If you happen to be in Copenhagen this week, don’t miss out on Copenhagen’s international documentary festival (CPH:DOX).

CPH:DOX is the largest documentary film festival in Scandinavia and is devoted to supporting independent and innovative film and presents the best and brightest in contemporary non-fiction, art cinema and experimental film. Each year the festival fills the Copenhagen cinemas with a selection of more than 200 films from around the world.

The festival is on from November 7 – 17.

Read more about it and order your tickets here: www.cphdox.dk

Tags: Copenhagen International Documentary Festival

Last week the Brooklyn Museum opened up the doors to The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, the first international exhibition dedicated to the groundbreaking French couturier. Playful, poetic, and transformative, Gaultier’s superbly crafted and detailed garments are inspired by the beauty and diversity of global cultures.

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in collaboration with Maison Jean Paul Gaultier, Paris. The exhibition is curated by Thierry-Maxime Loriot of the MMFA. The Brooklyn presentation is coordinated by Lisa Small, Curator of Exhibitions, Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition is on display until February 24 2014.

brooklynmuseum.org

Tags: Brooklyn Museum, Jean Paul Gaultier

When we think of future technologies we often think of shiny silver slim stuff that streamlines our experience and simplifies our day to day. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, designer, artist and writer, is in fact invested in future processes that disrupt that ideology. A prominent voice on synthetic biology, a techno-science based on the intersection between nature and design, Daisy has worked on various provocative projects, notably E. chromi – a speculation on colour-coded disease detection that would allow you to diagnose yourself by looking at the colour of your faeces! With a degree in Architecture from Cambridge, time at Harvard, as well as an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art, Daisy has no formal training in science yet continues to push the field outside its comfort zone. Grow Your Own… Life After Nature, co-curated with designer Anthony Dunne, synthetic biologist Paul Freemont and biohacker Cathal Garvey at Science Gallery in Dublin is her most recent pursuit and will surely gather a host of controversial responses (Hint: it features human cheese)

Unlike all the tech and gadgets we deal with, anything biological is really a bit gross. What are your thoughts on their dissimilar appeal?

Drones are perhaps ‘sexy’ to the people in the tech community but others find them frightening. But I agree – biology is wet, it’s gloopy and it’s threatening when it’s growing. There is the idea that it’s okay in context but when it’s out of place, we don’t like it. At the Grow Your Own… we have Sissel Tolaas’ and Christina Agapakis’ Selfmade ‘human cheese’ that they made for the Synthetic Aesthetics project, displayed for the first time in Dubin. For some, this project is just disgusting and visceral, it’s gross…you don’t eat stuff from your body! But is this really from your body or is it your bacteria, and not you?

When do you think the context will arrive where biology in that sense is acceptable – will it ever happen?

Synthetic biologists talk online casino about being able to control biology … but will we actually be able to control biology in the same we control other design materials? That’s something that interests me as a designer, understanding what a machine or a designed ‘thing’ is when it changes or evolves, and whether we will ever tolerate that idea of change. You may have seen Suzanne Lee’s Biocouture jackets made from bacterially produced cellulose. For a lot of people there is something weird about the material aesthetic – we’ve become so used to mass-produced uniformity and somehow we feel safe with it, which in itself is strange.

You’ve just started your PhD, what are you going to explore?

The project is called ‘The Dream of Better,’ I’m exploring why we think the future is going to be better. What role has design played in constructing hope around technology? For example when you get a new iPhone you believe somehow that it’s going to make everything better, there is an inherent faith in technology and design for most people. When did everyone stop thinking that the Garden of Eden was where it was at?

That’s interesting because you often speak about the concept of perfection and I’m fascinated by what dictates perfection or ‘better’?

The world is so complex that someone in the end has to make that decision. You realise that you can put all these protocols in place but the decisions are often ultimately made in quite an esoteric way. A lot of my practice is about managing and opening up spaces within synthetic biology, as an emerging technology, and asking whether there is a role for art and design here? If synthetic biology is realisable, what should or shouldn’t we be making with it?

How do we know when we’ve reached the future? How do we know when we are there?

Maybe I don’t believe in the ‘future’. I’m not that optimistic about it and I don’t think that’s necessarily understood when I talk about my work. I remember having a conversation with my mum years ago and she said ‘I don’t think you should have children…I don’t think today’s world is a good world to bring children into, my generation has ruined it,’ which is an extraordinary thing to feel. But that’s what I’m curious about, the belief that some people have that ‘oh, its just going to sort itself out and it’s inevitable that it will’ … but will it?

Text by Monique Todd

Portrait of Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg by Harry Borden.

daisyginsberg.com

dublin.sciencegallery.com/growyourown

E. chromi, 2009. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & James King with the 2009 University of Cambridge iGEM team.

The Synthetic Kingdom: A Natural History of the Synthetic Future, 2009. Photo by Carole Suety

Seasons of the Void, 2013. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Sascha Pohflepp & Andrew Stellitano

Tags: Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg

If you happen to be in New York tomorrow, don’t miss out Tinderbox Music Festival, which is an annual event showcasing a powerful and diverse lineup of emerging female artists producing innovative original music.

Rooted in the vibrant New York City music scene, Tinderbox fosters community by providing opportunities to perform, collaborate, and connect. Tinderbox donates its net proceeds to programs involved in empowering the next generation of female artists including GIRLS WRITE NOW, an organization providing guidance and opportunities for NYC’s underserved high school girls to develop their independent voices and explore careers in professional writing, and the WILLIE MAE ROCK CAMP FOR GIRLS, a non- profit music and mentoring program empowering girls and women through music education and activities, and the TINDERBOX SONGWRITING WORKSHOP, a program pairing established NYC female musicians with adolescent female songwriters to create and perform original songs.

The festival is held at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. Doors open at 5pm.

Check out the lineup here: tinderboxmusicfestival.com

Tags: tinderbox music festival

Gimpel Fils Gallery is currently showing unseen photographs by the British fashion and documentary photographer Corinne Days’s early work.

May the Circle Remain Unbroken shows the people that the work brought together and the friendships that formed over 20 years ago and continue to endure three years after her passing. It also illuminates Day’s pioneering approach to photography where the boundaries are blurred to the extent that it is impossible to dissect the constructed from real. Corinne and long term partner Mark Szaszy’s Brewer Street flat often doubled as a set where friends, models and muses all overlapped. In addition to the photographs, a series of music videos by Mark will be screened bringing to life the protagonists in Day’s work.

The exhibition is on display at Gimpel Fils until November 23.

gimpelfils.com

Tags: Corinne Day, Gimpel Fils, Mark Szaszy

‘A photographic love letter’ is how renowned fashion photographer Tim Walker describes his new book. Celebrating ‘little old ladies who live down the lane’, The Granny Alphabet sees Walker collaborate with illustrator Lawrence Mynott and writer Kit Hesketh-Harvey.

Their words and sketches sit alongside Walker’s portraits of elderly ladies and their belongings, arranged in alphabetical order to bring a charming British ideal to life. In this month’s Vogue Walker says, Over the years ‘I’ve been keeping my eyes open for an elderly lady with a sparkle in her eye.’ And with all proceeds from the book going to the charity Friends of the Elderly, it seems he won’t have to look that far.

The Granny Alphabet is published by Thames & Hudson on November 11. Tim Walker is donating all proceeds to Friends of the Elderly, www.fote.org.uk

Text by Beccy Hill

Tags: Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Lawrence Mynott, Tim Walker

Few people have the guts to delve into the lives of young people today, with all the various stereotypes and assumptions that swirl like barbed wire around UK youth. Nina Manandhar, a publisher, artist and photographer, has fearlessly produced in depth work surveying the dynamic nature of one of the most shunned age groups. The daughter of a printer and a former art graduate, Nina made a mark with her successful archive project ISYS with Cieron Magat, an initiative that provides a lens into the style and the living experience of various communities through film, books, exhibitions and events. Now with photo-book Money On My Oyster under her belt and imminent style project What We Wore in production; Nina continues to reveal the beautiful subtleties that make everyday life.

You describe yourself as a pop-ethnographer – what does that term mean to you?

I’m not quite sure what it means … I made it up. I like to immerse myself in other people’s worlds and almost become invisible in the process of documenting them. I guess a lot of ethnography is people going to far off countries to investigate disappearing tribes but I’m more interested in the contemporary city life, so it’s more ‘Pop’ than ‘world’. I like documentary because I’m really curious about other people and how they live their lives, and it’s an honour to be allowed to get a glimpse into their worlds.

Fashion is often seen as frivolous, however your work with ISYS often comments on social contexts through style. What is your view on fashion and its cultural importance?

ISYS was set up by myself and Cieron Magat because we are both interested in people and the idea of style as a way of getting to know people, of them declaring who they are. It’s not that I’m not interested in fashion and trends, I am, but for me it’s more about style, and the meaning of style – how it is used as a tool for identification and belonging to today’s world.

Youth culture also seems to be of particular significance in your projects – what draws you to the younger communities?

I think my teenage years were a really formative time for me, as it is for a lot of people I guess. I experimented with my appearance, had a real tight group of friends and felt a real sense of belonging through the music cultures I was exposed to. It was a time when I felt a real sense of community; belonging seemed simpler then.

There has been much talk about the younger generation as lacking a counter culture and a sense of clear identity – what are your thoughts on this?

The term ‘counter culture’ is so complex. There was a clearer sense of identity for the younger generations in the past because there was far less fragmentation of identities, both for older people and young alike. I guess youth cultures today have embraced consumer society more, but since it began, youth culture has been tied up with consumerism.

What I do think about a lot in terms of the younger generation now is a sense that their lives are lived out in a state of constant ‘publicness’ through the Internet and I wonder how that affects them and how they experience the world.

You’re now working on What We Wore, what inspired you to publish the collection in a printed format as well as online?

What We Wore was initially a project on ISYS; it was a weekly format that ended up being really popular. I really like print (my dad is actually a printer) and so saw how the concept could work really well as a book. With the help of my friend Eve Dawoud, I put together a proposal and took it to Prestel, who really liked it. It’s coming out Autumn 2014.  We are looking for submissions – get involved at what-we-wore.com

More on Nina Manandhar and her projects visit:

isysarchive.tv

thisisthecut.com

Text by Monique Todd

PROM NIGHT from ISYS on Vimeo.

Tags: Nina Manandhar

British label, Casson London, was born out of the desire to provide easy-to-wear urban style staples with a cool contemporary design aesthetic. Hannah Casson and Ben Fletcher create minimalist styles with an unmistakable London edge. The line takes super-soft, comfortable jersey fabric into designs ensuring the highest of quality.

This unisex printed t-shirt range, modelled by Lizzy Jagger, takes inspiration from music and London life. Casson has quickly become a firm favourite amongst a devoted London crowd including; Cara Delevingne, Sam Smith, Adwoa Aboah and Chelsea Leyland to name a few.

The label prides itself on its collections being made in Britain. Any outside sourcing is always checked by the Fair Wear Foundation of Ethical Trade and Justice for Workers. £1 of every T-shirt sale on their website is also donated to London based charity Kids Company.

cassonlondon.com

Tags: Casson London

One has been able to spot jumpers, skirts and hats from the French fashion house KENZO, outside Fashion Week the last couple of seasons. It seems like everyone wants to wear something from their modern tailoring, innovative sportswear and creative prints.

In November this year they are launching a new bag. KENZO’s street chic Parisian heritage meets laid back west coast cool in the House’s new timeless handbag, Kalifornia.

Kalifornia brings their urban sensibilities, honed in downtown Manhattan, together with the spirit of sun-drenched afternoons between the shore and the pavement.

Kalifornia is relaxed, yet precise, blending KENZO’s French atelier craftsmanship with Humberto and Carol’s pacific coast nonchalance. The soft, deconstructed design is punctuated by two “K“ zip details flanking either side of the bag that double as pockets, an ode to the ultimate biker’s perfecto.

The bag is available in multiple colour ways including biker black and racer red.

kenzo.com

Tags: Kenzo

Struggling with the demand to be everywhere and everything at all times, (despite having only the ‘capacity to exist in one point in space and time’) Jenna Sutela is a Helsinki based writer, curator and New Media experimenter who has recently probed discussion by creating the ‘living’ media project, New Degrees of Freedom (2013).

Realised with graphic designer (and frequent collaborator) Johanna Lundberg, the project, existing offline and online, entails the creation of an avatar that transitions back and forth between real and virtual space. Featuring contributions from fields such as architecture, programming and music, the body (avatar) continuously alters its presence, acquiring a new flexibility. As the divisions between online and offline, work and non-work, presence and absence dissolve, Sutela offers a refreshing take on what actually defines the body today.

On New Degrees of Freedom there’s a line that reads ‘every new link between one’s online and offline identities removes a “degree of freedom”‘…edging towards the implications of Zuckerberg’s claim ‘you have one identity’. Is a singular identity the ultimate prison?

I guess Zuckerberg’s notion originally referred to the blurring of boundaries between private and working life. In that case, my question would be – when everything is turning into work, is there anything that’s not work? What could non-work be? How can it be enabled? To me, his statement also speaks about how the freedom to invent identities has disappeared together with the Internet turning into a visual arena where we are exposed to constant imaging, surveillance, and the workings of information economy. The idea of adding degrees of freedom to our existence by means of real-life avatars can be read as an attempt to obscure our behavior in real space, leading inconsistent lives, or atomizing our presence in order to refuse the identity politics of marketing communications. It’s time to assume physical formlessness.

Your projects span across both the digital and physical – what medium do you most enjoy working with?

I have worked on several printed publications before, such as artist’s books, and these objects continue to appear magical to me. However, the experience with New Degrees of Freedom, producing a sort of living medium and including performances and installations, feels even more relevant right now. It has allowed me to explore narrative constructions beyond the physical limitations posed by pages and screens, ephemeral stories and illustrations. I find this interesting in the face of a general information glut.

Do you think the separation between the real and virtual is a permanent one?

I believe that there is a constant oscillation between the real and the virtual – between what can be imagined and the dimension that imagination has in reality. For example, digital technology once had an alien quality in our lives, but now it represents the norm. And what happens on the Internet also changes our relation to its surrounding world.

ADD METAPHYSICS is a publishing project that thinks about the digital through materials and vice versa – what drew you to this subject in particular?

I was asked to edit a publication at a digital fabrication laboratory where artists, designers and architects meet mechanical engineers and material scientists. The publication was to spur new subjects and perspectives for approaching the shared workspace between digital representation and physical realization. ADD METAPHYSICS turned out something like an experimental foundation course on digital materiality: a schoolbook of sorts, with invited essays and assignments around topics such as the autonomy of objects, the ‘mediality’ of matter, reproduction as a site for revolution, the ideological origins of computational design…

How important do you think it is to think about the digital in terms of materials and ‘the physical’ rather than as something formless?

The Internet, for one, depends as much on material and energy as it depends on information. A network of machines and cables supports our online activities. It’s a jungle of conducting, reflecting and insulating materials—an air of electromagnetic radiation and solid residues, mixing with atmospheric currents and bodily fluids—inseparable from the Earth’s geo-processes.

Text by Monique Todd

New Degrees of Freedom, Act 2: The Spirit of a Real-Life Avatar(2013) at Antagon art event. Photos by Hertta Kiiski.

Tags: Jenna Sutela, Johanna Lundberg

Penelope Lively wants to reinvent our idea of widow. Her new book Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life In Time was published last week, written ‘from the view of old age’. In a piece for the Telegraph on Sunday’s Stella magazine, Lively writes ‘I had more than 40 years of coupledom; to find yourself alone after that is to feel curiously curtailed, as though now you are only a half, no longer a whole.’ She has had to adopt a whole new way of living, and she is not alone. It is a common known fact that women outlive their male counterparts, and she reflects ‘life expectancy for women in this country is 82, for men – 78. But in reality, looking around, the gap seems more pronounced.’ She believes widows of today are a force to reckoned with – they’re in better health and want to spend their time being active and engaged, ‘I look around at my widowed friends, and the stereotype evaporates: one is a briskly busy academic, another writes books that are read around the world, another – at 85 – is a sheep farmer’. Not Victorian matriarch’s dressed head to toe in black then.

Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life In Time is available from Penguin Books now.

Text by Beccy Hill

Tags: Penelope Lively, Penguin Books

Yesterday Rizzoli Publishing released a book about the legendary editor in chief, Diana Vreeland.

Diana Vreeland Memos: The Vogue Years gives us a look behind the scenes when Vreeland became editor in chief of Vogue in 1963, where she initiated a transformation and shaping the magazine into the dominant U.S. fashion publication.

Vreeland rarely held meetings and communicated with her staff and photographers through memos dictated from her office or Park Avenue apartment. This extraordinary compilation of more than 250 pieces of Vreeland’s personal correspondence—most published here for the first time—includes letters to Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Norman Parkinson, Veruschka, and Cristobal Balenciaga and memos that show the direction of some of Vogue’s most legendary stories.

Each chapter is introduced by commentary from Vogue editors who worked with her, giving readers a truly inside look at how Diana Vreeland directed the course of the magazine and fashion world.

Buy your own copy from rizzoliusa.com

Tags: Diana Vreeland, Rizzoli New York

Quentin Jones is a London-based illustrator, a Cambridge philosophy graduate and one of fashion’s brightest young filmmakers, specializing in a cartoonish style of surreal photo-montaged animation.

In connection to Fashion Week earlier this month, Louis Vuitton released a new accessories film, directed by Quentin. Through her signature aesthetic, illustrative bold lines and pop colours brings the rings, sunglasses and belts to life. The film is styled by Fashion Editor Agata Belcen.

quentinjones.info

Tags: Louis Vuitton, Quentin Jones

Paul Smith is about to display a new series of photographic work by London-based artist Walter Hugo at the Albemarle Street shop. The exhibition, titled We Are An Island opens to the public on October 16 to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair London.

The show will bring together two major series of works that have never before been shown in their entirety. The exhibition space will host Reflecting the Bright Lights, a collection of portraits of inspirational and creative peers from the worlds of performance, art and fashion captured in silver nitrate on glass sheets. With luminaries like Eddie Redmayne, Alice Dellal, Carson McColl, Polly Stenham, Maia Norman and Jaime Winston captured by Hugo’s 1870’s lens, Reflecting the Bright Lights creates a portrait of today’s cultural pioneers.

The second series, The Nature of Interdependence, is Hugo’s 10-piece series of giant seascapes depicting the shores of Britain and will be on view upstairs at Albemarle Street.

Walter Hugo is a multi-disciplinary artist, working within the mediums of sculpture, 19th century photographic process, film and performance. He frequently teams entrancing expressions of beauty with the application of complex methodology or scientific research and process.

paulsmith.co.uk

walterhugo.co.uk

Tags: paul smith, walter hugo

From today one can see the young British Goldsmiths graduate Phoebe Colling-James’s first solo exhibition at the Ritter/Zamet gallery in London.

The show’s title is inspired by the wise and endlessly rich oeuvre of seminal American writer James Baldwin. It thus sets the tone and mood for Collings-James’ exhibition and her continuous concern with racial and gender-based inadequacies played out against the austere, formal language of minimalism. Violence, sex and desire are subliminal in these artworks; they are at once beguiling and unsettling, seemingly fragile yet laden with menace.

The exhibition will be on display at Ritter/Zamet gallery, 80a Ashfield Street London E1 2BJ, from October 11 – November 23.

www.phoebecollingsjames.com

www.ritterzamet.com

Tags: Phoebe Colling-James, Ritter/Zamet

Kate Moss will launch a new collection for Topshop in April next year.

Her partnership with Topshop first began in May 2007 and the first collection was a huge success. The collaboration ended in 2010 but now she is already working on the new range, which will be sold in 40 countries world wide and on Topshop.com.

It will comprise 40 pieces, spanning womenswear, accessories and footwear – and is expected to be inspired by Moss’s personal wardrobe.

Tags: kate moss, Topshop

Next week on Monday, October 14, Fronline Club London is screening Pussy Riot – A punk Prayer, followed by a Q&A with co-directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin.

Last year in February the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot performed a 40 second ‘punk prayer’ on the altar of Moscow’s most esteemed cathedral. Through this act they openly challenged Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, setting in motion one of the greatest show trials of recent times.

In Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, filmmakers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin closely follow the trial, which sees three members stand accused of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. Through incredible access to the legal system, they show the courtroom where Nadia, Masha and Katia sit incarcerated in a small booth, articulately defending their actions.

Book your tickets now at frontlineclub.bookinglive.com

Tags: Frontline Club, Maxim Pozdorovkin, Mike Lerner, Pussy Riot

Next week it’s time for the annual international art fair, Frieze London. The contemporary art fair takes place every October in London’s Regent’s Park.

In addition to being able to see and buy art by over 1,000 of the world’s leading artists, visitors can experience Frieze Projects, the fair’s unique and critically acclaimed programme of artist commissions and Frieze Talks, a prestigious programme of debates, panel discussions and keynote lectures.

Don’t miss out, buy your tickets now at friezelondon.com

October 17 – 20 2013 Regent’s Park

Tags: Frieze London

When you think of streetwear, you tend to imagine logo tees, caps and a boy wearing them. Most streetwear brands are aimed at men, and if they do have a girls range, it tends to differ completely to what they design for boys. A woman trying to change this is London based Zahra Swanzy. Zahra created her label Swanz Fly in 2008, born out of her frustration for the lack of attention to women’s streetwear, “There wasn’t any streetwear or street-inspired looks for women at all. I used to wear men’s clothes and I always used to like my boyfriend’s baggy clothes, but mainly I feel like women’s clothes tend to be very tight most of the time. For daywear and casual wear, it’s just not really what you want.” Designing her clothes with a woman’s figure in mind, Swanzy’s latest collection is called Heavy. “Heavy is old London slang for cool. It’s really a feeling I felt when I was a rowdy teenager, but it’s also about strength and weightiness. I just felt like women are not often seen as strong figures and we are as strong, if not stronger than men; we have to give birth and shit. At the moment, I’m really into women empowerment especially with my youth work, so that’s how it’s come out in my clothes. Original streetwear was all about expression and oppression, so that’s what Heavy is.” Check out the full lookbook here LOOKBOOK.com, and read more about Zahra’s work with young girls here londonpositive.org.uk

Text by Beccy Hill

Tags: Swanz Fly, Zahra Swanzy

George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg are the design duo behind the renowned studio, Yabu Pushelberg. With bases in both New York and Toronto, their interiors portfolio includes the likes of Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Bergdorf Goodman, Barney’s, the Four Seasons group and the St. Regis Hotel. Their latest project has seen them collaborate with hotelier Ian Schrager, for the EDITION series of hotels, as a part of the Mariott Group.

The beautiful London EDITION Hotel, which played host to the fashion glitterati over London Fashion Week has already created a buzz and has proved to be the place to stay in London. Located at 10 Berner Street, the hotel just opened this month and we cannot wait to see what the next-in-the-series Miami branch has to offer.

yabupushelberg.com

edition-hotels.marriott.com

Tags: George Yabu, Glenn Pushelberg, London Edition Hotel, Mariott Group