NAME OF ARTIST
CREATIVE CULTURE & ARTIVISM / ISSUE 13
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SUBJECT
panta issue thirteen
Issue 13 / 2018 EDITORS IN CHIEF
Charlotte Specht & Guille Lasarte COLLABORATIONS & ADVERTISING
Mario Rueda mario@bookastreetartist.com COPY EDITOR
Charlotte Kench PROJECT MANAGERS
Sophie Smeets & Juliette Antoine PROJECT ASSISTANTS
Salomé Kalonji & Giorgia Tronconi CONTRIBUTORS
Roxanne Goldberg, Aaron Glasson, Dominoe Farris, Isa Ijpelaar, Elfy Scott, Olamiju Fajemisin, Laura Schleder, Mirthe van Popering, Emma Brown, Lydia Veljanovska, Horta Do Rosário, JOS*, Camille Charlier, Ekanem Ebinne, Oliver Dougherty FEATURING
PangeaSeed, Alun Be, Pepper Levain, Hayfaa Chalabi, Songhoy Blues, Louis Masai, Opashona Ghosh, Akasha Rabut, the bomb PRINTER
MEDIALIS Offsetdruck GmbH Heidelberger Str. 65/66 12435 Berlin, Germany PUBLISHER
Book a Street Artist Taborstraße 4 10997 Berlin, Germany onelove@bookastreetartist.com www.bookastreetartist.com ISSN 2509-842X www.pantamagazine.com panta@bookastreetartist.com
Cover photo of Ryan Burke by Pepper Levain Inner cover illustration by Opashona Ghosh
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G1030 Banana
Letter from the editors
(we wish that was us pictured below but it's not, it's Zebra Katz shot by Pepper Levain)
Here we are at issue thirteen, a number that sometimes gets left out of elevator buttons and airplane rows; skipped over and missed as if it didn’t exist. Which, rather ironically, only seems to end up drawing more attention to it. Well, we certainly weren’t going to miss out on the opportunity to savour all of the curious influence surrounding the number thirteen: unlucky to some and auspicious to others. We’re going to go with the latter, especially when so many of the artists featured in this issue have managed to wrest hope from the clutches of despair and misfortune; which, on the
other hand, is not so much a matter of luck, but of perseverance. The reality of nuclear weapons is much easier to turn away from than to face headon. Not to mention the devastating rates of animal extinction, the ravages of addiction, the rise of violent extremism and melting polar ice caps... but that doesn’t mean these things don’t exist. In the face of these vast and complex issues, these artists, filmmakers and musicians certainly didn’t wait around for luck to come – they decided to take it into their own hands. And so, we present you with the thirteenth issue of PANTA. It’s a lucky one.
ISSUE
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CONTENTS
Walking on Thin Ice Get to know PangeaSeed, the international non-profit working at the intersection of art and the environment.
Born from Exile The story of Songhoy Blues, a Malian desert blues band that emerged in exile amidst the occupation of their hometown where music was banned.
Pepper Late-night queer scenes and luminescent drag queens as seen through the lens of artist Pepper Levain.
Raw Nerves Emerging artist Hayfaa Chalabi strikes a nerve with grisly illustrations that grapple with war, addiction, sexual violence and corruption.
Plight of the Bumblebee British painter Louis Masai is taking the plight of endangered species into his own hands, and his bees certainly have their work cut out for them.
Acid Rave Palette Opashona Ghosh’s electric illustrations converge at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality, and function as part of the artist’s own ‘Cocoa Butter Propaganda’.
Edification A surrealist journey by photographer Alun Be chronicling Senegalese children in scenes of labour, play and cultural exploration.
My Birthday Cake Our psychedelic chef takes us on a sugar-induced trip through his eighties childhood.
Deep down in New Orleans Photographer Akasha Rabut shares her photos of the rapidly disappearing subcultures of post-Katrina New Orleans.
The Bomb to End All Bombs Acclaimed film producer Smriti Keshari puts you in the centre of the bomb, a visceral film installation designed to blow your mind.
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ARTIVISM
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STREET
ART
walking on thin ice PangeaSeed, Sea Walls and giving oceans a voice Words by Roxanne Goldberg Photos by Dominoe Farris & courtesy of PangeaSeed
In June 2017, eighteen artists from across the globe gathered in Churchill, Manitoba, a town on the Western shore of the Hudson Bay where, during the fall months, the population of less than 900 is eclipsed by that of migrating polar bears. A long-time destination for arctic researchers and a select set of eco-tourists willing to brave the forty-five-hour train from Winnipeg, the isolated city is an unlikely location for a mural festival. However, it was Churchill’s floating cakes of melting ice, polar bear tracks and tales of out-of-season blizzards that devastate the railway and quarantine the town that made it the ideal location for ‘Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans’, the PangeaSeed Foundation’s signature event.
Opposite: Mural by Onur in New Zealand / Photo by Above Below Photo
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PHOTOGRAPHY
PEPPER late-night queer scenes through the lens of artist Pepper Levain Words by Olamiju Fajemisin Portraits of Pepper by Laura Schleder
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t was an unsettlingly warm late January afternoon when I hurried along one of East Berlin’s most iconic Stalinist streets, Karl-Marx-Allee, to meet veteran PANTA contributor Pepper Levain. Iiwas well aware that she had been contributing to the magazine since its seventh issue, and was not only intimidated by that fact, I was also being dwarfed by this particular boulevard’s iconic and wonderfully conservative USSR era buildings, and as I skipped along I wondered what was going on behind those towering walls and dark windows. Incidentally, it is Pepper’s photographs that provide me with the curious insights that I so crave: through her lens, we are granted an intimate look into the late-night queer scenes tucked away across Europe and America. As her broad portfolio unveils some of the mystery surrounding queer and drag scenes, it also serves as documentation of her own journey as an artist, filmmaker and queer woman. Pepper has no adverse agenda; she seeks not to shock her audience, nor to ridicule or sensationalise her subjects. Her work provides those that consume it not only with a voyeuristic insight into the creative side of the global queer scene, but into her desire to capture the individuality or ‘humanness’ that lays at the heart of each person. Given her intrepid spirit, I was lucky to have found myself in the same city as the artist at a time she considered it her base. I couldn’t help but keep glancing up at the portrait of the freckled American performance artist Tarren Johnson, who watched over us as we spoke across the kitchen table. Johnson’s kind gaze seemed wise yet vulnerable, and the candid moment appeared to be caught with the warm grain of a film camera. “I like the aesthetic of analogue photography much more. Digital kind of freaks me out because you generate large amounts of images to choose from so easily. Working
on film is like meditating, being in the moment and focusing sharply on what you’re doing there.” Shooting with film allows Pepper to create a nostalgic and evocative quality in her images, reminiscent of the last decades of the 20th century and the ‘Golden era of drag’. “I’ve always had a desire to find the energy and soul of those days: the seventies, the eighties – real punk and wildness,” she asserts. “I’m looking for people with whom I share a certain desire, regardless of their appearance. I feel connected to people that are brave and stand out.” Finding and documenting these subjects has been the result of Pepper’s many travels. Moving from one English-speaking country to the next has left her with an incredible grasp of the language, as well as an unmistakably transatlantic accent. Pepper was born in Düsseldorf and embarked on her first big adventure at just seventeen years old. “I had a small amount of money saved for my escape, but it was barely enough for a flight out,” she recalls of her trip to New Zealand. The ‘escape’ was driven by complications both at home and at school, as well as having suffered with depression throughout her midto-late teens. “We never had much money growing up. My mum raised me single-handedly, and I can’t thank her enough for that. But I had some real issues with my radical Catholic father, and I simply had to leave.” After a short stint in Northern Ireland, she moved to Brighton to study performance art. This is where she met Alexander, who would later become known as drag queen alter ego, Lydia L’Scabies. “We worked on my degree show, Runway of Milk and Honey: The Trivial Disaster of Being for six months, developing seven morbid characters together,” Pepper recalls. “The show was very dark, super loud, funny, over-the-top and very drag. Alex told me many years later that Lydia, his drag alter-ego, was born during this time.”
Pepper Levain
Tarren Johnson
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MUSIC
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Born from exile
Thinking of Timbuktu, an ancient city tucked between the sands of the Sahara and the Niger River, one might envision dusty roads and silent desert dunes. However, there is a distinctive sound that emanates from the Malian desert; proud and gripping, and surprisingly familiar. It is argued that Timbuktu is the birthplace of the Blues. Moreover, up until recently, the nearby town of Essakane was the site of the worldfamous Festival au Désert, or ‘Woodstock of the Sahara’, where nomadic communities would gather to celebrate with song, dance and poetry. Everything was to change in early 2012, as separatists seeking autonomy for Northern Mali seized control of the country’s largest northern cities, effectively splitting the nation in two. The rebels began to clash with the Islamist extremist group that initially backed their move for independence, culminating in a trail of destruction, terror and death. Violent forces envenomed every aspect of life, including music, which was buried alive and banned, in keeping with strict Sharia law.
the story of Songhoy Blues Words by Mirthe van Popering Photos by Emma Brown
Music / Songhoy Blues
Silencing Mali’s music meant more than killing bare sound, it meant the silencing of histories, denying the voices and lifeblood of the community. Musicians received death threats, their instruments were burned, and the majority of them fled – along with 350,000 refugees – to government controlled areas in southern Mali and to neighbouring countries. In a strange twist of fate, it was a path not dissimilar to this that would lead to the inception of the now globally acclaimed Malian band Songhoy Blues. Three of the band’s four members fled from Timbuktu to Bamako, Mali’s southern capital. They met whilst playing traditional Songhay music in a refugee camp, preserving and sharing their stories in exile and bringing the people of the torn-apart nation back together. A Bamako-based drummer joined the collective and Songhoy Blues soon hit Bamako’s clubs, gathering a large and diverse following. Today, their narrative resounds throughout the world. We spoke with lead singer Aliou Touré about the band’s formation in the midst of exile and insecurity, the unifying power of their music, and sharing their story against all odds.“When you take music away you take the soul of the country away,” Aliou explains, over the phone. It’s why he refused to be silenced. Whilst international military forces pushed back against the extremists, Songhoy Blues and fellow Malian musicians used songs as their ‘weapons’ of resistance.
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.his year I turned thirty-five. My mom is in Mexico and I’m in Portugal, so she wasn’t able to make me a birthday cake like she used to when I was a kid. She could recreate any figure you’d ask her to; be it for a wedding, a birthday or any other event that required a special cake. When I think back to my childhood, I always think of food, cartoon characters and toys. More specifically, I remember the weekend breakfasts my father used to make, back when he was the number one pancake maker of all time (he doesn’t know how to cook anything else), and when my mother would make clove and cinnamon syrup to go with the pancakes. During the week, my breakfast before going to school would be toast
with marmalade and melted gouda cheese, and papaya or banana with sugar and lemon – de puta madre! In the afternoons, my mom would bake us chocolate and almond cookies, crispy honey cookies, or cakes with colourful icing. Sometimes we would go with her after school to her favourite baking goods store, the famous ‘WILTON’! Seeing her there was like seeing a kid at a toy store – she’d walk out with a stack of cookbooks and a bunch of utensils for manipulating sugar, chocolate and all kinds of cake toppings. I think my parents realised that my favourite drug was sugar – which is now so despised by this new generation of health freaks that are ruining perfectly delicious and indulgently sweet recipes full of colour and flavour!
68 The Psychedelic Chef
So, to celebrate my birthday this year, I wanted to recap my favourite things from the eighties. My sister and I used to play Michael Jackson records and dance all afternoon, and on weekends I’d watch cartoons, filling my brain with colour, action and worlds created by the people who gave that decade so much personality. He-Man, Thundercats, Silver Hawks, Flash Gordon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Astro Boy, Mazinger Z, Volton… puta madre! Quiero llorar! In short, the eighties smelled like action figures smeared with colourful icing, dancing to rock and wearing a belly shirt with a Thundercats logo. My aim for this recipe was to personify my childhood in a cake. Instead of taking a character from one of the comics I mentioned, I starting drawing my own with cartoons playing on YouTube in the background and listening to those special effects that are so characteristic of eighties cartoons: futuristic bullets in caveman times. I melted candy to make a multi-coloured cream… not exactly gourmet, but vibrantly good. I made an orange
sponge cake and decorated it with fondant and lots of colourful shit (the brighter the better). I never thought it’d be so fun to make an action figure cake. I wish I had a time machine to travel back to March 24th, 1983, and auto-gift myself this cake from the future. In the end, I ripped his head off and made him vomit coca-cola flavoured gummies. I ripped out his brain and dislocated his arms. Then I bit off his hands until all he had left were pieces of his fingers. What else can I do with a mutilated super hero’s cake body? I was his creator, so I had every right to destroy him! I got drunk off the sugar and the next day I had a hangover and didn’t want to go to work.
INGREDIENTS Orange sponge cake
Cream filling
Decoration
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- colourful icing - food colouring - assorted hard candy and jelly beans
1/2 cup butter 2 cups refined sugar 2 eggs 2 cups wheat flour 2 teaspoons baking powder - 1/2 cup of natural orange juice - grated orange peel
1 L milk 1 vanilla pod 7 egg yolks 1 full egg 150g sugar 50g butter 85g wheat flour orange flavoured hard candy
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M E THOD Orange sponge cake
To decorate
Depending on the size of the character you want to make, you can make one or two orange sponge cakes and then use a sharp serrated knife to shape the cake the way you like. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar with a whisk at maximum speed until it turns a pale pearly colour. Add the 2 eggs one by one and continue beating the mix while slowly adding the flour and baking powder. Add the grated orange peel along with the orange juice. Grease and flour a baking pan and pour the mixture in. Bake for 45 minutes and then stick a toothpick in the centre of the cake to check if it’s ready. If it comes out dry, then it’s ready. If there is still wet batter on the toothpick, let it bake for about 5 more minutes.
Now you need to use your imagination and dedication to create your own character. Use a spatula or scraper to cover each piece of the cake previously shaped with the knife. You can use the pastry cream inside the cake to create textures and you can add colours using the food colouring. Use a brush to paint over the icing for more effects.
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ILLUSTRATION
Acid Rave Palette Words by Juliette Antoine Photos by Camille Charlier
Opashona Ghosh’s vibrant portraits are loaded with symbolism, bursting with colour and evocative of the ‘rave flyer’ aesthetics that inspired them. Joyful though her pop palette may appear, there are intimate meditations on outsider experiences to be found amidst the vivid colour contrasts and other-worldly figures.