Invict/us earthborne N°1 by invict/us

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Earthborne

11/11

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Earthborne

Earthborne Magazine about 11/11/18 Issue º1

FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Elisa Mantovani

DESIGN EDITOR Nikki Ritmeijer

FILM EDITOR Alice Aires

MUSIC DIRECTOR Michael Mendones

MANAGING EDITOR Neil Hampshire

LAYOUT AND ART DIRECTION Elisa Mantovani

CONTACT

invictus@invictusartmag.com www.invictusmagazine.com

Right: Elisa Mantovani

Cover: Monica Vaccari

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CON

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NTRIBUTORS ALEJANDRO VILLA Artist Mexico

TAMARA GOUTAS Artist Mexico

ELLI PIPIC Integration Policy Activist Croatia/Austria

BEN WEGERT Filmmaker, Multimedia Artist Germany

BATUHAN BINTAS Interdimensional Multidisciplinary Cybernaut + Psychonaut Turkey

RICO QUINTAS Photographer South Africa

NIKKI RITMEIJER Graphic Designer, Illustrator the Netherlands MONICA VACCARI Multimedia Artist, Sculptor, Photographer Italy ALICE AIRES Multimedia Artist, Filmmaker, Motion Designer, Portugal CADHLA KENNEDY KO Filmmaker, Photographer Spain/Ireland/Philippines JOHAN JORGENSEN Musician, Writer UK NEIL A. HAMPSHIRE Writer UK MICHAEL MENDONES Digital Shaman, Sound Healer, Musician, Poet Photographer, Philippines/ UK

KERSTI DE BEER Musician, Artist, South Africa FILIPPO LOCATELLI Photographer, Filmmaker Italy MARI ERIKSEN Multimedia Artist Norway GIULIA MAZZUCCONI Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Filmmaker Italy FELIX HIGHAM Painter UK JULIA KARPOVA Multimedia Artist Russia DAN BEN-HUR Plant Enthusiast

WILL MUNFORD Social Researcher Writer UK

ELISA MANTOVANI Multimedia Artist/Designer Writer Italy/Germany KATIE OPLร NDER Artist Illustrator Germany SIMON MCANDREW Writer Hairstylist Photographer UK REBECCA MASTROROCCO Multidisciplinary Writer Performer Italy DAN BEN-HUR Plant Enthusiast JIMENA ALVAREZ Painter + Artist, Spain

EMMA DAY Artist UK

EMMA HEEDLES Fashion Designer Model American

ANNAMARIA WAKILEH Artist Austrian/Lebanese

ANONYMOUS Photographer UK/Austrian

Photographs: La Thuile, Elisa Mantovani

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EDITOR’S LETTER Dear Reader,

Our world politically and socially is in fragmentation. How can we distinguish between fact and fiction in our media-saturated time? Adam Curtis claims that the human species has become so much a part of the system that we are unable to see beyond it. Many liberal thinkers and artists stopped identifying themselves with politics and with the outside world and have become withdrawn or detached. Despite an overflow of critique few are contemplating alternative approaches. Invictus means unconquerable: igniting artists, thinkers and readers to take back responsibility. What I observe is that the basis reached after the industrial and technological revolution and its critical evaluation is no longer sufficient to propel this rapidly globalizing world. There is a fine line and constant symbiosis occurring between creativity and digitization. By merging technological progress with creative endeavor, we continuously explore the boundaries of our future. The journey of Art is limitless and presents itself with no restrictions.

INVICT/US gathers multidisciplinary work from creative thinkers and artists that dedicate their craft to salvaging deep complex issues of the 21st century. Their artistic form of journalism observes topics through multiple perspectives. John Dos Passos, an American novelist and artist active in the first half of the 20th century, said that ‘Most journalism does not acknowledge that people live at least as much in their heads as they do in the world’. The ethos of the magazine is a subjective form of artistic journalism or artivism, inspired by New Journalism and Gonzo Journalism, written without claims of objectivity. The magazine divides its issues into 5 Elements; Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Ether, through which we slowly progress into a state of liberation and transcendence. Earthborne : transmitted by Earth. Neil writes that The Earth has been deteriorating alongside man’s supposed advancements. Let us appreciate the magical treasures nature and earth have to offer and challenge some of the deeply rooted man-made fabrications and issues of our time.

Elisa Mantovani,

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7 GOODBYE, CRICKLEWOOD by Filippo Locatelli

63 ONCE YOU GAZE UPON ME,

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

18 SOCIALLY WASTED by Will Munford 21 SELECTED WORKS by Felix Higham 26 RADICALIZATION AS

A COUNTERCULTURE by Elli Pipic 28

DEAN by Giulia Mazzucconi 32

PRODUCTIVE SHAMBLES by Elisa Mantovani 37

WOUNDED LANDSCAPE

by Michael Mendones

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

by Emma Heedles & Annamaria Wakileh

ANAMORPHIC

by Batuhan Bintas

HONEY TEARS

by Ben Wegert

UNTITLED by Julia Karpova 74

MUNDANE CURIOSITIES by Nikki Ritmeijer

77 G’s

SELFIES

by Monica Vaccari

3 COMPLETE WORLDS UNIÓN

by Alejandro Villa 44 DAS RUHRGEBIET by Katie Opländer 46 MUJER JAHUAR by Tamara Goutas 48 SOUND PLEASED

TO MEET YOU

by Rebecca Mastrorocco

2 INNER WORLDS 53

CRUSTACEAN SOUNDS FROM THE LEPPER’S LAGOON

MY LIGHT FLOWS TO YOU

by Mari Eriksen

38 TREN

CONTENT S

1 SYSTEMS

by Johan Jorgensen

STAY GENTLE by Kersti de Beer 86

OLD FORD ROAD by SimonMcAndrew 88

NATURE RECLAIMS

by Cadhla Kennedy Ko

NATURE

by Emma Day

BALANCE WITHIN IMBALANCE

100

by Rico Quintas

108 A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF RUBBERY FLESH,

THE FLASH OF METAL, A MASS OF SLIPPERY-WET LEGS

by Neil A. Hampshire

58 WILD EPHEMERAL

A(TI)THESIS : INFLORESCENCE

by Alice Aires

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Botanical Cures by Jimena Alvarez, Dan Ben-Hur, Cadhla Kennedy Ko

1 SYSTEMS

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GOODBYE, CRICKLEWOOD by Filippo Locatelli

“I moved to London in 2013, Cricklewood has been my home for the last 4 years. This ongoing series of photographs pays tribute to the faces and the places that I encountered along my everyday routes, finding its core in my own neighbourhood. The sense of belonging I found in what was at first an unintelligible and distant community drew my focus toward elements of both familiarity and alienation.

Only by living and observing a place every day for a period of time can one change one’s perspective and start to appreciate even the little things that at first glance could be missed. “Goodbye, Cricklewood” will soon be released as a book.”

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Filippo Locatelli

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

The roots of the Notting Hill Carnival took shape in the mid-1960s in two divergent yet connected strands. A “Caribbean Carnival” was held on 30th January 1959 in St Pancras Town Hall in response to the problematic state of race relations at the time. The second important strand was the “hippie” London Free School-inspired festival in Notting Hill that became the first organised outside event, in August 1966. This more diverse Notting Hill event promoted cultural unity.

Filippo Locatelli

Ackeee & Saltfish by Liam Meredith

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Notting Hill Carnival by Anonymous

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SOCIALLY WASTED by Will Munford

The waste of getting wasted What waste is generated by drinking beer? For those reading this hoping for an insight into the nitty gritty of waste production in the brewing industry I apologise in advance as this is far from that, but in the spirit of this INVICT/ US edition, Earthborne, I feel as though it may be helpful first to speak briefly on the process of making beer to give it some deep roots in the terra firma. The method of making beer like many of its drinkers (well certainly me) is simple and at its most basic it only uses four ingredients, all of which could not be more wholesome; water, grain, hops and yeast. There is very little waste from beer production that can not be used again, from the huge amount of spent grain sold on to swine farmers as feed, to the capturing and cultivating of yeast to be used again in another batch. Beer brewing is earthly and natural making what most would consider to be one of the most fantastic substances in existence. It would seem a far too simplistic leap at this point to suggest that all I have done here is say that getting wasted is in fact a waste, as the name for the process would suggest. Rather the idea of waste production in the consumption of alcohol comes from an understanding beyond the physical chemical reactions within the body that generate drunken exuberance. It comes from an understanding of what it is to be plastered or indeed just a bit piddled from a sociological standpoint. To start, or to use a drinking analogy, let’s crack the can or pull the pump of the first pint and begin to understand what waste is from a social viewpoint. Mary Douglas in waste and purity understands

waste to be ‘matter out of place’, a simplistic yet satisfying understanding. In the physical process of brewing, this might be an unusable grain or a hop on the brewery floor that got lost in transit, they serve no purpose and are indeed matter out of place. But what would matter out of place look like in terms of the social world? Well that would be something that contradicts social order, actions or being that really does not serve any meaningful purpose to the functioning of society. Beer and alcohol as a whole allow the individual within society to become exuberant in Britain. Beer is the lifeblood of the Friday night carnival that descends upon cities like London. It is what allows in so many cases the contradiction of neoliberal social order. It’s that wonderful fluid that means David Price from Accounts finally has enough courage to ask Tracey from HR out for a date that inevitably ends in his drunken vomiting in the back alley of a Wetherspoons with a friend patting his back saying, ‘at least you gave it a crack this time’. For my imaginary accountant David Price, alcohol has caused him to go against his own social order, freeing him from those shackles of being everyday David. I have no doubt David in this hypothetical disaster of a night shed some unnecessary tears and was probably very sad, although as he will be reliably informed on Monday there are indeed plenty more fish in the sea. Here though in David’s sadness we have an example of waste emotion generated and triggered by alcohol; something that never would have happened if it had not been for those 8 Stella Artois and 3 Apple Sours. All the way back in 1933, Bataille saw that drunkenness was what allowed people to transcend everyday reality ‘replacing calculated reason and logic of sacristy [with] exuberance and waste’ and all this foresight without ever being on a night out in Cardiff. When thinking of beer and the

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The Back of Your Head Looks Ridiculous, Elisa Mantovani

human as social beings it is clear that they both hold agency over each other, the human makes beer and decides how much to consume but the beer ultimately in many cases has the last laugh. There is, as Andrew Pickering might have it, a ‘dance of agency’ between the two, a collaboration of the human and non human generating social happenings. This coming together of the human and non-human is in a sense ‘cyborgish’, elevating the individual beyond normal means. It is I feel important at this point to say that I am not suggesting alcohol in any way gives people super powers (although after a few drinks I am fairly sure I have the singing voice of an angel). If for a second you do think of drinking alcohol as the creation of a cyborgish social being then it does raise the question of the delicate balance between the human and non-human and which one has control.

Now struggling to shake the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger as half man half beer can out of my head, it’s best that I get back on track and point out why this battle of agency is indeed a sign that alcohol consumption produces waste. In all struggles for control there is always collateral damage and the production of waste. To again use a hypothetical example in drinking I am sure I may not be the only person who has gone on a night out to only drink one and ended up after a real struggle of controlling the balance between a sensible number of drinks and when the drink decides you need more, woke up the next day seriously regretting letting the booze side of my cyborg self get the better of me and the day is indeed a total waste. It is also important to point out that alcohol, along with several other substances, has the potential to gain overwhelming agency over people, posing the threat of addiction. In this article however, I am just looking to point out within the realms of socially accepted drinking there is space for vast amounts of social and emotional waste to be produced. To ring the bell for last orders on this piece and call time at the bar I want to finish by suggesting that the waste produced by the drinking and consumption is not always negative. There is a chance that David’s rash drunken decision (though transcending his social order) could have landed him a date with Tracey. My drunken waste has occasionally led to fantastic renditions (I think) of Tom Jones’s Delilah on a karaoke machine and I am sure there are times when those reading this have valued from letting their hair down after a couple of amber ales and in doing so thickening and enriching the human experience of the social world. This is why the waste generated by beer consumption within the social world is so fantastic; it is a natural substance generating and in parts controlling the social world, occasionally pushing the lines of social acceptance but mostly generating great anecdotes from daft dalliances with social waste.

Man Listening, Ink, acrylic, oil, enamel on board

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SELECTED WORKS by Felix Higham

Portraying the human form while the mind is elsewhere, Felix Higham uses the grotesque to highlight the discrepancies in social interaction.

Taking figures from life and then exaggerating them, he places them within everyday scenes in order to display individual human narratives unable to connect or communicate with one another.

Waiter, Oil on Canvas, Felix Higham

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Untiled, figures in the bar, Oil, enamel on canvas

next page: Racing Post Oil on Canvas, Felix Higham 23

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RADICALISATION AS A COUNTERCULTURE by Elli Pipic

Between January 2011 and October 2015, approximately 4,000 individuals left the European Union to fight for ISIS or other rebel groups in the Middle East. An estimated 270-300 of these foreign fighters are second- and third-generation Muslims from Austria, which has been ranked second to Belgium in the number of foreign jihadists per capita who have left a European Union country to fight in Syria and Iraq. How can this trend be explained, and how has Austria’s capital, Vienna, reacted to radicalisation in its midst? Scholars have developed a variety of multi-level explanations for those susceptible to radical recruitment, ranging from socio-economic grievances to the social networks youths find themselves in. These diverse theories, along with the recent rise in terrorist attacks in many European cities, have contributed to the securitization of prevention techniques in response to radicalisation. The Counter-Radicalisation Network in Vienna has adopted a different approach, instead focused on community engagement and youth protection, facilitating the cooperation of social workers, non-profit organisations, and Vienna’s municipal authorities to prevent the recruitment of Muslim youths by extremist groups. Vienna has been labelled a “hub for jihadists”, with somewhere between 270 and 300 individuals having emigrated as foreign fighters. National Security expert Jonathan Schindler noted that “Vienna has served as the de-facto base for Islamist extremists, a place to recruit, raise and hide funds, and radicalise, thanks to Austria’s permissive laws and weak enforcement mechanism”.

The network’s prevention mechanisms emerge out of a resource collaboration between the Austrian government, social workers and non-profit organisations who conceptualised radicalised youths as a counterculture. It has been argued that non-profit infrastructures emerge as a collective good to provide infrastructure on an institutional level to segmented and sometimes antagonistic groups, often in instances where the government lacks entry. Viewing radicalisation in a similar light to the development of a counterculture or youth subculture has allowed the workers in Vienna’s network to moderate and neutralise radicalisation by shaping a support structure for youths susceptible to such frames of thought. One major similarity between radicalisation and the development of a counterculture is motivation, both have a tendency to be born of a shared disillusionment, an alienation from the greater society. I interviewed several young people working with the Counter-Radicalisation Network in Vienna, and immediately identified one of the major motivations they shared for joining. Many expressed a strong desire to inform the public and reduce negative stereotyping. “I cannot begin to comment on how incorrectly the media represents Muslims in Austria, it is disgusting. All our youths feel this hostility. They experience it first-hand from the racist teacher to our racist politics.” The central concern of social and youth workers in the network was not to diminish radicalisation but to tackle how radicalisation had been portrayed and used to shape a general societal suspicion. A

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youth worker told me that limiting the number of foreign fighters was essential, but what really needed emphasis was that these younger persons are not born terrorists, but vulnerable people that needed to be protected from extremism. A recurrent theme emphasised by the social workers was the significance of attaining status and a defined identity through radicalisation. Many described a lack of perspective amongst youths, as they struggled with school or finding employment, leading to frustration and estrangement. “I will never forget how difficult it was to find any apprenticeships or employment opportunities for one of the youths I worked with. It took us a whole year to find him something... The boy was the one who turned to us for help and we couldn’t provide enough and so he ended up going into some random hidden apartment mosques where he is always welcome and where alleged “Quran lessons” are given.” “All of us love gratification, and when you cannot get it from anywhere else but a small religious group, then you will follow it. His status became defined by being extremely religious, reclaiming his Muslim identity and knowing the Quran. He became respected in that world.” These snippets of conversation reveal how interactions with extremist groups provided meaning in the lives of the youths who were isolated in the labour market and struggled to define themselves in their communities. Implicit in this is a sense of exclusion and lack of value within their social environments. The scholar Simon Cottee’s comparison between delinquent subcultural groups and jihadist groups highlights how extremism can function as a means of communication and emotional self-expression through which an identity can be forged. By viewing materialism as corrupt and rejecting Western democratic values, Islamist extremism mocks the reality that strains these youths. Vienna’s Counter-Radicalisation and Prevention Network interprets the factors radicalising Muslim youths in order to inform their own grass-roots preventative measures. By treating Islamist extremism

as a generational counterculture that captured the common characteristics of juvenile curiosity and a desire to belong, social workers have tailored alternative narratives and opportunities for engagement to provide similar incentives and rewards. However, viewing radicalisation exclusively through this lens, as merely a social phenomenon, may minimise the scope of the issue, neglecting that in other contexts Islamist extremism is appealing to older individuals or ‘lone wolves’ unaffiliated with a larger network. Nevertheless, more research should be directed towards understanding how the emergence and disappearance of various countercultures might shed light on the social pressures driving radicalisation. Radicalisation is clearly a relational and constructed movement, and therefore prevention relies on penetrating the social interactions that give rise to it. The communitarian angle exemplified by Vienna’s Counter-Radicalisation Network offers an opposing narrative into which Muslim youths could be incorporated, replacing the appeal of jihadism. Shifting the focus toward well-understood dynamics of social belonging and group dynamics may reinforce the notion that preventing radicalisation in fact runs parallel with preventing the demonization of Muslims in Europe. By turning our gaze inwards and dissecting what drives a generation of young people to religiouslyinduced violence, we may discover that solutions for inspiring them otherwise may be closer to home than expected.

by Andreas Edler

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DEAN by Giulia Mazzucconi

Q: What pushed you to make the video ‘Dean’? G: It was a sense of guilt. I first met Dean a year ago. It was winter and I started bumping into him every other night on my way home from work. He was always sitting next to my local Sainsbury’s with his two dogs, Hope and Moosh. I would stop by for a few minutes, rub Hope’s belly and ask Dean about his day. It became our little ritual. At the time I was working as a waitress, and how refreshing it was to have a chilled chat after a long exhausting night shift. One night though, after a while we had known each other, it occurred to me that I had never asked him for his name. Not even once. It was over a month I had known him and yet I hadn’t even introduced myself. Exchanging names is an assumed social behaviour when you first meet someone, and yet, I had completely skipped that part. I realised that I was just as prejudiced as everyone else. On the same level, my mind didn’t register our encounters as ‘normal’ social interactions. I saw a homeless person before ‘seeing’ Dean. Just like everybody else. That’s when guilt kicked in, and that is why I started working on this video project. Q: What did you want to convey by showing just words, without any image apart from the last illustration? G: When reading a book, it is the words you read and the way your brain elaborates these words that make you picture characters in your head. It is dialogues, descriptions, the way characters are described to behave around others. By using words only to introduce Dean, I figured I could have given the audience the freedom to picture him in their heads however they wanted, without any conditioning due to his appearance. Dean would have been nothing more than his childhood memories, anecdotes, wishes

and thoughts about everyday life. The last illustration becomes just a little glimpse of Dean, the way he looks is almost irrelevant at this point. Q: Can words break visual prejudices? G: In this case I think they do. Until the end of the video you can’t really tell these words come from a 35 year-old homeless person living on the streets of Hackney. And when you finally do, it doesn’t really matter anymore. He appears to be just like a regular guy in his mid-thirties with a family, wishes, fears, who tries to do his best to cope with life. Prejudice can be so sly. Sometimes you deceive yourself thinking you are totally free from it and then realise you are just as full of shit as anybody else. Q: Rawness, truthfulness and unfiltered realities are key in works like ‘Dean’, do you think that it is becoming more and more difficult to encounter such authenticity and genuineness? G: Authenticity is really hard to convey through any art means. In my video projects I always try to take a step back and forget everything I know or I think I know about who I am interviewing. That way they are the ones shaping the project, you are no more than a silent listener. You can be surprised by the way people end up opening up with you this way. Probably this is why I love documentary film-making, as a director you are just a humble observer, there’s not so much space for your ego. Q: Social problems and politics are very important in your work, would you say that Art has some kind of duty in facing and delivering them? G: I think any creative has this kind of responsibility. Finding ways to expose these issues without sounding too cheesy or patronising has always challenged me. words by Carolina Davalli

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View video on www.giuliamazzucconi.com

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Productive Shambles: Occupying Space by Elisa Mantovani

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PRODUCTIVE SHAMBLES: OCCUPYING SPACE by Elisa Mantovani

Reflections on Squatting and London’s Social Housing Crisis Britain is in the middle of a serious housing crisis. As council houses are stripped away to make room for luxury properties residents are finding themselves alienated and confused in their own communities. There are an estimated 610 000 empty homes in England, more than 200 000 of which are thought to have been empty for more than 6 months. Squatting used to be a valid option for living, but it became a criminal offence under Section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 on 1st September. The ban on squatting in residential buildings renders occupying space increasingly difficult. Squatting is defined as the unlawful occupation of an uninhabited building or settlement on a piece of land. There are many motives to squatting, and movements vary depending on the configurations involved. Squatting has been said to be a means to redistribute economic resources according to a more egalitarian and efficient pattern, to address housing issues; as romantic vision against the dominant functionalistic practice of city planning; or utopian strugglers with the goal for a better society. Others suggest that they are middle-class people with the goal of countercultural and political expression, shaping their lives in a way that breaks with imposed norms and laws. London is a city with an extreme inequality gap, where housing injustice and disparity of wealth can be felt with some potency when circulating through the city. Since the criminalization of squatting, squatters find themselves stuck, due to heightened resistance of the

movement and short-lived accommodations, followed often by violent evictions. Deprivation-based squatting still exists across London but faces hardship since its criminalization. What I observed flourish were productive squats or entrepreneurial squats, often called social centres or free spaces. These spaces are characterized as places which offer opportunities for setting up establishments without the need for large resources or the risk of becoming mired in bureaucracy; often they provide an infrastructure to raise money for actions and charity projects, artists’ work spaces, practice facilities for bands, restaurants, tool-lending services, alternative schools, party spaces, art galleries, book and information shops, spiritual centres. One of these “squatting schools” in London was the Hive, which named itself a “re-space”. It closed on the 19th November 2017 after two and a half years of action. Places like the Hive help people to engage in productive activities, helping to build communities for people involved in artistic disciplines that cannot support themselves in a city like London. In the managerial enterprises like the Hive, individuals in charge walked a narrow line between “ghetto mentality” and possible institutionalisation of social enterprises. These spaces flourish and blossom with creativity, music, and love fueled, intelligent people. One immediately notes the vast diversity of cultural backgrounds, and astounding melting pot of various accents, rolling r’s, Italian, Spanish, Eastern European, Canadian, British… the list goes on. What ties them together is a strong community spirit, and a sense of unjudged love and companionship. That is the beating heart of their “one-ness”.

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Camden Garden Centre Squat

The Camden Garden Centre on Rochester Square: The place was once a nursery for plants. When the place closed down people moved in and started to put together a community active housing centre. The building keeps getting evicted

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Spaces like this are less dominated by political ideology, unlike more resistancemotivated spaces which might be engaged in conservational squatting. Conservational squatting often displays resistance to gentrification (for example the E15 movement), or other related issues such as homelessness, sustainability or consumerism. In some instances, I heard squatters speak of the extremities of political drive, which can be destructive amongst fellow squatters. Individual members are motivated solely by actions of anti-systematic politics, who identify themselves with revolutionary or “autonomous” ideas. It is these squatters that often create conflict, being extremely radical in their approaches, creating difficulties that impose more rules for the occupiers who squat for genuine needs of a housing alternative. When looked at from a sociological perspective, many studies turn a blind eye to the multitude of layers and perspectives impacting social mobility. Investigations need to include more multi-dimensional studies which take into account the individual’s well-being. The old ways of formulating problems presupposed the background of a nation-state with its relatively fixed institutions and disciplines under conditions of “altermodernism”, however universal opinions of conventional psychological science have been undermined by a growing emphasis on experiences of constant flux and interminable transition: a psychology of peoples in constant motion, cannot be reconciled with a psychology of the function, the fixed, and the finitely identifiable.

This is why I looked at the potential productivity of squatting through the lens of a Rhizome, which is characterized by fluidity, with all its variations, and cannot easily be assessed and boxed into a framework due to its constant symbiosis from structure, to anti-structure. The concept of Rhizomes was coined by Deleuze and Guattari who say that a rhizome establishes endless connections between means of communication, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences and social struggles. They are places which leave room for creative anti-structural development and new configurations. Squatters have to continuously adapt to optimize efficiency and effectiveness in their movements across the city, and as a consequence have grown rather proficient at it. Squatting hinges on a transformation process: unused buildings are transformed into safe, acceptable or comfortable homes. Squatters continuously adapt to their environment as they move through an urban space. The rhizomatic fluidity can give rise to new configurations and assimilations preventing future forms of downward mobility. They move through London picking apart the ways in which institutions, structures and biographies intervene with one another and create spaces, spaces that; in turn shape future trajectories and possibilities for the city and its people.

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Camden Garden Centre

Juan from Colombia lived in London for 1 year. It took him 6 months to build a home from recycled material.

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WOUNDED LANDSCAPE by Mari Eriksen

Wounded Landscape uses newspapers, cables, tape, cardboard boxes, fabric, acrylic paint, and various other found objects.

Chaos. failed communication. suggesting a kind of destructive force of energy floating through the tubes and cables. an attempt to make some sort of order in something that is rather noncomprehensible and frustrating. a bomb like construction about to explode. an attempt to make sense out of what doesn’t make sense.

The complex meeting of space, time and the things that surround me. The installations address socio-political issues in an imaginary and non-literal way, where trauma, despair, courage and hope are investigated with equal concern. With the intention that this illusion of struggle and hopelessness contributes toward confrontation of reality, I invite the viewers to reflect upon the time we are living in. Working intuitively with materials within the designated space allows an immediacy and spontaneity, which is central to my practice. I am fascinated by creating a space for interaction, where the viewer is led by various notations in the visual language, and by the dialogues between the various elements and materials. Despite personal experience of profound trauma, I hope to convey a sense of the joy found in the very essence of being alive. I work with found, cheap and often familiar materials from our everyday surroundings, but presented in a rather unfamiliar way. I believe that the notion of low-fi materials somehow speaks to everyone, and that the refusal of “richness” contributes to an interesting examination of class and power.

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by Alejandro Villa

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DAS RUHRGEBIET by Katie Oplaender

“My work often focuses on environments and the mundane man-made objects and structures that surround us in our everyday lives. I like to take an interest in something from my environment and to invest time in understanding it, and its semiotics.

The “Ruhrgebiet” project commemorates and documents the landscape and industrial history of the Ruhr area in Germany and especially of my hometown of Dortmund, through documenting the industrial structures of the area I became curious about their history and what they symbolize; using drawing as a tool to investigate a subject. Many of these industrial sites manufactured steel and other metals. Therefore it felt right for me to use a method that linked back to the material these structures produced, which is why I chose to work with drypoint.”

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MUJER JAHUAR by Tamara Goutas In prayer we open the circle and in prayer we close the Grandmothers spoke and the fire burned as it listened with the beat of the drum words that took shape of spirited songs Oh Great Spirit, May I come to know all that no longer serves me, all that I have come to carry with me for so long, believing it was part of me May the pain of all women be healed and their suffering understood May the wisdom of the grandmothers be passed on And shall the daughters grow on a humble road. Oh Blessed Ixchel, Embrace and protect all the women at their childbirth grace them with health womb mother I shall come to honor my sacred self, my womb space the sacred feminine that I am In prayer we come and in prayer we stand Thank you Wakan Tanka the giver of all life. Aho

Two out of three c-sections are unecessary in the country. It is a sad situation as it deprives mothers from the connection that a natural birth would bring to her and her child.

The normalization of cesarean delivery in Mexico is a public health problem. The rate is in the 50% threshold, mostly scheduled without any medical judgment.

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SOUND PLEASED TO MEET YOU by Rebecca Mastrorocco

Here’s where the ambience of sonic influence takes space to give us a chance to reflect upon how humans may perceive sound with or without elements of sound sources. Since “people live at least as much in their heads as they do in the world” (John Dos Passos), people hear and listen with their mind as much as they do with their hearts. Sound environments tackle our perceptions in each moment of daily life. From early contexts of playful and thoughtless childhood into the delicate evergrowing stage of cognition and elaboration, the surrounding world speaks to us, it plants seeds into our brains developing certain sides of personalities, relations and reflections. The visual and sonic aspects of such contexts are just as constructive as de-constructive of all the layers of our individual perception of reality. Here’s where we talk a little bit about all those moments we feel inevitably influenced by the sounds of given places, and how we may feel inspired to engage with those places in some ways that spring feelings of detachment from the material sense of reality and forms, in support of selfexpansion and widening understanding. Social environments have their own dynamics of sound, space and time. Cafés, libraries, museums, streets, squares, offices, venues: rhythm and melodies constitute the underplaying trajectories of human interaction in public spaces. Threads of social commentary address reflections on the functionality of sound, that establishes our sense of (s)place in the surrounding world. What do we know from what we hear? The ramifications of sound lead to deeper interaction with the environment and permeate what seems to be only empty spaces. Sound is one of the

mediums expanding on our sense of self, others and (s)place. The ways in which people comprehend life through sensorial experiences construct the sense of presence. Day after day, we learn how newfound perspectives within our stance can be inspirational and constructive to the generation of creativity and sense of self-realization. Regardless of the chosen perspectives, sound contains the effect that is a perceptual and meaningful experience influenced by the surrounding environment. The actual use and propagation of sound reflects on the environment’s contexts and purpose in which social practices connote cultural meaning. For example, if you imagine days unfolding in squares, libraries, streets, offices, stations, elevators, transports, you may realize the demonstration of our society’s infrastructures through which we eat, walk, talk, listen, learn, work, play and live. All these infrastructures influence our practices and influence our senses. Modern communication systems function in the conveyance of information via sound and image, the inseparable coupling that dominates much of the 20th century media landscape. This concept introduces a myriad of considerations into a perceptual regime where our society decides to privilege compression and profit maximization over strict verisimilitude. The supply of elevator music, the addition of music in public spaces, or its commercialization. Go ahead, take a ‘hear’ here and there. Take a moment. Step aside of yourself. Listen to the whole space. Sound speaks. SPACE SPEAKS.

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Every environment produces the sonic effects of the own characteristics of social infrastructures. Urban sound is the ultimate combination that resonates within the soundtrack of modernity. Can you hear the insinuation of sound in public spaces? Sound has the power to alter our state of awareness in physical ways through its vibrations. Regardless which ‘music genre’ is being played. Hence depending on which purpose people emit or transmit sound, the experience of engagement with spaces/ people varies all the time. Sound may even cover our most unifying silence. So many factors create our experience of present, often we have no clue. Both in public and private environments, we distance or interact with the reality of things through our senses, and there we meet the poetics of temporal, spatial and spiritual displacement. Jargstorf uniquely presents a series of works to experience the ways in which the sound language transcends the social dynamics of public and private space. Within his practice, he makes you experience your instinct to absorb and process knowledge through unconventional settings of sound transmission and curious representations. His work processes the phenomenon of synesthesia by using sound as medium to connect both physically and psychologically the environment and our senses. At times, I feel today’s ‘production of noise’ reflecting on people’s hearing without listening. And such perspective is shared; it is a real phenomenon caused by modern society’s stance to impart usevalue to cultural mediums for a profitable capitalist system. There is a gap between what is imposed and what is meant, felt and desired. The same gap that the spatial effect of sound can entail within conscious listening. We were born with our senses to be the mediums, weapons of interaction and reflection. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper” (W.B. Yeats).

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Botanical Cures by Jimena Alvarez, Dan Ben-Hur, Cadhla Kennedy Ko

2 INNER WORLDS

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WILD EPHEMERAL by Alice Aires

“In this project I aimed to portray how ephemeral life is, taking into view the vast amount of deer that are killed every year, in London’s Richmond park.”

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AN(TI)THESIS : INFLORESCENCE by Alice Aires

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Honey Tears Emma Heedles & Annamaria Wakileh

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ONCE YOU GAZE UPON ME, MY LIGHT MOVES TO YOU by Michael Mendones

A story not of sorrow or regret yet

Waves caress in the way you address me

I share the shade and hidden places with

with eyes bright, longing, as if crashing on the shore

bold imaginings, the creep of night.

with cold shock water spray could ever be a comfort.

upon the red dust plains without disdain but rein in the darkest parts of psyche with a glance at the sky - craned neck, wondrous.

Compare me to shadows or weeping willows even the stars are vaulted and sparkling darling we love and we whirl while the wisp-clouds unfurl in the maddening curlicues of you and I, exploring

endless walks and ceaseless talk...

I have sat in damp caves for you had earthen textures ridden upon my salt-skin like the nails you dug into a pliant back arched like a hissing cat snarling.

Nonetheless, every crumb of my being, my very core bleeds out with this unending grasp for your touch, so very much as the sun keens its lament for day’s end, the slowing slap slap of lapping water wanes and withers.

All that remains is the dusk of time descending like a tiny thirsty spider rappelling for moisture, a tiny thirsty mouth seeking a teardrop’s kiss.

All that remains is the way our eyes locked and what travelled along that bridge As if the information contained within stars can be accessed by the gaze of lovers.

Honey Tears Emma Heedles & Annamaria Wakileh

I am mountain and stream and brook and look

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THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS by Batuhan Bintas

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ANAMORPHIC by Ben Wegert

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UNTITLED by Julia Karpova

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MUNDANE CURIOSITIES by Nikki Ritmeijer

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G’S SELFIES by Monica Vaccari

”This project is the result of a journey with a self, in search of a physical and emotional place.

“G’s project started two years ago, when after making one of my little clay heads I decided to bring it along with me everywhere. It was my way of communicating: “I’ve been there”, instead of selfies, I used to take pictures of G. The journey with “G” helped me to look at places in a more conscious, and conscientous way. Every single detail, light or shape is now more important to me: the head/face always needs the right location, the perfect spot. This project is also focused on my poetic of protection: we all have the right of being at ease and in peace, in this Place. What strikes me most is the impression of looking at different heads with different colors and facial expressions. It has been a discovery journey for me as well: I find the way light, angles of shooting, daytime and countries have an influence on how G looks absolutely fascinating.”

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Botanical Cures by Jimena Alvarez, Dan Ben-Hur, Cadhla Kennedy Ko

3 COMPLETE WORLDS

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STAY GENTLE by Kersti de Beer

She wore her body with love. For where it has been. For the moments it carried her through. How it danced through the ache, and continues to open love, over and over again. This beautiful body of experience.

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GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Old Ford, in Tower Hamlets and Middlesex | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.

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OLD FORD ROAD by Simon McAndrew

I cleaned the mud ‘tween my toes. The field’s mud Where barley grows.

My feet are worn I have no shoes. I’d like to warn you of the news:

That in the end, no body knows whence is sent the spirit’s glows.

I returned tomorrow To the barley field. Where I’d follow, Where I’d yield.

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NATURE RECLAIMS by Cadhla Kennedy Ko

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NATURE by Emma Day

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BALANCE IN IMBALANCE by Rico Quintas

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A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF RUBBERY FLESH, THE FLASH OF METAL, A MASS OF SLIPPERY-WET LEGS by Neil A. Hampshire

Frogs in Vietnam and meditations on untapped energy

It’s the dead of night but the air is alive with the chirping of hundreds of different creatures. An operatic cacophony of communication. Motionless in apprehension several loosely-dressed humans lie in wait amidst falling water and rushing leaves. The future of an entire sub-species resting on a water droplet, unwavering in the face of inevitable destruction. Sound like falling mountains, scientists cut as saviours. It’s our job to see sense and plateau out the impossibly sharp peaks, to tap into an unseen energy that would otherwise be lost. Absolute conviction in the face of immediate magnetism.

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catalogue as their loud mating calls, which were an important part of the materials needed to identify them as distinct species, would cease as soon as conservationists drew near, for the sake of the frog’s own safety. They could only be properly catalogued through analysis of both their DNA and mating calls, so the conservationists involved were forced to endure long periods of strained waiting in increasingly precarious scenarios; think waiting for hours in the middle of a tumultuous downpour at night, just for several seconds of audio recording.

Two frog species have been witnessed and catalogued for the first time in Vietnam’s Mount Fansipan by researchers from the Zoological Society of London, but it also became immediately apparent that they may already be Endangered. Love for nature often drives humans to explore corners of the world that they’re unfamiliar with, in some puerile attempt to demonstrate their love, but what if this practice is simultaneously the very cause for destruction of much of these habitats and their inhabitants?

The Indochinese peninsula, particularly areas of increased elevation, are extremely rich in amphibian life, since 2004 alone 87 new species have been uncovered in Vietnam, which has contributed to the exoticising of the region. The conservationists from ZSL reported encountering a lot of habitat degradation as a consequence of the surge in tourism in Mount Fansipan, and they have expressed their concerns that these two new species might already be in extreme danger. This is by no means a geographically unique case, it’s repeated the Earth over and confirmed by the WWF’s newly published Living Planet Report which claims that animal populations worldwide have declined by 60% since 1970, directly proportionate to the steady increase in touristic activity and mobilisation of the human race.

In this article I will discuss the discovery of two new species of frogs that had been living (relatively) quietly in Indochina’s highest peak, Mount Fansipan. The frogs at first proved rather difficult to

Whilst this double-discovery of new species would ordinarily be a cause for jubilation, it also serves as a cautionary tale, a warning that more stringent controls must be put in place, coupled with a more

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Megophrys honaglienensis by Ben Tapley, ZSL

fervent promotion of responsible ecotourism. Responsibility in the tourism industry is essential for areas of such fascinating diversity to be safeguarded, but so are research surveys like the one discussed. Once studied and properly catalogued it becomes possible to identify major threats to specific species and their habitats that may have been less overt otherwise. What a shame it would be to lose so many captivating species without ever even knowing them. I’m struck by this thought, how many unknown wonders lay dormant, patiently awaiting their inevitable erasure, quietly. There are so many examples of wonderful thinkers whose work remained unknown, even unpublished, until after they died, how many others whose work will never be known, its potential to touch the lives of others wasted, present only in the author’s knowledge of the work’s existance and in the material object itself--the written manuscript etc. When the author dies this material presence becomes the only instance of remaining potentialiality, itself erased permanently when that material decays away of its own accord or that of human intervention. So many tales, so much light, hidden away until it fades completely, obscured as ever. A quiet demise, unwitnessed and unloved.

Megophrys fansipanensis by Ben Tapley, ZSL

that has grown rife in much of the world; an industry which in time kills itself. Being well-travelled is a highly coveted attribute in this age, tours of the world reduced to checklists of place names. Tangier ticked, Thailand next month, Machu Picchu last summer. No authentic bond is made anymore in these kind of holidays between person and place, no genuine relationship of reciprocal care established, just another reflection of the kinds of extractive behaviour which typified the 20th century, and threatens to do so too for the 21st. The draw of shortterm encounters continues to prove potent in the face of unceasing streams of worrisome, pointless information, reams and reams of which themselves are fated to decay away without being acted upon authentically, in archival storage, much like our unknown amphibian companions. Living and dying without ever being known, the victims of short-sightedness, in an age when expanding consciousness is supposedly trendy. The discovery of Megophrys fansipanesis and Megophrys hoangliensis was originally reported in Zootaxa on November 1st, 2018.

But in the case of these small frogs, it’s paying them attention which is indirectly killing them. When money could be on the table, anyone can become a tour operator, its an unscrupulous industry much of the time, sick with the short-sightedness

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