You may remember from my previous blog that the launch of The Catlin Guide for the best graduate artists took place at the London Art Fair last week. I popped along to the Islington Business Design Centre to check out the completed guide, suss out which galleries are showcasing the best new talent, and find out what trends are hot in the art world right now.

Annie Whiles, detail.

First up at Danielle Arnaud I loved work by Annie Whiles, using simple line to create iconic shapes.

Simon Lewty, detail.

Simon Lewty for Art First showed amazing inked drawings: it’s well worth checking out the rest of his work.

Annie Morris, detail.

At Pertwee, Anderson & Gold, the first in a common theme was evident, rows of stuff: in this case hundreds of pegs, each decorated with a crudely drawn female figure. This Peg Piece was created by artist Annie Morris, who rose to fame after illustrating the children’s book The Man With the Dancing Eyes by Sophie Dahl.

Andrea Mastrovito, detail.

At Foley Gallery Andrea Mastrovito used intricate collaged paper for the Gulliver’s Travels series, which imagines a brightly coloured world of little people and puppet hands.

Diamond dust is hot news for use in prints, favoured by the likes of Damian Hirst, Peter Blake, and Justine Smith at TAG Fine Arts. Her lovely limited edition print of a bank note British Isles features oodles of the stuff. Common glitter was also a favourite enhancement for many artists.

Also at TAG I loved the work of Claire Brewster. The Harbingers featured exquisitely cut and mounted birds, created from old maps: Maps are another massive trend, reworked into any manner of different outcomes. Good to see so much upcycling!

Tobias Till showed a fabulous set of prints – the London A-Z, available as a boxed set and selling very well if the red dots were anything to go by.

Witness – Detail, by Rachel Shaw Ashton.

Of course TAG also host the work of Rob Ryan (read a review of his TAG art exhibition in 2010 here). More beautiful papercutting (still a massive trend) came from Rachel Shaw Ashton, showing with JaggedArt. She layers paper with pins to create simple shapes in pure white to great affect.

I was also drawn to the 3D sculpture by Tracey Bush. Little Clod of Earth is a clump of wild plants made from the dog ends of paper packaging – oddly beautiful and strange.

JaggedArt also hosts the work of Francisca Prieto, who once more works with old atlases and maps to create beautiful 3D repetitive works of art. We wrote about her recent exhibition Unbound.

USA based artist Charles Fazzino creates astonishing scenes with layers of paper. He calls it 3D pop art; showing with Galerie Olivier Waltman from Paris.

On a completely different tangent I was surprised to see the work of fashion photographer Derrick Santini, who showed lenticular artwork with Scream. Forget those cheesy Jesus postcards, these artworks feature an astonishing amount of different angles. I can see city types absolutely loving one of these on their penthouse apartment walls!

Russian Bear by Karen Nicol.

The Rebecca Hossack gallery always hosts interesting craft based artworks: Karen Nicol’s Thread Bear utilised a vintage piece of French needlepoint as the basis, into which pieces have been embroidered and appliqued. I have a bad photo so here’s another similar piece.

Rebecca Coles also shows with Rebecca Hossack – you can read our extensive interview with this paper artist who specialises in butterflies here.

Rounding a corner I was pleased to see a wall of artwork by Simone Lia, who sells prints with Jealous Gallery. Her infamous Hello Sausage Hello Chicken has just been reissued in a new colour range. The gallery are also the purveyors of the prints from the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition, including the fab Ralph Steadman birds (read my review here).

More coming up shortly… don’t go away! *here’s part two of my review*

Dreams of a Life says as much about contemporary culture as it does about the life of Joyce. It’s a stinging commentary on our current society, where despite all our networks people are often left feeling isolated. It also touches on themes of consumption and keeping up appearances. Joyce was always coy about her jobs, and from the evidence it seems that towards the end she was embarrassed about her employment as a cleaner, a sharp contrast to her past life as an office girl in a good company. Ultimately Dreams of a Life is a reflection of ourselves… how do we so easily stop talking to friends and how does work get in the way of a sociable life? A question we might all want to ask as the Christmas period draws near.

To accompany the film, which comes out today, photographer Lottie Davies was commissioned to create a series of time lapse images called Dreams of Your Life that provoke the central themes of society, loneliness, friendship and love explored in Dreams of a Life. I spoke to hear about the project and the feelings it elicited.

How hard was it to translate a non specific story into a series of images that represented the films key themes? How did you set about achieving this task and what was the starting point of inspiration?
Creating the project was a collaborative process, with Margaret from Hide & Seek, who conceived and developed the ‘game’. She told me the bare bones of the film’s story, and we brainstormed the various elements of the parallel ‘story’ we wanted to tell, alongside A L Kennedy’s remarkable script. The primary inspiration for the photographs was imagining what happened to Joyce’s flat during the three years she lay undiscovered; what might have happened inside the flat, and outside it, while no-one was looking. I imagined myself in the flat, looking around as time passed – I imagined a great deal of silence and the settling of floorboards, drying up of dishtowels, mould growing on the windowsills, colours fading, cobwebs obscuring corners, and maybe occasionally someone passing by the window on their way to buy milk, you know? And I looked at a lot of reference images for those kind of gradual processes, to see which we might use to create the sense of absence which I imagined.  

As the story in the project is driven by the person experiencing it, we couldn’t be directly linear, or drive the viewer in a particular way, as you can with a film, so it’s necessarily more loose, and maleable, and will reflect the journey that they happen to take. So yes, that was certainly a challenge, but it was also quite liberating as we could afford to play with alternative scenarios and imagine different routes simultaneously.

You didn’t watch the film before you embarked on the project – why did the window become so important to you?
The oddest thing was when I went to see the film at the BFI, I saw the poster properly for the first time, and realised that we had made a window-scene almost identical to the one Carol had made – even the flowers were placed in the same part of the frame. Spooky.

So, the view of the window allowed us to explore both the inside and outside world in one frame, and we wanted to allow the outside to encroach somewhat towards the end, which is why the side-window was left slightly open. Each theme in the story has a corresponding element within the frame which progresses as the player moves forward; the flowers in the jar wilt and die, the keys and coins become rusty and dust-covered, the dandelion grows and dies, and finally, more obvious elements of life come into the story towards the end, with the cat and the birds. The journey follows the seasons through just over a year, and I worked with the script so that at key moments the atmosphere and light of the image correspond to the emotional impact of the text. At least, that’s the idea!

How did you achieve the special effects required to recreate 4 seasons?
The technical elements were principally making sure nothing moved during the shoot, and that the interior and exterior transformations were convincing – we had three days to shoot, and I worked closely with Jacob Stevens (the special effects technician) beforehand, testing effects such as frost, dust, wilting the flowers quickly, the postcard aging and so on. For outside the window, I wanted there to be very obvious seasonal indicators which meant bringing in a tree, or rather, a very large branch. We built a scaffold tower outside the window, clamped the ‘tree’ to it, along with various flash-heads which could be moved up or down and side to side so that when we were shooting I could decide to shoot ‘morning, winter’ followed by ‘afternoon, summer’ if I chose. There was rather a lot of pinning leaves to the ‘tree’ and then removing them, and a great deal of climbing through the downstairs window to access the scaffold, because it had blocked the door to the garden. All good fun.

The trickiest part was timetabling changes, as they were all happening at the same time, and once the scene was set, there was no moving an object or taking something out. I had a fairly strict schedule for the three days of shooting; I decided in advance which month we would be in, whether it was morning or afternoon for each shot, and worked out when one transformation would begin and end. Sometimes they overlapped of course, which made for hard work for Jacob, but we aimed for all the progressions to fit the script and that the pivotal moments would be timed to coincide with events occurring for the player as they followed the text. There was a point on day three when some enthusiastic cat-wrangling moved the tree and I had a minor panic, but luckily we managed to match up the branches fairly closely again or we might have had to bring a winter storm into the scenario to account for a sudden lack of tree.

What do you hope that people will feel when they look at your images?
Hmm, tough question! I guess I hope that at first, they won’t notice the changes happening, but at a certain point they will – and perhaps that will make them wonder what they missed – ‘how did that happen, I was watching the screen the whole time, but I didn’t notice the flowers were dying until they were completely dead’. I hope that they provoke a response in the viewer, as the script does – that they feel warm or cold, uplifted or saddened, that they may smile at a certain frame, or be surprised. I hope that the images will make them feel and think certain things, as I felt and thought as I heard Joyce’s story and imagined being in her flat. I suppose that’s what I aim for in my work in general; certainly in my fine art work; to provoke certain sensations or thoughts which correspond to sensations and thoughts I have had when hearing stories.

What did you feel when you finally watched the film as a whole?
On one level I was surprised – I think I had expected it to be more sombre than I found it was. Since I knew a little in advance, I was prepared for the opening scenes, but the interviews with Joyce’s friends were especially moving, particularly towards the end. I think I hadn’t expected to find out so much about her as a person, I suspect I had been anticipating more explication, and the solving of the mystery. Not being given that solution could have been disappointing, but I found at the end there was sufficient catharsis, while still leaving elements of mystery. As I said to you yesterday, it makes you think, doesn’t it? I live pretty close to Wood Green, and now, every time I drive past Shopping City I glance up at the flats and think of Joyce.

On a wider level, what do you hope this film might achieve?
I suppose, like any artistic endeavour, I hope that it will make people think. When I go to see an art exhibition, or a film, or a play, I hope to feel something new, or unexpected, and I hope to come away with some new thoughts. I hope to learn something, be it small or large; something to take away with me. I think Carol’s film does this, it stays with you.

You can see more work by Lottie Davis on her website and find out where you can see the film on the Dreams of a Life website.

All photography by Vikram Kushwah

Vikram moved to London just three years ago and his career is already proving successful. With three critically acclaimed exhibitions under his belt, not to mention an international artist award and interest from the likes Vogue Italia, big things are predicted for Vikram Kushwah. I caught up with the ambitious photographer to find out a little bit more about his work and the inspiration behind his current book project Memoirs of a Lost Time, a collaboration with writer, Trisha Sakhlecha.

Vikram Kushwah Illustration by Estelle Morris

What first inspired you to start taking pictures?

The fact that photography is a direct representation of reality, yet it almost never fails to lie. It does so by allowing you to stage a setting, something that reality doesn’t allow you to do. It just exists and takes shape on its own. There’s this tension that I’ve always associated with photography and reality. You think of something and a picture is like a memento you keep, to remind you of your thoughts.

You grew up in a boarding school in the Himalayas. How does your background inspire your work today?

It was a very big school and I had a lot of free time to explore and to read children’s storybooks. I took the stories as real happenings since there was nobody there to tell me otherwise. I was also close to nature and a bit of a dreamer; I was bound to be growing up in a place like that. Every Sunday I would watch tadpoles in a pond for hours, waiting for ‘papa frog’ to turn up and make a big splash.

Students were given a lot of freedom to discover themselves in this way. I saw magic and sorcery as real life, holding a very strong bond with wildlife and the natural world. When I studied the mystery filled art of Surrealism and the romantics’ pastoral, it took me right back to my childhood. Each of these elements play a strong part in my work today; some conscious and some sub-conscious.

How much of your Indian heritage can be found in your work?

None. My formative years, from when I was two up until sixteen, were spent in a boarding school. Although it was in India it was a typically English school, maybe because it was founded by an English lady during the British rule during 1937. Though I come from a very traditional Indian family, my roots actually took shape at school where I spent two-thirds of every year since I was thirteen.

What encouraged you to move to London?

It has to be the rich art and cultural heritage of Britain. The exposure, the opportunities to progress, innovate and transform, the resources to learn, the vast open country. All of this creates, within me, a mental space from where I can continue to grow as a photographer and artist.

Do you think living in London has inspired your work in any way?

There’s so much for this ‘mental space’ to soak up here. The English countryside takes me back to my school days, back to my storybooks about pastoral landscapes and wooden cottages surrounded by forests and meadows, peasants and farmers. I keep looking for a tumbling Alice, ghoulish wolves and evil stepmothers; I sometimes do find them.

Earlier this year you shot the photography for Hairspray: The musical. What was it like working with team behind the production?

It was a totally new experience. I enjoyed the rehearsals as much as I enjoyed photographing the play. I was left on my own and given complete freedom, and I really enjoyed the space on the balcony where I shot from. The atmosphere was exceptional and one could really see the hard work being put in by the very young actors and crew. By the end of it I knew all the lines by heart!

Your work tends to combine both elements of fine art and fashion editorial; is there one medium you most enjoy?

There’s a definite crossover no matter how much I want to pull them apart. I have these peculiar ideas and strange stories in my head, which inform my pictures, and they never escape the thought of fashion. Not just in terms of clothing, but also in the sense of time and place. For example, there was this one picture that I only wanted shot with a certain type of Peter Pan collar. Afterwards I knew the picture wouldn’t have worked without it.

There are lots of elements in my photos that act as pieces of information about my work. Fashion is essentially one of them. The information is subject to interpretation and that’s when the mind starts to wander and stories begin to take shape.

What is the story behind Ofelea?

The Ofelea series is a portrait of my imagination and memories, often twisted by the dark underlying layers of the storybooks I read as a child. The series of pictures is a juxtaposition of the Freudian concept The Uncanny; the constantly recurring mysterious environments in the Surrealist art movement and reconstructions of my distant childhood imagination.

There is an interesting story behind the name ‘Ofelea’. To begin with, my Ofelea had nothing to do with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Ophelia is in fact the protagonist of one of my favourite films, Pan’s Labyrinth; this is what originally drew me to the name. During the research stage of my project, I studied both romantic and surrealist art. Here I came across the famous painting Ophelia by English painter John Everett Millais, a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I learnt that Millais‘ drowning of Ophilea was a depiction of Shakespeare’s very own character, thus bringing all three Ophelias (very co-incidentally) into the equation.

What was the inspiration behind your new book Memoirs of a Lost Time?

This book project was actually Trisha’s idea. She knows my work really well and we both draw inspiration from similar aspects – escapism, daydreams and so on. We all know what clothes designers make, what song musicians write, but we wanted to know more about the formative days of such creative individuals: the elements of childhood that ultimately inspire their work today. So we set about capturing the memories of their bygone days in our own dream-like style. They themselves feature in the photographs, though nothing too defined. We’ve left the images open-ended – just like dreams and fading memory – yet there’s a strong flavour to each story.

Each chapter takes you into the personal and never seen before world of our subjects, presenting photographs, a short story and an insightful interview. Each section weaves in and out of reality where you begin to drift into a realm of imaginative possibilities, yet always remaining attached to the facts that were. It’s a representation of not only what was, but also a very whimsical take on what could have been.

What was it like working with Trisha Sakhlecha?

In a way it’s like working with myself. We share a common paradigm in terms of aesthetics. We’re the best of friends too, which always helps. We can rubbish each others’ ideas without hesitation and more importantly the process of storytelling and taking pictures doesn’t feel like work to us; it feels like we’re in a trance. We definitely compliment each other well: she’s the more organised one, whereas I can lift heavy things. It’s a balance.

What can we expect to see next from you?

Memoirs of Lost Time; it’s only half complete. There are some real surprises yet to come in the forthcoming chapters. We’re hoping to release the book mid-2012.
Oh and Vogue Italia are also interested! They’re publishing one of my photographs in their January 2012 issue, featuring London-based fashion designer Elizabeth Lau.

Exciting times lie ahead!

What does Nakedbutsafe mean and how did you decide upon the name for your new magazine?
Nakedbutsafe means that our magazine tries to be ‘naked’ from any form of ties and connections to standard industry pressure points like PRs etc… which makes it highly independent. I think readers don’t trust magazines and the media in general any more because there is no more news, only commerce. Magazines today (including many so called independent ones) are just sales platforms for major brands. As a freelance photographer I witnessed last minute calls from major brands in Paris to an otherwise quite credible publication, asking for clothing items to be used on the cover shoot even when they had nothing to do with the theme of the shooting. Additionally ‘naked’ means naked from any form of post production that cannot be done in the dark room. This could have made the magazine feel a bit nostalgic, but this is not the case. We celebrate photography and our research into young artistic and photographic talent shows that there is a strong trend towards not using post production. We want our fashion photographers to enjoy the process of taking photos in the moment, and not to rely on the lab. Naked is also naked from any fear of press censure. We encourage freedom and the breaking of boundaries every day, not just in the magazine. The choice of name was a natural decision from the state of mind we found ourselves in at the start of 2011.

Who is behind Nakedbutsafe? Can you tell us a short history about its creation?
Myself (Stratis Kastrisianakis) and my partner Manos Samartzis are the creators and driving force behind the magazine. We do everything in house from design to proofing, and from art curating to monitoring distribution and sales. Happily we are blessed with many talented friends and old collaborators that jumped on the idea of giving a hand to a project that started out shy but now is a full time commitment. One day in december 2010 myself and Manos were so frustrated by a commission that we decided NOT to work for these kind of publications any more. So nakedbutsafe was born out of frustration. Then we started a task of entering into a world that already seems so natural, even though it was all news to us back then. We chose to work with consultants and not actual collaborators so we could keep the schedule under control (it is hard to ask people to work for free under pressure) and so that we would not offend anyone’s artistic expression by rejecting them. Nakedbutsafe is 100% an in house process with 95% of its material shot especially for us. Today things have changed dramatically. Every day we get requests from artists and collaborators of every kind that want to be part of nakedbutsafe. This is all very exciting. Our new roster is a very selected list of young and emerging talent in their fields.

Your press release speaks about living life with intellectually fulfilled integrity, how is this best manifested in the magazine’s content?
Our take on lifestyle aims to show people that we are humans with brains and not just simple forms of life who react to outside influences. We do not need toys and wealth to live a rich life. Wealth comes from bettering our lives. There are alternatives out there that will create conditions for a new experience. We don’t just need things to show off to other members of our circle. Our planet is a wonderful thing and it is ours. Freedom from needing stuff but encouraging new experiences is our biggest tool towards independency from the media promoted garbage that fills our lives. This is clearly stated in many parts of our magazine – we want it to be a magazine that is read and not just a coffee table item. Magazines are not decorative items.

How difficult has it been to launch a magazine in Greece in this time of financial crisis?
Amazingly difficult and challenging. But also this is one of the reasons why we manage to keep editorial integrity. Once you hit the bottom you can only go up. Also the anger that exists inside everyone in Greece right now has transformed itself into a creative force.

I love the statement that you ‘appreciate illustrators, but not the ones who call themselves photographers’. Why is it so important to you to use images that are not airbrushed?
See my previous answer for part of this explanation. All readers, even non industry ones, are so familiar with post production that they have lost their trust in the colours of a sunset, of a fruit and eventually the beauty of human form. It’s a crime. We are living in the era of temporary plastic surgery through imagery.

Nakedbutsafe is published in English. What was the decision about this, and where can you buy the magazine?
English is the most commonly spoken language and the one that suits most of our international team. It was a decision based on practicality. In the future we want to have multilingual articles in the magazine (in their original form) as well as in English, but this will not be the case anytime soon. Pineapple Media and Comag International are the people behind our global reach. We have somehow limited printing numbers (under 15,000 copies) so our reach is global but targeted. In January 2012 we will have full details of where to buy nakedbutsafe but for the moment please check out Where to Buy on our website.

Have there been any difficulties in ensuring global distribution, if so what have you learnt?
Yes. As always a new craft brings excitement and also problems which need to be dealt with. Not knowing the actual distribution locations until the magazine is already in the stores was news to us. Now we know and it’s ok. We are not an urgent magazine to buy in terms of news.

Why is it important to you to create a magazine from 100% sustainable sources?
I will reverse the question; why is not so important for everyone else? There is too much intellectual garbage out there, never mind actual garbage. Let’s all be sustainable – it will make everyone happier.

How did you discover Principal Colour and why did you decide to use them to print Nakedbutsafe?
Their take on natural and ecological printing was a big attraction, but I also like that Principal Colour is run with an informal mood that is in line with the playful (but still extremely serious) character of nakedbutsafe. They are amazing and I have no hesitation in recommending them to others. I received their press proofs by mistake for issue 1 and there was no difference in quality between mine and theirs.

To read the rest of this article hop on over to the Principal Colour tumblr blog.

The Nathalie Djurberg exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre greets you with a rainbow-like ceiling installation, before plunging you into an altogether darker space.

In the middle of the first room, three large tables are lit, displaying hundreds of glasslike objects – vessels, urns, vases and household cutlery. Djurberg has said she wanted to create a shipwreck effect, but another way of describing the translucent odds and ends collection is that it’s like stumbling upon the Snow Queen’s dining room. It was tempting to reach out and touch the objects, painstakingly produced from manmade materials, but I held back, convinced they might break.

Photography by Andy Keate.

At either end of the room two different films are projected, displaying images of creatures from fairytales and myths: bulls, elks, foxes and horses. These animals are in fact puppets moulded from clay, and the attention to detail Nathalie Djurberg has paid in terms of their movements, textured fur and colour means that they are compelling to watch. In one film, a horse brays over a naked woman and in another, a woman is licked by what looks like an ox, melting, speaking and interacting with the animal at the same time.

Images directly above and following courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery New York, Galleria Gio Marconi Milan.

Both films are primal, with much gnashing of jaws, reminding me of Roald Dahl’s book Dirty Beasts. Limbs are lost and subconscious desires considered, but there are no firm morals or outcomes. Rather, this is an exploration about what it might be like to be trapped in a parallel universe made of glass.

But these are only the visual aspects. In the background, Hans Berg’s soundtrack starts with a gentle electronic pulse which builds throughout the duration of the five-minute-long films. The percussive soundscape is interspersed with glass taps and smashes, holding the installation together in a perfect balance. At the main entrance to the Camden Arts Centre, you can watch a recorded interview between Djurberg and Berg. It supports what is made clear in this exhibition –that this is a magnificent partnership between two artists who truly understand and complement one another’s work.

Around the corner is another room containing further objects and two additional films. Here, crocodiles emerge from a bubbling jelly cocoon, and a naked body is hidden within a hippo’s mouth. Scrawled speech bubbles declare ‘I will eat youre leftovers’, which is both amusing and terrifying in a violent, shaky picture. Opposite, we can watch a proverbial bull in a china shop, including miniature versions of the glassworks actually on display. It comes to a bloody end after cutting itself on broken glass, and the frame is flooded with red.

Djurberg’s installation is enthralling, a kind of playful goriness in vibrant colour. If you’re interested in finding out more about her previous works, be sure to check out Jenny Roper’s 2009 Venice Biennale review for Amelia’s Magazine.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With free admission and the chance to watch further Nathalie Djurberg films in the Reading Room, you’ll want to get along while you can: on until 8 January 2012 at the Camden Arts Centre, London. Read our full listing here.

The relationship between a fashion designer and his business manager-cum-lover isn’t a new concept to cinema. Anybody who has seen Valentino: The Last Emperor will have already witnessed the trials and tribulations when two men – one a rare, creative genius, the other a businessman, have to work together on a daily basis for fifty consecutive years.

Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge by Karolina Burdon

L’Amour Fou is a little different, however. For starters, where The Last Emperor was a celebration of Valentino’s illustrious career, L’Amour Fou doubles as a celebration of Yves Saint Laurent’s life. This film is more of a romantic tribute to the designer through the eyes of his partner, Pierre Berge.

Yves Saint Laurent A/W 1965 – the ‘Mondrian‘ dress – by Cruz

From the opening credits, I was hooked. An homage to Yves‘ ‘Love‘ cards that he designed and produced for staff (many on display at the Majorelle Gardens, Marrakech), flashes of colour and geometric shapes flood the screen. I saw the film at the ICA, and its diminutive cinema with old fashion red velour seats and dusty projector make the experience even more apt.

Yves Saint Laurent at his final show by Mitika Chohan

When the title sequence has rolled, we see Yves at a press conference declaring his resignation, juxtaposed with Berge’s touching eulogy at Saint Laurent’s funeral. We’re only about 6 minutes into the film here, and already I’m in pieces.

Yves Saint Laurent at Dior by Cruz

The film features archival footage of Yves Saint Laurent, from his days at Dior through to his greatest collections during the 1970s and 1980s, pieced together by Pierre’s narration. The film skips between Yves Saint Laurent the fashion designer, Yves Saint Laurent the art collector, and Yves Saint Laurent the tempestuous lover. The film culminates with the dramatic, poignant and record-breaking art auction of 2009 in which Yves and Pierre’s entire art collection was auctioned for AIDS charities.

Yves Saint Laurent Wedding Dress S/S 1999 by Janneke de Jong

The film explores the early relationship between the pair – they met at Christian Dior’s funeral and it was pretty much love at first sight. You can tell by how Pierre talks about Yves that this was not an easy relationship. Yves‘ crippling depression, substance abuse, morbid insecurities and changeable state of mind have taken their toll on ol’ Berge. But through all this, a glint in his eyes remains, as his relates countless stories about one of the world’s greatest, creative men.

Yves Saint Laurent for Zizi Jeanmaire by Joana Faria

Amidst the drama of the relationship, fashion fans won’t be disappointed. The film features never-before-seen photographs of Yves at Dior, adjusting hemlines and admiring his creations on models. There’s film footage of his most celebrated collections, from bridal wear to Russian-inspired collections in the mid-seventies. We see Zizi Jeanmaire dancing in one of Yves’ most spectacular creations made of feathers.

Opium advert (1977) by Katrina Conquista

Wondrous footage of the original Opium ad is one of the film’s many highlights – and Berge describes how controversial this was; not so much the advert but the name (the controversial adverts would follow, with Sophie Dahl naked and spread eagle for Opium and the first ever fully naked man in a print advertisement for M7). The irony, as Berge describes, was that Yves selected a name with a narcotic reference, when it would be alcohol and drugs that would almost destroy their relationship. Berge talks about this at length, and how Yves would only ever be happy moments after a show; Berge would have to wait another six months to witness that same level of happiness.

Opium advert (2000) featuring a naked Sophie Dahl by Katrina Conquista

But it is the couple’s love of art that dominates this film. After Yves‘ death, Berge decided to sell the collection that they had tirelessly put together over twenty years. Why? Because, after Yves‘ death, ‘the collection had lost the greater part of its significance.’ There are less sombre anecdotes in the film: ‘When Yves designed the Mondrian dress, we never dreamt that one day we would own one,’ Berge says with a smile.

Yves Saint Laurent A/W 1965 – the ‘Mondrian‘ dress – by Mitika Chohan

And so at the end of the film, during the auction, we see Pierre sitting backstage clapping his hands and marvelling at the record-breaking sales prices. Finally, he’s the last to leave the auction and we see him walking down the stairs of the Grand Palais. It’s a poignant ending to a pretty poignant film, and there’s something a bit sinister about it that I couldn’t really put my finger on – the endless shots of empty rooms? Christies‘ employees, the ‘undertakers of art’, boxing up paintings? Berge’s willingness to openly discuss every facet of Yves’ personality, at the risk of seeming a little bitter? I’m not sure. But I loved it, nonetheless. It’s a sombre tribute, but a colourful one.

Last weekend I went to Hampshire for my first experience of Uncivilisation, the Dark Mountain gathering of like minded folks interested in discussing our future.

Uncivilisation 2011. All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Dark Mountain is a manifesto put together by Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, who met in that grand new fashioned way – through reading, admiring and commenting on each other’s blogs. This means that the process of getting to know each other has happened alongside the production of two Dark Mountain anthologies and two festivals – all of which has been hard work, both financially and emotionally.

Dark Mountain by Abi Daker.

I am interested in the space that Dark Mountain occupies because I have been involved in direct action for change through both Climate Camp and Transition Towns. Climate Camp stops the source of problems whilst creating an alternate vision of a sustainable future. Transition Towns tackles sustainability with local community action. In both there are attempts to talk about the crisis we face and the emotions that this elicits, but Dark Mountain is more explicitly about facing some kind of imminent collapse, facing up to and talking through it on an intellectual level. The Dark Mountain Project is also rooted in Deep Ecology, a recognition that humanity is just one part of the wildness that makes up planet Earth. It touches on the kind of emotional work that Joanna Macy teaches: the Work that Reconnects which gives a voice to our deepest fears.

Baba Yaga by Rima Staines.

So it was no surprise to find many familiar faces at the Sustainability Centre when I arrived late on Friday night, though the deep Hampshire darkness prevented me from doing much seeing and socialising. Instead I instinctively felt my way towards the fireside to join Tom Hirons‘ wonderful Baba Yaga storytelling session. It was so lovely to find a group of adults enthralled by stories, and a salient reminder that we need to have our imagination stimulated every bit as much as children do.

On Saturday morning Uncivilisation officially opened with an introduction from co-founders Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth. Paul, ever the more downbeat of the two, presented lost property of an iphone and a penknife. ‘One will be useful after the apocalypse.‘ We then went straight into the major panel discussion: Collapsonomics. This was due to be presented by Paul Mason, but he had to bow out, currently busy covering the actual collapse that we are experiencing right now.

‘Recovering banker‘ Arthur Doohan echoed Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth, who spoke at the Transition Towns conference last year. She spoke about how we are currently forestalling the collapse – which will make the eventual complete financial collapse even worse when it does arrive. He predicted it to be 9mths away which almost exactly chimes in with Nicole’s prediction of 2 years in June 2010. This is not the first time that we have headed towards collapse – it happened in the last century and it will happen again but unfortunately humans have short memories and each time we must relearn how to react. Arthur reminded us that proper banking should be the servant of the people, and somehow we have allowed this concept to be reversed. By propping up the banks we have poisoned sovereign cash, which, coupled with ongoing denial about our situation, puts us in a precarious state of affairs. We have to learn that ‘banking without bankruptcy is the same as Catholicism without Hell.’

Collapse by Aliyahgator.

Smari McCarthy spoke about his attempts to deal with the Icelandic collapse. In Iceland if something is considered too fancy or luxurious it is common parlance to say ‘Oh, that’s so 2007.’ He noted how in the early stages of failure the state will offload services to the public, who concurrently have been so stripped of any power that they are unable to manage the infrastructure. Chillingly he predicts that whilst basic services are dropped the state will retain a monopoly on strategies of force. He finished with the chilling words, ‘You’re next.’ We are like Roadrunner, feet spinning wildly in the air before we plunge to the ground.

Eleanor Saitta is a specialist in how complex systems work and fail. She explained the need to fight the current structures that have been built in the name of stability, and of ways to manage the wild swings between despair and hope. Anton Shelupanov is a penal reformer from Russia who is now based in Tottenham and he told us that when the tools of civilisation are no longer fit for purpose then there is a tendency to go into overdrive – as seen in the state reaction to the riots with hyper incarceration. He did a chilling demonstration with bodies (including mine) of how tightly packed prisoners became in the Russian prisons after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This mania happens in all sorts of primary systems when there is a collapse.

It was most intriguing to hear ways in which collapse has affected various countries and systems but the conversation stopped short just as things were about to get interesting. It was a shame that more of the weekend could not have been devoted to this specific subject, for the collapse that may have seemed far away when the programme for Uncivilisation was put together suddenly seems very much in the present, and having heard about the effects of collapsing systems I would have liked more discussion on how we manage a collapse, from all kinds of different aspects.

Crofting by Christina Demetriou.

Over in the beautiful Woodland space it was time to go back to the wild with crofter Sharon Blackie, who spoke eloquently of her new life in the outer Hebrides. Yearning to be in closer contact with nature she left a corporate life to learn how to farm and weave and spin; she believes that stepping out of the system can help to bring it down because if enough people chose a different way of life then the current system will crumble at the edges.

By witnessing, really being, in a different way of life, in a place of wildness, Sharon hopes to show a more authentic way of living. The post talk discussion was particularly interesting, as many city dwellers addressed the importance of a connection with nature in urban spaces. Sharon Blackie also publishes books that inspire change via Two Ravens Press.

The 200th anniversary of the Luddites is gaining ground everywhere. At Uncivilisation a panel discussion retrod territory that I heard covered by Theo Simon at Wilderness Festival. It was yet another reminder to consider how the structures and technologies we build to better our lives may not, in fact, be good for us.

The Sacred by Elizabeth Hudson.

The discussion ‘We can no longer afford to ignore the sacred‘ was opened with a very moving introduction by Dougald’s own mother but from then onwards it was unfortunately convoluted and confusing, offering little in the way of concrete opinions or ideas, the format wrong for the subject matter. But it did cause me to ponder on the idea that Western religions do not accord as much power and importance to the act of birth (ie sex) as they do to death. Vinay Gupta questioned why the most creative act of life is hidden and the most destructive one is revered?

Once the sun had set it was time once more to evoke the spaces beyond the intellect. I particularly enjoyed heartfelt acoustic folk music from A.P. Clarke. Liminal by Dougie Strang was staged in the woods with naked creatures, eerily glowing artwork and plenty of trance like chanting. The interactive performance was a highlight for many, confirming the need for physical release after the heady discussions of daytime.

Why not read my Sunday review too?

A playground for all ages, The Secret Garden Party boasts a reputation as a festival where you can temporarily seek refuge from the hassles of real life and indulge in a few days of crazy creativity in a temporary community where a surprise lurks around every corner.

In my estimation, The Secret Garden Party is the closest you can ever get to Wonderland without reading Alice Through the Looking-Glass (It even has croquet). Held in the Cambridgeshire countryside just outside Huntingdon, this festival occurs on the grounds of Abbots Ripton Hall, home of Lord de Ramsey. These days the festival is a pretty badly kept secret and as many as 26,000 people attended this year, compared to the more petite 1000 or so that partied there back when it was begotten in 2004.

The grounds, as well as the festival goers, function as an impromptu art exhibit with fancy dress encouraged and contributing to the surreal ambience. Although marketed as both an arts and music festival, the lack of well-known bands means that more often than not the attendees are lured to the festival on the premise of the experience itself.

Illustrations by Lilly Allen

Festivals rest in the perilous hands of the weather and although our entrance to the festival was marked by the rain, an ominous start to the weekend, it was hot enough by Friday that we could mosey to the lake and go swimming with hoards of other eager beavers, desperate to wash off the glitter and UV paint from last night’s exploits. The lake is a vital part of the festival atmosphere, not only because you can swim and row across it, but because there is also a temporary stage in the centre that you can only get to by boat. This stage, in the shape of a dragonfly, was burnt on the Saturday night.

Blondie, illustrated by Sam Parr

This is a festival where you go with the flow, whether you choose to follow the trail of glow sticks being left by a person in the distance in the hope that it leads you somewhere, or you want to sit in front of the sand stage and relax burning marshmallows on the bonfire. Each festival experience is unique and as well as being handed some snacks by someone in a Kindness Initiative tabard we were approached by someone who presented us with a piece of paper reading “switch off your alarm clock”; SGP is a hands-on festival if ever there was one.

There are an impossible number of things to do. They say that curiosity killed the cat, but this is a place to satiate your interest, taking advantage of what’s on offer, whether that is life drawing or an introduction to fetishes: in a tent filled with pillows where you are required to take your shoes off at the entrance and a small make shift cinema (complete with popcorn). Forming just a sample of the odd attractions on offer, you’re guaranteed never to be bored. Other more mainstream activities to pep you up during the day include miniature golf and yoga. If you want to watch someone in a wasp spray costume chase a bee around, or throw paint at people you don’t know in the annual paint fight, then this is the place to do it. With so much on offer its impossible to sample everything in one visit and this festival will undoubtedly leave you wanting more.

We got more than we bargained by watching mud wrestling, the climax of the show being impromptu nudity as well as a Mission Impossible style drop for items located in the mud pit. We also checked out Shitfaced Shakespeare, a performance of Romeo and Juliet for which the actors are completely and utterly trollied. Both of which made for unique experiences.

We were totally sheltered from the real world here: with no plug sockets, the news of Amy Winehouse and the Norway massacre filter through the crowds with shock, reminding us that we have to go back to our lives on Monday.

Married to the Sea, illustrated by Nicola Ellen

The majority of bands playing at SGP are relatively unknown and reading down the list makes me feel suddenly lacking in hipster knowledge. There are big names, too: Leftfield, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mystery Jets and of course Blondie. We watched rising stars like Cosmo Jarvis and relative unknowns like Married to the Sea, wandering through the various stages in search of the best tunes. But mostly, we weaved in and out of the tents soaking up the atmosphere, picking up the phone of the random call box that lets you talk to strangers somewhere else on the festival and being glad that we were lucky enough to get tickets.

Cosmo Jarvis, illustrated by Rosemary Kirton
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There is more to SGP than the music. This is the festival to end all festivals and has a certain je ne sais quoi that other festivals fail to achieve. If you want to dress up as a different animal every day then this is the place for you. It’s an art gallery with its visitors welcome to become part of the exhibit. The Secret Garden Party is one of the few experiences in life when the reality of the festival will no doubt outstrip your expectations.

All photography by Jessica Cook

Each of the 7000 postcards sent out by EJ Major carries an image from the film ‘Last Tango In Paris’, possibly to act as inspiration to the recipients as they pondered the question printed on the back. Not that it is a question, really, it simply says: ‘love is…’, and the chosen film is actually pretty ambiguous on the subject. Still, 450 people answered the challenge, returning the card to Major complete with their own tuppence worth on the topic that is love. Now the result has been gathered in a limited edition book. We had a chat with the artist about the inspiration behind the project, and how she feels about the result.

What inspired this project? Was it the film, the idea of strangers working together, or something else?
The inspiration for a project is always a question or an uncertainty, a niggle over something, though often I’m not even sure what that niggle is until some time later. At the time of making this project I had become fixated on freezing films. I’d completed the piece ‘Try To Do Things We All Can Understand’ where I used images and text from key scenes of certain films to see if I could apply Barthes notion of the punctum to moving image. Following this I had started freezing each second of particular movies and turning them into a vast series of stills. I’d been doing this for some time and was looking for where to take the idea. After making a kind of narrative wallpaper of films like ‘The Swimmer’, ‘Swedish Love Story’, ‘The Misfits’, I was struggling to push the idea further. Then I froze ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and the idea to turn each still into a single postcard suggested itself. I can’t remember which came first, love or strangers… I think love and I chose to begin a survey on love because I was struggling with it. I genuinely wanted to know what other people had to say on the subject. I wanted to put these elements together and for once, just wait and see what happened.

Why ‘Last Tango in Paris’? From what I remember it’s not exactly a romantic film, but I’m guessing that’s part of the point.
‘Last Tango in Paris’ is a film I have watched again and again. It’s a film that bothers me and at the same time I’m seduced by. The film is shot beautifully and its construction is simultaneously episodic and climactic, so it has both pace and presence. Much focus has been given to the sex scenes in the film and for good reason. They are a mix of passion, tenderness and viciousness and within the canvas of a film, difficult to reconcile. This is part of my fascination with the film. At the same time I don’t see the film as “about sex” in the way that say pornography may be said to be about sex. In this sense I do see the film as more “about love”, predominantly romantic love but not exclusively. The thrust of the film is the relationship between the two central characters but in its episodic construction we are given insights into the relationships between these characters and others, familial and romantic. I do, however, see the film as determinedly anti-cliché. This was important in putting it alongside a prompt like ‘love is…’.

Tell us a little about the answers you received from the returned postcards. Was it what you expected?
Well one thing is the answers are generally less answers, more responses and the responses are many and varied. This is part of what interested me with this approach. Some people did attempt to find a response to the prompt ‘love is…’ whether that was personal or from another source. But others responded to the very idea of the project or in terms of their recognition of the film or even just to the image itself. Some just sent the card back blank. One lady returned the postcard in pristine condition along with a formal hand-written letter thanking me but politely stating that at the age of 85 she would not be requiring my services. As the card she received was an image of the two central characters embracing, I can only guess what she thought my services might be.

The responses are as diverse as the people who responded. Some are predictable others unexpected, some are outpourings, others very stark, some are sad, angry even while others are funny, life affirming or very personal meditations on the subject. One person just tippexed out the ‘love is…’ and returned the card, a subtle but quite unsettling response. Someone else wrote: “You need to get a life mate!” which always makes me smile. The more personal responses I think you need to read for yourself but there was rather more God than I expected. I value each of the responses but I’m also interested in the interplay of the elements at work; text, image and meaning and how they intersect. Also how people attempt to find their way out of a cliché, or don’t.

This project took years to complete and depended on the co-operation of strangers. I suppose this meant the outcome was somewhat out of your hands? Are you satisfied with how it turned out?
About 6% of the postcards came back over the course of two years which meant around 450 responses of the original 7000+ delivered. To be honest, the outcome was something I couldn’t predict and that was one of the reasons for starting this project in the first place. At the time I was working on the ‘Marie Claire RIP’ series which is based on a set of police mugshots of the same woman over a 14 year period. I was restaging these using myself as the subject. The whole process was very intense and quite isolating as I was at once model, photographer and retoucher. I needed to do something where I threw up control of the outcome. Although obviously now in the organization of the returned material back into the narrative sequence of the film and the production of the book, I am taking control again.

I’m not satisfied with the outcome as much as by turns exhilarated by its possibility (at this stage I haven’t yet seen the finished book), exhausted by this 7 year endeavour, continually beguiled by the film, humbled by the collaboration of strangers and somewhat in awe at how alive the whole shebang still is to me.

You asked strangers to complete the sentence ‘Love is …’. How would you complete it?
I didn’t expect anyone to really complete the sentence, just respond if they could. I have a million responses and none. I guess my response is a small bow, a thick book, a bemused smile and an infinity of dots…

‘Love Is …’ will be released 1st August – buy it here. EJ’s website is here. ‘Love Is …’ will also be on display during EJ’s forthcoming solo show, Shoulder To Shoulder, at Matt Roberts Gallery in Bethnal Green. Running between 2nd and 24th September.

Max Kibardin Shoes by Claire Kearns

Reinventing the wheel is no mean feat, but together with Altaroma, Yoox have given it a go with both inspiring and beautiful results. Not a new concept, but one which is hard to get right, the two have worked together to create a desirable collection of eight classic designs from eight legendary maisons. With Altaroma’s Silvia Venturini Fendi, they have selected key fashion houses and contemporary designers to work together on producing must-have one-off collectors pieces and from this selection, eight stand outs were chosen to be sold exclusively on Yoox.

Sara Lanzi by Michelle Pegrume

From shoes to dresses, eight emerging talents have reworked heritage designs from the houses including Albanese, Simonetta, Fabiani and Alberto Fabiani. A shining example of a new direction in Italian high fashion, the Limited/Unlimited project has been working for the last few years to showcase a new generation of avant garde design and innovation. On the 8th July in the appropriately impressive Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the launch party for the collections drew in the likes of fashions finest: Suzy Menkes, Franca Sozzani, Silvia Venturini Fendi and Delfina Delettrez Fendi.

Sergio Zambon by Amy Rogers

Results of these pairings are one-off pieces that really create a link between the iconic maisons of the past and relevant 21st century style. Plenty more examples are available on the Yoox website.