Grove

LETTER e h t from s r o t i ed

We couldn’t be more excited to launch our first issue of Grove Magazine. This is a project we created for our module Advanced Media Production. It aims to present creative students and their work, based in the Grove building at Middlesex University. If you are a MDX student, teacher, someone who has an interest in the creative work going on at Middlesex University (or maybe just spend a lot of time here) please read on – Grove Magazine is for you, and most importantly, about you. This has been such a fun project for us to work on and we have met so many creative, interesting and amazing people who you can get to know further in the magazine. To find out who they are you can go to page 6 and read their stories, or jump right to page 50 to check out Grove Street Style. Maybe you are starring in the first issue of the magazine! We want to thank all the amazing people contributing and helping us, you are a big part of Grove Magazine.

Inghild Kristina Mona Egle and Marte

PAGE content issue 01 - spring 2015

6

Student Work

14

Zoe Leung fashion communication and styling

8

Sarah Cutler fine arts

Tobias Schreier product design

24

28

Yasmin Benamar photography

Jasmine Wickens fashion design

34

36

MoDA

44

20

MDX Alumni: Baryier

Into The Obscure

50

Street Style

55

Credits

52

The Internship

ZOE LEUNG Studies BA Fashion Communication and Styling. Focuses on photography.

SARA CUTLER Studies BA Fine Art and is currently in Israel on exchange.

JASMINE WICKENS Studies BA Fashion Design and is currently working on her graduate collection.

TOBIAS SCHREIER Studies BA Product Design and uses 3D printing in his work.

YASMIN BENAMAR

Studies BA Photography and has done a project on being of mixed race.

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STUDENT work

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SARA CUTLER fine arts

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S

arah Cutler is a second year Fine Arts student at Middlesex University. She loves painting, exploring different ideas and expressing them through art. Her fascination for people inspired her newest project, which was exhibited in the Grove’s Atrium. The 12 tribes is a series of 12 portraits, painted from photographs Sarah took of different types of men from Israel. We had the chance to talk to her for a little while about her exhibition.

Interview Iulia Şchiopu

What inspired you to do this project?

Last year I was interested in other cultures, but now I thought I should explore my own. I went to Israel because it has the most diverse amount of Jewish people. I wanted to know and discover more about them. I am so fascinated with the diversity within their community, but also with their unity. It’s so diverse, but then everyone is so united.

That’s why I did it. I feel like the world has an image of what Jewish means, but there are so many types of it. I wanted to show the people from Israel in a different light, kind of in a positive way.

Where are you from, Sarah?

I was born in Israel, but I lived here my whole life. You could say I’m pretty much British.

Why did you choose these particular people? I mean, why take pictures of them and not others?

I just literally had a camera on me and I just walked around. I guess I was just drawn to them, they looked interesting. Maybe it sounds like I am generalising, but they were the kind of different types of jews that are: the sol-

Why did you choose Israel for the project?

I wanted to explore my heritage.

dier, the hippie, the orthodox, and so on. I just wanted to know more about them. Looking back though, if I would go now, I would do it differently.

In which sense?

I went to these people and just took photos of them. I was really shy, I was really scared because they were strangers and my parents told me not to talk to strangers (laughs). I’d take the picture and then I’d just disappear, run away, and be happy to have a picture to paint. But if I’d do it now, I’d love to ask them about themselves and interview them, just to get a glimpse into their life. Everybody has a story and I would like to reveal that.

All the paintings are of men. Is there a reason for it?

I have a lot of photos of women, but I felt like there’s more diversity between the men. I was more drawn to these pictures. I’m not trying to say anything with it though.

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Do you feel like it helped you get a sense of who you are, your roots?

Yeah, I feel like it helped a lot.

What technique did you use for the paintings?

I’d say expressionist. I love colours, lots of colours, they make me excited. I like painting - the smell of it, the thick paints - it’s so liberating and freeing for me. I guess I’m just expressing some sort of need to be free.

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What artists inspired you?

Andrew Salgado, Tai Shan Schierenberg, Lucien Freud, Brandon Stanton (photographer of Humans of New York), Natalia Dik, and more. All these artists I’m inspired by show their creativity by showing people in a different way.

Do you have any further plans with this project?

I actually do, yeah. I have loads and loads of photos from this trip. I want-

ed to paint more, because I don’t think this an accurate depiction of the community. Obviously, it’s more diverse.

Also, this is all on men, because I wanted to do the 12 tribes. However, I would like to do one on women, to show the different types of women. I’ve also been really inspired by Humans of New York. I would love to do what he (Brandon Stanton) does. I’d like to take it even further, because I feel this is done to discover my roots, my heritage,

and once that’s clear to me, I would like to take it to the world (laughs).

Good luck with it, Sarah! We hope to see more projects like this from all over the world.

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“

I like painting - the smell of it, the thick paints - it’s so liberating and freeing for me.

ZOE LEUNG

fashion communication & styling

Z

oe Leung, from Fashion to Photography. This is about a Fashion student exploring and challenging herself.

Interview Ludovica Uggeri

Look around, set the right composition, choose the settings, focus then press the shutter. There it is, you have captured a moment.

Creativity, passion, ambition and patience: These are the qualities that a photographer should have. Let the imagination wander and get inspiration from your surroundings. Being a photographer is hard work and Zoe Leung is putting all her effort into achieving her goals. Born in London to Chinese parents, Zoe is a 21 years old student of Fashion Communication & Styling at Middlesex University.

When did you start being interested in photography?

Last summer I was on holiday

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with some friends in Hong Kong.

Whilst wandering around cheap electronics stores, I bought a cheap film camera for fun. After taking pictures with it, I was immediately attracted to the interesting, and unique qualities of the images, in which I find inexistent in digital photography. Since then I started

“

I like to explore sexuality, awkwardness and despair of the girls I photograph. to shoot continuously, and it only grew on me more. Then I proposed to my lecturers that I wanted to explore/ focus my final project with film photography.

What is this final project about?

It is my last ever university project, which comes in three parts, as I am still exploring ways to refine my work. Up until now, I shoot with fixated subjects (a female friend/model) in their own homes’ bedrooms and bathrooms. For exterior shots I sometimes shoot on locations that delivers a fictional yet foreign atmosphere, if not then usually it’s just down the road from their houses.

My images are mostly about telling stories of my subjects, a personal and private aspect of their lives. I like to explore sexuality, awkwardness and despair of the girls I photograph, and to do that I myself as photographer invades the image both conceptually and physically.

Where do you get inspiration from?

I take inspiration from old Japanese films, a genre called Pink films. These films feature a lot of sex and violence, often victimising and brutalising women within the films. This may make me sound rather anti-feminist for liking this genre, but what I’m attracted

to isn’t the focus of abusing women.

I enjoy the unique cinematography and bizarre ideas of these films, especially of Koji Wakamatsu and Takahisa Zeze, these are the two main Pink Film directors I reference a lot from.

How would you describe your photographic style?

Random is the right word. But I also like abstract, which makes me focus into details.

Do you edit your pictures?

No, not severely anyway. I prefer to keep them without filters and extreme airbrushing. What I do sometimes is tuning the brightness, but only when necessary.

What do you enjoy the most of taking pictures?

I like the natural surprise I get with organic film photography. With film, you don’t always know what the images will look like until they are developed.

How do you usually shoot?

I like to shoot one-to-one with my subjects. Unless needed, I may have an assistant to help with transportation.

Thus far, I do not shoot with any external lights, if there is light, it usually is the built in flash from my camera.

Who are your models? Do you always have the same ones?

All my models are my female friends.

I have shot across three different girls, but for this stage of my project, I chose to stick with the one who matches the feelings I want to generate more.

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What are your future plans?

Maybe not immediately after my Bachelors, but in the near future I can see myself doing a Masters, preferably art-related, perhaps even photography. But I would like to see how exploring other fields would influence or change the way I work.

Zoe is a very talented aspiring photographer with high ambitions. She is proof that with the right attitude and imagination, an artist can be born anywhere.

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TOBIAS SCHREIER product design

3D printing is something that we

have all heard of in the news recently, but most of us probably don’t have a clue what it means or how it works.

Tobias Schreier, a second year Product Design student, tries to explain.

Interview by Aldo Cetrullo Why did you choose Middlesex University to further your studies?

Because the facilities here are quite good, you need machines to realise your project, and so when I was looking for universities, it made sense to come here because we have a workshop

and 3D printers which nowadays are essential to prototype your design.

What drove you to study Product Design? How did your interest in this subject develop?

I got into media and graphic design around the age of twelve, I also used to spend hours at a friend’s printery back home, where they were using all this design software. So when I had to decide what I wanted to do, for me it made more sense to go into design. I would see a lot of badly designed products on the market, and so my interest

grew. I consider product design to be inbetween engineering and art. You have to be creative, but you also have to realise your project in the real world.

What is 3D printing? Can you explain how it works?

There are different technologies behind it. The easiest way to explain it is, especially for consumers (market), 3D printers is that you have a material, which is solid, usually in a long rod, which is going to be heated up and liquified. The 3D printer, like a normal printer, is laying down the material onto a surface,

which then builds up into a 3D space.

The 3D printer creates its own surface and then builds upon this surface.

What are the limitations of 3D printing?

You’re quite free. It depends on the technology and the material you want to use.

What are the costs?

That varies a lot. It depends on the material you’re using. For this kind of part (indicating a prototype of the lamp he has created), because this one is quite a solid piece, we’ve used a lot of material for it, so it can be quite expensive. So maybe... 50 pounds? It all depends on what printer you’re using, what material you’re using and how big the printer is.

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How did you come up with the idea for the lamp and what were some of the difficulties in realising it?

Well, in this case, we had a project were we focused on making rather than sketching. Because normally when you start a project you start with sketching and ideation and research.

In this case we just used some kind of material and brought it together and then developed something from that.

You have inspirations, you google for something or you look in books or, I don’t know, many product designers look in nature for example. In this case I used plasticine and then I came up with these small pebbles, and then I thought about zen stones, like in a Japanese garden and that inspired me

a lot. I like the aesthetics of it. So we developed a lot of prototypes of it.

So to actually print something like this, how long does it take?

It took around 14 hours to print, in this case.

Would you say 3D printing is the future of product design?

Definately. In product design it is widely used for prototyping at the moment so not for final products, or products sold on the market, but in my opinion it is going to be way more important in the future.

So there you have it, hopefully you now have a better understanding of this exciting new technology.

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I consider product design to be inbetween engineering and art.

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YASMIN BENAMAR photography

Y

asmin Benamar is a second year student of photography at Middlesex University. Her hometown is the city of Ålesund, Norway, and she is of Norwegian and Moroccan descent.

One of her most recent projects was photographing people who, like her, came from mixed backgrounds. I sat down with Yasmin to discuss her love for photography, and what it means being a person of mixed race in 2015.

Interview by Aldo Cetrullo

How did you get into photography?

I’ve always taken pictures, since I was like twelve years old. But I think I realised I wanted to be a photgrapher when I was around fifteen. I always had my phone or anything that I could take pictures with. In Norway, in college, we could choose what we wanted to study, so I did media and communications where we basically also learned how to take pictures as well. So that’s when I started to know how to take pictures.

Is photography something you want to pursue as a career?

Yeah, it is. My main goal is like... I do mostly portraiture, so I would like to work with magazines, or have it up in galleries or whatever. I’m very broad with what I do, like I can do whatever as long as I have a camera.

So how do you go about selecting what kind of subjects you want to photograph?

Well, with this particular project, we got a brief which said “Identity”. So, I always go to the library first and go through books to try and find a main idea. With this project it was easy, when they said identity I automatically thought “Where you’re from”, and I’m mixed myself so I thought that that would be a good idea.

How was that, growing up mixed race in Norway?

To be honest, the reason I started doing this project was, I started writing about being mixed race and all that and I had

all this anger and I was like “Nobody understands what it’s like to be mixed blah blah blah...” and it’s kind of hard trying to understand where you fit in... and then in the end something that I figured out was that it is hard to be mixed race for some people in their teenage years because they feel so different to everyone else, but basically yeah, I think it’s cool.

So what can you tell me about this latest project you’ve been working on?

What was your inspiration? What are some of the ideas behind it?

When I got the brief I started thinking about the question of identity, and recently I’ve gotten a lot of questions, because I have braids and everything, people were asking me “Really where are you from?”, because everytime I said “Norway” they would say “You don’t look Norwegian”.

I basically wanted to show through my pictures the beauty of it, because everyone is different, wether you’re mixed or not, but I find it... different. We can make our own identity.

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Any future plans?

I’m actually working on a thing right now. I’m going back to Norway for ten days, and I will be taking pictures of me and the people who influenced my life in the past. It will be very staged, as something that as happened in the past. It will be really personal.

A young and inspired photographer, this probably won’t be the last we hear of Yasmin.

How did you go about selecting who to photograph?

I have fourteen people that I photographed, it was difficult getting people in the beginning, but I had posters everywhere, in pizza shops, coffee shops... We had people from like four or five different countries... I tried to keep it to where your dad is from one place and your mom is from another, instead of getting it all confused, because people won’t get the point otherwise. I basically chose the ones that I found most interesting, and that had the most interesting look. I also told my models to look away from the camera, to give it more of a “painting” feel.

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“

We can make our own identity.

JASMINE WICKENS fashion design

Jasmine Wickens is a third year fashion design student at Middlesex, currently working on her final collection for graduate’s fashion week. Her final collection is based upon the harsh side of masculine culture and youth fenders, creating the garments for womenswear. We were excited to talk with Jasmine to get to know more about her work and experience at Middlesex University.

J

asmine, how would you describe yourself as a designer?

I like to manipulate and make my own materials from scratch.

How much did you know about design before university?

Nothing really, I was on an art course before and I had no idea how to make garments and I learned everything I know here at Middlesex.

So, how was the learning curve for you then?

I think it wasn’t too bad (smiles). Pattern cutting is really hard. Because I am not a very neat worker it is not easy for me, but the technicians teach you everything you need to know through lots of lessons on pattern cutting, draping and much more. If you need help, you can go up to teachers and ask how to do this and they will show you everything step by step if you are struggling.

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things up, you might see some material you like and that on its own could in fluence your design. You can find a particular fabric and do a whole collection on it if you like.

How did you come up with the idea for your final work?

I do a lot of work on gender, and I like taking a feminist side of things and focusing on women. Then I though that it would be quite interesting to do something completely opposite and more ‘harsh’, so I decided to mess around with gender and androgyny for this project.

What kind of techniques do you use in your project?

I use a lot of different materials. For this one I’m doing some knitting, and I’m even making my own latex.

How does Middlesex help you work on your final project?

There are really good studios where we spend a lot of time. Tutors and staff are good, and we have a lot of tutorials. The technicians are amazing they help us with whatever we need.

When is the deadline for your current project?

Our show is the 23rd of April; it’s the internal show. Anyone from the university can come and see it. It takes place in the College Building, they put the big platform out and you can watch the show from all the balconies.

It is quite fun.

Where do you get your material?

You kind of just have to hunt for it; there are lot of fabric and haberdashery shops where you just find things, you pick

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This project is based on gender identity, what about other projects you’ve been working on?

I never used to purposely focus on gender but it always turned out to be about it. I’ve done a project about body distortion before; I’m really interested in that. I also had some random ones like an identity project and we did a pre-collection, which is kind of self-directed. We can choose what we want to do and what we are inspired by.

Besides all the university work, do you make clothes for yourself, or do you alter the garments that you buy?

I used to, kind of. I don’t really have time to do it now, so I mostly just keep what I buy in its original form. I don’t make my own clothes either, people ask me “well you must make your own clothes?” and I’m like “NO”, we really don’t have time

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(laughs). At home I have a box of fabrics that I want to turn into things for myself but I haven’t done it, I’ll get around to it eventually but now I just don’t have time.

Finally, since this project is for womenswear, do you ever think about creating something for men?

We had a muse project and we had to do menswear. I ended up getting a guy that wore skirts though, so I didn’t even get to make anything particularly menswear since he wore skirts. (smiles) Check out Jasmine’s final graduate collection on the 23rd of April in the College Building at Hendon campus.

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F A S H I O N A R T D I N S P I R E S T U D E

MoDA

The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture

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E S I G N M o D E R N E N T S T O D A Y N O

What is MoDA? MoDA stands for The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture.

The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture developed from a number of collections acquired by Middlesex University between the late 1960s and the 1990s. The first and most important of these was the Silver Studio, which was given to what was then the Hornsey College of Art in 1966.

What you can find in the museum?

The collections are concerned with separate but related themes: • The design and decoration of ‘ordinary’ homes of the early and mid-twentieth century especially relating to the development of suburbia; • The process of being a desiger of mass market furnishings; • The continuing relevance of the collections as a source of inspiration for the creative practice of today’s students How can MoDA help students with their work?

Researching our collections can help you with your studies. Using the collections can provide you with visual inspiration to help you with your studio work; your own practice or creative projects. The collections can also be useful with your written work, including dissertations.

Where can students find The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture?

MoDA is located on 9 Boulevard Drive, London (10 minutes’ walk from Middlesex University). It is important to know that bookings are required if you wish to visit the museum. To book and appointment call 020 8411 5445 or email

modastudyrm@mdx.ac.uk.

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INTO THE OBSCURE Team Credit: Photography: Markus Andersson Stylist: Silje Kristine Skarra Makeup: Kay Cunningham Model: Jacopo @ Bookings London

Look 1 Trousers by Florence Pixie King Knit: Stylist Own

Look 2 T-Shirt by Florence Pixie King Tights and shoes: Stylist own

Look 3 Coat by Hellen Marudas Glasses: Stylist own

Look 4 Top by Greta Maria

Look 4 Jacket by Florence Pixie King T-Shirt and Trousers by Helen Marudas

Look 5 Jacket by Florence Pixie King Trousers by Hellen Marudas

Look 6 Jacket by Greta Maria

W

hat happens when two MDX alumni start a label together? You get Baryier, a brand with a contemporary approach to fashion. The London based brand was founded in 2014, as Fashion Design students Sandra Tschanz and Emma Williamson completed their Bachelor degrees.

Written by Egle Igna and Inghild Wang How did the two of you first meet?

This is probably one of our favourite stories and you can just say it was faith. We both stumbled into each other in the corridors of our student halls right after moving to London half a decade ago. Since then, our lives have just magically coincided.

Baryier is an interesting name for an english brand, how did you come up with it? And is there a reason why you chose an ”anonymous” brand name?

Designing behind a brand name works well when there are two designers. We came up with it when we went traveling in Bali two years ago. We were playing around with a belt that had a big metal piece on the front and were joking about how it could be a really interesting detail in different places on a garment, and that it could be ‘Barrier-wear’, which was then turned into Baryier. It was actually quite a challenge finding the scrap of paper again where we had scribbled down all these ideas over a year previously. We eventually changed the metal into smaller horn details which are on the current collection.

BARYIE R 44 / GROVE MAGAZINE / 2015

How has the process of creating your own brand been?

It’s a really demanding and difficult process especially since there are so many aspects to it that we were completely unaware of. We are still learning all the things involved in running your own business.

“

This whole undertaking is a huge learning curve for us.

Is the design and creation process different now that you are designing for your own brand and not for a university project?

Yes, it is a very different process in many ways. Of course we are still doing research and design like we did at university but with much more of an end product in mind from the start.

Now we have to have the customer in mind a lot more than previously, along with being more aware of the limitations and costs for production.

How is mixing business with the creative process?

Do you ever stop to think or change anything on the design to make it more sellable or commercially available?

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for the customer, but since we have this in mind from the beginning of the creation process it usually isn’t too much that gets altered for commercial purposes.

What advice can you give for young designers wanting to start up their own fashion label?

Before you start up your own label think about doing some sort of short business course. There are so many aspects of setting up a fashion label and the creative part you learn at university is probably one of the smallest ones. Also, be realistic and look over all your finances very honestly with the help of someone who has done this before. There are a lot of hidden costs you would probably not think of. One thing that has helped us enormously in starting all of this up is the book by Toby Meadows: How to Set Up and Run a Fashion Label.

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Is there anything you wish you would have done more of, or differently, while still in university?

Sandra: I can only talk for myself. I always felt like I worked super hard at university. I put my ”all” in, so I don’t feel like I could have done much more. However, in general, I wish that a course like fashion design would prepare you more for the real world. Of course not everyone doing fashion design wishes to start their own fashion brand but it would still be nice to be able to get the chance to learn more about the business side of fashion.

Emma: I agree with Sandra. It would

be great to be able to learn more about business, as well as having more guest speakers talking about the different areas of the fashion industry, for example how they got to where they are now. I also feel like I could have interned at a few different places in the summer holidays to see how different companies are.

What does the future look like for Baryier?

Our next collection is smaller this season so we can focus much more on each garment. The style is changing slightly and should be more youthful. This whole undertaking is a huge learning curve for us, and we’re hopeful that we can make a living from the sales in the very near future. I guess that’s quite a sober thought; of course we can dream big, but hopefully success is better reached with some realistic thinking.

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STREET

STYLE

The

INTERNSHIP

by Silje Skarra

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T

he whole thing started when I got in contact with the creative director at 1883 Magazine after a talk in one of our lessons and I was lucky as they needed somebody who could help out with social media channels during London Collections Men in the beginning of January.

Photos and text by Silje Skarra I was super nervous the first few hours as I didn’t know what to say, how to behave or if my work was good enough from what they expected. Since English is my second language, I guess I was a little extra nervous, but at the end of a very long day, they were really happy with what I had done.

During London Collections Men, I worked very well with the team and we had so much fun, even though it was very stressful and long days. These two events made me want to continue doing the same thing under London Fashion Week. I also wanted to learn more about photography and working with the amazing photographer, Asia Werbel, really inspired me to try harder. She has meant a lot to me, giving me advice, supporting me and helped me get in touch with Phoenix Magazine, were I did my placement. We were also able to work together for two days at LFW for 1883 Magazine. The rest of that week I did social media and some photography for Phoenix Magazine.

I went to a few shows were I was sitting front row taking photos, went backstage on some of the best shows,

street style, social media and got a lot of inspiration for my interest in styling as well. Just within these few weeks, I learned more than I could imagine, met some fantastic people, made new contacts and felt for the first time that I was really growing into the fashion industry in London.

I actually had to decline some big assistant opportunities for some of the biggest fashion magazines. I want to be honest and do a good job and thus concentrate on agreements already made.

I think honesty will pay off in the long run. I am proud of what I have achieved so far as I know this is just the very first steps to fulfil my dream.

For a girl like me all the way from Norway, I think this is a pretty cool start on my career here in London and I´m only halfway into my studies.

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Contact Feedback and queries: grovestudentmagazine@gmail.com Get in touch online: www.facebook.com/grovemag www.twitter.com/grovemagazine

Editors Inghild Wang Mona Şoşa

Marte Knudstad Egle Ignataviciute Kristina Sutkutė

Contributors Ludovica Uggeri Iulia Schiopu Aldo Cetrull Sara Cutler Zoe Leung Tobias Schreier Yasmin Benamar Jasmine Wickens

MoDA - The Museum of Domestic arts and Architecture Markuss Andersson Kay Cunningham Jacopo Silje Skarra

Cover credit: Silje Skarra

Š Grove Magazine