Amelia’s Magazine | We heart Hurwundeki

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Happy Bank Holiday Amelia’s Magazine readers! If, drugs like me, you’re nursing some pretty horrific sunburn, whack on some aloe vera and retreat to the shady and cool gig venues of London for this week’s pick of the best!

Monday 25th May

First on today’s menu are Canada’s tastiest export since poutine; Women, they play their jingly-jangly post-rock tunes (imagine maypole dancing in the sunshine with Sonic Youth) at the Lexington with support from Dag För Dag and Forest.

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Tuesday 26th May

We featured them in our magazine aaggggeeess ago-Amelia’s Magazine’s whimsical favourites Slow Club bring their dulcet tones to Scala, perfect music for long warm spring nights.

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Wednesday 27th May

I might just wet my pants with excitement- Wavves are playing Old Blue Last! San Diego’s finest will be playing their anarchic melodies and distorted surf punk. Keep your eyes peeled for our interview (probably a page of me gushing “why are you so awesome?”) with Wavves coming this week.

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Thursday 28th May

Owen Pallett is one cool dude, not only was he in the epic Arcade Fire, he broke off and created Final Fanatsy, a deliciously structured cacophony of strings and loop pedals; like being lost in a wonderland of beautiful sound at Union Chapel.

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Friday 29th May

Upset the Rhythm never fail to disappoint, this Friday they’re putting on something fun; Syrian legend Omar Souleyman with support from Saharan Group Doueh

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Saturday 30th May

20 bands are playing 2009 Brainlove Festival at Brixton Windmill, including performances from Kid Carpet, the excellent Internet Forever (keep eyes peeled for an interview), Napoleon IIIrd, The Duloks, gwEm, Pagan Wanderer Lu and a bundle load of exciting new bands from across the musical spectrum.

Then we’ll be heading to the Luminaire to catch our French crushes Nelson and asking them to be our pen-pals…

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I’m off to play croquet, have a good music-filled week dear readers! Be sure to comment and let me know how you enjoyed this week’s gigs

Just because you are a brave suffragette doesn’t mean that you don’t want to scrub up nicely.

As our readers know, site Amelia’s Magazine is passionate about the role of the arts in inspiring discussions and action over Climate Change, viagra buy and always wishes to share these discoveries with you. While the message of Climate Change is a serious one, the way in which the message is conveyed need not be, and sometimes, a large dose of playfulness is needed to spread the word. This is why we are so excited about the newest venture between Lush and Climate Rush entitled Trains Not Planes. I’m sure that you all know about the loveliness of Lush, but you may not know about the actions of Climate Rush.

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This is a group of people (which includes our Publisher and Editor, the eponymous Amelia, one of Climate Rush’s key members) who are deeply concerned about the issue of Climate Change, and even more concerned about the Governments “efforts” (or lack of) to tackle this emergency. Understanding that occasionally, direct and public action is needed in order to make the law makers sit up and take notice, they draw inspiration from the Suffragettes of almost one hundred years ago and show that peaceful civil disobedience can lead to positive change. Like suffragettes too, they make their protests in style; picnic blankets are laid out and tea and cake is served. Lush have evidently been inspired, because this week they too will be wearing their sashes with pride and putting on the kettle and best of all, you are invited!

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The occasion is all to celebrate the aforementioned collaboration and the happy result of this union is Lush’s Chox Away soap. (£2.89 for 100g) As you may have guessed from the title, Chox Away is made up of a blend of chocolate (and smells like chocolate too), vanilla absolute, peppermint oil and sweet orange oil. I was fortunate enough to get to try some last week and I have been whipping myself up into a lather over it ever since. Anyone who has shopped at Lush will know that every one of their products are creamy delights that leaves your skin soft and smooth and this soap is no exception. I might be biased, because I get ravenous over chocolatey flavoured soaps, but this one is seriously good enough to gobble up. From this week, you can also buy it when you pop into Lush, (but try not to drive there). If you want to be treated to the spectacle of Lush Cosmetics staff dressed as Climate Suffragettes and holding picnics then go to your nearest Lush on Thursday 28th May at 12pm sharp where a tea party will be under way. As they are such a friendly bunch, feel free to sit down on the blankets that Lush will have across the floors (which will be emblazoned with the message CLIMATE CHANGE IS NO PICNIC), and while you munch on your free vegan cake, wearing a “Trains Not Planes” sash, you can find out more about the cause behind this collaboration. If you live in the London area, then Liverpool Street branch are putting an extra twist on the festivities – they will be giving out free Chox Away’s! As they have been informed that they can’t hand them out on the station concourse (because of the association with Climate Rush, which is apparently considered ‘too controversial’!) they will be on Bishopsgate concourse instead. So if you want a freebie (and who doesn’t?) then make sure that you are down there at 12pm sharp!

As you can see, the events will be lighthearted, but the underlying message is a serious one, and needs to be shared. ‘Trains Not Planes‘ is the ethos which Climate Rush and Lush are in firm agreement with. As you all know, flying is doing untold damage towards the earth. Flying releases a lot of CO2 – which is even more destructive to our environment when released at high altitudes than on the ground and this is contributing to more droughts, flooding and other catastrophic changes to our climate all over the globe, including right here in the UK.

So Lush and Climate Rush are aiming to remind the public of the benefits of train travel, especially for business, or when travelling up and down the country. As Lush says, ” The world looks better from the window of a train than it does at 30,000 feet, and if we are going to take control of run-away climate change, we need fewer runways and more use of train tracks. ” Lush subscribe to the brilliantly titled phrase “My Karma is Your Dogma“, which basically translates as take the train, cycle or walk to work! They understand Climate Rush’s grave concerns over the amount of flying that occurs around the world (and specifically in Britain; were you aware that per person, Britons emit more CO2 emissions from flying than any other people on the planet -603 kg per person per year, compared to 434 kg for Irish and 275 kg for Americans? ). So if you buy a bar of Chox Away between May 25th and May 31st, Lush will be donating all of the proceeds from the sale towards the efforts of Climate Rush in tackling this environmental emergency. Lush themselves have a policy against flying domestically and all Lush staff take the train when travelling in Britain. This is something that they would like to see other businesses implimenting.

Speaking to the Climate Rushers as they donned their sashes, I asked what they made of Chox Away, and all agreed that it gets a vote of confidence. As they explained; “Not every luxury need be a vice. Here at Climate Rush HQ we’re inordinately proud of LUSH and their commitment to Trains Not Planes. Like spending time on travel, the Chox Away experience is a fabulously indulgent way to take Climate Change seriously.” One of Climate Rush’s newest recruits, Hana Cogings declared; “Chocolate soap? Who’d have thought…..but then again, who’d have thought not so long ago that trains were the future, not planes! I’m gonna lie back and indulge!” So if you want to feel refreshed and ready to Rush, then lather up!

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Meanwhile, Climate Rush will be spreading the word in the way that they know best; pedal power! If you want to come along – and all are welcome, they will be tucking their knickerbockers into their trousers and getting on their bikes in St James Square, London at 5pm on June 1st. The event is to draw attention to what will be the first night of a two day coal conference and Climate Rush will be assembling outside Chatham House where the conference will be held. It will also mark the first night of the pre-Copenhagen climate talks in Bonn, and what better way to mark this occasion than a gentle bike ride around town (where Climate Rush will be your tour guides, pointing out climate crime scenes and buildings that may be housing climate criminals). Afterwards, they too will be ending the excursion with a picnic. So see you there? We will be the ones smelling yummy, hope you will be too!
Lucy Barlow: Delicate Boundaries
First Floor Projects Gallery
5 Redcliffe Gardens, prescription London SW10 9BG

Thursday to Saturday 12pm – 6 pm
All other times by appointment
To 30th May

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This week is the last chance to catch the wonderfully playful exhibition at the new First Floor Projects gallery. Containing both Lucy Barlow’s previous drawings and sketches and her transition into paint on canvas, viagra the space is the living room of James Tregaskes; a unique, relaxed, cosy environment which compliments Barlow’s artwork perfectly. Stop by, have a cup of tea, and say Hi from me. Watch out for a review of this exhibition this week.

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On The Line
Shane Bradford, Oliver Clegg, Cédric Lefebvre, Ian Monroe
Ben Newton, Ayman Ramadan, Gavin Turk
Crimes Town Gallery
1 Yoakley Road
London N16 0JX

Friday-Sunday 12-6pm
Opens 29th May until 28th June

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Shane Bradford

Crimes Town Gallery, an artist’s run space presents six artists (working in various media) who are each freely interpreting the title in relation to our contemporary environment. The exhibition aims to discuss and open the debate on the possible effects of the current economical downturn on the art world, and whether we are heading for a reinvention of creativity or a starvation of possibility.

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Sherrie Levine
Simon Lee Gallery
12 Berkeley Street
London W1J 8DT
Monday to Friday: 9.30am to 6.00pm
Saturday: 11.00am to 4.00pm
29th May – 31st July

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“I consider myself a still-life artist, with the bookplate as my subject. I want to make pictures that maintain their reference to the bookplates. And I want my pictures to have a material presence that is as interesting as, but quite different from, the originals.” Sherrie Levine.
American artist Levine showcasing new work including poetry and postcards.

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Tal R- Armes de Chine
Victoria Miro Gallery
16 Wharf Road
London N1 7RW

Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am-6.00pm
Monday by appointment.
until 25th July

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Danish artist Tal R explains “armes de chine refers to a classic manual about weapons from ancient China. These objects, which once had a very specific and practical purpose, now several hundred years later seem completely abstract. Like a long lost slang…” With not a single piece attached to a wall and instead all pieces suspended or installed across the floor of the gallery’s main space, this will prove to be a very unique exhibition indeed. Expect everything from lost scouts, wrong fruits, embarrassed old uncles and melted minimal ice cream., taking forms of sculptures, paintings and work on paper.

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Parades and Processions
Parasol Unit Gallery
14 Wharf Road
London N1 7RW

Tues – Sat, 10am – 6pm Sun, 12 – 5pm
Until 24 July

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Photo by: Jeremy Deller, Veterans Day Parade, 2002 Video installtion, Courtesy Art: Concept, Paris

Featuring: Francis Alÿs, Fiona Banner, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Rachel Hovnanian, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, William Kentridge, Michèle Magema, Annette Messager, Amy O’Neill and Hiraki Sawa.
A ‘parade’ is usually a festive occasion for which people dress up in extravagant costumes and create elaborate and highly structured artefacts, while a ‘procession’ is more often an organised group of people proceeding in a formal or ceremonial manner, often with a religious or political connotation. The exhibition will feature works by twelve UK-based and international artists who take their inspiration from the traditional meanings of ‘parades’ and ‘processions’, creating works that epitomise the social and political context of our time. The resulting works, ranging from sculpture to installation, films and videos, are powerful forms of expression that address issues of history, culture, identity and politics.

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Michael Raedecker
Camden Arts Centre
Arkwright Road
London NW3 6DG

Tuesday-Sunday 10am-6pm
Wednesday 10am-9pm
Closed Mondays & Bank Holidays
Until 28th June

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A solo exhibition by London-based Danish artist Michael Raedecker includes new paintings and a selection from the last 5 years. He uses a unique combination of thread and paint to create his atmospheric paintings. They derive from and also reinvent different genres from the history of art including still lifes, landscapes, ruins and flower paintings.
In the new work, Raedecker references flowers, washing, cakes, table-cloths, sheets, lace, food and houses. These domestic topics and the decorative associations of needlework create a friction with the fetishistic nature of these paintings.

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Stitch and Sock It Up
Stitch n Bitch London

The Royal Festival Hall
South Bank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX

Wednesday 27th May
From 6pm

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Photo from faithdarling

Struggling with your latest sock project? Not sure about how to turn that darned heel? Or are you simply mystified by all those little needles and simply wouldn’t know where to start? If so, this week’s sock surgery may be just what you need. The experienced sock knitters will be happy to share their sock expertise with anyone who needs it.
The act of shopping can be a divisive experience, check normally somewhere along gender lines, but I would be prepared to bet that most people have at least once been betrayed by the deceitful mythologisation of shopping as ‘retail therapy’. Shopping can be hardcore, hideous megabitch – when it makes that imperceptible shift it can morph into the seventh circle of hell of escalators, crowds, queues, bags and blisters.

Is it wrong to want a little romance and daydream in shopping? I don’t want to shunted in and spat out, I want to be nurtured and seduced until I buy lots of nice things I don’t really need. Hurwundeki on Commercial Street in Shoreditch seems to understand this. Quirky, stocked full of antiques and things like vintage clogs and bow ties, it totally eschews style over utility, has softly lit stone archways filled with clothes and changing rooms with tall heavy curtains and stone busts inside.

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Stocking vintage, new designers and their own label, it has become something of an empire for its Korean owner Ki, and Thursday sees the launch of a new venture at the bottom of Cambridge Heath Road. It’s a shop-cum-café-cum-playground, but this is no family Little Chef: featuring a beautifully crafted playground that manages to fuse function and fairytale, it’s a sanctuary for local families wishing to visit and enjoy it for its varying facets. It seems a hugely positive venture for the Hackney community, as well as building on the idea that shopping doesn’t have to be a stressy, hellish mess. I spoke to Ki ahead of its launch this Thursday.

At the beginning when you set up Hurwundeki what was your aim in terms of the shopping experience?

Actually I have always been a hairdresser, when I moved to England, I was working for Vidal Sassoon before opening my Hair Salon in Spitalfields. I began to cultivate my taste for vintage via the interior of the Salon. I started to sell vintage items within the space, and subsequently opened a vintage boutique; and later launched the Hurwundeki line of clothes. The aim was to provide a shopping experience that customers remember, providing clothes that are classic, yet have a twist, in beautiful settings made up of artefacts that may have once been frowned upon. This has generated our own unique clientele.

I always remembered it after the first time I visited as it was simply such a nice space to be in.

Why thank you.

In terms of designers you stock, what are you criterias? Who is your
customer?

In terms of the Huruwndeki label, the clothes have to be classic, which means that they’re versatile. They have to have a twist, like in the pattern of the construction has been slightly toyed to give an edgy look. The price has to be affordable. We have our own niche, and for fashion, we are actually fashionable.

In terms of the service, we offer our customers award winning coffee, at very reasonable prices. The settings are out of this world, somewhere quirky, yet mellow enough to relax in.

Generally our customers are not just one type, we appeal to a variety of clientele because different facets of our company attract more to different kinds of people.

With regard to your new venture in Hackney, what was it that inspired you to
set it up? Anything in particular? Were there any other similar places that you could use as a blueprint?

Well it was originally our headquarters. And before that it was used by the car lot next door. We relocated, offices, but I had a feeling about the space, and developed a vision for it.

I like the idea that you emphasised the functional aspect of it all too – where did you manage to pull all your playground pieces from? They’re definitely striking walking down Hackney Road.

Some of the pieces where from our Commercial St boutique and some from our warehouse, that had been sourced by myself.

What has the response been from the local community? Have you had particular
support or endorsement from anyone?

Everyone loves it. The local community think it’s about time something like this happened. We’re getting great feedback.

What are your plans beyond this?

To keep expanding, never being satisfied to standstill, if you’re not going forward, then you’re moving backwards.

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Ki seems to have maximised the shopping experience by tapping into people’s lifestyles; not just the lone shopper with only themselves to carry, but the family unit too. I think it’s a creative vision that really riffs off people’s needs, and that’s definitely on the money.

Hurwundeki Cafe launches this Thursday, May 28th.

Categories ,community, ,designers, ,modern classic tailoring, ,playground, ,vintage

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Amelia’s Magazine | Charlie May: London Fashion Week A/W 2013 Catwalk Review

Charlie May A/W 2013 by Chloe Douglass
Charlie May A/W 2013 by Chloe Douglass.

There was plenty of buzz surrounding Charlie May‘s second catwalk show thanks to her status as a blogging fashion designer, so I wasn’t surprised to see many familiar faces so early on a Sunday morning outside the Ice Tank. Charlie is a designer of the minimalist ilk and she had chosen an apt venue to showcase her new collection: a photography studio with a white infinity curve against which the models paused for photographs.

Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May A/W 2013 by Jane Young
Charlie May A/W 2013 by Jane Young.

The collection, which had been inspired by ice, rock and fire, began in crisp white: sheer polo necks worn beneath wide lapelled tailored wool coats, with pencil skirts and sheer black tights. A roll neck knit was worn under an ostrich skin biker jacket and there was a distinct 80s vibe to the oversized blazers. Red lips worked beautifully with a simple silk shift dress and an A-line maxi dress accessorised with a simple black clutch bag by Danielle Foster. Moving swiftly through a few black, wine and gunmetal grey garments we arrived at my favourite looks, a cherry red dress and skinny leg suit. Charlie May successfully mixed textures and tones to bring subtle interest to her minimalist aesthetic, and I’ll be intrigued to see what she comes up with next.

Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May AW 2013-photo by Amelia Gregory
Charlie May A/W 2013. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Charlie May AW13 by Isher Dhiman
Charlie May A/W 2013 by Isher Dhiman.

Categories ,A/W 2013, ,Charlie May, ,Chloe Douglass, ,Danielle Foster, ,Girl a la Mode, ,Ice Tank, ,Isher Dhiman, ,Jane Young, ,London Fashion Week, ,review

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Amelia’s Magazine | The Life and Times of the Sabre-Toothed Sausage

Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration has now been reviewed widely on the internet. Here are some links to recent reviews and interviews with me:

Cheapzine.
Kevin Blowe for Red Pepper.
Smack That.
Inky Goodness.
Creative Review.
Creative Boom.
Thereza Rowe.
The Ecologist.
Pikaland interview.
Pikaland review.
Make Lemonade review.
Imaginative Bloom review.

Skype interviews with the Circus Project:

If you would like a copy for review get in touch with me.

‘Chanel No.5′ designed by Jean Helleau. Illustration by Sandra Contreras

When Freud pondered the question of ‘what women want, viagra 40mg ’ someone should have told him that there are few things more desirable than a beautiful bottle of scent. Since the early 20th century, the perfume flaçon (small bottle) has taken on many weird and wonderful guises – some of which have gone on to become cultural artefacts and artist’s muses. By no means a comprehensive list, here is a small selection of some of the most jaw-dropping flaçons you’ll ever encounter – some of which even manage to upstage the scents they contain.

Chanel Nº 5
“I always launch my collection on the 5th day of the 5th month, so the number 5 seems to bring me luck – therefore, I will name it Nº 5,” proclaimed Mademoiselle Chanel after putting her initial doubts to one side and deciding to branch out into fragrance. The name itself summed up the scent’s abstract nature, and was a two-fingered salute to the other flowery perfume names at the time. Launched in 1921, No. 5 made greater use of synthetic ingredients, resulting in a blend of rose and ylang ylang that is rich, intoxicating but decidedly ‘unfloral.’ The first bottle was designed by the lady herself, modelled on the Charvet toiletry bottle that once belonged to her then-lover Captain Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel. The resulting flaçon we know and love was created in 1924 by Jean Helleau, and went on to become the subject of Andy Warhol’s famous ‘pop art’ prints, as well as being on permenant display in New York’s Musuem of Modern Art (MOMA) since 1959. The rich gold coloured liquid seen vividly through the glass of the minimalist square bottle, with its simple black letters and jewel-like stopper simply screams luxury. 86 years on, it is still capable of stopping women’s hearts – my fair own included.

Shalimar by Guerlain

‘Shalimar’ designed by Raymond Guerlain. Illustration by Stéphanie Thieullent

Named after the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, and meaning ‘temple of love’ in Sanskrit, you could half expect a genie to emerge from this fan-shaped bottle with sapphire-coloured stopper, but the sweet vanilla fragrance inside is just as mesmerising. Designed by Raymond Guerlain in 1925 and manufactured by Cristal Baccarat (who along with Lalique, first turned the perfume flaçon into an objet d’art) the design of Shalimar was inspired by the fountains one might find in Indian palaces, and was displayed at the Decorative Arts Exhibition in the same year. The bottle has recently been given a modern make-over by jewellery designer/socialite Jade Jagger, who hasn’t strayed that far from the original, and produced a slightly sleeker version that Raymond himself would have been happy with.

Flower by Kenzo

‘Flower by Kenzo’ designed by Serge Mansau. Illustration by Kayleigh Bluck

I love the beautiful simplicity of Flower by Kenzo – how the tall thin glass leans gracefully to one side like a delicate stem in a summer breeze, echoing the sweet floral fragrance within – with a trompe l’oeil image of a flower appearing as if it were inside the bottle itself. Launched in 2000, the flaçon was designed by Serge Mansau, a French glass sculptor and stage decorator, who had already honed his craft designing flaçons for the likes of Dior and Hermés. He was given the concept of a flower by Kenzo’s artistic director Patrick Geudj, who wanted to highlight it as a powerful symbol for peace, and was particularly inspired by photographer Marc Ribaud’s image March in Washington (21st of October 1967) in which a girl holds a flower in front of a gun that is being pointed at her. Who knew a perfume could be political?

Shocking by Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli’s ‘Shocking’ designed by Leonor Fini. Illustration by Joana Faria

Inspired by a bust of Mae West, who was one of Schiaparelli’s major clients, 1937’s “Shocking” was designed by Argentine painter Leonor Fini, and best exemplifies Schiaparelli’s role in the surrealist movement (her designs included her famous lobster dress, and a hat in the shape of high heeled shoe.) The name was inspired by Cartier’s famous ‘shocking pink’ diamond the Tête de Belier (Ram’s Head) and Shocking’s encasing box was dyed in the same pink shade to match. In an era where few fashion houses were releasing perfume, ‘Shocking’ was Schiaparelli’s attempt to compete with her nemesis Chanel (although sadly unlike her rival, the label did not adapt to the changes brought about by WWII and closed in 1954.) The scent itself – a rather dry powdery bouquet of honey rose and jasmine – may not be to everyone’s taste, but the bottle still remains a little piece of perfume history.

Alien by Thierry Mugler

‘Alien’ designed by Thierry Mugler. Illustration by Karolina Burdon

Designed by Mugler himself, Alien is a bright amethyst and gold flaçon, made to appear like a ‘sacred stone’ brings to mind 1980’s sci-fi films such as Blade Runner and Tron –  and is a good example of the designer’s flamboyant, theatrical style (check out Beyoncé’s motorcycle corset for a better idea). Alien was Mugler’s second fragrance, which he described as a nod to ‘ultra-feminity’ and contains notes of sambac jasmine and cashmeran wood, creating a soft woody- amber bouquet. The flaçon according to the designer “symbolises thoughtfulness and peace of mind” despite appearing as if it’s going to hatch a new life form on a mission to destroy all humanity as we know it, HG Wells-style.

naked mole rat by Paul Shinn
Naked Mole Rat by Paul Shinn.

Every now and again something quite random catches my eye… and so it was a few months ago when I came across a news story about the *sabre-toothed sausage* – otherwise known as the naked mole rat. And why, malady you may ask, medical did this curious creature engage me so? Aside from the opportunity to showcase some fab illustrations of course.

Abi Daker - naked mole rat
Illustration by Abigail Daker.

Scientist Dr Chris Faulkes at the University of London has been studying these bizarre animals for twenty years, and what grabbed me about the story on the BBC News website was the unusual social structure of mole rats, who live in groups of up to 300 individuals.

mole rat by Nick Hilditch
Illustration by Nick Hilditch.

I’ll put aside for the moment the fact that “queen” mole rats get all the action – forming long term bonds with her lucky selected suitors (note the plural use of the word here) and ensuring that for most mole rats sex is something they will never experience – and instead focus on the interesting ways in which mole rats care for their entire community.

Naked Mole Rat by Reena Makwana
Naked Mole Rat by Reena Makwana.

For rather like bees, ants or termites, the mole rats care for their colonies as a whole, with the smaller mole rats taking on the roles of workers, and the larger ones fighting off any pesky intruders, eg snakes. They live for an exceptionally long time for such little beasties (up to 30 years) and appear to be immune to cancer… hence the intense interest from the scientific community.

Heirarchy Of Sausages by Gareth A Hopkins
Heirarchy Of Sausages by Gareth A Hopkins.

They may look bloody funny, but I think that we would do well to learn from creatures such as the Sabre-Toothed Sausage. After all, living in such close knit communities clearly works wonders for them… and they dig with their teeth – how cool is that?

Stacie Swift Naked Mole Rat
Stacie Swift‘s Naked Mole Rat.

Naked-Mole-Rat-by-Laura-Nuttall
Naked Mole Rat by Laura Nuttall.

Alison Warner mole rat
Alison Warner‘s mole rat.

Categories ,Alison Warner, ,BBC News, ,Cancer, ,community, ,Dr Chris Faulkes, ,Gareth A Hopkins, ,Laura Nuttall, ,Lemonaday, ,Naked Mole Rat, ,Nick Hilditch, ,Paul Shinn, ,Reena Makwana, ,Sabre-Toothed Sausage, ,Stacie Swift, ,University of London

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Amelia’s Magazine | The Life and Times of the Sabre-Toothed Sausage

Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration has now been reviewed widely on the internet. Here are some links to recent reviews and interviews with me:

Cheapzine.
Kevin Blowe for Red Pepper.
Smack That.
Inky Goodness.
Creative Review.
Creative Boom.
Thereza Rowe.
The Ecologist.
Pikaland interview.
Pikaland review.
Make Lemonade review.
Imaginative Bloom review.

Skype interviews with the Circus Project:

If you would like a copy for review get in touch with me.

‘Chanel No.5′ designed by Jean Helleau. Illustration by Sandra Contreras

When Freud pondered the question of ‘what women want, viagra 40mg ’ someone should have told him that there are few things more desirable than a beautiful bottle of scent. Since the early 20th century, the perfume flaçon (small bottle) has taken on many weird and wonderful guises – some of which have gone on to become cultural artefacts and artist’s muses. By no means a comprehensive list, here is a small selection of some of the most jaw-dropping flaçons you’ll ever encounter – some of which even manage to upstage the scents they contain.

Chanel Nº 5
“I always launch my collection on the 5th day of the 5th month, so the number 5 seems to bring me luck – therefore, I will name it Nº 5,” proclaimed Mademoiselle Chanel after putting her initial doubts to one side and deciding to branch out into fragrance. The name itself summed up the scent’s abstract nature, and was a two-fingered salute to the other flowery perfume names at the time. Launched in 1921, No. 5 made greater use of synthetic ingredients, resulting in a blend of rose and ylang ylang that is rich, intoxicating but decidedly ‘unfloral.’ The first bottle was designed by the lady herself, modelled on the Charvet toiletry bottle that once belonged to her then-lover Captain Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel. The resulting flaçon we know and love was created in 1924 by Jean Helleau, and went on to become the subject of Andy Warhol’s famous ‘pop art’ prints, as well as being on permenant display in New York’s Musuem of Modern Art (MOMA) since 1959. The rich gold coloured liquid seen vividly through the glass of the minimalist square bottle, with its simple black letters and jewel-like stopper simply screams luxury. 86 years on, it is still capable of stopping women’s hearts – my fair own included.

Shalimar by Guerlain

‘Shalimar’ designed by Raymond Guerlain. Illustration by Stéphanie Thieullent

Named after the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, and meaning ‘temple of love’ in Sanskrit, you could half expect a genie to emerge from this fan-shaped bottle with sapphire-coloured stopper, but the sweet vanilla fragrance inside is just as mesmerising. Designed by Raymond Guerlain in 1925 and manufactured by Cristal Baccarat (who along with Lalique, first turned the perfume flaçon into an objet d’art) the design of Shalimar was inspired by the fountains one might find in Indian palaces, and was displayed at the Decorative Arts Exhibition in the same year. The bottle has recently been given a modern make-over by jewellery designer/socialite Jade Jagger, who hasn’t strayed that far from the original, and produced a slightly sleeker version that Raymond himself would have been happy with.

Flower by Kenzo

‘Flower by Kenzo’ designed by Serge Mansau. Illustration by Kayleigh Bluck

I love the beautiful simplicity of Flower by Kenzo – how the tall thin glass leans gracefully to one side like a delicate stem in a summer breeze, echoing the sweet floral fragrance within – with a trompe l’oeil image of a flower appearing as if it were inside the bottle itself. Launched in 2000, the flaçon was designed by Serge Mansau, a French glass sculptor and stage decorator, who had already honed his craft designing flaçons for the likes of Dior and Hermés. He was given the concept of a flower by Kenzo’s artistic director Patrick Geudj, who wanted to highlight it as a powerful symbol for peace, and was particularly inspired by photographer Marc Ribaud’s image March in Washington (21st of October 1967) in which a girl holds a flower in front of a gun that is being pointed at her. Who knew a perfume could be political?

Shocking by Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli’s ‘Shocking’ designed by Leonor Fini. Illustration by Joana Faria

Inspired by a bust of Mae West, who was one of Schiaparelli’s major clients, 1937’s “Shocking” was designed by Argentine painter Leonor Fini, and best exemplifies Schiaparelli’s role in the surrealist movement (her designs included her famous lobster dress, and a hat in the shape of high heeled shoe.) The name was inspired by Cartier’s famous ‘shocking pink’ diamond the Tête de Belier (Ram’s Head) and Shocking’s encasing box was dyed in the same pink shade to match. In an era where few fashion houses were releasing perfume, ‘Shocking’ was Schiaparelli’s attempt to compete with her nemesis Chanel (although sadly unlike her rival, the label did not adapt to the changes brought about by WWII and closed in 1954.) The scent itself – a rather dry powdery bouquet of honey rose and jasmine – may not be to everyone’s taste, but the bottle still remains a little piece of perfume history.

Alien by Thierry Mugler

‘Alien’ designed by Thierry Mugler. Illustration by Karolina Burdon

Designed by Mugler himself, Alien is a bright amethyst and gold flaçon, made to appear like a ‘sacred stone’ brings to mind 1980’s sci-fi films such as Blade Runner and Tron –  and is a good example of the designer’s flamboyant, theatrical style (check out Beyoncé’s motorcycle corset for a better idea). Alien was Mugler’s second fragrance, which he described as a nod to ‘ultra-feminity’ and contains notes of sambac jasmine and cashmeran wood, creating a soft woody- amber bouquet. The flaçon according to the designer “symbolises thoughtfulness and peace of mind” despite appearing as if it’s going to hatch a new life form on a mission to destroy all humanity as we know it, HG Wells-style.

naked mole rat by Paul Shinn
Naked Mole Rat by Paul Shinn.

Every now and again something quite random catches my eye… and so it was a few months ago when I came across a news story about the *sabre-toothed sausage* – otherwise known as the naked mole rat. And why, malady you may ask, medical did this curious creature engage me so? Aside from the opportunity to showcase some fab illustrations of course.

Abi Daker - naked mole rat
Illustration by Abigail Daker.

Scientist Dr Chris Faulkes at the University of London has been studying these bizarre animals for twenty years, and what grabbed me about the story on the BBC News website was the unusual social structure of mole rats, who live in groups of up to 300 individuals.

mole rat by Nick Hilditch
Illustration by Nick Hilditch.

I’ll put aside for the moment the fact that “queen” mole rats get all the action – forming long term bonds with her lucky selected suitors (note the plural use of the word here) and ensuring that for most mole rats sex is something they will never experience – and instead focus on the interesting ways in which mole rats care for their entire community.

Naked Mole Rat by Reena Makwana
Naked Mole Rat by Reena Makwana.

For rather like bees, ants or termites, the mole rats care for their colonies as a whole, with the smaller mole rats taking on the roles of workers, and the larger ones fighting off any pesky intruders, eg snakes. They live for an exceptionally long time for such little beasties (up to 30 years) and appear to be immune to cancer… hence the intense interest from the scientific community.

Heirarchy Of Sausages by Gareth A Hopkins
Heirarchy Of Sausages by Gareth A Hopkins.

They may look bloody funny, but I think that we would do well to learn from creatures such as the Sabre-Toothed Sausage. After all, living in such close knit communities clearly works wonders for them… and they dig with their teeth – how cool is that?

Stacie Swift Naked Mole Rat
Stacie Swift‘s Naked Mole Rat.

Naked-Mole-Rat-by-Laura-Nuttall
Naked Mole Rat by Laura Nuttall.

Alison Warner mole rat
Alison Warner‘s mole rat.

Categories ,Alison Warner, ,BBC News, ,Cancer, ,community, ,Dr Chris Faulkes, ,Gareth A Hopkins, ,Laura Nuttall, ,Lemonaday, ,Naked Mole Rat, ,Nick Hilditch, ,Paul Shinn, ,Reena Makwana, ,Sabre-Toothed Sausage, ,Stacie Swift, ,University of London

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Amelia’s Magazine | EAT course 2011: Earth Activism Training at Landmatters in Devon, UK

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EAT participants 2009 at Landmatters in Devon. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Way back in the misty days of summer 2009 I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate on the EAT course, tadalafil which stands for Earth Activist Training: planting the seeds of change.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

Designed to combine spiritual, earth based philosophies with the more fervant strand of environmental activism, the EAT course is held several times a year in America. It doesn’t come to the UK that often – so this is the first year it comes back since 2009, and it will once again be hosted by Landmatters, a super inspiring low impact Permaculture co-operative in Devon. The course is always co-hosted by the amazing Starhawk, or Star to friends, a well known and highly revered activist and white witch.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory Starhawk
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory Starhawk
Starhawk gets stuck in.

It’s A permaculture design certificate course, grounded in earth based spirituality, and with a focus on organising and activism. What this means that it is a jam packed two weeks of intense training – learning all the ins and outs of Permaculture through hands on experiential learning. On my course we were trained by the head of the Permaculture Association, Andy Goldring, who will once again be co-running EAT this year. He was an extremely joyful and bouncy tutor who managed extremely well when faced with awkward questions about meat farming (from staunch vegans) and I learnt a huge amount of truly fascinating stuff about the way in which we can best live with the earth.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory Andy Goldring
Andy Goldring teaching on EAT.

Permaculture provides an incredibly solid basis for any ongoing work, be it gardening, art activism, general life organisation, social planning or community-wide projects. For instance an EAT course inspired artist and activist John Jordan to set up the Laboratory of Insurrectory Imagination, or LABOBFII, as an arts organisation based on the principles of permaculture. The beautiful and radical Landmatters was set up by six people who met on EAT and were inspired to live the change they wanted to see in the world. The first Climate Camps were planned on Permaculture principles to ensure that tents, facilities and neighbourhoods were placed in the most harmonious way possible.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Lessons take place inside a spacious yurt.

Activism is a key component of the course, and during my time at Landmatters I met many other people who were working on Climate Camp alongside those who work with No Borders, queer rights and urban land projects… to name just a few. It was inspiring to listen to people’s tales whilst enjoying the amazing vegan food at every meal time, sometimes so different and yet so very similar.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

Many activists don’t really spend any time considering the spiritual side of their engagement with the planet – and even though the opportunity to learn from Starhawk was one of my top reasons for wanting to go on the EAT course, there were some on my EAT course who were very resistant to her rituals and chants. But needless to say by the end of two close weeks together everyone felt differently, with even the hardest of activists softened around the edges, and all of us more grounded and connected to the reasons we feel the urge to engage in our individual choices of activism.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Rooh Star of Landmatters was one of our guest teachers.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Some of the amazing dwellings at Landmatters.

Taking cue from Jon Young‘s teachings we also spent time alone at our sit spots each day, developing our nature awareness. I chose a spot that overlooked the wonderful woods that surround Landmatters, and every day looked forward to reconnecting with the shifting patterns. A time to relish in the fast wash of my life.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

The EAT course was undeniably hard work, but so incredibly fabulously worth it. You can read some inspiring testimonials here.

If you fancy applying for the next course, due to take place between August 20th and September 4th 2011, then you don’t have long left to apply RIGHT HERE – only until the end of April. You will need to define your particular activism and talk passionately about your plans to spread the ideas that you will learn. This really is a chance in a lifetime and I urge you to take it!

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

The full cost of the course is expensive, but EAT does its best to offer many partial or whole scholarships, depending on need – which in these cash strapped times is greatly to be admired. To ease funding problems this year’s course will be partly crowd-funded so if you can’t go yourself but you understand the importance of the work the EAT course does then please do donate at IndieGoGo. The hard working volunteer organisers need all the help they can get to ensure that those who are underfunded are still able to attend this year. People like me!

Permaculture, Magic, Social Change – nothing could be better, as EAT demonstrates.

Categories ,2011, ,activism, ,Activists, ,Andy Goldring, ,Climate Camp, ,Co-operative, ,community, ,Crowd Funding, ,Devon, ,E.A.T., ,EAT, ,EAT course, ,Indiegogo, ,John Jordan, ,Jon Young, ,LABOBFII, ,Laboratory of Insurrectory Imagination, ,Landmatters, ,Nature Awareness, ,No Borders, ,Pagan, ,permaculture, ,Permaculture Association, ,Queer Rights, ,Rituals, ,Rooh Star, ,Sit Spot, ,Star, ,Starhawk, ,White Witch, ,Witch

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Amelia’s Magazine | This is a Chick-Plea!

The eponymous release from New York based The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has everything you could want from a summer album. A certain been-in-the-sun-too-long hazy-headyness without the too-much-ice-cream sugariness of many indie-pop summer albums. No-No! I’m rallying for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart being trail-blazers for a new genre we shall call ‘Sandalgaze” aka Shoegaze for when it’s not raining out.

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From the rip-roaring opener ‘Contender’, buy more about the album manages to be catchy without being twee, shop noise without being dreary, imagine My Bloody Valentine on a beach doo-wopping and you’re halfway there.
Whilst treading this line The Pains of Being Pure at Heart consistently avoid being schmaltzy. The track; Young Adult Friction is danceable, its lyrics of a whimsy worthy of Stuart Murdoch yet reflect on themes like first love with a sort of yearning nostalgia, again souring the sweetness. Here the oft-overdone boy/girl singing duo is slightly off-kilter and the effect is more reminiscent of early Yo La Tengo or Jesus and Mary Chain than Belle & Sebastian.

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The Pains of Being Pure of Heart is definitely tinged with nods towards the 80s and early 90s,yet it is perhaps too easy to criticise the album for this. The band manage to utilise certain stylistic tropes without being too retrospective or shallow.
In fact The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is refreshing in it’s redefinition of certain preconceptions: summer isn’t all about whistling and tambourine jangling anymore and Shoegaze is reinterpreted with a sunny touch rather like enjoying a 99 flake with Kevin Shields!

The album ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’ is available now and the single ‘Young Adult Friction’ is released on 18th May (Fortuna Pop!)
They play The Lexington, London on 15th May

Kitsuné has really got its groove on this time. Left eyebrows are often tilted to a 74-degree angle at the mention of a Parisian fashion boutique that puts out compilation CDs, symptoms amongst other music releases. At first, tadalafil you kind of expect endless Dimitri From Paris types churning out catwalk-flavoured lint, but Kitsuné really knows what it is getting, and won’t be holding onto the receipt. With utter confidence and bravado, you see, it was Kitsuné that released Wolfmother’s ball-busting old-metal limited edition EP. Benetton scratches its head in confusion.
For all that, Compilation 7 is a danceable disc, with lots of European disco-beats, and plenty of fruity basslines in the Frenchified Electro style. But it’s not the kind of thoughtless, juvenile poppy end of it. You won’t hear anything approaching “Lady, give me tonight, cos my feeling is just so right”, since the Maison-people (Maisonettes?) are clued up. They listen to Tangerine Dream and Elvis Costello, and anything they select from the here and now is selected with a certainty that reminds me of the chap who picks the leaves for PG Tips: He just knows where the good stuff’s at.
crystalfighters.jpg
Highpoints include Chateau Marmont’s Beagle, filled with synths fresh from Tomorrow’s World demonstrations, sidewinding through arpeggiated chords, with the occasional crash-bang with a wooden spoon by the stove, and Beni’s Fringe Element, which popcorns along with hi-hats before going to a thoroughly spiffing hiatus of slap bass with one of the squidgiest, wiggly-wormiest synth solos since Mr.Scruff’s Shrimp. Probably the most exciting track here is Crystal Fighters’ (above) Xtatic Truth, a journey involving Epic-Ragga-Happy-Hardcore, hints of Chinese Folk, and a choir of the ether.
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But it’s a plentiful CD. There are nineteen songs, in all, and although everything chugs along to the metronomic pulse of cubase, there is pacing and variety to the beast overall. Gentle relief comes best of all in This Sweet Love by James Yuill (above), as remixed by Prins Thomas, a ponderous chillscape based on the warmest fingerpicking, and an embrace of vocals. You will feel truly hugged. And once you’ve digested it all, you can take that lovely warm glow on the Eurostar with you, and buy yourself the bestest clothes (I’m not a fashion writer, actually) in all Pareeee!

You can buy the Maison’s goodies at www.kitsune.fr or at their myspace.
If you are a university student, online what do you make of your schools environmental policies? Do they even have green policies to speak of? This week, the students of the University of Arts London have been bringing environmental issues to the forefront, and discussing the various ways that both themselves, their campuses and the courses themselves can be more environmentally aware.

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The Go Green Week, also known as Green: The New Black has been running for the last few days and culminates in talks and workshops on Friday, that include Fashion Forward: Creating an Ethical Label between 4pm-6pm RHS East Space, LCF, John Princes Street
which asks: “How can you create a label that looks good, but is also good to the environment?” ECCA and the Centre for Sustainable Fashion present fashion design businesses that are sustainable throughout from their manufacturing processes and materials, to marketing methods that aim communicate and promote their ethical processes to their customers.
Also on Friday afternoon at LCC is the meeting “Students Going Green” –top of the agenda are the following points “Fed up with the lack of recycling at your College? … Want sustainability on the curriculum? … Think Arts London should GO GREEN?” Speaking with the Press Officers of the Student Union, I learnt that a large number of students have voiced their concerns over this topic. The recycling issue specifically has been on ongoing and much debated subject. Many students feel that not enough is being done to provide facilities to recycle. The Green Charter laid out by the Student Union demands that “Sufficient recycling facilities should be available at all Arts London Sites and all Halls of Residence, with consideration also given to specialist recycling e.g. textiles, wood at relevant sites.”

Also on the agenda is for the issues of sustainability to feature more heavily in the Universities curriculum, either in the form of specific modules, or integrated as a whole, and for the campuses to switch to a green energy provider. The student union also explained that they are setting up an “Ethical and Environmental assembly” that will set future Go Green Assembly’s. They have also been encouraging students to sign a petition that is campaigning for a greener Arts London. Realising that strong visuals are the best way to get the point across, the students were asked to be photographed with the green charter and upload their pictures to the blog. An example would be these brave folks.

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Gogreenweek.jpg

Learning about the concerted efforts to raise environmental awareness amongst students started me wondering how other universities and student bodies broach this subject. As this is a topic that is dear to our heart, we would love your input on whether your schools and universities are committed to the environmental cause, and if so, do you feel that they are doing enough? . Tell us more at hello@ameliasmagazine.com and maybe we can help to highlight the issue.
Be featured in this limited edition anthology of the best new illustrators engaged in environmental thinking. Read on to find out more…

***Please note that this brief is now closed: you can now order a copy of this book online by clicking here***

Laura-Maria-Arola.jpg
an illustration by Laura-Maria Arola from issue 9 of Amelia’s Magazine

Now, malady anyone who is following me on Twitter – my new favourite thing in the whole world – will know that I asked my dad to do the research for this book. I know what he’s like – apart from being a typical male who loves nothing more than “disappearing down the rabbit-hole” as my mum calls it (also known as busying himself in new projects) – he also loves a challenge. So I asked him to dig up some info on all the most obscure new alternative technologies currently being explored, sale so that I could put together a brief for Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration.

He rose to the challenge and then some… almost immediately I started receiving email updates on strange new ways of producing energy. But not only that… it seems I have been the unwitting catalyst for a whole new venture – or a whole new rabbit warren to explore, depending on your point of view. A trained if somewhat out of practice scientist, Bruce (that’s my dad, I know, wierd, I call him by his first name)- gleefully told me on Bank Holiday Monday that he’s just designed the best new wave power technology not yet invented. Having read nearly 2000 patents for various wave power technologies he has, in his inimitable way, decided that his idea is quite clearly the best (my dad ALWAYS knows best). Except he won’t share it with me, cos I might, like, post it on the internet or something, before he’s applied for a patent.

Still, exciting stuff, and just the kind of thing I hope to do more of with both this open brief and the resulting book that comes out of it. Amelia’s Magazine in print may be no more, but I could never leave print entirely, and so the idea for this book has been mulling around in my head for sometime now. What we need right now is a whole heap of imagination, because humans need to make a big leap forward if we want to get out of the mess we currently find ourselves in. And whilst the scientists and boffins of this world busy themselves with the minutae of complicated chemical reactions and intricate moving parts, we also need the skills of artists to make these technologies a concrete reality. Without both visions together we will continue to move at a snail’s slither, so my aim is to help quicken that pace. If I can inspire designers and illustrators to better consider the way their energy is produced by drawing alternatives, then maybe they will make better choices about where their own energy comes from. Of course I don’t believe that technology alone is a cure all for all our ills, but it’s a move in the right direction, and I aim to produce a book that provides a comprehensive resource of all the best new illustrators capable of engaging with environmental issues and envisaging future alternative energy sources.

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an illustration by Allan Deas for issue 9 of Amelia’s Magazine

What will be in Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration ?
The book will be a compendium of profiles on the best illustrators who submit to this brief. Anyone is eligible to submit work, from anywhere in the world. I would particularly encourage new illustrators; those who are still at college, just graduating, or new to the field. Amelia’s Magazine is used by many influential creatives looking for new talent to employ, and this will be an even better way of getting your work noticed globally.

What will the book look like?
The book will be the same dimensions as Amelia’s Magazine, thereby sitting nicely on the shelf with any copies of the magazine that purchasers might already possess! It will be designed in a similar fashion but also expect some new ideas.

When will it be published and where will it be sold?
Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration will be self-published (again!!!!) The lead-times are just too long with the big publishers, plus they would want more design control than I am prepared to give to them. The ones I have spoken to also insist on producing all their books in the Far East, something I am very uncomfortable with given the dodgy environmental credentials of many industrial operations in that part of the world. It will be produced in the UK by Principal Colour as a limited edition hardback towards the end of 2009, in time for Christmas. Advance orders should be available to purchase on my website by the end of the summer, and will be much appreciated in order to finance the production process as it is going to cost me much more to keep production in the UK. The book will be sold worldwide at specialist art book shops such as those that already stock the magazine. I will aim to produce a second (possibly softback) edition the following year to be made much more widely available.

What can I do to contribute?
I need a number of different artworks from aspiring contributors, so please read the following information carefully and make sure that your submissions meet the criteria before you send them in to me.

Submission criteria

EXCLUSIVE WORK: produced specifically for AMELIA’S ANTHOLOGY OF ILLUSTRATION

1. Most importantly:
ONE EXCLUSIVE LARGE PIECE done specifically for this anthology and not featured anywhere else.

This should feature an alternative technology that has not yet been built or mass-produced in any great scale. NO RUN-OF-THE-MILL WINDMILLS AND SOLAR PANELS PLEASE!

curled%20wind%20machine.png
an intriguing design for a line of windmills on a bouncing rod

This is a challenging theme, but thanks to my dad there are dozens of links below that will lead you off in the right direction. You will need to disappear down the rabbit hole for awhile for this brief requires time and thought to complete. It also requires huge amounts of imagination, which is what illustrators specialise in! And my dad! I’ve always held a belief that the scientific mind and the artistic mind are not really so different from each other. How else do you explain me? The child of two scientists?! but rubbish at science….

Anyway, I digress. In this illustration I want to see ways that a new technology would be integrated into our future lives… so interaction with the surroundings or people will be good. This is not a technical illustration, it’s an aspirational one, but you should imagine this technology in some detail, however fantastical it may be. You could even look back at technologies that were patented as far ago as the 1800s, but that have never become part of the mainstream. Your chosen technology should be the main focus of your whole picture, but don’t forget to add detail.
This should be accompanied by a short written piece describing why you picked this particular technology and what the illustration means to you. This should be no more than 300 words.

A word to the wise: the more obscure your choice of technology the better, since I will probably choose different technologies for each illustrator that I choose to profile.
You can choose to work in two sizes:
Double page (as was used in Amelia’s Magazine)
SIZE: page size: 400mm wide x 245mm high, with a bleed of 3mm all around; ie. final size of your artwork: 406mm x 251mm.
or
Single page
SIZE: page size: 200mm wide x 245mm high, with a bleed of 3mm all around; ie. final size of your artwork: 206mm x 251mm.
NOTE: Don’t put important stuff in the 3mm bleed zone (but do continue your image into it) as this is where the printers may cut bits off when the magazine is cut and bound.
RESOLUTION: 300dpi, as a photoshop file in CYMK mode, using Photoshop print profile: euro standard swap coated 20% (or euroscale V2)
GUTTER: please also note that the book will have a very deep gutter in the middle so it is good to keep important parts of your illustration away from the centre of the spread in double page images.
MY STYLE: if you want to know about my taste in illustration you should check out the current issue of the mag, or buy a back issue here!

2. A exclusive PICTORIAL LOGO on an environmental theme

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Logo designed by Adrian Fleet for Climate Camp in the City at the G20 protests

If you have submitted something for the Climate Camp logo open brief then you would be able to resubmit it for this brief, irrespective of whether it was used or not. The logo could be for an event or a company or a product or anything at all, but it must be promoting environmental themes and ideas. I will be looking for colourful and engaging logos. Consider the work of Adrian Fleet for the G20 Climate Camp in the City logo when thinking about what to enter for this. My style tends to be maximalist, but the words must always be a bold and easy part of the logo to read. It could be work that you have already created and has already been used by a brand (though please check with them before sending it to me) or you could create a new piece of work for a real or fictional brand. It should encompass a creative use of typography with illustration. There will be plenty of food for thought amongst the alternative technologies you will already have researched.
This should be accompanied by a short written piece describing what the logo has or would be used for. 50 words max.
It can be any size, but please create work at 300 dpi to a largish size.

3. Typography: YOUR NAME!
Please create your name in the most imaginative way possible. This could be done by hand, or on a computer, but you should really go to town! Amelia’s Magazine is well known for the use of creative typography, and for Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration the floor is open to you to create your own type for your own name (or how you would like to be known professionally) Don’t think of it as branding, but as something to go to town with. If your work is chosen it will be used to head your page, and it should therefore be really creative and fun. Think of this as your chance to really grab the reader’s attention!
For this reason please work to these dimensions and no smaller. (it could be bigger)
SIZE: 200-400mm wide x 40mm high
RESOLUTION: 300dpi, as a photoshop file in CYMK mode, using Photoshop print profile: euro standard swap coated 20% (or euroscale V2)

4. A Border
Again this should fit a single page and reflect an environmental theme. Be sure to work with 3mm bleed and no more than 25mm in from the edge.
SIZE: page size: 200mm wide x 245mm high, with a bleed of 3mm all around; ie. final size of your artwork: 206mm x 251mm.
NOTE: Don’t put important stuff in the 3mm bleed zone (but do continue your border into it) as this is where the printers may cut bits off when the magazine is cut and bound.
RESOLUTION: 300dpi, as a photoshop file in CYMK mode, using Photoshop print profile: euro standard swap coated 20% (or euroscale V2)

NON EXCLUSIVE work:
4. Two other bits of illustration.

These should be your best recent work. They do not necessarily need to be on an environmental theme but should showcase as wide a range of imagery as possible, eg. people, things, places, typography etc. If you have created artwork for any of my previous open briefs this could form part of your submission although I would prefer to see new work. Be sure to stick to one style though – illustrators with a strong style of their own will always make the biggest mark, and I am unlikely to pick anyone who does not show a strong style throughout their submissions.
These can be any size, but please label each illustration clearly with a name and date of creation.
SIZE: as big as possible to fit the book’s page sizes.
RESOLUTION: 300dpi, as a photoshop file in CYMK mode, using Photoshop print profile: euro standard swap coated 20% (or euroscale V2)

CLOSING DATE: Monday 3rd August, by midnight please.
Please send lo res versions of your images (saved for web) to info@ameliasmagazine.com in an email clearly marked ANTHOLOGY OF ILLUSTRATION so that I don’t lose sight of it in my inbox if I am rushing through things on the day it arrives.
(This should be 6 pieces of work altogether. PLEASE DON’T SEND MORE THAN THIS)

If you are chosen for inclusion in Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration then you will be notified shortly after this date, once I have made my decisions. I have yet to decide how I will put together the profiles, but I may well need a photo from you and a short interview. If this is the case you will be notified later on in the summer.
And if you have any questions that are not answered above then please email me for clarification.
Join the facebook event here to ensure you get updates as they happen.

Best wishes and happy drawing!

Links
Below is a very long list of links, courtesy of Bruce: this is by no means conclusive, and the technologies may never work, but they are all being explored and would be valid ideas to illustrate. Youtube and Google Images are both a great source of innovative technologies, and I am sure you can find more. Feel free to go off and google you heart out – but you must illustrate something real and possible, and not a fantasy idea of your own. (unless you are also a scientist of course)

Wind turbines

Wikipedia wind power info

Magenn’s revolutionary wind power system on youtube

Magenn Air Rotar system

Magenn’s home page

The Floating Balloon Wind Generator

Motorwind Camping Set Wind Turbine

Knex wind turbine

Magnetically Levitated wind turbine

Great pic of huge Maglev wind turbine

Wikipedia entry about Maglev wind turbines

Maglev wind turbines homepage

Mag-Wind Vertical Axis Turbine

A Flying Wind Machine!

Floating Wind Turbines

A great blog about lots of different alternative energy projects including wierd and fantastical wind turbines

Huge Kites

Optiwind accelerating turbine

Selsam superturbines

Rotating wind power towers

Broadstar’s Aerocam

FloDesign wind turbines

Wikipedia definition of airborne wind turbines

downloadable PDF containing interesting info about different types of airborne wind turbines

Wikipedia definition of Kitegen

Kitegen website – plans for a huge airborne wind farm!

Great picture of how kites could generate electricity

Guardian article about kite power

Video showing how a kite ladder would work

Makani Power high altitude wind kites

Google have put money into the Makani vision

Makani “wind dam” picture

Great article about Saul Griffith — wind energy entrepeneur, and president of Makani

Tom Van Sant makes amazing kite ladders as sculpture

Wind Harvesting farms

Helix Wind

More Helix Wind porn

Google search results for wind power technologies

Mariah Power wind turbines

Google videos about wind power

The huge offshore aerogenerator

Quiet Revolution wind turbines

Wave power

Oscillating water columns

Anaconda wave technology

SIE-CAT wave energy accumulator

A list of wave power patents going back to the 1800s

Danish Wave Energy Society

the Wave Dragon

Wave Star Energy

Wave Energy Centre

CWave Power

the Aegir Dynamo

CETO

Columbia Power

Float wave electric power station

the Manchester Bobber

Orecon oscillating water column

OE Buoy

Aquamarine power

Sperboy wave energy converter

SSG Concept

The Seadog Pump

Buoys technology

Floating power plant

Surf Power

Power Buoy

the Wave Roller

Langlee Wave Power

the WRASPA

video about Harnessing the Gulf Stream! (is this a good idea?)

Wikipedia entry about wave power

Pelamis on wikipedia

Pelamis wave power

Pelamis being tested in Portugal

Google videos on wave power

Biowave power system

video showing Biowave power working

Video – giant rubber snakes!

SRI wave powered generator

Ocean Power Technologies

video – Aqua Buoys

Aqua Buoy movie

Oyster wave power

Tidal power

Wikipedia on tidal power

Video – tidal wave energy

youtube – idea for tidal energy barrage in florida

Sea Gen

google video links for Sea Gen

Marine Current Turbines

video of Biostream tidal power system

Gorlov helical water turbine on wikipedia

Gorlov Helical Turbine

3D interactive model that shows blades of Gorlov turbine

Severn Barrage

Solar Energy

Wikipedia on solar energy

Thermal

wikipedia on thermal solar energy

wikipedia on solar energy generating systems

wikipedia on solar power tower

BBC news report on solar power stations

Solar Power tower in Spain

image of Solar Power tower

more images of solar power tower in spain

Bright Source solar power on wikipedia

Bright Source Energy

Solar Reserve

youtube on solar tower energy

solar tower energy in spain on youtube

Enviromission solar tower

Suncatchers

Dual axis solar tower structure

Voltaic

photovoltaic energy

youtube on israeli solar energy

First Solar free field power plants

youtube about plastic solar cells producing solar power

Konarka power plastic

Standard geothermal

Geothermal power on wikipedia

youtube geothermal energy vid

Enhanced geothermal

Wikipedia – enhanced geothermal systems

youtube video on enhanced geothermal systems

Hot Rock Technology

Alta Rock Energy

Petratherm

Geodynamics
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The Reluctant Photojournalist

Features a variety of vintage and modern prints from Werner Bischof’s well known humanitarian photography including the Bihar famine, more about Europe post WWII and the South Korean war. Alongside these sit Bischof’s equally beautiful but perhaps lesser known early experiments with abstracts and nudes.

Photographic co-op Magnum Photos Ground Floor, 63 Gee Street, London EC1V 3RS, 0207 490 1771
Free Entry
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re.orient.ate

Reorienting common notions of contemporary Arab art and lifestyle and debunking ‘Orientalist’ depictions. Arab artists Marianne Catzaras, Dora Dhouib and Wael Shawky explore themes of mass media, Diaspora and religion via film and photography.

Selma Feriani Gallery, 23 Maddox Street, Mayfair, London W1S 2QN
7th Apr – 13th May 2009
Free entry
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The Abyss

A new joint exhibition by former Wimbledon College of Art students, Nicola Stead and Dan Jupp.

The Outside World, 44 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP
7th May – 13th May By appointment Thursday to Saturday
Free entry
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The Hiding Place

Lewis Chamberlain
Exquisitely rendered pencil drawings whisk the viewer away into muted landscapes
which toy with scale, suburbia and the surreal.

James Hyman Gallery Savile Row, London W1S 3PD, 020 7494 3857
30th April – 30th May
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Crafted
Contemporary Craft and Fine Art

An exhibition celebrating the materials, processes and techniques involved in making extraordinary objects, the exhibition will feature nine artists from different arts and craft and design fields.

Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Church Lane, Carmarthen SA31 1LH
4th Apr – 16th May 09, 10 – 5 Mon – Sat
Free entry
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Monday 11 May

Telepathe are a too-cool-for-school three piece from Brooklyn. They’re playing 93 Feet East. They get obtuse Krautronica and make it go “POP!” – maybe they’ll be the next Animal Collective… Supported by Ou Est Le Swimming Pool.
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Tuesday 12 May

Dan Mangan plays The Electroacoustic Club, salve housed at The Slaughtered Lamb, viagra Clerkenwell. He’s a heartfelt songwriting kind of guy, information pills sings like he means it, and he’s much better than that Elbow record. Support comes from Deer Park.
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Wednesday 13 May

Our new favourite boyfriend-girlfriend duettists, Young Paul, will be giving The Cobden Club, 107 Kensal road a taste of 80s electronic treats. get in touch with the band for hassle-free entry, as it’s a private members club. Not just a fine gig, then, but also a chance to see where the Old Etonians schmooze.

Thursday 14 May

Alice and The Cool Dudes at Barden’s Boudoir. This is the high point of our music week. Alice Grant of Fulborn Teversham, is leaving her jazzhead buddies to one side to unveil some pensive indie songs, delivered by a totally unique voice that totters across a tightrope of uncannily powerful and tearful exhaustion. Surely she won’t disappoint?????
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Friday 15 May

Up in Nottingham, North-East London’s finest jokeshop salesmen of parallel-universe, narrative ska will be testing out some new material where they think no one can hear them. If you can find a place called Demo, you must prove Hothead Show wrong. Prepare for shockingly tight wizardry of the jerky-jerky groove.
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Saturday 16 May

A night of so-angry-we-can-only-tell-you-very-very-slowly Metal, with some catatonically droning Grunge, and atonal noise that may cause loss of balance on all but the lowest of seating. Roll up at The Constitution and enjoy Dethscalator, Scul Hazzards and Batrider. If you don’t take earplugs, then take cotton wool to mop up you bleeding lugholes.

Sunday 17 May

Always a good bet for a sunday night is Cross Kings, 126 York Way, in King’s Cross. On the ground level, David Goo will jolly along an open mic, which always has a few very eccentric envelope-pushers pencilled in. The avant-gardishness couples nicely with the family warmth, houmous and pitta that makes this a great pub. It’s worth paying a few quid to be allowed into the basement also. Things are a bit more organized (sound-checks and everything) but happily, there’s still no obvious divide between the musicians and the audience. What sundays are for.

Tuesday 12th May

Climate (Mis)behaviour
7pm
Dana Center
The Science Museum’s Dana Centre, dosage
?165 Queen’s Gate?, sildenafil
South Kensington
?London?SW7 5HD
?talk@danacentre.org.uk
+0044 (0)207 942 4040

Rescuing the planet requires behavioural change on an unprecedented scale. From individual action to global politics, what are the different strategies attempting to achieve this? Social psychology, advertising, policy and direct action are all thrown into the mix in this debate. ??This event is trying out a new format called Policy Slam, which is funded by the Democratic Innovation Fund of the Ministry of Justice. With the help of the experts, you will discuss, present and vote on several different options.

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Illustration by Lea Jaffy

Wednesday 13th May
Morphic Resonance, Collective Memory and Habits of Nature – An evening with Rupert Sheldrake

6.30pm drinks & buffet at Gaia House, 
(18 Well Walk, Hampstead, NW3 1LD)

7.30pm Talk & discussion at Burgh House 
(Opposite Gaia House, New End Square, Hampstead, NW3 1LT)

When Rupert Sheldrake first put forward his idea of Morphic Resonance more than twenty years ago, it caused a great stir in the scientific community.  The Editor of Nature denounced it as “the best candidate for burning there has been for many years” and proclaimed that it was “heresy”.  In his recently published new edition, available on the evening, Rupert documents the evidence that has built up in support of this hypothesis.  He will reflect on the Human Genome Project and other reductionist ideas, where few of the grand claims have come to fruition, not unlike the economic bubble that has recently burst.
 
The paradigm shift that Morphic Resonance offers is coherent with the Gaia Hypothesis, where the cosmos is understood to be a developing organism, where nature is alive, interconnected and creative.  There is an inherent memory in nature, and evolution is an interplay of habit and creativity, like our own lives.  According to this way of seeing formative causation, all self-organising systems, including crystals, plants and animals contain an inherent memory, given by a process called morphic resonance from previous similar systems.  
 
These ideas also resonate with diverse indigenous traditions around the world, including those of European ancestry.  For much of our history humans have experienced our relationship with the Earth, and indeed the Universe, to be fluid and reciprocal.  Rupert has taken up the challenge of exploring this ancient wisdom thorough the modern scientific tradition.
You can reserve your place online at: www.gaiafoundation.org/learning/online.php
Or send  a cheque for £10, made payable to The Gaia Foundation.

For further details please contact Sarah at: sarahn@gaianet.org or 020 7428 0055.
 
Rupert Sheldrake is recognised as one of the world’s most innovative biologists.  He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society, and is currently Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project.  He is author of more than 80 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and many books, including ‘The Presence of the Past’,  ‘The Sense of Being Stared At’, ‘Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home’  and  ‘Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness’. His web site is www.sheldrake.org

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llustration by Eco Labs

Thursday 14th May
TAKE BACK THE POWER!? THE IMPORTANCE OF DIRECT ACTION TODAY

6:30-9pm
?Amnesty International UK
Human Rights Action Centre?
17 – 25 New Inn Yard
London EC2A 3EA
Nearest tube: Old Street

Free entry, refreshments and snacks provided
RSVP: london@climatecamp.org.uk or call 07534 598 733 (Early booking recommended!)
Find out what YOU can DO to stop climate change.?Throughout history ordinary people have been responsible for all major social changes – women’s rights, civic rights and even democracy itself in many places can be said to be result of direct action. Taking action is the very first step in making big changes happen. Direct action is taken by people who feel that the political process is not working to address profoundly important issues.
Climate change is the most urgent challenge we’ve ever faced – and politicians are not showing the strength of character needed to actually address this problem. Instead of serious sustainable solutions we see new runways and new coal fired power stations- deals that benefit the bottom line of the big players and not the wider population. Climate Camp believes that people everywhere need to work out what they can do – and then do it. Taking action yourself to make the world you want to see is a logical response to a very serious situation.

Are you interested in doing more to highlight the urgency of climate change? Or the relevance of direct action to struggles for jobs, peace and justice? Are you intrigued but feel uncomfortable about going outside the mainstream political process? Would you consider getting involved but don’t know how? Are you nervous about the consequences?
‘Take Back the Power! The Importance of Direct Action Today’ will be unique opportunity to hear about direct action from people who have participated in different ways. Speakers will range from people on the front line to those helping in the background. This includes Deborah Grayson – one of the Parliament Climate Rush – who is on bail and will be speaking about Climate Rush (photgraphed below)
To reserve a place/s please RSVP to london@climatecamp.org.uk or call 07534 598 733.

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Photograph by Amelia Gregory

Saturday 16th May
Euroflashmob: Europe United Against Airport Expansion
Stop Airport Expansion

Saturday 16 May 2009. The day of the Eurovision Song Contest. 12 noon on the dot at Heathrow
Terminal 1 Departures. Join Heathrow Flashmobbers in a Europe-wide Flash Mob – taking place on the same day at 6 airports across Europe.
Flash Heathrow! Flash Paris! Flash Frankfurt! Flash Schipol! Flash Brussels! Flash Dublin!
Each flashmob will be singing Eurovision classics (song-sheets provided), so download your favourite eurovision song onto your ipod or phone and bring your friends, instruments, hats, wigs, and your dancing shoes and let’s party. Now for the serious bit: airport expansion is seriously bad for local people, increased noise, air pollution, and especially the climate. The aviation industry want to expand airports across the UK and Europe, but opposition is huge, and the scientists are telling us we have to drastically cut emissions if we are to beat climate change. Flashmobs are a fun way to highlight the real opposition there is to expansion at airports across Europe. Here’s another big chance to show our opposition to a 3rd runway at Heathrow.
See you in Heathrow Terminal 1 Departures at 12 noon on the dot!
Tell BAA to get in tune: No Third Runway.
www.euroflashmob.com

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Illustration by Sachiko

Green Wedge II
A major Green Party benefit gig, to aid the Euro Election campaign.

£5 entry.
Venue:
Pangea Project
72 Stamford Hill,
Stoke Newington,
N16 6XS

http://www.pangeaproject.co.uk/

The highly eclectic lineup includes:
The Refinements (Raucous Ska)
Sarah Ellen Hughes Duo (jazz singer)

Contacts:
Selim: 07853 725476
Come along and support the local bands by cheering loudly, the Green Party by giving us your money and support, and the Pangea Project by drinking copious amounts.
It’s all shaping up to be a fun night, ably facilitated by your host Matt Hanley (ahem), with comprehensive Eurovision updates throughout the evening!
You can buy advance tickets here:?http://www.skiddle.com/tickets/
I love good days. Days that unfold in a series of pleasant surprises that put a spring back in your step and remind you that the world can be a good place. Three such things occurred today, buy well, four if you include the free coffee I was given for no reason, and five if you take into account the particularly magnificent texture of the water in which I swam early this morning (a good start surely), breathing fresh and clean from the night’s rain, silk to the touch and causing my skin to tingle for hours after; but silk water aside, only one of these things is relevant to you Zach, can I call you Zach?

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There was a moment at tonight’s concert where you clasped your fingers behind your head, raised your eyes towards the ceiling, and sighed a private smile – do you sometimes not quite believe it? I couldn’t believe it. I’d given up the hope of seeing you (you the object of a little musical infatuation), play at the Forum tonight – a torment when that venue is within spitting distance of my home. I’d cycled past and seen the queues outside (one of the nicest looking crowds to gather outside the Forum, believe me I know), my head hung low and my pedal stilted, perhaps I could sneak in, how could I live here so long and not know a secret entrance? Just as I was reconciling myself to a night of listening to Gulag Orchestra within the confines of my bedroom and strumming Postcards from Italy alone on the roof, a good thing happened – buzz buzz in my back pocket.

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“Hey Luisa how are you?”
“I’ve been better, well actually it’s been a pretty good day, but – ”
“Yeah well listen, you like Beirut right?”
“Like them? I Love – I mean yeah, they’re ok. I guess they’re ok.”
“Well you couldn’t do me a favour. I know it’s late notice and you’ve probably got plans”
“Erm, yeah I’ve got plans”
“Well I’m supposed to be reviewing them tonight but they wouldn’t give me a plus one and I don’t want to go alone, you wouldn’t go instead would you?”
(I’ve pulled over and am silently raising my fists to the sky)
Hmm…I suppose I could, I mean I would like to see them but then I don’t know what I’d write, I’m sure I’ll think of something-”
“So you’ll go?”
“Yes, yes I’ll go.”
“Oh great, thanks, just say you’re me, get some pictures, you know the drill, thanks again,”
“No problem, really,” (jumping up and down a little bit),
“What’s that noise?”
“Oh, nothing, some kid, thanks a lot, have a good night,”
“You too, byeeeee.”

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So that’s how a good day found me watching you tonight, I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about a gig. You came out to rapturous applause, rewarding the audience kindly with Nantes, how does it feel to have a crowd sing your songs along with you? It was as though you were singing old folk songs of a collective homeland from which we’ve all strayed, not something created from a photograph and a few months in Eastern Europe and Paris. And now you’ve moved over to Mariachi influences? I was raised on Cumbia, and I’ve always thought the sound is very similar to that of Eastern Europe, accordions and trumpets and powerful melodies. Everyone around me was in hushed silence for the entirety of the performance, and you seemed so relaxed, demure, a sound like yours doesn’t require anything else – I did like the occasional hand conducting though. On behalf of the audience, not that anyone would make me spokesperson for anything, thank you, it was wonderful incredible; but then you know that, not everyone gets two encores. See you again soon I hope, and erm, if you ever need someone to tap a tambourine or a cowbell, or maybe an old foot pedal harmonium just rescued from cobwebs, then … hi.

Yours,

Lulu Lampshade

SM (small print): emotional content may have been exaggerated slightly for effect.
Will Morgan is an excellent photographer, store clever person and all round nice guy. His photographs are subtle and dream-like; intimate yet austere, information pills all of us here at Amelia’s Magazine are big fans of his beautiful and exciting work. I was lucky enough to catch up with Will to talk about his work and the politics of photography.

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Hi, patient Will, how are you today?

Hello Roisin, I’m very good today thanks , the sun’s out and things are pretty much perfect.

I really love your photographs especially your use of light and attention to details- what makes a good photograph for you?

Thank you, that always nice to hear. Images work for me when they inspire an emotional response or are successful at conveying a mood and atmosphere. It’s the same for me with any art work really, every discipline. When I was at college I was really interested in domestic photography, family albums and the like, I always felt that these images were incredibly powerful because they are loaded with so much meaning, they tie into notions of memory, loss, happiness, sadness and the passage of time. I’m sounding a bit pretentious here but never mind eh? I think that an image can stand on it’s own purely by being beautiful as well, ideally one would combine the beauty with an emotional response. I think photographs are a form of language so it’s nice if they say something.

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Can you tell me about your average working day?

I don’t really have an average working day, I shoot a lot of editorial so the jobs are varied and my personal work is even more so. If I’m on a commissioned job it’s usually an early start, double check the equipment as I have been known to leave vital bits behind. Drink some very strong coffee, try not to smoke (fail) and head to the location, be very nice to everybody and start to shoot. Obviously keep to the deadline, work in close conjunction with the art director and hope the client is happy! All my commissioned work is digital these days so there’s normally an hour at the end of the shoot to go through the images then I retouch and deliver. My personal work is far looser I identify a project I’m interested in and shoot on my own, with minimal equipment. I do get up a lot later on these days, probably smoke more cigarettes though.

Do you have a favourite camera?

I started off using a 1960′s Hassleblad and I still love it, but these days I mainly shoot with a 645 contax and a P30 back, with the advent of digital clients just won’t pay for film and now days they want to see everything immediately, plus you get used to the freedom of digital, you can shoot to your hearts content. I do like my contax but the Hassleblad is probably my favourite although I rarely shoot film these days, I used to have a Polaroid land camera which I throughly enjoyed but I lost it. Lets move on I’m getting a little emotional

What do you make of the whole film vs. digital photography debate? I mean do you view the advent of digital photography as a completely bad thing?

I’m not sure it’s even a debate anymore, digital photography is here and it’s a photographic tool, you just have to learn to use it and I think to deny it is a bit self defeating. I do believe that images shot on film look better than digital raw files but the technology is so good now and if you know a little about digital retouching I can’t really tell the difference. Digital has a huge amount of freedom, film is expensive with digital after the initial investment you shoot for free really, you can really experiment and as I’ve said all my commissions assume I’m shooting digital. I don’t think digital is a bad thing or a good thing really it’s just the way photography has evolved. Different jobs/projects lend themselves to different platforms/cameras and so on, whatever works for you is the best really. Even when I do shoot film I scan it and tweak it in photoshop so it becomes a digital image anyway.

I think that’s really interesting, it’s quite taboo I think to be positive about digital photography, it’s refreshing to hear that you’re pro-digital and proud; whilst film is beautiful, people can always become purist about things like that and I agree that digital technology can add something great to photography- as we can see in your work!

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Continuing with this foray into the ethics or politics of photgraphy, do you agree with the idea that a photograph is the truest form of representation?

I’m probably misinterpreting the question but umm, not really, I think a photograph captures how someone or something looked in that split second the shutter clicked, it’s a tricky one but as a photographer you’re imposing yourself on the scene, you crop in camera, use apertures and f-stops different focal lengths, different formats, you edit your images, decide how to present them, all of this creates a selective reality, I’m not even sure if reality is the right word, also now with the computer technology you can completely alter the original image . All of these things have a huge bearing on whatever you’re photographing and of course you want it to look good. I don’t think it’s a true representation of reality but it has the edge over painting I think.

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Can you tell me about your journey to where you are today (career-wise rather than transport-wise!)? Do you have any advice for aspiring photographers?

Well I went to India for a year when I was 20, I picked up a camera there for the first time and really enjoyed it, I’d stayed in India too long so I missed my University place to study English so i did a part time course in photography. I loved it so went the route of art foundation, photography BA at LCP (also this got me to London). I did well at LCP I won a few prizes and it gave me the confidence to believe I might actually be able to make a living from photography. After my degree I worked part time at the National Film Theatre and assisted various photographers as well as picking up a few commissions for my self. It’s only really been the last three years that I’ve made a reasonable living purely from my own photography but it’s always been fun and I’ve never wanted to stop. I think getting over the fear of the portfolio meetings was crucial! The only advice I would give is to keep at it, never be afraid of showing your work, shoot as much as you can and enjoy it, I think it’s the best job in the world (apart from rock star maybe)

Which photographers inspired you early on in your career?

I was always hugely impressed with Philip Lorca-di Corcia in particular his Hollywood Hustler series, I was and still am a big fan of Eva Vermendel and Martina Hoogland-Ivanow, Paolo Roversi’s work is always beautiful, Christian Boltanski, Stephen Gill, Bruce Davidson, Azim Haidaryan, Nadav Kander, there’s a lot of them but I’ll leave it there.


What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a few, I’m shooting a series of confessional boxes in Catholic churches, a series on cineastes based around the National Film Theatre and bus stops at night.

I can’t wait to see them!

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All photographs appear courtesy of Will Morgan
At first glance, mind you might have thought that activism, arts and permaculture would make the strangest of bedfellows, but don’t let any preconceived notions cloud your judgement. The imaginative people behind ArtsAdmin are laying on a fortnight of activities which will demonstrate how effortlessly these subjects can work together. Under the name of Two Degrees , and with the recent quote by George Monbiot acting as a kind of frame of reference – ‘We have to stop treating climate change as an urgent issue, we have to start treating it as an international emergency” – the week long series of performances, activities, exhibitions and installations will have one thing in common; our relationship with the environment and the impact of climate change.

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I chatted recently with ArtsAdmin, in their beautiful and unexpectedly peaceful surroundings (well, they are on Commercial Road!) of Toynbee Studios (also the setting of many of the forthcoming events). They explained that even the title of the festival is apposite. ‘Two Degrees’ is in reference to the reports that global temperatures are set to rise by that amount in around 40 years. A relatively ‘small’ rise such as this could lead to catastrophic changes on our planet.

While the message is serious, many performances will be light hearted, and all will be engaging. A case in point, the ‘set list’ reads thus;  
“A reconstructed airplane serves real airline food delivered from City Airport; permaculturists and artists lead a foraging exploration of the City; a crowd of Londoners, an artist and a water dowser trace the course of a great London river; radical temporary transformations of lunchtime London; an artist-activist family confess to past flights they have taken; climate change cabaret; an urban-rural walk to City Farm; a bicycle-powered DJ set (run by good friends of Amelia’s Magazine; Magnificent Revolution) and a filmed rural idyll accompanied by passenger jet noise form Two Degrees”

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Personally, I like the sound of the climate change cabaret. It’s about time that cabaret branched out a little, don’t you think? Speaking of avant-garde performances, a particular highlight of the week will be C.R.A.S.H. A Postcapitalist A-Z, a collaboration between ArtsAdmin and the fantastically named collective that is The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. While it is difficult to predict exactly what will occur, (it’s best just to come down to the City of London to watch), C.R.A.S.H will be creating a phantasmagorical world where “Eight postcapitalist commissions transform lunchtime in the City including the very last opportunity to purchase a real woman, a soup kitchen distributing bowls of gold soup to City workers, a lone cyclist pedalling a field kitchen around the Square Mile, a forum of bankers, ex-bankers, climate activists, artists and others confessing their capitalist tendencies, and a café of equivalence where a bowl of food costs the same as a banker’s daily salary in parallel with food costs in the developing world.” I believe it is safe to say; brace yourself!

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Elsewhere, the issue of airline travel is of course, a pertinent topic in an event that is engaging in dialogue about climate change. At Toynbee Studios, it will be dealt with in an unexpectedly humorous way. In an activity that Dada would be proud of, the artist Richard DeDomenici (and his cabin crew) will be serving out helpings of airplane food, in its airline style packaging. Just in case you didn’t think that this was authentic enough, your meal will be served as you sit in a recycled airplane interior, which Two Degrees hasten to add, also includes in flight entertainment. For any of you who would pitch up just because you like the taste of airline meals (someone has to…?) there is a deeper meaning behind this. DeDomenici is responding to a recent quote by chef Marcus Wareing about British pub food, which he declares being of poor quality, so much so that for a proper meal, “you would be better off getting on a plane”. Now, I would disagree with chef Wareing on both counts. Has he never eaten at The Eagle? Moreover, it is an irresponsible comment to make, one which highlights the ease in which we get on and off flights, almost as if they were trains. So, rather than getting on a plane, you can experience all the wonders of a flight (but without the guilt of actually flying). Hurrah!

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If you are anything like me; a bit of a hippy with a nerdish fondness for maps and discovering secret, ancient rivers, ( I’ll admit that there are very few of us around!) then you will especially enjoy the outing that Two Degrees have planned. The artist Amy Sharrock will be leading a walk which she describes as her response to global concerns. This will come in the form of an excursion from Islington to the Southbank, tracing the lines of the ancient, and lost Walbrook River. Not obscure enough for you? Did I mention that any participants will be dressed in blue and tied together to resemble water molecules?

All of the events can be booked online at www.artsadmin.co.uk. It promises to be a thought-provoking and engaging week. Knowing ArtsAdmin and the people behind this event, however out of left field the performances may be, the message will be central: we are running out of time in which to save the planet, and the time in which to act is now.

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Crochet, help shells and pipe cleaners…beasts banished forever to the chasmic closet of craft have broken free of the plastic furniture covers and dried flowers to be resurrected as one of the most entertaining young collections to have paraded down the catwalks in some time. Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, the Australian born and bred design team behind Romance Was Born have glued-gunned themselves firmly in place as the merry pranksters of Sydney.

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No one would blame you for crinkling your nose at the idea of a fashion collection inspired by someone’s nana. But peeking through the kaleidoscopic vision of these wizards of Oz . Driven by textures, shapes and above all colors, Romance Was Born in the fertile imaginations of these two talented designers when they met while studying fashion at the East Sydney Technical College.

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After graduating in 2007 they were invited to attend the Fourth International Support Awards in Italy where they turned down internships with Galliano because “their fashion fairytale had another date with destiny”. These young (water)guns were intent on starting their own label with, and why not, the suitcase size booty of Galliano laces and silks they’d received as a prize from the competition.

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These two confectioners are just as much substance as they are style. Clever tailoring and feminine shapes pepper the opulent couture showpieces. Collaborations with Australian artist Del Kathryn Bartonproduced original digitally printed fabrics and a 12 piece collection entitled ‘Garden of Eden’, which was exhibited at Kaliman Gallery alongside Barton’s work.

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Romance Was Born has also found its way onto the figures of Debbie Harry, Lily Allen, MIA, Cyndi Lauper and Karen O (who opted for a red tulle dress with googly eyes) and rising star rockers Architecture in Helsinki, who wore their puppetry inspired glo-in-the-dark pieces for the filming of their band’s new clip. They must surely have tagged one particular Icelandic songbird for their next mark. we can’t wait to see what they pull out of their party hats next!

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When you first gaze upon the work of Accessory designer Fred Butler it’s all rather indigestible, case flying from one medium to the other with all the energy and flair of an excitable child. She is constantly adding more layers, no rx depth and colour to her pieces, help the result culminates in mind bogglingly colourful and decidedly hap hazard pieces.

With such gusto It’s hard to fathom how to predict her, one instance you could be presented with a outlandish mathematical headpiece rather reminiscent of a futurist rubix cube. Then next your met with a piñata style headdress (lets hope the model isn’t planning on attending any children’s parties, it may conclude in a rather unpleasant knock to the head) Each piece is as brilliant as it is unique, Butler is one of the few designers it’s hard to typecast, her work has been vaguely linked to that of fellow kitsch designers Peter Jensen and Alistair Carr but apart from these she seems a law unto herself.

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Her latest collection featured a hallucinogenic short film entitled “Conspicuous consumption” to which ethereal models clad in swarouski encrusted headpieces serenely sway in a rather hypnotic manner, its all rather like a trip back to Kate Bushes Wuthering Heights video, alas minus the haunting vocals!

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Fred Butler is an infamous character in the fashion sphere; regularly her work adorns the pages of the magazine elite from Elle, I-D, Vogue, Lula, and Hommes Japan to Wonderland. She even graced the pages Amelia’s Magazine to which she featured in issue 10, which is still up for grabs for the record, it’s worth taking a peak!

Her success is universal, making waves not merely within the fashion sphere but within Music also. She boasts eccentric followers from electro folk icon Patrick Wolf to the elegant Bishi. But she doesn’t just appeal to London’s Underground sphere, she has a whole host of high calibre clients from MTV, Selfridges to the V&A!

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Who knows what Fred Butler has hidden under her brightly coloured sleeve, I for one can’t wait to find out!
The Dø are Dan Levy and Olivia B. Merilahti, view who luckily for our ears found each other and started making pop music for fun whilst working on a soundtrack together.
They have already made it big outre-manche, site with their album A Mouthful got to Number 1. Their vibrant sound swings from the playground to the streets and back again, viagra making for an exciting album brimming to the rafters with curiosity, exuberance and passion. It’s strings sweep with cinematic drama over lullabies and hip-hop.
From their genre-switching music to their diverse cultural background; a mix of French (Dan) and Finnish (Olivia), their sound is more unique than any boy-girl duo to have come along for a while.

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Hello Olivia, how are you today?
I’m good thank you- trying to relax …it’s been a while since I’ve had a day off, and we’re getting ready for our crazy UK/Germany tour

Wow, it sounds like your super busy! Are you in Paris right now? I’m jealous, I used to live there and I miss it…
Yes- shall we swap? i’d rather live in London! I dont know why, I’ve always felt very close to England.

It’s a plan! I’ll pack my suitcase as soon as we’re done interviewing! :-)

So it’s probably the first thing most people want to ask about, but how did you guys decide on the name The Dø ? I read it means ‘death’ in Danish…

d+o=Dan+Olivia. Do=do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do! “do(e), a deer, a female deer” (check The Sound of Music). In Denmark it means somthing about death, yeah but, the “ø” was mostly because it looks like the note as written in traditional music theory.

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I like it, The Dø is a big melting pot of languages and cultures; even Austrian with The Sound of Music! I suppose musically as well you mix up the languages with English and Finnish…but not French- was that a concious decision?
Yeah- French was never an option in music for me, my musical language is English, it’s always been, because it is also my musical culture, and pop music has always been in English

Also French in it’s nature for me anyway seems very structured and constrained linguistically- maybe thats hard to put into music?

Like Opera was mostly sung in Italian, German or French…but not in English, really.
It’s just like using the instrument that feels right.

What about singing in Finnish? Listening to your album A Mouthful- it really adds a ethereal touch when it’s used, it such a lovely sounding language!
Hum, I guess the song & the melody of “Unissasi Laulelet” just came up naturally in
Finnish. I didn’t really plan to write a song in Finnish, but I do sometimes need to change and use Finnish in my compositions.

Cool, it’s great to be able to use language like another instrument like you said. Do you think you both approach music with different views on art and music or do you have a lot of similar tastes?
On some stuff we don’t agree, but we’re usually extremely connected. Two people working together is a very intense activity…our musical backgrounds are different, but we’re so complementary…

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Talking about other experiences and influences- what are/were your personal inspirations musically?
I grew up on a lot of songs, in English or Finnish. My mum used to sing me a lot of lullabies in Finnsh, and I guess it is still an inspiration…Then I discovered Nirvana and Hole, then Bjork, Fiona Apple, Ella Fitzgerald, Goran Bregovic, The Wutang and Eminem.
Dan grew up on jazz and discovered classical music in his teens.Dan’s influences are John Coltrane (Dan played the saxophone for many many years), Bela Bartok, Zappa, etc. He was always sure he would become a composer, while I was singing in bands from age 14, but I was very shy about my own songs.

Wow, from 14! So music, even at a young age, was something you definitely wanted to do later in life? And what about for Dan?
Yes, but since I didn’t grow up in a family that was artistic in any way, I didn’t realise until quite late that it could actually become a job! Whereas there was no doubt for Dan.

So what does the future hold for The Dø ?
We’re gonna keep touring until august, in the UK and the rest of Europe, and then we record album 2…we’ve started recording a few songs already and it feels amazing!

I’m really excited to hear that! Thank you! :-)

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A Mouthful is out now.
Welcome to the weird, order wonderful world of Catherine Le Page. This Quebecoise knows how to draw and her illustrations are have a beautiful je-ne-sais-quoi about them. The most interesting pieces create a unique vision of femininity from childhood to womanhood. Brands, case diets, boys, careers and children appear throughout her work, highlighting the concerns of the modern feminine psyche whilst utilising a self-consciously girly whimsical aesthetic. The combination of the two give a deeply intimate view of womanhood.

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As we see below, she seems to condone a sort of universal sisterhood of happiness; the “for better” whilst marriage is perhaps implied as the “for worse”. She both embraces the feminine in her themes of nature, motherhood and celebrations of the female body whilst questioning its social implications.

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The colours and lines used by Le Page are delightfully naive, like the imaginings of a teenage girl; all crushes and crying carved in crayon on pages torn out of squared exercise books, taking us back to the days of secret notes passed in class and writing boys names in pen on our knickers.

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Her work is always mature in it’s treatment of subject matter; like her couple holding hands at the corner of a page faced with giant colourful block arrows, with Le Page‘s native Canada imprinted hauntingly in the background, like the big scary future looming. Or a couple coping with a long distance relationship. Le Page‘s illustrations manage to be both personal whilst universal whilst still maintaining a strong sense of narrative.

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Le Page tightropes the line between a twee femininity and these astute quasi- feminist observations, whilst being neither particularly approving nor politically critical in her work. Yet because she, as a female artist, is asserted as a subject of creativity and expression; it is men who become objects of desire, whilst female concerns take centre stage. Yet does being female and addressing issues of femininity in art always have to be a feminist matter? Opinions welcome…I’m off to burn my bra.

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Yesterday, about it an impassioned plea in the form of an email dropped through into my Amelia’s Magazine inbox. The subject matter was a slightly different topic to what usually features in the Earth section, unhealthy but instantly we knew that it warranted a feature, and needed to be shared with our readers. So todays topic is about 10,000 ex- battery farmed chickens that need rehousing urgently, otherwise they will be sent to slaughter.

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Henny Penny was found at the bottom of a battery farm cage unable to stand.

It may seem a slightly incongruous topic, but then I have always had a soft spot for hens. While I love the little corner of urban sprawl that I now occupy in East London, I spent my formative years in Cornwall. Growing up in bucolic, pastoral countryside, my parents (recently decamped from Wandsworth) decided they wanted to have a bit of The Good Life, and got themselves a chicken hutch and about 10 hens. Every morning, my job was the Collection Of The Eggs – I took my job very seriously. Armed with a basket I would quietly step into the hatch; I will never forget the peaceful, warm atmosphere that I would encounter. Ten contented, almost post coital chickens clucking gently to themselves as they settled down for a rest after a morning spent laying eggs. Needless to say, the eggs tasted delicious – rich, thick and creamy. So, with these memories in mind, there is an incomprehensible difference between the hens in our back garden all those years ago, and the pictures of the chickens that accompanied the email. Emaciated, featherless and pathetic – the real image behind battery farming that you don’t see on boxes of eggs.

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The people asking for our, and your help are a group called Little Hen Rescue, based in Norfolk. Yesterday I spoke with one of the volunteers, Emma, who told me that all of the group volunteer, and all are working up to 14 hour days in the pursuit of rescuing battery chickens. She explained that the hens will have spent most of their life in a tiny battery cage, laying eggs until their production level drops, after which they will usually be sent to slaughter. At this point, they are generally only sixteen months old, and seeing that chickens usually live for up to six years , they are not even halfway through their life span. The operation that they are currently undertaking is their most ambitious, and largest yet. At the end of June, a farm in Norfolk will be sending 10,000 chickens to slaughter, and Little Hen Rescue are hoping that all will be rehoused to members of the public throughout Britain. If anyone has ever thought of keeping chickens before, now would be the time to step forward. Although this may seem a daunting task, Little Hen Rescue are promising to guide every hen-keeping novice through all the initial steps. They are asking for a donation of £1.50 for each chicken ‘brought’, but more is always welcome, (and anyone who wishes to donate, but not get a hen is also welcome to do so, the website has details of their PayPal account. ). I asked Emma what the chickens are like, half expecting a description of severely traumatised birds, but she was quick to prove me wrong; “They are gorgeous! Where do you start? They are more friendly than any other breed of hen I’ve found. They are such loving little pets and considering what they’ve been though, they give you their all”

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One characteristic to be expected of the chickens is the state of their feathers – or the lack of them. Unfortunately, this is just another by product of being a battery hen. Little Hen Rescue have already factored this in, and have a web page with instructions for how to construct fleeces and jumpers to keep the birds warm while their feathers grow back – which they always do. Helpfully, there are also pictures of the hens wearing breast plate knitted jumpers and fleeces to show you the finished ‘product’. I defy you not to be moved by these photos.

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Illustration by Jessica Pemberton

One thing worth remembering if you want to go ahead and adopt a hen is that you will need a garden in which they can roam, and preferably you will need to construct or purchase a secure, fox-proof chicken house with an attached run. Amelia’s Magazine is not usually in the habit of acting as a broker in the sale of chickens, but then an appeal like this does not come along every day. If there is anything that you can do to help, get in contact with Little Hen Rescue and help a feathered friend.

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Illustration by Jessica Pemberton

Categories ,Animals, ,Community, ,Garden

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Amelia’s Magazine | EAT course 2011: Earth Activism Training at Landmatters in Devon, UK

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EAT participants 2009 at Landmatters in Devon. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Way back in the misty days of summer 2009 I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate on the EAT course, tadalafil which stands for Earth Activist Training: planting the seeds of change.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

Designed to combine spiritual, earth based philosophies with the more fervant strand of environmental activism, the EAT course is held several times a year in America. It doesn’t come to the UK that often – so this is the first year it comes back since 2009, and it will once again be hosted by Landmatters, a super inspiring low impact Permaculture co-operative in Devon. The course is always co-hosted by the amazing Starhawk, or Star to friends, a well known and highly revered activist and white witch.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory Starhawk
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory Starhawk
Starhawk gets stuck in.

It’s A permaculture design certificate course, grounded in earth based spirituality, and with a focus on organising and activism. What this means that it is a jam packed two weeks of intense training – learning all the ins and outs of Permaculture through hands on experiential learning. On my course we were trained by the head of the Permaculture Association, Andy Goldring, who will once again be co-running EAT this year. He was an extremely joyful and bouncy tutor who managed extremely well when faced with awkward questions about meat farming (from staunch vegans) and I learnt a huge amount of truly fascinating stuff about the way in which we can best live with the earth.

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Andy Goldring teaching on EAT.

Permaculture provides an incredibly solid basis for any ongoing work, be it gardening, art activism, general life organisation, social planning or community-wide projects. For instance an EAT course inspired artist and activist John Jordan to set up the Laboratory of Insurrectory Imagination, or LABOBFII, as an arts organisation based on the principles of permaculture. The beautiful and radical Landmatters was set up by six people who met on EAT and were inspired to live the change they wanted to see in the world. The first Climate Camps were planned on Permaculture principles to ensure that tents, facilities and neighbourhoods were placed in the most harmonious way possible.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Lessons take place inside a spacious yurt.

Activism is a key component of the course, and during my time at Landmatters I met many other people who were working on Climate Camp alongside those who work with No Borders, queer rights and urban land projects… to name just a few. It was inspiring to listen to people’s tales whilst enjoying the amazing vegan food at every meal time, sometimes so different and yet so very similar.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

Many activists don’t really spend any time considering the spiritual side of their engagement with the planet – and even though the opportunity to learn from Starhawk was one of my top reasons for wanting to go on the EAT course, there were some on my EAT course who were very resistant to her rituals and chants. But needless to say by the end of two close weeks together everyone felt differently, with even the hardest of activists softened around the edges, and all of us more grounded and connected to the reasons we feel the urge to engage in our individual choices of activism.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Rooh Star of Landmatters was one of our guest teachers.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
Some of the amazing dwellings at Landmatters.

Taking cue from Jon Young‘s teachings we also spent time alone at our sit spots each day, developing our nature awareness. I chose a spot that overlooked the wonderful woods that surround Landmatters, and every day looked forward to reconnecting with the shifting patterns. A time to relish in the fast wash of my life.

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

The EAT course was undeniably hard work, but so incredibly fabulously worth it. You can read some inspiring testimonials here.

If you fancy applying for the next course, due to take place between August 20th and September 4th 2011, then you don’t have long left to apply RIGHT HERE – only until the end of April. You will need to define your particular activism and talk passionately about your plans to spread the ideas that you will learn. This really is a chance in a lifetime and I urge you to take it!

E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory
E.A.T.course-July-2009-photography by Amelia Gregory

The full cost of the course is expensive, but EAT does its best to offer many partial or whole scholarships, depending on need – which in these cash strapped times is greatly to be admired. To ease funding problems this year’s course will be partly crowd-funded so if you can’t go yourself but you understand the importance of the work the EAT course does then please do donate at IndieGoGo. The hard working volunteer organisers need all the help they can get to ensure that those who are underfunded are still able to attend this year. People like me!

Permaculture, Magic, Social Change – nothing could be better, as EAT demonstrates.

Categories ,2011, ,activism, ,Activists, ,Andy Goldring, ,Climate Camp, ,Co-operative, ,community, ,Crowd Funding, ,Devon, ,E.A.T., ,EAT, ,EAT course, ,Indiegogo, ,John Jordan, ,Jon Young, ,LABOBFII, ,Laboratory of Insurrectory Imagination, ,Landmatters, ,Nature Awareness, ,No Borders, ,Pagan, ,permaculture, ,Permaculture Association, ,Queer Rights, ,Rituals, ,Rooh Star, ,Sit Spot, ,Star, ,Starhawk, ,White Witch, ,Witch

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Amelia’s Magazine | Guerilla Gardening – the community led action

Earlier this year, this site The Canalside Environment Group initiated an act of guerilla gardening in a North Oxford resident’s estate. Amelia’s Magazine spoke to Moira regarding the reasons behind the action.

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All Illustrations by http://Katy Gromball

How and where did the idea for the Guerilla Gardening come about?

One of our members read about the concept and brought the idea to the group. We are an environmental action group and loved the idea of not waiting for the ‘authorities’ to brighten up wasteland areas. Instead taking it into our own hands by doing something to brighten up an area for the community.

We chose to plant bulbs as we like the idea of them emerging in the spring with many people enjoying them but not knowing how they got there. We also planted a fruit tree that in time we hope will yield fruit that can be picked and shared by the local community. We had some money available in our funds from a grant we had received which paid for the plants.

How did you choose the area to garden and what was the aim for the action?

We looked around our local area for an area of neglected ground that we thought could be cheered up with planting. We were careful to take into account concerns such as whether it was an area that might get trampled by children or whether we were going to affect planting that was already in the area.

The aim of our group is to promote sustainable lifestyles in our local area and help to develop a sense of community. The Group and its activities are led and managed by volunteers. With all our events we actively encourage newcomers to take an active role. We have grown from an initial meeting of 6 people to a community action group with an ever-expanding mailing list.
The group is inclusive to all members of our community and includes support for the local primary school. We welcome anyone with a passion for local environmental change.

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The Canalside Environment Group was formed in November 2005 originally to cover the Waterways, this Waterside and Aristotle Lane developments that lie along the canal in North Oxford. As interest in the group has grown locally it has expanded to include the surrounding areas of North Oxford to the west of Woodstock Road.
Local actions initiated by the group include: installing a household battery battery-recycling box outside Phil and Jim School, information pills the production of a Local Food Sourcing Leaflet, to promoting the benefits of cycling, both for the environment and personal health. The group is on a mission to encourage environmental action from the grass roots.

The list of actions they have initiated is certainly admirable. Past events include campaigning to reduce packaging outside Marks and Spencers, to a wildlife walkabout the aim of which is to increase the local communities knowledge of the surrounding wildlife and what can be done to protect the ecosystem.
Other events organised by the environmental volunteers of North Oxford include Christmas Tree Shredding. A simple idea that involves encouraging residents to take chippings back to their gardens or donate the mulche to local allotment holders.
My favourite events are as always the Swap Shops. Where else would I have found my drill and electric screwdriver (for free!) that has provided invaluable during the construction of my degree show at Goldsmiths? Or mourn over the missed opportunity of a hat stand that was swiftly nabbed as soon as it entered the local village hall.
The Swap Shops are now held four times a year in St Margaret’s Institute. They are definitely worth a trip.
The Canalside Environmental group is also rather fantastic at keeping the North Oxford area free of litter picking. Before the Guerillia Garding, the group organised guerilla litter picking, where a team of volunteers would descend on mass to the resident’s estates blitzing them of any rubbish. Whilst at the same time holding composting workshops to push local residents towards the idea of starting their own composts in their back gardens.
As of yet, the group has had no scrapes with the Law. However it is rumoured that the estate managers are not happy with this simple act of creating a more enjoyable landscape for the residents.

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Are you looking to involve more people?

We have only guerilla gardened once so far and there were 3 people involved. We will certainly get more members involved next time.

Do you plan on repeating the action? What has the response been towards the action from the local community?

Yes – as CEG is centered in the new housing developments we have limited scope for guerilla gardening in this area. We think it is such a good idea however that we plan to look elsewhere in Oxford for other sites – probably supporting other community groups.

There has been no reaction yet from the local community because we planted bulbs so they have not appeared yet. I would not expect to hear much response anyway. We didn’t plant a ‘sea’ of daffodils for instance so I think it is more than likely that when our flowers arrive in the spring they will bring a smile to people’s faces and cheer up their day, rather than provoking much reaction.

Our little plum tree is looking well though. We planted it so it would bear fruit for the community in years to come. The grounds maintenance people have been in recently with a strimmer but our little tree has been spared. However THEY are probably wondering where it came from!

Finally, what are your thoughts regarding transition towns? To your knowledge has Oxford looked into becoming one?

Transition Oxford has wound down and folded recently. I think the transition town’s idea is great, however I don’t think a place the size of Oxford, with such a transient population, is quite ready for it.
It is a massive project for a group of volunteers to take on in a town of this size. I think it might work better in a smaller town.
Also, the concept of peak oil is quite central to them and, although I myself am a firm believer in the peak oil concern, I think many people don’t really ‘get it’ yet. CO2 is hard enough to grasp!

Has there been any resistance to the gardening action?

There was some resistance from the local management committee when they inadvertently heard what we were doing because they were concerned we would upset planting plans for the development. We chose our planting area carefully and just went ahead without telling them! That’s what guerilla gardening is all about!

Categories ,action, ,bulb, ,Canalside Environmental Group, ,community, ,compost, ,environmental, ,garden, ,grassroots, ,guerilla gardening, ,swapshops, ,transition towns, ,tree

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Amelia’s Magazine | Hackney Green Party – Greens Are Good For You!

When you think of the humble pom-pom you think of children’s clothes, order buy of gigantic sombreros for tourists, generic unsightly snow boots and poodles with dodgy haircuts. Experimenting with pom-poms always seemed to be a bit like tequila shots – one was fun, two was adventurous, any more was way overboard and enough to make you gag.
NOT ANY MORE! Somebody somewhere decided it was time to wrench those pom-poms from the cheerleader’s sweaty grasp and boom! Stick them in the right places and we’re in love – and it turns out you can have hundreds of them!

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They might have come to our attention bobbling out all over the catwalks in fashion week and with the high street following suit, but this is a look that could be even cheaper for the creative recessionistas amongst you. Make your own! Check it.
If you ever find yourself sat staring into space on the tube, you could be churning out a whole lot of pom-poms instead. Worn the right way I think it’s a really easy and fun accessory to jazz up an outfit– this cute Peter Jensen ring as a prime example:

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We’ve seen some girls wearing them in their hair, which make a nice woolly alternative to bows, and of course the contentious scrunchie.

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BIGGER:

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BIGGEST:

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THE KITCHEN SINK:

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Don’t be wearing those in the cinema mind you.

It’s amazing that something so simple has been culturally reinterpreted so often over the course of history. That might sound grand but something that’s gone from dangling off the edges of sun hats in Central America, to being mass marketed to children all over the world to making on the Paris catwalks is pretty unique. Yikes, Pom Pom international even reckons they can promote world peace. Maybe that’s one tequila too many. Sporting them could almost seem a throwback to childhood, a fashion revival harking back to the days of hats and mittens (I’d like to say ‘and snow and toboggans’ but let’s face it, it doesn’t snow THAT often).
The last thing we can learn about pom-poms is from cheerleaders everywhere, who if nothing else, seem mind-bogglingly happy. Why? POM-POMS!
“At a T-cross-section go to the left. On your left hand you will see a hill. At the end of the hill, tadalafil on the top, this you will see a green cottage. That is where you can find me. If I am not there I might be outside doing some experiments.”
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Holland’s answer to a modern day Darwin, Theo Jansen has spent the last 19 years playing god and taking evolution into his own hands. An arrogant way to spend the best part of two decades you might say, but not when you see what incredible results this passing of time has produced. Jansen’s kinetic creature creations exist in a carefully crafted overlap of art and engineering.
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From a physics background to a study of painting via an interest in aeronautics and robotics Jansen arrived at 1990 with a thirst for breathing autonomous life into mechanical sculpture. What started as a highly technical computer animation program is now only reliant on the power of the wind with no machine assistance and only minimal human input required, and even that Jansen hopes to eventually phase out.
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My personal attraction to what Jansen does comes from my deep seated loathing of plastic waste, which he cleverly conquers by incorporating discarded plastic bottles as part of a complicated wind energy storage system and he sources metres and metres and metres of yellow plastic tubing- 375 tubes per animal to be exact- to create the skeletons for his beautiful monsters.
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He claims he started to use the plastic tubing because it was unbelievably cheap and readily available although he quickly discovered that a more perfect material for the project would be hard to find as they are both flexible and multifunctional. He draws comparisons between the plastic required in his art and the protein required for life forms. “in nature, everything is almost made of protein and you have various uses of protein; you can make nails, hair, skin and bones. There’s a lot of variety in what you can do with just one material and this is what I try to do as well.”
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The heads of his giant beings act as sails, directing the intricate frames to glide gracefully across the nearby beaches to Jansen’s home and laboratory. The insect-like wings catch gusts of wind and propel the body forward. When there is no wind not even for ready money, the stored energy in the belly of the beasts can be utilized.
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Jansen’s vision is of a landscape populated by herds of these sculptures taking on entire lives of their own. The versions of models that made it into existence have raced and won survival of the fittest contests through his computer program and having studied these ‘winners’ Jansen designed creatures so developed they are even capable of self preservation, burrowing themselves in the sand when the gusts are too powerful for them to use constructively.
jansen8.jpg
His imagination like his Strandbeests (literally translated as ‘Beach Animal) is an ever evolving self perfecting organ. He envisions a point at which he will release his creations ‘into the wild’, which he speaks about in the same loving tone you would expect from a parent preparing their nest to be flown by their offspring. “I imagine that two animals will meet each other and compare their qualities in some way; have a demonstration somewhere on how they run and how fast they can run and also do some quality comparison on how they survive the winds. And the one with the better quality kills the other one and gives the other its own genetic code. There could be 30 animals on the beach, running around all the time, copying genetic codes. And then it would go on without me.” It’s not so far fetched after all to consider what Jansen does as god-like. He plainly and rather humbly philosophizes, “I try to remake nature with the idea that while doing this you will uncover the secrets of life and that you will meet the same problems as the real creator,” he added. Theo Jansen is simply a genius though his genius is far from simple. Amen.

It has been a while since I have found a political party that I feel that I can get behind. Politics seem to have descended into a misguided mess. Anytime I read about a Tory or Labour MP, more about it is usually because of a scandal. What is going on environmentally and economically seems to play second fiddle to infighting and lies. Meanwhile, living in East London, I have become friends with a couple of people who are involved in the Hackney Green Party. They don’t seem to lie, or cheat, or claim expenses – this is a party that I can support! I wanted to find out more about them, so I sat down for a cup of tea with Matt Hanley, who is the Green candidate for Stoke Newington Central.

Jessy%20P.everything_is_connected-artwork1.jpg
Illustration by Jessica Pemberton

I really liked the political broadcast; I thought it was very astute. The message is not that we have to step outside of our comfortable lives, but that the Green Party are the only political group who can deal with the contemporary and current issues that the world is facing; both politically and environmentally.

We have changed in almost a 180-degree way, twenty years ago the stereotype was beards, sandals, pipes, hemp clothes, it was almost like lecturing the public – it was unsophisticated. Twenty years ago was what, 1989? Scientists for the first time had come to an agreement that climate change was happening, and that it appeared to be man made. I guess when that news was first out there; people were like ‘look, its GOT to change’. Now we are a bit savvier. We have to present policies which are palatable to the voting public; there is no point in standing on the side lines and finger wagging, if we present a policy which will save money but drive down carbon emissions – that is what we are all about. I see the environment agenda of the Green Party very much subset of our core goal, which is social justice. Everything we do, we put the welfare of the human being at the very core. If they are not benefiting from our policies then… I don’t want to know…. that is what the Green Party stands for. So we work for human rights, LGBT rights, promoting the local economy, promoting local business, right though to reducing carbon emissions, they are all under this umbrella of social justice. We are providing a very electable platform, which will improve people’s lives. We are a very well run political party with extremely good innovative ideas to get ourselves out of this economic mess and we are also challenging climate change and enabling our communities to do the same and preparing ourselves for peak oil.

There have been a many protests organised recently, a lot of people who have never protested before are taking to the streets. What is the Green Party’s stance on direct action?

We are the political wing of the New Social Movement; we are the only party who advocate non-violent direct action. The Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, is probably the only leader with a criminal record, she has been arrested at a nuclear base up in Scotland. We support legitimate protest. There is a place for the protesting, and a place for the parliamentary process. So we are the elected wing of the protest movement.

Aaron%20_time_for_change_final_2.jpg
Illustration by Aarron Taylor

Other parties don’t like their protesters do they?

Absolutely not, they just want you to nod along. Like good citizens, nod along like The Churchill Dog! (Laughs)

For people who have only heard of Hackney and have not been here, the first words that would come to mind would not be “sustainability”, “communities” or “grow your own”, but plenty of people are living by these ideals here and there is actually quite a healthy sized green movement in Hackney….

There is a massive opportunity for a green movement here, and massive support for us. It is unbelievable. In the last elections, the Greens reached second or third in every single ward in Hackney.

And you have a good relationship with Transition Town Hackney as well?

Yes, but they are completely different organisations. The Transition Town movement doesn’t want to be in the thrall of the political party. We definitely support the parties and their principles. We are all about a localised economy, we should be able to feed ourselves, produce our own energy, and I should be able to send my kid to the local school. The Transition Town model is about preparing for the onslaught of climate change and equipping communities for that transition, and that is also what the Greens are all about.

Can you see Hackney functioning well under a Green Party council?

Absolutely! They are doing it in Lewisham at the moment, which is a similar demography. They are doing all these fantastic things, for example, they have set a system up where you can go to the library and hire energy reading meters which you can take home and fix into your energy meter and this allows you to do an audit of your energy usage. I definitely want to see this launched in Hackney. It’s an innovative, creative way of thinking. It’s about putting sustainability at the core of everything, which also saves lots and lots of money!

I see The Green Party as being very accessible to young people as well.

The average age of people joining is mid to late 20′s. They are not wedded to 20th century politics, a lot of older labour supporters can’t bring themselves to leave. We have the same agenda that Labour did, back when they were good Labour. Only we can add the environmental agenda. We stand up for peace. We stand up for nuclear disarmament, no other party does that. We want public services to stay public. We want to renationalise the railways – the cost of rail tickets hits young people very, very hard. Younger people can see that we are standing up to big businesses, supporting local shops, and standing up for individuals. We have a whole plethora of progressive policies……..

Aaron%20capitalist_final.jpg
Illustration by Aarron Taylor

And also The Green Party a very media savvy bunch – you are on Facebook, you organise lots of activities….

Absolutely! In fact next week we are going paintballing – ‘Paintballing for Peace’

(Laughs) What other way is there to find peace?

(Laughs), and we are going on a Hackney Greens bike ride down to Brighton, we are organising a summer solstice away down to the coast. And we go on alternative pub-crawls. (Laughs)

Speaking of young people, Matt, you are 30 years old and you are standing for Stoke Newington Council for next May. What prompted this move?

I don’t like politicians – they are all the same, especially with what is going on with news about their expenses at the moment.
Working for the Green Party, and seeing the good that they are doing, I thought, you have to step up. I know that I can do a good job. Labour are failing miserably both in Hackney and in the country. The Conservatives are the same, the Liberal Democrats are no different, and so as a Green, you just have to step up.

What will you do if you won and had the power to implement any idea? What’s the first thing that you would do?

Free insulation! It’s a scheme that stems from European legislation, which states that energy companies are obliged to give a certain percentage to energy efficiency schemes. But the councils have to apply for that. The Green Party in Kirklees is on the local council, so every single person in Kirklees gets free insulation. It drives down energy costs, and drives down the carbon emissions and creates local jobs, so it’s a win win situation. Why every single council on the country is getting on this I don’t know. It saves everyone money, make peoples homes warmer, make them healthier – it stops people going to NHS with colds and flu and also reinvigorates the local economy by producing jobs. It creates a programme of very sustainable jobs. We tried to implement it before, but the Labour Councellors called it ‘daft’, dismissed it out of hand and didn’t give a reason beyond that!

That doesn’t make any sense!

The Labour and Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats are on the wrong side of history, but there is a new movement, and it takes into account the Green Party, Transition Town and Friends Of The Earth…. Amnesty International, trade unions, CND etc and all these community grass routes organisations. This is a wonderful new social movement that can be called green with a small g and is a new paradigm of social and political engagement…. this is what the 21st Century is coming to now, but the three big parties are still clinging onto the coat tails of 20th Century ideology. This whole new multifaceted social movement (of which the Green Party are the political wing) is the new politics of the 21st century.

resizedtimeforachange2.jpg
Illustration by Faye Katirai

Can you tell us the best changes that we can make to our lives to make our world more sustainable?

Number one is vote Green! Although I don’t want to lecture people about being ” eco trendy”. Eco trendiness and eco consumption is not going to sort this mess out. We need strong government action to allow this country to change to a sustainable economy. But back to things that you can do as an individual: don’t use your car as much. Don’t eat as much meat. Cut down, you don’t have to stop eating meat completely, just don’t buy from supermarkets. Stop shopping at supermarkets altogether, because that is killing the environment, and your local towns. Support your local shops instead.

Wise words! Thanks Matt.

Categories ,activism, ,Community, ,Economy, ,Politics

Similar Posts:






Amelia’s Magazine | Hackney Green Party – Greens Are Good For You!

When you think of the humble pom-pom you think of children’s clothes, order buy of gigantic sombreros for tourists, generic unsightly snow boots and poodles with dodgy haircuts. Experimenting with pom-poms always seemed to be a bit like tequila shots – one was fun, two was adventurous, any more was way overboard and enough to make you gag.
NOT ANY MORE! Somebody somewhere decided it was time to wrench those pom-poms from the cheerleader’s sweaty grasp and boom! Stick them in the right places and we’re in love – and it turns out you can have hundreds of them!

pompom14.jpg

pompom16.jpg

They might have come to our attention bobbling out all over the catwalks in fashion week and with the high street following suit, but this is a look that could be even cheaper for the creative recessionistas amongst you. Make your own! Check it.
If you ever find yourself sat staring into space on the tube, you could be churning out a whole lot of pom-poms instead. Worn the right way I think it’s a really easy and fun accessory to jazz up an outfit– this cute Peter Jensen ring as a prime example:

pompom12.jpg

We’ve seen some girls wearing them in their hair, which make a nice woolly alternative to bows, and of course the contentious scrunchie.

pompom15.jpg

BIGGER:

pompom13.jpg

BIGGEST:

pompom10.jpg

THE KITCHEN SINK:

pompom11.jpg

Don’t be wearing those in the cinema mind you.

It’s amazing that something so simple has been culturally reinterpreted so often over the course of history. That might sound grand but something that’s gone from dangling off the edges of sun hats in Central America, to being mass marketed to children all over the world to making on the Paris catwalks is pretty unique. Yikes, Pom Pom international even reckons they can promote world peace. Maybe that’s one tequila too many. Sporting them could almost seem a throwback to childhood, a fashion revival harking back to the days of hats and mittens (I’d like to say ‘and snow and toboggans’ but let’s face it, it doesn’t snow THAT often).
The last thing we can learn about pom-poms is from cheerleaders everywhere, who if nothing else, seem mind-bogglingly happy. Why? POM-POMS!
“At a T-cross-section go to the left. On your left hand you will see a hill. At the end of the hill, tadalafil on the top, this you will see a green cottage. That is where you can find me. If I am not there I might be outside doing some experiments.”
jansen1.jpg
Holland’s answer to a modern day Darwin, Theo Jansen has spent the last 19 years playing god and taking evolution into his own hands. An arrogant way to spend the best part of two decades you might say, but not when you see what incredible results this passing of time has produced. Jansen’s kinetic creature creations exist in a carefully crafted overlap of art and engineering.
jansen2.jpg
From a physics background to a study of painting via an interest in aeronautics and robotics Jansen arrived at 1990 with a thirst for breathing autonomous life into mechanical sculpture. What started as a highly technical computer animation program is now only reliant on the power of the wind with no machine assistance and only minimal human input required, and even that Jansen hopes to eventually phase out.
jansen3.jpg
My personal attraction to what Jansen does comes from my deep seated loathing of plastic waste, which he cleverly conquers by incorporating discarded plastic bottles as part of a complicated wind energy storage system and he sources metres and metres and metres of yellow plastic tubing- 375 tubes per animal to be exact- to create the skeletons for his beautiful monsters.
jansen4.jpg
He claims he started to use the plastic tubing because it was unbelievably cheap and readily available although he quickly discovered that a more perfect material for the project would be hard to find as they are both flexible and multifunctional. He draws comparisons between the plastic required in his art and the protein required for life forms. “in nature, everything is almost made of protein and you have various uses of protein; you can make nails, hair, skin and bones. There’s a lot of variety in what you can do with just one material and this is what I try to do as well.”
jansen5.jpg
The heads of his giant beings act as sails, directing the intricate frames to glide gracefully across the nearby beaches to Jansen’s home and laboratory. The insect-like wings catch gusts of wind and propel the body forward. When there is no wind not even for ready money, the stored energy in the belly of the beasts can be utilized.
jansen6.jpg
Jansen’s vision is of a landscape populated by herds of these sculptures taking on entire lives of their own. The versions of models that made it into existence have raced and won survival of the fittest contests through his computer program and having studied these ‘winners’ Jansen designed creatures so developed they are even capable of self preservation, burrowing themselves in the sand when the gusts are too powerful for them to use constructively.
jansen8.jpg
His imagination like his Strandbeests (literally translated as ‘Beach Animal) is an ever evolving self perfecting organ. He envisions a point at which he will release his creations ‘into the wild’, which he speaks about in the same loving tone you would expect from a parent preparing their nest to be flown by their offspring. “I imagine that two animals will meet each other and compare their qualities in some way; have a demonstration somewhere on how they run and how fast they can run and also do some quality comparison on how they survive the winds. And the one with the better quality kills the other one and gives the other its own genetic code. There could be 30 animals on the beach, running around all the time, copying genetic codes. And then it would go on without me.” It’s not so far fetched after all to consider what Jansen does as god-like. He plainly and rather humbly philosophizes, “I try to remake nature with the idea that while doing this you will uncover the secrets of life and that you will meet the same problems as the real creator,” he added. Theo Jansen is simply a genius though his genius is far from simple. Amen.

It has been a while since I have found a political party that I feel that I can get behind. Politics seem to have descended into a misguided mess. Anytime I read about a Tory or Labour MP, more about it is usually because of a scandal. What is going on environmentally and economically seems to play second fiddle to infighting and lies. Meanwhile, living in East London, I have become friends with a couple of people who are involved in the Hackney Green Party. They don’t seem to lie, or cheat, or claim expenses – this is a party that I can support! I wanted to find out more about them, so I sat down for a cup of tea with Matt Hanley, who is the Green candidate for Stoke Newington Central.

Jessy%20P.everything_is_connected-artwork1.jpg
Illustration by Jessica Pemberton

I really liked the political broadcast; I thought it was very astute. The message is not that we have to step outside of our comfortable lives, but that the Green Party are the only political group who can deal with the contemporary and current issues that the world is facing; both politically and environmentally.

We have changed in almost a 180-degree way, twenty years ago the stereotype was beards, sandals, pipes, hemp clothes, it was almost like lecturing the public – it was unsophisticated. Twenty years ago was what, 1989? Scientists for the first time had come to an agreement that climate change was happening, and that it appeared to be man made. I guess when that news was first out there; people were like ‘look, its GOT to change’. Now we are a bit savvier. We have to present policies which are palatable to the voting public; there is no point in standing on the side lines and finger wagging, if we present a policy which will save money but drive down carbon emissions – that is what we are all about. I see the environment agenda of the Green Party very much subset of our core goal, which is social justice. Everything we do, we put the welfare of the human being at the very core. If they are not benefiting from our policies then… I don’t want to know…. that is what the Green Party stands for. So we work for human rights, LGBT rights, promoting the local economy, promoting local business, right though to reducing carbon emissions, they are all under this umbrella of social justice. We are providing a very electable platform, which will improve people’s lives. We are a very well run political party with extremely good innovative ideas to get ourselves out of this economic mess and we are also challenging climate change and enabling our communities to do the same and preparing ourselves for peak oil.

There have been a many protests organised recently, a lot of people who have never protested before are taking to the streets. What is the Green Party’s stance on direct action?

We are the political wing of the New Social Movement; we are the only party who advocate non-violent direct action. The Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, is probably the only leader with a criminal record, she has been arrested at a nuclear base up in Scotland. We support legitimate protest. There is a place for the protesting, and a place for the parliamentary process. So we are the elected wing of the protest movement.

Aaron%20_time_for_change_final_2.jpg
Illustration by Aarron Taylor

Other parties don’t like their protesters do they?

Absolutely not, they just want you to nod along. Like good citizens, nod along like The Churchill Dog! (Laughs)

For people who have only heard of Hackney and have not been here, the first words that would come to mind would not be “sustainability”, “communities” or “grow your own”, but plenty of people are living by these ideals here and there is actually quite a healthy sized green movement in Hackney….

There is a massive opportunity for a green movement here, and massive support for us. It is unbelievable. In the last elections, the Greens reached second or third in every single ward in Hackney.

And you have a good relationship with Transition Town Hackney as well?

Yes, but they are completely different organisations. The Transition Town movement doesn’t want to be in the thrall of the political party. We definitely support the parties and their principles. We are all about a localised economy, we should be able to feed ourselves, produce our own energy, and I should be able to send my kid to the local school. The Transition Town model is about preparing for the onslaught of climate change and equipping communities for that transition, and that is also what the Greens are all about.

Can you see Hackney functioning well under a Green Party council?

Absolutely! They are doing it in Lewisham at the moment, which is a similar demography. They are doing all these fantastic things, for example, they have set a system up where you can go to the library and hire energy reading meters which you can take home and fix into your energy meter and this allows you to do an audit of your energy usage. I definitely want to see this launched in Hackney. It’s an innovative, creative way of thinking. It’s about putting sustainability at the core of everything, which also saves lots and lots of money!

I see The Green Party as being very accessible to young people as well.

The average age of people joining is mid to late 20′s. They are not wedded to 20th century politics, a lot of older labour supporters can’t bring themselves to leave. We have the same agenda that Labour did, back when they were good Labour. Only we can add the environmental agenda. We stand up for peace. We stand up for nuclear disarmament, no other party does that. We want public services to stay public. We want to renationalise the railways – the cost of rail tickets hits young people very, very hard. Younger people can see that we are standing up to big businesses, supporting local shops, and standing up for individuals. We have a whole plethora of progressive policies……..

Aaron%20capitalist_final.jpg
Illustration by Aarron Taylor

And also The Green Party a very media savvy bunch – you are on Facebook, you organise lots of activities….

Absolutely! In fact next week we are going paintballing – ‘Paintballing for Peace’

(Laughs) What other way is there to find peace?

(Laughs), and we are going on a Hackney Greens bike ride down to Brighton, we are organising a summer solstice away down to the coast. And we go on alternative pub-crawls. (Laughs)

Speaking of young people, Matt, you are 30 years old and you are standing for Stoke Newington Council for next May. What prompted this move?

I don’t like politicians – they are all the same, especially with what is going on with news about their expenses at the moment.
Working for the Green Party, and seeing the good that they are doing, I thought, you have to step up. I know that I can do a good job. Labour are failing miserably both in Hackney and in the country. The Conservatives are the same, the Liberal Democrats are no different, and so as a Green, you just have to step up.

What will you do if you won and had the power to implement any idea? What’s the first thing that you would do?

Free insulation! It’s a scheme that stems from European legislation, which states that energy companies are obliged to give a certain percentage to energy efficiency schemes. But the councils have to apply for that. The Green Party in Kirklees is on the local council, so every single person in Kirklees gets free insulation. It drives down energy costs, and drives down the carbon emissions and creates local jobs, so it’s a win win situation. Why every single council on the country is getting on this I don’t know. It saves everyone money, make peoples homes warmer, make them healthier – it stops people going to NHS with colds and flu and also reinvigorates the local economy by producing jobs. It creates a programme of very sustainable jobs. We tried to implement it before, but the Labour Councellors called it ‘daft’, dismissed it out of hand and didn’t give a reason beyond that!

That doesn’t make any sense!

The Labour and Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats are on the wrong side of history, but there is a new movement, and it takes into account the Green Party, Transition Town and Friends Of The Earth…. Amnesty International, trade unions, CND etc and all these community grass routes organisations. This is a wonderful new social movement that can be called green with a small g and is a new paradigm of social and political engagement…. this is what the 21st Century is coming to now, but the three big parties are still clinging onto the coat tails of 20th Century ideology. This whole new multifaceted social movement (of which the Green Party are the political wing) is the new politics of the 21st century.

resizedtimeforachange2.jpg
Illustration by Faye Katirai

Can you tell us the best changes that we can make to our lives to make our world more sustainable?

Number one is vote Green! Although I don’t want to lecture people about being ” eco trendy”. Eco trendiness and eco consumption is not going to sort this mess out. We need strong government action to allow this country to change to a sustainable economy. But back to things that you can do as an individual: don’t use your car as much. Don’t eat as much meat. Cut down, you don’t have to stop eating meat completely, just don’t buy from supermarkets. Stop shopping at supermarkets altogether, because that is killing the environment, and your local towns. Support your local shops instead.

Wise words! Thanks Matt.

Categories ,activism, ,Community, ,Economy, ,Politics

Similar Posts: