand still, but to push boundaries, progress and follow new routes. Apart from his fantastic skillset and unique approach to his subjects, Carne Griffiths clearly stands out with his technique and choice of material. It’s not merely the fact that he uses calligraphy ink, graphite, tea, vodka and brandy to create his paintings, but it’s the way he sparks an organic interaction between the matter by manipulating the drawn line that makes his work so excitingly versatile. Aesthetically his highly spiritual artworks explore the human form without boundaries, playing with symbolism, geometric and floral patterns to evoke a web of narrative patterns that feel all too familiar.           Follow Carne’s work here: http://www.carnegriffiths.com Instagram Twitter

‘Something Manly’ by Stewart Bryden

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With the gender equality movement gathering support from all ends of our society, tackling misogyny and everyday sexism, it’s almost as important to turn our attention towards female roles as it is to question our general perception of men in the modern world: What’s considered manly today? Have we already pushed boundaries far enough and hurdled the last remaining features of a once patriarchal society dominated by men? The first ever stand-alone exhibition by Scottish photographer Stewart Bryden takes a similar line, exploring the visual aspects of a changing manhood, playing on the idea that there’s not only one type but a great variety blurring the borders between the masculine and powerful and the sensitive and insightful. A former assistant to NY artist and photographer Ryan McGinley and collaborating with major brands and agencies like Reiss or Dr. Martens, ‘Something Manly’ brings together a selection of his portraits and commissions, including shots of photographer David Eustace, soul singer Charles Bradley or model Chris John Millington. On that note: Tucked away in between men’s grooming essentials, …

Spot On: Kate Copeland

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If you’re an attentive reader of independent as well as big name magazines and newspapers, plus follow art and illustration blogs, there’s a high chance you (deliberately or accidentally) bumped into one of Kate Copeland’s gorgeous works. As she’s one of my favourite illustrators currently out there, featuring the N/E London-based artist was pretty much a no brainer. In the last few years, she took the illustration world by storm and has quite a few heavy-hitting commissions under her belt, working for Der Spiegel, Esquire, Converse, Church of London, The Times or Sagmeister & Walsh, to name a few. Though it’s hardly surprising why clients from all sorts of industries queue up, with a style so classy and sharp, balancing on the fine line between simplicity and complexity, yet delivers punchy and imaginative portraits that bear her distinctive handwriting. If you haven’t done so already, care to remember her name. We’ll probably gonna see it out there more often. If you can’t get enough of Kate’s amazing works, these links will help you out: Website Tumblr …

The 100 Day Project √

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Hello curious friends, bloggers, followers, strangers and internet roamers! After 40-something days of lent, giving up coffee and sweets with an iron will, it’s time to turn the tables. The next 100 days will be about making things happen instead of taking a pass on something. So from 6th April to 14th July 2015, I am taking part in #The100DayProject, which has been kick-started by creative artist Elle Luna & quarterly magazine The Great Discontent who encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making. “The great surrender is in the process; showing up day after day is the goal. For the 100-Day Project, it’s not about fetishizing finished products – it’s about the process.” I’m a bit terrified about what lies ahead, but my excitement and curiosity clearly outweighs my doubts. So what am I doing from tomorrow onwards? Well, I’ve toyed with this for quite a few days until I settled with an idea that seems viable, hopefully isn’t too time-consuming and yet challenges me enough to keep going all the way. My little …

Rube Goldberg Coffee Machine © Dina Belenko

For the Avid Explorer: Dina Belenko’s Still Lifes

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Oh, those happy childhood memories! From an early age I’ve been an explorer, fascinated by the ways the world works, devoured books and binge-watched every documentary I could get my hands on back then – natural phenomena, technical inventions or the outer space, you name it – it seems almost odd that I never wound up in any of these fields professionally. For me it’s always been (and still is) a sweet feeling to conceive and refine a concept, to puzzle over an idea, to disassemble and put it together again, to struggle, despair and eventually succeed, seeing a project grow and turn into something amazing even if you’re the only one who treasures the effort on your way to an accomplishment. That’s probably where my enthusiasm and curiosity for art derives from: The chance to embark on a visual journey and immerse myself in somebody’s idea of the world. And exactly this gripping joy of imagining and (re)-discovering somehow slumbers in the witty still life works of fine art photographer Dina Belenko. At the very heart …

Sweeney's Bothy #1 © The Bothy Project

The Artist and the Solitude: The Bothy Project

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‘I am not an artist, but can I just live here, please?’ That was probably my first disbelieving thought, when I saw the beautiful images of these remote huts scattered around a pristine landscape. You could easily sneak them into collections of architecture appreciators like #cabinporn without revealing their true purpose – besides looking outrageously cosy. The Bothy Project, initiated by artist Bobby Niven and architect Iain MacLeod in 2011, is a network of intimate, small-scale and off-grid art residency spaces in distinct locations around Scotland and beyond. While offering a platform for artists from various disciplines and practices to journey and explore the peculiarities of the history, mythology, landscape and people in the areas surrounding the bothies, the team behind TBP is committed to use only sustainable, innovative materials to create simple, modern designs. So far, there’s three lovely bothies to marvel at: Inshriach Bothy was built as a part of RSA Residencies for Scotland and fabricated in residence at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop in 2011, before getting nestled in a sparse hilltop wood …

The Pigeon Plan

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We’ve seen wonderful charitable projects that had quite an impact on the lives of kids in areas shattered by war, natural catastrophes and social marginalisation by threading new, alternative paths. While ambitious ventures such as ‘Skateistan‘ are mostly supported by newly created organisations, generous sponsors, widespread media coverage (inside and outside of the mainstream) and hundreds of helping hands, a small project initiated by the collective around professional skateboarders Louis Taubert, Kerem Elvers and Lucas Fiederling takes a similar line, though with entirely different DIY resources and aspirations. The idea behind ‘The Pigeon Plan’ originates from a number of trips down to South Africa in the last few years, which left them saddened by the massive gap between the rich and poor in the country. While most newly erected skateparks in South Africa have a pretty good standard, many kids from underprivileged backgrounds can’t afford to use them without the necessary equipment at hand. That’s how the initiative comes into play: Over the last few months, 100 once-loved boards have been donated, collected and equipped …