Sublime Magazine Issue 29 | MAXIMISE

AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION FOR MEN AND WOMEN SUBLIMEMAGAZINE.COM

ISSUE 29 2011

STRETCH YOURSELF

THE DOWNSHIFT LET’S KEEP LIFE SIMPLE JOHN GRANT IT PAYS TO BE GENEROUS PLANTLAB GOOD FOOD TECHNOLOGY REBUILDING JAPAN ON FIRM FOUNDATIONS DADAAB PROJECT THEATRE OF HOPE SUPER SMART SKI HUT REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

MAXIMISE

c h a r n w ood

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BIMONTHLY ISSUE 29 | 2011

SUSTAINABILITY | DESIGN | CULTURE | LIFESTYLE | FASHION | CURRENT AFFAIRS | NATURE

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HANDMADE HANDMADE DANISH DANISHDESIGN DESIGNSINCE SINCE1997 1997 ORGREEN.DK ORGREEN.DK

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THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

ISSUE 29/11

66 Special features 76 POWER UP

Special innovation report: the future’s bright – thanks to ingenious advances in clean energy production and key developments in renewables

92 A THOUSAND WORDS

76

Sublime meets the 2010 winner of the Prix Pictet award for photography and sustainability

Columns 10 BETTER TOGETHER

Wayne Hemingway is working with McDonald’s, to great effect

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MORE BANG THAN BUCK

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Jeremy Leggett Waves of scandal have hit Britain’s established institutions as powerful groups looked to clean up. The tide is turning

42 GO WITH THE FLOW

John Grant and friends invent a corporate social network powered by kindness and generosity. It could catch on

98 MAKING IT BIG

Frances Corner Let the recession spur you on to profit from your talents

92

56 Interviews 12 COINING IT

Dragon’s Den’s Deborah Meaden adds a green workplace scheme to her impressive list of ethical investments

30 THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS

Sublime visits PlantLab, a Netherlands-based agriculture project that’s revolutionising the future of food

56 BRAZILIAN SOUL

Europe and the US are waking up to designer Oskar Metsavaht’s relaxed take on luxury

66 COMING IN TO LAND

Canadian singer-songwriter Feist is home at last, and with a new album, Metals

72 LIFE IN COLOUR

Italian coffee company Illy is bringing the arts and espresso together for good

Comment 56 DIALLING DOWN

Summer’s over. Back to the 9 to 5 – or more likely, 8 to 8. How about giving up the rat race altogether?

Features 16 A PASSION FOR NATURE

Multi-award-winning photographer Heinrich van den Berg’s love for the natural world has shaped his life

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rio de Janeiro s達o Paulo Buenos aires n e w Yo r k Miami Milano roma to k y o

designed in rio de Janeiro by oskar Metsavaht. Made of fish skin, par t of a sustainabilit y project by instituto e.

NY 97 Wooster st. - soho MiaMi 1111 LincoLn road - MiaMi Beach

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THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

ISSUE 29/11

30 34

34 HOUSES OF THE

69 MUSIC REVIEW

In the wake of three national disasters, Japan is thinking hard about architecture that will last

70 THE BOY MIR

RISING SUN

44 ACTS OF MERCY

Theatre groups at the Dadaab Refugee Camps are bringing hope to hundreds of displaced persons – one by one

64 SHOP IN A BOX

64

70

The Brisbane mini-sites that are offering a more intimate kind of retail experience

Lifestyle 40 HIATUS

Leading creative thinkers put their thoughts on paper about sustainability in design

48 MELLOW AND FRUITFUL Beauty and grooming: autumn’s rich harvest

124

51 UNDER THE SKIN

A new exhibition of body art connects with visitors digitally and in real time

52 SUPER SIZES

Bath and haircare treats of quality – and quantity

Sublime’s pick of the best

Ten years in the life of one Afghan boy movingly documented by Phil Grabsky

71 SUBLIME READS

By Jon Fordham

74 VOCATION RELOCATION

Two friends who met at college have set up a social enterprise company providing affordable studio space for London artists

99 MERCI

An elegant, non-profit Paris mini-department store brings sophistication together with radical values

124 ON AN ALL-TIME HIGH Sublime undertakes an adventurous trek to visit a luxurious, clean-tech ski hut in Zermatt, Switzerland

128 TRUE BEAUTY

Cult natural skin and haircare company Aveda believes that looking good is not enough

59 Eleanor Bolton

Fashion 100 ENRAPTURED

60 Sanne Schepers

108 SHOW ME

Sublime’s talent spot

Sublime’s talent spot

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62 MORE FROM LESS

Work a fabulous transitional look with pieces from the latest upcycler brands

Then came the words …

Upfront and sculptural

116

FOR EVER ENGLAND Second-hand Rose meets Tailored of Gloucester

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section title

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

ISSUE 29/11

S-TEAM PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Damian Santamaria

EDITOR IN CHIEF Laura Santamaria

REGULAR COLUMNISTS Professor Frances Corner OBE John Grant Wayne Hemingway MBE Jeremy Leggett

CONTRIBUTORS Zara-Jade Bestwick John Fordham Charlotte Foxton Christopher Kanal William Kennedy Hanspeter Kuenzler Gabriel O‘Rorke Safeera Sarjoo Liz Schaffer Kirril Shields

EDITORIAL TEAM Editorial assistants Yewande Ajayi Katrine Carstens Guillaume Delannoy Lucy Purdy Design assistant Margaret Werner

INTERNATIONAL TEAM

FASHION EDITOR

Laura Santamaria

BEAUTY EDITOR Jenny Page

STYLING

Rachel Gold Kattaca LSC

PHOTOGRAPHY & ILLUSTRATION Lindsey Adler Heinrich van den Berg Ale Burset Mitch Epstein Matt Hertel Charl Marais Pia Robinson

Argentina: Mario Braga Australia: Peter Jones Brazil: Jose Mauricio da Silva Canada: Cynthia Holkstra Croatia: Edina Husanovic Ethiopia: Kelly Blacksten France: Yann Guitton India: Jen Marsden Japan: Io Takemura Kenya: Stewart Johnson Mexico: Adriana Gómez Silva Netherlands: Suzanna Blackmore Spain: Ana Gayo Ruiz Sweden: Kristina Lemos Switzerland: Bozena Civic Thailand: Salisa Landy USA: Jane Johnson

SUBSCRIPTIONS sublimemagazine.com

ADVERTISING ads@sublimemagazine.com +44 (0) 20 8374 7695

PUBLISHED BY

Sublime Magazine Ltd, 167 Southwood Lane, London N6 5TA, UK. Registered in England, company number 5497195. The Sublime name and logo are registered trademarks of Sublime magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without permission from the publishers. The views expressed in Sublime are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff.

ISSN 1752-251X. Printed in the UK on FSC-certfied paper. © 2011 Sublime Magazine Ltd 8 | SUBLIME

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maximise stretch yourself

A

chapter in human history seems to be coming to an end.

Looking at the current state of world affairs, it would seem that there is only a minimal chance our terminally ill economic system and its ways will ever get back on its feet.

For many, these times have served as a wake-up call. At last.

For us at Sublime, they are an opportunity to push higher up the agenda all that we have been about over the last five years: stewardship, social responsibility and cooperation. It started as quiet roar, a slow trickle, and now there’s a rushing tide rising.

As an independent business, we cannot escape the hardships of the financial crisis. But we did not walk into publishing to exploit some green trend with yet another repackaged consumerist idea.

(If we had wanted to make money, sustainability was certainly not the big-seller subject for a lifestyle magazine!)

‘Now it is time to start again’, our launch motto proclaimed back in 2006. Sublime was born out of the realisation that the system we were living under was not satisfying to anybody – either the needy or the wealthy.

From here on in, we will need to do more with less, and be clear about our priorities, our responsibilities and our constraints. The times ahead will require that our resources be allocated effectively and efficiently to see us through to a new societal model. We need to be prepared, resilient.

Challenging times can prove to be fertile ground for positive change. Our brief as media is to keep supporting those who are bringing about transformation: individuals and companies pioneering noble, revolutionary ideas and new concepts of living that empower rather than enslave.

Maximise is about making the most of life, all these things considered, and our hope is that we motivate you to do just that.

Laura and Damian Santamaria Editorial Directors

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tell it like it is Photo Ben Schott

better TOGETHER

By Wayne Hemingway

Wayne Hemingway is co-founder of fashion label Red or Dead and Hemingway Design

Only by swallowing our pride and teaming up with the big brands will we be able to innovate towards a wholly sustainable, ethical work environment

O

ne of the most stimulating projects that we are working on at Hemingway Design right now is with McDonald’s.

Yes, McDonald’s – the company whose name, when I first mention we are working with them, makes people give me a look of sheer incredulity.

But when I go on to say that our project with McDonald’s is about making the most of resources, involves a programme that ultimately aims to reduce waste to almost zero and is without doubt the most technologically advanced and challenging sustainability project we have ever worked on, often the barriers of preconception start to come down.

The last decade has seen some of the

big corporations that people love to hate really stepping up to the mark, sustainability-wise. As a long-time judge on the annual RSPCA Good Business Awards, year after year I see the likes of M&S, Asda, Waitrose and McDonald’s sweep the board for their work with animal husbandry and ethical food and clothing production.

And I have yet to see any of this work being done cynically in an attempt to gain brownie points with the sceptics and critics. On the contrary, these companies have ethical and sustainability champions who are every bit as passionate about the issues as Sublime readers.

I believe that we should be celebrating the fact that we can experiment and attempt to make great strides with the help of large corporations, who have the money that is needed to invest in resourcing new ideas. We can maximise opportunities by bringing small, fast-moving, cutting-edge companies under the umbrella of a larger enterprise which is able to fund innovation at a level those out on the leading edge can rarely reach.

This is exactly what is happening in our collaboration with McDonald’s. We’ve teamed up with Worn Again, a company whose very ethos is based on achieving far-reaching, meaningful change through collaboration with large companies. Together, we are taking a new approach to design thinking and applying it to outfitting 85,000 McDonald’s UK employees in new uniforms, to be launched at the 2012 Olympics.

Hemingway Design is creating the look and feel of the new uniforms, working closely with apparel supplier Dimensions, and Worn Again is designing the phased strategy to transform the

uniforms from conventional to ‘closed loop’ textiles over the next few years. Closed loop, meaning that from the outset the textiles have been designed to be fully recyclable. At the end of their useful life, the new uniforms will be collected up at McDonald’s restaurants, reprocessed into raw materials and made into uniforms again as part of a closed manufacturing system.

The process for closed-loop textiles is currently available for polyester, and considering that the majority of workwear is already made from a high percentage of polyester, it’s the ideal platform on which to introduce this type of infinite resource reuse. The great thing about closed-loop materials is that they are designed to be recycled over and over, as opposed to having just one reuse, such as PET polyester which is made from plastic bottles.

Another huge benefit is that the repolymerisation process is extremely

energy-efficient when compared with virgin polyester production.

Energy consumption and CO2 emissions are as low as one-fifth of the equivalent created in the manufacture of new polyester fibres made from petroleum.

For McDonald’s, this move to closed-loop textiles won’t happen overnight.

The infrastructure to support the collection and reprocessing of the uniforms is not yet fully developed, and the current market price is too cost-prohibitive for most businesses to swallow in one chunk and on their own.

To overcome this barrier, Worn Again is developing a committed group of leading non-competitive brands, all working towards a zerowaste corporate environment, to create the scale necessary for making the process and materials more economically viable. Real sustainability advances can’t take place in a vacuum – it requires collaboration not just between big and small companies, but among the world-leading brands themselves that have the size and impact to affect systemic change by making small but significant changes in their supply chains.

In the meantime, we’re extremely encouraged by the fact that McDonald’s have taken this bold step to fast-tracking the development of a closed-loop clothing industry in the UK. Not only will it help them achieve their own zero-waste-to-landfill ambition by 2020, but it will change the goalposts and challenge other big brands to step up to the plate too.

At the heart of this project lies the maximising of precious resources. There’s the resources of the textiles themselves. Then there’s the financial clout of a large corporation. And there’s the agility of the smaller, fast-paced companies at the forefront of the design, construction and sustainable thinking that are necessary to the whole process.

We can maximise opportunities by bringing small, fast-moving, cutting-edge companies under the umbrella of a larger enterprise which is able to fund innovation at a level those out on the leading edge can rarely reach

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Bod

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enlighten your skincare ritual Made in England

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section title interview

Coining it Interview Lucy Purdy

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interview

A brand new workplace scheme will bring participating companies up to the cutting edge of achievable, localised corporate social responsibility. And Deborah Meaden loves it

G

one are the days of dog-eared notices pinned up in a corner of the office, entreating employees to reuse envelopes, turn off their screens at night or collect their teabags for compost.

The concept of the greening of the workplace has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years.

Now the power of social networking has been enlisted to this end, in a pioneering new scheme designed to motivate workers to cut both costs and waste in one fell swoop.

The face of the new idea is Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden, who has paused in her listening to the pitches of others in order to extol the virtues of Ecoinomy – a business in which she has not just invested but jumped with both feet, signing up as its chairwoman.

The company’s co-founders, John Grant and Robert Colwell, believe they have found a way to help organisations save money, collect funds for good causes and help save the planet at the same time.

The concept revolves around a process they have dubbed ‘fundsaving’,

and the duo believe Ecoinomy has the power to change the habits of workers the world over. They say that if a million employees sign up, the scheme could raise even more per year than UK fundraising behemoth Comic Relief.

Staff whose companies get involved are urged to make changes to their behaviour which will save waste and cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Whether it is jumping on the train rather than taking a plane, ditching the taxi in favour of two wheels, printing on both sides of the paper or simply snapping off the office lights at the end of a day, all their changes are logged onto a internet programme called eco.system.

Each of these measures will earn the employee a workplace currency, called an e-coin, 10% of the value of which is passed on to causes and charities selected by the workers.

Employees are incentivised by the knowledge that their organisation will give back some of the money they save, and they can see accurately how much has been saved by clicking on a virtual fundraising thermometer.

‘The traditional way of organising anything in the workplace has been to devise a long-term plan by identifying things to change and then setting objectives, usually in an avalanche of PowerPoint presentations,’ explains John. ‘Traditionally, it has been centralised and imposed from the top down. The difference with this scheme is that members of staff choose their own causes. We have had a real diversity of charities and groups, but have noticed that people tend to choose very local causes – things they have a real personal connection to.’

From decisions made throughout the course of the working day spring tangible results – from whiteboards to be used in lessons at local schools, to kits for children’s Saturday-morning football teams.

Ecoinomy has the power to change the habits of workers the world over … if a million employees sign up, the scheme could raise even more per year than UK fundraising behemoth Comic Relief

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Portraits: Frances Baker at The Big Society Network

interview

‘We expected company directors to be taken by the fact that this would save them money. But actually, they seem most interested in the Big Society idea, and the notion of giving something back’ Ecoinomy.com co-founders, CEO Robert Colwell and Chief Ecoinomist John Grant

Scottish and Southern Energy, ad agency JWT London, a major bank and a well-known food company have already signed up to Ecoinomy, and more than 40 organisations are preparing to become involved by 2012.

Ecoinomy is not just about targeting big businesses. It also offers a platform for smaller organisations – those with fewer than 250 staff – which is built around a similar system called eco.logic. John and Robert have also been in discussions with several local councils and a hospital trust.

Some of the feedback has been surprising. ‘We expected company directors to be taken by the fact that this would save them money,’ said John. ‘But actually, they seem most interested in the Big Society idea, and the notion of giving something back to the company. We have also had feedback that boards of directors like the fact that social media is at the heart of Ecoinomy.’

Dragon Deborah has added Ecoinomy to her growing list of ethically

minded business ventures. Earlier this year, she was so impressed by the installation of solar photovoltaic panels at her home that she

decided to invest in the company and set up renewable-energy firm EWS Solar Power. In 2010, she became patron and special advisor to Tusk – a charity which runs conservation projects across Africa – and in March she travelled to Cambodia to see the work of lendwithcare. org, an initiative which supports entrepreneurs in the developing world. Deborah is also an ambassador for WWF. She once said: ‘People can call me what they like – fat, ugly, sour – but tell me I’m not fair, tell me I’m not ethical, those are the things that bother me.’ If Deborah’s relationship with John and Robert was formed over a mutual desire to give something back, it seems they also share a playful sense of humour. When you search for their company on Google, the search engine automatically attempts to redirect you. ‘Did you mean economy?’ it suggests. And so the header on their homepage retorts: ‘No, we meant Ecoinomy.’

While we may be getting the hang of being greener at home by composting, recycling and reusing, saving the planet doesn’t necessarily come high on people’s agendas at work.

Surely most people have too many emails to respond to, spreadsheets to complete and presentations to prepare to have time to think about green issues.

It seems that quite the opposite might be true. Research has shown that young professionals in particular place a high value on companies’ corporate social responsibility. Surveys reveal that genuinely devised CSR policies are key in creating workplace happiness, and therefore in encouraging staff to stick around for longer.

And with workplaces being responsible for more than half of the UK’s energy use and carbon emissions, it is clear something must be done. Unless employees are themselves actively engaged, schemes will have little chance of success.

Ecoinomy’s new formula looks as if it’s going to add up. ecoinomy.com

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FOR CREATIVE THINKERS AND INQUIRING MINDS sustainability | DESIGN | culture | LIFESTYLE | fashion | current affairs | nature

authentics issue 30 out november 2011

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nature

It has taken him to wild, inhospitable places. It has led him to witness heartbreaking life situations, both animal and human. But for Heinrich van den Berg, living is about taking incredible photographs, and always has been

a PASSION for NATURE Interview Yewande Ajayi Photographs and quotes Heinrich van den Berg

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section nature title

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nature

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nature

T

hey say life is about finding the work that brings out the best in you, and doing it with all that you are. While many of us would agree, it’s a wonder so few of us truly live up to this aspiration.

Heinrich van den Berg has done just that. He has pursued his passion, and turned it into something he was afraid it would never have the potential of becoming. A renowned wildlife photographer, van den Berg has published over 21 highly acclaimed photographic books. He has won numerous awards, ranging from an Eric Hoskings Award of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year (the first photographer to win it two years running), to the international Fuji Getaway photographer of the Year (2005). His photographs have graced numerous books, calendars, magazine portfolios and photographic products worldwide. He is known for his boundarycrossing images, and for his depiction of the natural world in a fresh and evocative way.

Sublime: I read in your biography that you left your profession as a civil engineer to become a full-time photographer; what made you change career, and what triggered your passion for nature photography?

your photographs have been taken from amazing angles.

HvdB: I probably only use one image in a thousand that I take. You have to keep on shooting in case something special happens. You have to start by photographing all the clichés – taking shots from the expected angles and directions. You have to get the clichés out of your system before you can get to the really good stuff. It’s a process.

Sometimes you’re lucky, and everything comes together without you having to think about it. But mostly you have to work on a subject for a long time to get that amazing image.

S: What was the first photograph you took? Do you have any memories of that moment?

HvdB: I was surrounded by photography as I grew up, so I can’t remember the first image. But I remember the first image that won me a prize as a young boy. It was of a bee on a flower. My uncle taught me the trick of putting some honey onto a flower if you wanted to get a photograph of a bee on it. I filled this one flower with honey and waited for the bees. It took a while, but when a bee finally arrived it spent a really long time on the flower. It probably got stuck in all the honey, and gave me ample opportunity to photograph it.

Heinrich van den Berg: I have always been interested in photography, and as a young boy I used to go on holiday with my family to all the great nature reserves in southern Africa and take photographs.

Photography has always been my first love. I studied civil engineering because I didn’t believe that it was possible to make a living from photography. But I was a pathetic engineer; I didn’t have any passion for it. All I wanted was to photograph wildlife. In a way it was a blessing that I disliked engineering so much; if I had liked it just a bit more, I would still be an engineer, and not as happy as I am today. I have learned that I cannot do anything well if I am not passionate about it.

as a nature photographer?

S: What inspires, or drives you to go to all these different places, and

started this journey?

work in some very tough conditions, to get a photograph?

HvdB: It’s not really an external experience, but more the internal

HvdB: One of the advantages of being a wildlife photographer is that

personal journey that has been so rewarding. I have experienced incredible sightings, from mountain gorillas to indris in Madagascar.

All of these experiences add up to a really honest appreciation of how lucky I am to be able to live this kind of life. Travelling through Africa, one sees terrible poverty and bravery and that puts everything into context. The same applies to animals. The habitats of many animals are in real danger, and I am fortunate enough to be able to photograph some of these animals and hope that it will have an influence on the future of their species. It’s rewarding to be able to convey an animal in an original way.

S: Is there a nature photographer who inspires you, or whom you might consider to be your mentor? How has that helped you in your journey HvdB: My father has been the biggest inspiration. He really

appreciates nature and wildlife photography, and that rubbed off on me as youngster. Other photographers that have inspired me are Jim Brandenburg and Frans Lanting.

S: What has been your most rewarding image or experience since you

you see some incredible wild places. And sometimes you get paid to go there. The danger pales in comparison to the opportunity to get a great photograph – and it is not that dangerous. It is much more dangerous to get into your car and drive down the road than to face a silverback mountain gorilla. I would much rather be attacked by a silverback than by a human. I feel at peace in the wild, and have rarely felt in any real danger.

S: What has been your most challenging project or experience so far?

HvdB: The most challenging experience was getting malaria during a trip to Kruger National Park. For me, it is proof that the mosquito is by far the most dangerous animal in Africa. But the most scary experience was being attacked by a hippo while paddling down the Zambezi river on an assignment. I was in a two-man canoe with an experienced guide when a hippo picked our canoe up from below. My guide started screaming like a girl, and that was really scary: when your guide loses it, it means that you need to start panicking. But it was the high-pitched scream that made the hippo drop us.

S: How long can it take, on average, to get a precise image? Most of

S: Are there images that you are yet to capture that you would consider as groundbreaking? What and where would they be?

HvdB: There are many. A photographer never gets that perfect image – we will forever be chasing the dragon. But we always believe it is out there. There are a few images that have been subconsciously created in my mind that just need to be photographed. But if I tell you about them, then they will lose their power.

S: What message do you intend to put across with your images?

HvdB: I want to show the beauty that is out there. Then if people know about it, they might think twice before destroying it.

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nature

‘I probably only use one image in a thousand that I take … You have to get the clichés out of your system before you can get to the really good stuff’

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nature

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nature

‘It is not that dangerous. It is much more dangerous to get into your car and drive down the road than to face a silverback mountain gorilla’

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nature

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nature

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nature

‘I want to show the beauty that is out there. Then if people know about it, they might think twice before destroying it’

chiefs who participated in Kayapó Leadership Summit, Pará, Brazil

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nature

‘A photographer never gets that perfect image – we will forever be chasing the dragon. But we always believe it is out there’

Shades of Nature by Heinrich van den Berg is published by HPH Publishing, £37 rrp heinrichvandenberg.com hphpublishing.co.za

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energy challenge

MORE BANG THAN BUCK Founder and chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, and author of The Carbon War and Half Gone jeremyleggett.net

by Jeremy Leggett

A series of major crises that have rocked Britain was recently topped by the Murdoch phone-hacking affair. Anyone now seeking to work a niche interest in a corridor of power had better watch it

I

n recent years, the public has watched as scandals have arrived, like tsunamis, in huge waves. Economies cannot function without healthy banks, yet in the banking crisis of 2008 many of our financial institutions seemed intent on self-destruction.

Governments cannot lead without a basic respect for the political process, yet in the expenses debacle of 2009 many politicians seemed bent on befouling the entire political class.

And then there was News Corp.

In this, the biggest scandal in British corporate history, we have seen a

whole new dimension of sleaze unfolding. Here is a corporation that manifestly exerted major influence on sovereign affairs, using tactics that could have been those of a criminal gang. It may well have done so with the knowledge of its leadership, or some of its leadership: the courts will form a view on that in due course. But even assuming that leadership avoids jail, they will stand indicted as unprecedented icons of lax oversight. Either way, corporate risk assessment will never be the same again.

We now act on a stage where a major international corporation can project awesome global power one week and face potential ruin, by increment of dire revelation and legal process, the next.

No responsible corporation will be able to conduct its risk assessments without entertaining fears of an equivalent scandal. No responsible shareholder will be able to back a corporate horse without asking itself where the ‘For Nevilles’ might lie under the saddle.

The magnitude of the stakes for News Corp requires consideration in context. The travails of the Murdochs unfold against a narrative of change that would seem to read something like this. The public knew their bankers tended to favour risk over sobriety in their bonus-building. They knew their politicians favoured champagne rather than Macon Blanc when being entertained. They knew their media barons were powerful enough to swing election results. None of this knowledge had, in and of itself, proved sufficient to ignite a popular pushback on anything like the scale of the firestorm we have seen swirling around Murdoch.

But that was not to say there wasn’t plenty of smoke in the air. The bankers managed to return to their casinos with barely a

slapped wrist, but not without much banker-bashing in search of a collective focus along the way. The politicians succeeded in escaping with a good talking-to, mostly self-administered, but with much evidence of public grudge-bearing carried over. The media barons were allowed to tittle-tattle on, so long as the targets of their cruelty were overpaid footballers and the like.

But when the brushwood is smoking in this way, a trigger such as the Millie Dowler phone-hacking incident can be especially deadly.

Her posthumous treatment by the News of the World touched a public nerve that turned the smoke rising around News Corp into a major conflagration.

In the process, new horrors are being flushed out. They show ever more clearly how interconnected all this cosiness and flirtation with malfeasance is across the British elite.

In particular, we have learned that, far from investigating such impropriety assiduously, the police have often been at the same parties as the perpetrators.

Small wonder, people are now saying, that so few financiers ended up in jail after the banking showdown.

Britain seems to be in the mood for a certain clearing of house. The days of tacit ‘understandings’ are over for the elite

It is impossible to predict, as things stand,

where it will all end. But an overarching implication has now crystallised. Britain seems to be in the mood for a certain clearing of house. The days of tacit ‘understandings’ are over for the elite.

No banker can expect any quarter if the ongoing trend for gambling in search of bonuses leads to a new round of trouble in the times ahead. No politician can expect to escape if they accept the lavish hospitality of corporate leaders who plunge from grace. No media executive can aspire ever to emulate Murdoch and his methods again.

The implications reach far across the corporate world. In every sector, risk managers and investors will have to ask themselves where the potential triggers might lie in situations that today smoulder but which seem unlikely to ignite public lust for justice. Where could a skeleton-filled cupboard be hidden? Are there any Sean Hoaretype figures lurking, waiting to blow the locks off? When will the merely malodorous personality shift shape, perhaps overnight, into a weapon of mass destruction able to bring them, their employers and even the wider operating context, down in flames?

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WHAT IF OUR FOOD COULD BE GROWN LOCALLY AND ALL YEAR ROUND, RATHER THAN TRAVEL THOUSANDS OF MILES TO OUR SUPERMARKETS? IT SOUNDS ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT PLANTLAB IN THE NETHERLANDS ARE PROPOSING WITH THEIR INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO VERTICAL FARMING

the secret life of plants Interview Laura Santamaria

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fact that they absorb red and blue light waves. The end result is green, and that’s what they reflect and what we see. We have created a new type of nursery, without daylight, where we give plants only red, blue and far-red light.

The chloroplast of a plant produces sugar, which is transported from the lower parts of the leaves to the fruits or roots through very intelligent transport systems. Those parts of the plants are not able to produce enough sugar themselves. In this way, a plant is a whole logistical system – we compare it to a factory. If the logistics are not at an optimal level, it will produce less than it would otherwise.

Our system combines light and a sophisticated climate control that is developed for running growing recipes. These recipes can be run through the internet, and tell the system what to do from minute to minute, from seed through to harvest.

S: What about elements like water, nutrients and pesticides?

GM: Our system needs no sunlight and very little water – we save 90%

W

ith populations growing and land available for production shrinking, feasible solutions to our future food security are crucial. Self-proclaimed plant magicians PlantLab dig deep into science to find the ideal mix of water, light, temperature, nutrition and CO2 to create what they call Plant Paradise. Using holistic systems thinking, PlantLab is on a quest to build on and integrate three technological advances: vertical farming, progress in LED lighting and the practice of applying mathematical models to plant cultivation.

The end result is their revolutionary PlantLab Operating System.

Sublime spoke to managing partner Gertjan Meeuws.

Sublime: Tell us how it all started.

Gertjan Meeuws: We began our way of thinking back in 1989, first as

horticulturists, then as plant physiologists. Our approach has been to get to know plants so well that we can get more out of them. Vertical farming helps us in terms of space, but the benefits of our system have a wider influence on the whole concept of how the world needs to change, in terms of growing food.

During the 1990s, we were looking at plants on a daily basis. The yields, the way they grow and behave, the relationship between temperature and growth speed and the correlation between light and photosynthesis – we examined all these parameters. At the end of ten years of study, we said to each other: ‘Plant organisms are so intelligent that they are prepared to adapt to every single circumstance, whether it is a dry, wet or hot summer’.

To put plants in optimal circumstances, the earliest effort was, of course, the greenhouse. Our idea was to build the next generation of greenhouse, where everything can be fine-tuned to make plants even happier, and enable them to produce at their maximum rate.

of the water used in normal horticulture. The water is captured in the plants themselves, taken up by the roots and evaporated through the leaves, captured again and put back in the water tank.

We believe that in the next 10 to 20 years water will become a bigger problem than fossil fuels – and there is no replacement for water.

If we continue to produce food the way we do today, we will need a lot more ground surface for production, and there will be a real struggle for water between humans, nature and agriculture.

So far, we have not changed anything to do with plant nutrients.

We use only the nutrient solutions that have been developed and employed in horticulture for decades. That is another chapter for Plant Paradise. It might turn out that plants need different nutrients compared to the ones they would use if they were grown outside.

In terms of pesticides, we have never had reason to use any.

University scientists visit us frequently, and their only explanation for our not needing pesticides is that happy plants can protect themselves better. They create a shield that prevents diseases and pests, and that signals to aphids and spider mites: ‘I’m too healthy, don’t attack me’.

S: How is PlantLab different from organic growing methods?

GM: There is an interesting paradox. We have accepted technology

everywhere, in our phones, our computers. If we have a heart attack, we love the technology the hospital has to offer! Yet we close our eyes to the technology that is being used for producing our food. We act and behave as if it is not there, and keep on screaming that the world

‘Our approach has been to get to know plants so well that we can get more out of them’

S: How does Plant Paradise work?

GM: As far as we’re concerned, real photosynthetic light absorbed by

the chloroplast of a plant consists only of red, blue and far-red light waves. Far-red is invisible to the human eye, but plants react very strongly to it. So in sunlight or white light, plants are green due to the

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waste. This is something we could probably do for Burger King and McDonald’s. But of course the smaller the scale, the more difficult it is to make supply match demand.

S: What is the process for getting your system out into the world?

GM: As we are in favour of producing local foods for local people,

should be organic. The concept of ‘organic’ today is not the solution for the whole world, as it can only feed 2bn people. Right now there are 7bn of us, and soon there will be 9bn.

But if we were to merge technology and organic cultivation, we might be able to surmount the problem and embrace a technology that could help us produce just the right amount of food using hardly any water. It would be locally grown for specific communities (so no transportation issues) and without pesticides. These are all advantages connected to vertical farming, and it is our wishlist when we call something ‘organic’. The only thing we have to do is to accept that technology is a part of it.

S: People are concerned about enjoying a variety of foods, and preserving species that are disappearing. Can your system help with this?

we also want to build our nurseries in this way. If someone wants a nursery in China, we will look for local construction and installation companies that can put it in place. Our business concept is that constructing a building is not our competence; we are plant physiologists. But we know the specs of the buildings needed to optimise growing conditions.

Prior to the nursery being built, there is a process we call Plant Paradise Design. We have a fluid team of people with different skills for that process, with the client at the centre. We start with a vague idea and end up with a very concrete design, and that can take between six months and two years.

There is a Dutch company we have known for a long time that provides the technical units and that takes care of the airconditioning, water purification, irrigation and the dosing of nutrients. These parts are put together in one package, shipped to the nursery and installed by qualified locals. What we deliver is the PlantLab Operating System: the software that runs everything. A nursery owner in China will be able to purchase growing recipes for his product range and upload new ones if he decides to change, say, to sweet peppers. He can upload the recipes from the internet.

S: Would the hardware need to be adjusted for a change of crop?

GM: There will be hardware for different groups of products such as

herbs, spinach, lettuce. They can be grown in the same conditions as crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers. Those are plants that grow vertically. But we can also choose varieties that grow horizontally, such as herbs. There are different groups, and our nursery can be adapted to suit them all.

GM: There are forgotten vegetables that our parents had in their

gardens 40, 50 years ago. They disappeared due to their lack of resistance to pests and diseases, which meant they were not being produced in sufficient quantities. But we can reintroduce the varieties our parents enjoyed, anywhere in the world.

S: What do you see as the key benefit of your system?

GM: We can make supply really meet demand. Agriculture is a system

where there is either far too much or not enough, as we produce according to climate. We have little production in winter and too much in summer. Our system is like a multi-storey building with several layers, where we can grow different things ready for the following day. This allows for unusual growing patterns that until now have never been possible in horticulture. In this way, a small building can produce food for a large number of people.

The whole food production system of today focuses on producing fruit in those places where it is cheap to do so and then shipping it by airplane, train or lorry. So the fruit we eat is the product of a system that we might not think is outdated, but when we look at the whole of agriculture, we see that it is not possible to produce food where the consumers are. We can’t put a greenhouse in the middle of New York, or in Kenya or South Korea. The combination of how we produce and how we transport products has brought about how we are fed now.

Another advantage is that PlantLab enables us to look at the end product we want: for example, how much baby lettuce, different herbs, slices of tomatoes and cucumbers there should be in an ideal salad. We can then calculate what size of nursery will fit different amounts of salads to be produced per day. This approach of making the end product the starting point of a nursery has never been looked at before. For the first time ever we are starting at consumer level, which allows for almost zero

S: What about commodities such as cocoa and coffee? Do they have a future at PlantLab? GM: We are convinced, because we have tried many crops so far, that

we can grow anything, so coffee, cocoa, and soy beans are all possible.

But there is an economic factor as well. When we start researching a new crop, we have to look at the cost feasibility. For example, herbs: herbs are entirely feasible because they are expensive.

S: What is the cost of PlantLab? GM: On a really small scale, PlantLab can’t compete on cost. But that is like comparing apples with pears. You would benefit from your own supply, and it would be fresh. You would be producing super-healthy vegetables – home-grown broccoli, for example, has 30 to 100 times as many antioxidants as the broccoli we are used to consuming. Also, growing at home is like having your own garden: it’s a hobby that helps you reconnect with food. If you start calculating on your hobby, it’s probably not profitable.

On a larger scale, say, for a greengrocer who wants to grow his own herbs, the investment is high but the payback time is a maximum of three years. In most cases it is paid back within a year. Although the investment is huge compared to what you know from horticulture, you can do things that you can’t do with horticulture. The system enables a nursery to produce and sell directly to the consumer. A normal greenhouse sells 0.1% of produce direct to the consumer, so they need the supply chain. Our concept is local-for-local as needed, so you can downscale and produce less, but of the best quality and according to demand, selling directly to local consumers.

The market is out there. If you look at farmer’s markets in London, for instance, people are willing to pay at least 50% more for organic produce. These prices make no sense, but people are just buying it to feel good.

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S: Are people using the system?

GM: We have two small nurseries, one about 100m2 in size and the other 200m2. These are really our test nurseries, and are totally stable. Our dream is that within the next four to six months we will start building a nursery that could be for high-end horticulture looking at industry solutions. That is one market, and the other is urban/vertical farming.

There has been a lot of interest in PlantLab from all over the world.

We have had 10,000 emails over the last ten months, and do three or four interviews with the media each week. But I guess our real target group is the next generation – the teenage children of my business partners think this way of growing is the most natural in the world.

S: What’s next for PlantLab? GM: We are establishing a small farm shop in Amsterdam, which

will be ready at the beginning of 2012. It will be a small nursery in a spot where you would not expect one. It will be open to everyone to buy herbs, have a cup of tea and experience the system. There will be small showrooms where we will grow tomatoes and cucumbers, and so on.

We have also been approached more than once by entrepreneurs and governments from countries in the Gulf region. They are used to importing everything, and know that in the future they will have to change their habits. They have asked about building a huge nursery – how much it would cost, and what it would produce. We’ve been buzzing about that.

S: What difference do you see PlantLab making?

GM: We’re at the end of an age with the economy the way it is. We

need new ideas and a new understanding of money. It has no value unless you turn it back into something useful.

If our way of thinking starts moving, there might be a day when we will make a lot of money. And we are really looking forward to making a lot of money! Of course, we want to live, and to be honest with you, I really like fancy cars. But I am sure there will be money left over, and what is the use of having a bank account full of money just sitting there? It doesn’t do much – it’s boring! First you have to get it; then you have to get rid of it.

Every day 100,000 people die from malnutrition. If we look at Africa, there are 400,000 refugees from Somalia in the south of Kenya, and food is a huge problem. I’ve heard that they are looking for €1.2bn for that region. If businesspeople interested in circulating their wealth rather than sitting on it invested just €100m, we could have a solar plant and a nursery capable of producing food for 500,000 people using just 8,000 litres of water a day.

If the United Nations donated the seeds and the nutrients, it would cost €13 per person per year to produce 10g to 20g of superhealthy vegetables every day for each individual. As the vegetables would be fresh and therefore have 30 to 100 times as many antioxidants as the vegetables we normally buy, that would be enough.

I’m pretty sure that we are donating much more than that.

Yet we are still looking for traditional agriculture solutions in these countries, although we know that it has not rained for 18 months, and that that situation probably won’t change. So why not put technology at the centre of our thinking for developing countries?

Ultimately what we need is a little more courage, and inspiring, rather than bossy, leadership that’s concerned with future needs, rather than based on fear.

‘We can make supply really meet demand. Agriculture is a system where there is either far too much or not enough, as we produce according to climate. Our system is like a multi-storey building with several layers, where we can grow different things ready for the following day … a small building can produce food for a large number of people’

image: fluxxlab

plantlab.nl

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HOUSES OF THE RISING SUN Words Christopher Kanal

Imagine wondering, as you put the key in the door of your new dream property, when you might have to do this again. For the people of Japan, reconstruction is offering great opportunities for real, long-term sustainability

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image: Satoshi Asakawa

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J

apan is still reeling from its greatest national disaster since the bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaski in 1945. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami of 11 March 2011 devastated the northern Tohoku region of Honshu, leaving more than 27,000 people dead and 173,000 homeless. The cost of the damage is estimated at $309bn. The longer-term repercussions will be considerable as the Japanese completely readdress population dispersal and urban design.

While the earthquake caused widespread damage, it was the subsequent tsunami that killed so many people and resulted in entire communities vanishing in the path of the waves. At its strongest over the Pacific Ocean, the tsunami was travelling at 500mph, the same speed as an airliner. When it struck land, it scraped towns clean, shearing buildings off their foundations and carrying walls of debris inland. ‘I was shocked, especially because I have considered Tohoku to be the starting point of my career,’ reflects leading architect Kengo Kuma.

Many of the towns wiped off the map by the tsunami may never be rebuilt. Once-vibrant fishing ports Minamisanriku and Kesennuma, home to approximately 18,000 and 73,000 people respectively, were completely buried under mud.

Following the earthquake, the subsequent and continuing fallout

Bamboo House by Kengo Kuma Kengo Kuma’s Bamboo House was designed as a way of rediscovering and re-expressing the true essence of Japanese architecture

from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power-plant complex has led to heated national debate on the country’s energy policy. The psychological trauma to the nation of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe will be long-lasting.

Politically, too, the earthquake has had major repercussions. In August, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his cabinet, who were in charge of dealing with the nuclear crisis and rebuilding from the March earthquake, resigned amid fierce public and party criticism of their handling of the catastrophe. The disaster could usher in a sea change in Japanese politics and the social order.

With not just coastal towns but major metropolises such as Sendai being hit very hard by the disaster, the design and even location of many urban areas look set to change dramatically. ‘I see at least three strategies for protecting against a future tsunami: build on substantially elevated ground and away from the coastline; erect a more massive sea wall with an adequate height; or design more buildings to take the brunt force of a tsunami – like automobiles designed to collapse in a crash,’ says Blaine Brownell, a former Fulbright Scholar to Japan and currently assistant professor and codirector of the Sustainable Design programme at the University of Minnesota. ‘The first strategy is the most practical, but would result in the physical transformation of Japanese coastal cities.’

Brownell believes the hardest part is addressing the various and conflicting approaches to what society needs in the long term.

Many of the areas lost to the Tohoku tsunami were low-lying coastal neighbourhoods populated by elderly people. ‘It is economically prohibitive to rebuild all of these areas just as they were, particularly

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all images: Ryora Atarashi

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when younger generations are not interested in occupying them,’ he explains. Many architects might prefer to focus on rebuilding the lives of families and communities in a widely distributed network of small towns, but large cities like Tokyo simply remain too attractive to the younger generation.

The tsunami has led to a great discussion of the need for homes that are less reliant on vulnerable national power networks. Japan’s nuclear reactors provide some 30% of the country’s electricity. Most of the reactors in the Tohoku region were shut down following the earthquake, leaving more than 4.4m people without electricity. The answer could lie in greener, low-energy buildings that do not need to be part of an extensive electricity and water infrastructure, and instead utilise solar power and hot-water storage.

The Japanese government is already speeding up changes to improve

Sakura by Mount Fuji (this page and right) Situated in downtown Tokyo where land prices are high and space is at a premium, this design for a home office incorporates a steel façade with holes punched out in a floral design. The striking design allows light to filter through, mimicking the patterns found in fine lace

The biggest challenge is to build cities that can both accommodate the risk of tsunami and inherit each area’s history and culture

home energy-efficiency standards that were in the pipeline prior to the disaster. Despite this, the big question is whether energy-hungry mega-cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto are capable of further reducing their dependence on nuclear power. Japan is ranked third in the world in terms of electricity production, yet renewable energy, primarily from hydroelectric but also from geothermal sources, generates just 5% of the country’s output.

The average Japanese household already consumes about a quarter of the energy of the average US home, so further conservation will be a challenge. Nevertheless, any re-evaluation of energy supply and consumption will first have to confront fundamental issues about how to create safe living environments and communities at the expense of lifestyle choices in an intensely consumerist society.

And it is a debate that extends across the globe. ‘If we do not transition to a nature-oriented society on a global scale, our society will be unsustainable,’ says Masahiro Harada, of Tokyo-based Mount Fuji Architects Studio. ‘Capitalist societies should be reconstructed into a form which has nature as a fundamental. For instance, CO2 might be a global currency. Architects are at the next stage, where we can adapt and evolve to a nature-oriented social order.’

The March 2011 earthquake was one of the five most powerful in recorded world history. Not even Japan could prepare itself for the sheer scale of the devastation. The country is no stranger to natural disasters – the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake on Honshu killed 100,000 people. Kuma believes a radical rethink is needed.

‘During the process of restoration, we should be able to realise a dispersed model of population distribution,’ he says. ‘The Great Kanto earthquake and the defeat in the Second World War brought into Japan a typical 20th-century, American type of urban design and architecture,’ says Kuma. ‘This time, conversely, we will see ourselves going back to the roots of Japanese tradition.’

For Kuma, who is in Paris working on his new design for the Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee – due to open in 2012, the biggest challenge is to build cities that can both accommodate the risk of tsunami and inherit each area’s history and culture.

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Japanese buildings are by law designed to withstand the strongest earthquakes. Even simple wooden houses have cross-bracing and steel ties to reinforce them. Kuma says wood can be resilient to an earthquake, but not to a tsunami. ‘We should seek the possibility of hybrid structures, such as wood and concrete, wood and steel,’ he explains. For Brownell, the challenge facing architects is to design buildings that can adapt to changing future conditions, and that inspire a society’s desire to keep and protect them. This is difficult in a country where the life span of a building is remarkably short. The average Japanese house lasts only 26 years.

Given limited energy and material supplies, future construction will be extremely resource-efficient. Architect Shigeru Ban believes in using weak materials such as paper and wood to create stronger structures. Since 1995, Ban has built shelters for victims of natural and manmade disasters when he designed emergency housing with beer-crate foundations and paper-tube walls for survivors of the earthquake in Kobe. Following the March 2011 earthquake, Ban developed modular shelters, made of cardboard panels and paper tubes, for displaced people. He believes in a new type of urban planning where heavy, high concrete buildings are located near the coast to protect the houses behind them.

Alternatively, green space and forested areas along the coast in front of populated areas can add layers of protection to a town facing the brunt of a tsunami. A forested park along the coast is central to protecting a city on the opposite side of the Pacific. Designed

by Chilean practice Elemental, founded by Alejandro Aravena, the seaside resort city of Constitución in Chile is being rebuilt following a devastating earthquake in 2010.

While Tokyo’s political, economic and cultural importance as the focal point of a megalopolitan landscape suggests that Japan has a strong, centralised model of population distribution, the reality is in fact a ‘hybrid model, in which Tokyo is a hot spot connected to a seamless and intricate web of conurbations’.

Mount Fuji Architects Studio, one of Japan’s most progressive

practices, have designed many private houses including Sakura House and Tree House and argue that a radical change in population distribution and infrastructure is essential, not just to create safer environments but for Japanese society to evolve from a centralised model to a more flexible, independent one. ‘A dispersed life model would be attractive, if we maintain self-organisation,’ argues Harada. ‘A dispersed, autonomous society ought to be widespread, as a safety net.’

‘The disaster will be a turning point towards a decentralisation policy,’ says Kuma, arguing that a regional approach will be taken in the rebuilding process, rather than a traditionally centralised dictum from Tokyo. It will be people and community-centred and will take its origins directly from the tragedy. What was so revealing about the disaster was that it demonstrated that a centralised response from Tokyo was not as effective as the action taken by immediately local people.

People relied on each other, and in future a people-centric approach that focuses on creating a sense of secure place will be needed.’

‘The disaster made the entire nation conscious of the problems which we cannot handle in the existing social order,’ reflects Harada. Mount Fuji Architects Studio also highlight how the disaster is an opportunity for architecture’s role in society to be much more

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‘For many Japanese people, both types of contexts are important. Tokyo for its commercial and cultural opportunities, and small towns for their connections to family history and nature’

proactive and radical: ‘Architects’ consciousness is starting to move on to “workable action” from both top and bottom. In other words, architectural incentives are moving to “concrete sociality”, which is much more pragmatic than “abstract sociality”, which used to be mentioned a lot.’

On a wider level, the earthquake has put under the spotlight the need for a reassessment of centralised governance. Brownell believes in a hybrid model that allows large cities like Tokyo to flourish while incentivising local development in ways that optimise economic efficacy. ‘For many Japanese people, both types of contexts are important,’ he says. ‘Tokyo for its commercial and cultural opportunities, and small towns for their connections to family history and nature.’

The need for decentralisation extends to architecture, as regional design

responses to the disaster may well replace the current Tokyo template that dominates the country. Masahiro Harada believes incentives need to grow independently from individual regions upwards: ‘An affection for local communities is the mother of rebirth. To make it real, we need to find a system of reconstruction that promotes industry connected to local communities.’

One impact of the Tohoku earthquake will be to act as a spur to greater innovation. ‘Japanese people are more attuned to changing environmental cycles and the potentially damaging effects of natural disasters than most. They are also more resilient,’ says Brownell. The dignified response to a national tragedy on an almost unimaginable scale is reflected by this sense of resilience, or gaman, one which will form the basis of generating a response on several levels – spiritual, psychological and practical.

Kengo Kuma and Associates, kkaa.co.jp Atelier Hitoshi Abe, a-slash.jp Mount Fuji Architects Studio, www14.plala.or.jp/mfas/fuji.htm

㼍㼒㼌㼖㼗㻃㻗㻘㼛㻗㻘㻣㻔㻓㻓

Tree house, by Mount Fuji (this page and right) The interior of this house in Tokyo is divided into four territories by a central pillar – similar to the format of traditional Japanese houses.

A series of 32 wooden frames rise up in a spiral, each one being 55mm higher than the previous. The elegant arrangement gives a height difference of 1.7m over 360 degrees as they pivot around a central column.

The ceiling height and quality of light corresponds to the function of each space with the dining room being swathed in light while the bedrooms are more dimly lit with lower ceilings

㼖㼗㼕㼘㼆㼗㼘㼕㼄㼏㻃㼓㼏㼜㼚㼒㼒㼇㻃㼗㻔㻘

㼏㼄㼐㼌㼑㼄㼗㼈㼇㻃㼙㼈㼑㼈㼈㼕㻃㼏㼘㼐㼅㼈㼕㻃㻘㻔㼛㻕㻛㻙

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all images: Ken’ichi Suzuki

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‘An affection for local communities is the mother of rebirth. To make it real, we need to find a system of reconstruction that promotes industry connected to local communities’ sublime | 39

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hiatus Words Katrine Carstens

for the first time ever, creative minds have put their ideas and opinions about sustainability in design on paper. eco paper

H

iatus came into being as a guide for entrepreneurs and designers on how to improve the ecological efficiency of their communication and their products. The central message is that designers have a significant role to play in steering us towards the sustainable and away from the disposable.

The opinions of 20 leading international designers on the interplay between design, the environment and the economy have been collated in this not-for-profit publication brought to us in a neat eco-design package.

The portable book product was designed by Ana Yago, with content coordinated by José A. Giménez, a journalist and designer specialising in corporate image, who together form Spanish creative agency Sanserif Creatius.

Printed in one colour on ecological paper without varnishes or special treatments, the delivery method of Hiatus strives to illustrate what can be done with eco-design. The idea was conceived to convey the values of sustainable growth, recycling and low-impact production processes.

Speaking in a time of economic uncertainty, the opinion pieces analyse the influence of design on society and the environment, while pursuing solutions based on the experiences and results achieved by design in previous economic downturns. But if you expect academic essays or intellectual analyses, you will be disappointed. The emphasis is very much on the personal thoughts and visions of the featured designers, many of whom appear on paper for the first time.

Hiatus is a taster of what is to come in the next edition of biennial publication Articulado – a collection of recipes and personal views and ideas on how to overcome the current economic decline by major players in design.

Hiatus is a limited advance edition, with only 1,000 copies available, to be distributed at design congresses such as Hábitat Valencia Fair and CIDIC in Catalonia.

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design

If you are quick, you can get a copy of Hiatus from info@sanserif.es. The book is free, apart from postage and packing

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new culture

GO WITH THE FLOW

John Grant is author of The Green Marketing Manifesto and Co-opportunity. His blog is at http://greenormal.blogspot.com

by John Grant

Social networking has opened up an unimagined dimension of connectivity in our personal life and relationships. in business as well as pleasure, the phenomenon has put us back in touch with ourselves as social beings, transforming our lives for good

O

ver the years that I’ve been writing a column for Sublime, I have been quietly beavering away in the background on a social venture called Ecoinomy. (Not so quietly now; there is an article elsewhere in this issue that explains how Ecoinomy aims to make the most of using less). Basically, we have built a workplace scheme which specifies and tracks eco-savings made by employees by reducing travel, waste and energy, and allocates a share of the money saved to community causes chosen by self-organising groups of employees. Which is, of course, why they are motivated to make the savings in the first place.

As one client put it, it’s a ‘win, win, win, win, win situation’ – benefiting the environment, local community, company profits, internal engagement and external reputation.

The core principle behind the scheme

is as old as humanity. You could call it goodwill, altruism, cooperation, potlach and many other names.

The thinking is that there is a revolutionary potential in human beings and their societies whereby people could deal with each other out of some primary love and generosity of spirit, not just for family, friends and communities, but even for enemies.

The idea took root, for instance, in a sect called Christianity that emerged in the free-fall collapse that was the third-century crisis of the Roman Empire. At that point in time, Christian welfarism became a kind of safety net that helped society catch itself amid economic failure, invasion, civil war, plague and famine. That might be its relevance today – its potential to help us catch ourselves, in the decades ahead.

We could have, you might argue, abundant resources already, even for the billions alive today, if only we were able to avoid the colossal waste inherent in individualistic societies based on the security, recognition and status that derives from hoarding. If we

could design an economy based on truly maximising human wellbeing, it would likely be powered by just such a transformational increase in goodwill and social participation. It would not be about settling for less, but rather the potential to become so much more, in human terms, as a society.

This, many of us feel, is what society hungers for, even if it currently

expresses its frustrated desires in far more selfish and destructive forms.

The spontaneous generosity of the clean-up after the UK riots was a natural counterpart to these negative expressions. Both sides point to the untenability of a society based on anything but generosity.

The idea is also expressed in the recent bestseller The Power of Half, written by a family in Atlanta, Georgia, who were persuaded by their teenage daughter to sell their house and buy a smaller one, giving half of the original value to The Hunger Project, who work in developing countries on bottomup ways to end hunger through self-reliance.

What is new in Ecoinomy, and what connects to a much broader and more topical trend, is the social network. We explicitly set out to find a way of using social networks to create a step change in sustainability. We explored various ways you could do this such as sharing, pooling and peer-to-peer rental libraries. The system we hit upon with Ecoinomy first of all made basic economic sense; each party involved experiences a positive gain (including us, as we met organisations willing to pay for such a service).

But what convinced us more was that it made emotional sense. As our chairman and investor Deborah Meaden said when she first saw the system: ‘You can see employees doing that.’

And it’s no longer just an idea. As we have started to deploy the system in workplace tests, and have been holding workshops with employees, we have come to realise that the scheme is

There is something deeply social in social networks – one that seems to favour a kind of systemic altruism that exceeds its previous framing as a personal moral choice

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We could have abundant resources already, even for the billions alive today, if only we were able to avoid the colossal waste inherent in individualistic societies based on the security, recognition and status that derives from hoarding

FOR R C EATIVE D THINKERS AN INQUIRING MINDS

90% goodwill and 10% technology. But still, the precise socialnetwork nature of the technology is important. Not just because it makes all this convenient, or visible. There is something deeply social in social networks – one that seems to favour a kind of systemic altruism that exceeds its previous framing as a personal moral choice. The key feature of working with such systems being how you structure the goodwill and participation element, to make it catching.

Recent research by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler (authors

of seminal research on the role of networks in obesity, optimism, loneliness and giving up smoking) found that generosity is contagious. Specifically what their ‘public goods game’ experiment showed was that one participant’s experience of kindness created a cascade of onward acts of kindness that exceeded any effect that could be explained by self-interest (for instance, by reciprocal kindness with known people; expecting some return from mutual obligation or reputation). The effect of one individual act of kindness was, on average, tripled by the onward imitation or ‘paying it forward’ by a network of strangers. The researchers described the network as acting as a ‘matching grant’.

They came to quite a radical conclusion about what this simple result means when writ large across the current global social networks, and indeed their evolutionary precedents. ‘Our work over the past few years, examining the function of human social networks and their genetic origins, has led us to conclude that there is a deep and fundamental connection between social networks and goodness. The flow of good and desirable properties such as ideas, love and kindness is required for human social networks to endure and, in turn, networks are required for such properties to spread. Humans form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.’

The implications of this research, if we take it to heart, are profound. It offers the potential for a new kind of culture to spring up rapidly. It has everything to do with gaining maximum well-being from the least resources. It also hints at a new sort of economy, and newer, free-form kinds of charity, where the social nature of generosity is reinstituted. We are aware that our own scheme is one small manifestation of this potential, and indeed that it may still turn out to be flawed in its current design. But it’s a fascinating, sweeping, wholly heartening trend to be part of.

AN INSPIRING, POSITIVE READ FOR INTELLIGENT LIFESTYLE CHOICES sublimemagaziNE.COM sublime | 43

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enterpreneurs

The sight of thousands of refugees fleeing war-ravaged Somalia might leave us feeling helpless. But such images served only to inspire two actors from Ohio who have pioneered a project that has saved many from hopelessness

ACTS OF MERCY Words Kirril Shields

T

he Dadaab Refugee Camps are three small plots of fenced-off earth in Kenya covering an area of approximately 50km2. The compounds hold an estimated 400,000 individuals, largely Somalis, who have fled famine and genocide.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières, the number of refugees in the Dadaab camps is likely to increase to 450,000 by the close of 2011.

That adds up to an enormous mass of homeless people in need of food and shelter, who hopefully one day will settle in nations such as Australia and Canada, or the US, the nation that receives the greatest intake of such refugees.

Large governmental and non-governmental organisations from the West have the huge task of ensuring that these people survive by supplying them with food, water, shelter and medicine. As the thousands in the compounds are provided with the necessities, the individual refugee is swallowed up and becomes just one person in a huge body of the displaced.

CARE, an NGO describing itself as ‘a leading humanitarian organisation

fighting global poverty’, has been employed to manage the Dadaab Refugee Camps. Their role is to oversee food distribution and sanitation. CARE are not alone; a range of other charities offer solutions to a host of problems, including, for example, DadaabNet, a charity that establishes wireless internet in the camps to aid communication and education.

While these organisations vary in size and scope, a number of smaller Western-led groups are attempting to help the individual refugee. As these NGOs focus on the person rather than the hundreds of thousands, their efforts in the camps take a very different form from the more pragmatic processes put in place by the larger NGOs. Led by Michael Littig and Julianna Bloodgood, two actors from Cincinnati, Ohio, the Dadaab Theatre Project is one example of a grassroots NGO at work in the camps. The theatre project is part of their Great Globe Foundation, whose ethos is ‘to inspire the voices of youth throughout the world, creating opportunities and platforms for personal and community change through education and arts engagement’.

The project is currently working in collaboration with the US Department of State, Save the Children, the United Nations High Council for Refugees (UNHCR) and FilmAid International. The aim of the project is to give the individual a chance to tell their story

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enterpreneurs about the experiences that led to internment in the world’s biggest refugee camp. While facilitating the individual in this way may seem an obvious facet to the work of any aid agency, when dealing with almost half a million displaced persons the story of the lone refugee is often lost.

After witnessing the impotence poverty enforces in the nations of Mongolia and Thailand, Littig and Bloodgood are both aware that conversation – a chance to promote awareness – is much needed in places such as the Dadaab Refugee Camps, and that to be given a voice is as essential as food and shelter.

‘Storytelling changes lives,’ states Littig, a sentiment shared by his colleague. ‘Our intention is to provide the space and tools to allow for voices to be heard,’ explains Bloodgood; ‘and to open a conversation with our own communities in the US through creative engagement.’

By telling the individual’s story, the Dadaab Theatre Project was initially hopeful of two overarching outcomes. First, to transform the lives of those in the camps. Second, to change the perceptions of a Western audience who hear tales of people fleeing war-torn nations, or battling drought and disease. ‘To achieve this, we needed to engage with the children in the camp,’ says Littig, ‘while developing a programme to educate future teachers and trainers.’

Littig and Bloodgood were confident that by building both these aspects, awareness would naturally grow, eventually reaching an international audience. ‘We wanted to create conversations,’ says 30-year-old Bloodgood, ‘as these voices weren’t being heard. And they need to be heard, on a global scale.’

Littig conceptualised the programme while living in Mongolia. An actor by profession, the 28-year-old was studying the relationship between shaman and actor as part of a Fulbright Scholar Program grant awarded him in 2008. While living in Ulaanbaatar, he instigated an exchange programme with help from Bloodgood. The two arranged for 12 children from a remote Gobi Desert province in the south of Mongolia to travel to America to share traditional cultural art forms.

At the time, Bloodgood was teaching at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, in the Department of Drama, and she realised how valuable the opportunity to share Mongolian culture with her students would be. Her students reciprocated with pieces of theatre that examined life in the US. The exchange, Littig and Bloodgood discovered, highlighted ‘the power

and possibility of cross-cultural conversations in the arts, realising how important it is to come together as a global community with a common goal in order to share a sense of interconnectedness and humanity’. Following the success of the exchange project, Littig asked himself how he was going to use the experience.

Approaching Bloodgood a second time, Littig hoped to develop a theatre project that would build the stories of those held in the Dadaab camps, that would ignite understanding among people forced to live side by side in cramped conditions. At the same time, the stories would be passed on to a wider audience. After the founders had created an initial outline for the project, Littig travelled to the camp in 2010 to establish partnerships and talk with the refugees.

In early 2011, Littig and Bloodgood landed at Dadaab, the small Kenyan town the three refugee camps border, followed by a group of American students and a professor from their home institution.

The students and professor travelled to the cities of Naivasha and Nairobi in Kenya, where they participated in a theatre retreat with the refugees. Later they combined to perform for the UNCHR as part of World Refugee Day. After experiencing the camps first-hand, Littig and Bloodgood decided the main aims of the project were to be threefold: to listen rather than preach, to educate to the best of their ability and to provide outlets for children and adults to express themselves through theatre.

Conversation and education might be taken for granted as modes of rehabilitation for NGOs and others working in refugee camps across the world, yet due to any number of restraints placed on organisations, are often regarded as luxuries. When dealing with large-scale issues, such as malaria and dysentery, educating the individual is often placed lower down on the list of priorities. The Dadaab Theatre Project hoped, in some small way, to alleviate this.

Littig and Bloodgood have shown that help need not be left to the huge aid organisations: it can also be initiated by small groups of like-minded persons

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entrepreneurs Over a period of six months the project grew, and it now incorporates theatre outlets for children, youth and adults. As Bloodgood proudly notes: ‘The work we did with our core company ranged from sensory and imaginative exercises, poetry analysis, voice and speech and creative writing. We also did script analysis and scene work with the refugees. We worked on musical compositions, making small pieces of original work.’

These creative ways of working were incorporated into a youth theatre group that meets four times a week. On Fridays and Saturdays the project is run in the camp’s child-friendly spaces, in collaboration with Save the Children. The project has also developed a children’s club that encourages leadership through drama, open to young people aged between eight and 18. Children take surveys in the camps to gather information. They have worked on a proposal for the possible

‘The elders in the camp welcomed our idea,’ states Littig, ‘because we did not encroach on religion. If we’d stepped over religious boundaries the outcome would have been quite different. We remained, and continue to remain, as neutral as possible.’

The project would also need to last longer than the few months Littig and Bloodgood could dedicate full-time to the project. ‘Sustainability was really important to us, and we are still doing everything we can to ensure that this is the case. Luckily, we think the youth we are working with have enough inspiration and drive to take the steps needed to see that the project continues, even without us being constantly on hand.’

To ensure the life span of the project, Littig and Bloodgood created leaders from among some of the first refugees to participate in the project. This entailed finding those in the camps who were capable of becoming cultural spokespersons. The result is a project run by people who have fled Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia, a group who have elected a theatre council with its own secretary and chairman.

There are marked distinctions separating small NGOs such as the Great Globe Foundation from the larger organisations such as CARE or the United Nations. Likewise, the founders believe that there are fundamental gaps between what their theatre project is setting out to do and the intentions of those who travel to the camps for brief periods, such as the world’s journalists and representatives of aid agencies.

As Littig notes: ‘Journalists come to the camp for two days and take a few photos, but generally they are there to suit their own agendas.

They help, in that they tell the world about a horrific crisis, but it’s an instant solution to a problem that has been transpiring for years.’ In contrast, the theatre project aims to be a long-term solution dedicated to those interned in the camps.

To date, as well as the many who attend the theatre courses, the project

as the thousands in the compounds are provided with the necessities, the individual refugee is swallowed up and becomes just one person in a huge body of the displaced installation of libraries. Club members write poetry, play games, tell stories and act them out, and participate in a Dadaab drama competition.

As well as being a listening ear, and providing opportunities to develop the voice of the individual, the project is also intended to help alleviate some of the day-to-day lethargy and hopelessness that exist in the camps. As the founders of the theatre project note, lack of hope is just as problematic as malnutrition and disease, and is something the theatre project means to counterbalance.

‘Our intention is to empower,’ says Bloodgood, ‘to let the refugees say what they want to say and to look them in the eyes and tell them, “We are listening to you, you matter, and others are listening, too.”’ While this is a straightforward statement to make, developing empowerment was not so easy.

To build the trust needed to facilitate change, the Dadaab Theatre Project set out a number of basic principles. The first of these was to ensure that religion would not hinder the process. Littig and Bloodgood knew that any organisation that had a religious drive at its core, while dealing with a variety of African cultures and beliefs, would start to segregate.

has nurtured a number of artists such as the poet Ojullu Opiew Ochan.

It has also allowed those who have suffered rape and witnessed genocide to regain confidence. ‘There was a young girl who could hardly speak,’ says Littig, ‘but since joining the project she is now having conversations.’

The theatre troupe has also recently performed for the UNHCR World Refugee Day, a proud moment for both founders. ‘For the first time in an age the UNHCR were hearing the actual individual voices and stories behind the masses. For the first time they were seeing Somali, Bantu, Sudanese and Ethiopian men and women function as one whole and united entity.’

The project may have its limitations, yet the NGO’s success is found in its conviction and its ability to be a role model. What the Dadaab Theatre Project highlights is the ease with which people can help those in far-flung and remote refugee camps. While the nature of the project has been a combination of Littig and Bloodgood’s own experience, conviction and careful planning, the founders have proved that it is possible to help people caught in a severe humanitarian crisis.

Littig and Bloodgood have shown that help need not be left to the huge aid organisations: it can also be initiated by small groups of likeminded persons. It does not have to centre solely around substantial tasks like food distribution. In essence, the Dadaab Theatre Project shows that individual can bring help to individual, help that is powered simply by a person’s own creativity and drive. greatglobefoundation.org

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All Po-Zu footwear is handmade in Europe by shoemakers who are paid a decent living wage.

The shoes have a unique ‘foot-mattress’ made from natural coconut bres to cushion and comfort your feet. Like all of the materials we use, it’s kind to the environment and safe for everyone.

Now, how good does that make you feel ? www.po-zu.com for styles and stockists.

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for her

MELLOW AND FRUITFUL

welcome the cooler season with protective, nourishing products that boast a wealth of potent plant and flower extracts

Beauty editor Jenny Page Photographer charl marais Styling ds 48 | sublime

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for him

Opposite, left to right Pai Organic Rosehip BioRegenerateTM Fruit and Seed Oil Blend 30ml, £20 highly concentrated blend of rosehip-fruit oil to condition skin, improving firmness, elasticity and suppleness.

Excellent for scars, stretch marks, fine lines and sun damage. Soil Association-certified paiskincare.com

Natural Empathy Clean and Green Cleanser 200ml, £15 fresh, floral cleanser rich in organic essential oils, vitamins, minerals and active enzymes. Contains natural white clay to absorb impurities.

Comes with free bamboo washcloth.

All skin types naturalempathy.com

This page, left to right Aveda Men Pure-Formance Exfoliating Shampoo 200ml, £18 deep-cleanses and exfoliates scalp with 100% natural jojoba beads and walnut shells to remove product build-up, dead cells and excess oil. With certified-organic oils of lavender, spearmint and vetiver. SLS-free. For weekly use aveda.co.uk TM

Essential Care Organic Coconut Candy Scrub 200g, £28 Soil Association-certified scrub contains virgin coconut oil and cocoa butter in a gorgeously scented blend.

Sugar-cane crystals gently exfoliate essential-care.co.uk Orchard View Naturals Triple Rose Luxury Organic Facial Oil 50ml, £26.99 a beauty industry favourite, 100% organic blend contains Soil Association-certified oils of damask rose otto, rosehip seed, apricot seed, vitamin E and sweet almond oils, balancing organic rose geranium and cellregenerating organic palmarosa oils ovnaturals.co.uk

John Masters Organics Bearberry Oily Skin Balancing Face Wash 120ml, £22 contains a blend of 20 extracts and citrus oils to reduce sebum production.

Willowbark extract helps reduce pore size and AHAs exfoliate thenaturalstore.co.uk riA Warm Cleansing Balm 80g, £32 warm in the palms before application. Easily rinsed off.

Contains moisture-retaining oils of clove and orange, rebalancing lavender and purifying fennel. All skin types nivenandjoshua.co.uk

Aveda Damage RemedyTM Daily Hair Repair 100ml, £18.50 luxury leave-in treatment formula helps protect during heat styling and improves hair’s resistance to breakage. Contains protein-rich quinoa and wheat protein aveda.co.uk

Weleda Almond Soothing Cleansing Lotion 75ml, £8.50 100% natural extra-mild cleansing lotion for sensitive skin removes make-up and impurities to leave skin calm, soft, refreshed. Contains mild organic almond oil and plumkernel oil weleda.com

Weleda Wild Rose Smoothing Day Cream 30ml, £12.50 100% natural, intensive and moisturising.

Incredibly fresh-scented, leaves dry skin feeling supple and soft.

Contains cold-pressed wild rose seed oil, rich in essential fatty acids, and extracts of anti-inflammatory myrrh and firming horsetail weleda.com

Less is More Organic Haircare Rose Serum 30ml, £26 vitaminshine serum that repairs and nourishes dry, frizzy hair and treats scalp problems with a certifiedorganic phyto complex of rosehipseed, jojoba, apricot-kernel and coconut oils. Scented with organic damask rose and Sicilian tangerine beingcontent.com

Natural Empathy Top to Toe Wash 200ml, £12 rich in cedarwood, patchouli and lavender organic essential oils, this SLS-free wash is suitable for hair and body naturalempathy.com Absolution Le Soin Du Corps 150ml, £33 Ecocert-certified, quick-absorbing body milk.

Contains regenerating baobab oil and aloe vera extract, intensely hydrating apple extract and nourishing sesame oil beingcontent.com

Vintage Shaving Company Mod Daily Face Balm 150ml, £9.95 cooling, alcohol-free, 96% natural moisturiser. Contains almond and starflower oils, shea butter and aloe vera extracts to soothe and restore post-shave. Spearmint invigorates, vanilla comforts. 100% recyclable, reusable alumimium tin escentual.com All products featured are paraben-free.

For more information, visit individual brand website

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luxury cosmetics

PURE GLAMOUR

Luminous Antioxidant Foundation 40ml, £32.95 (7 shades)

BEST NATURAL LUXURY COSMETICS

M A G A Z I N E

2011

A PREMIER COSMETICS RANGE THAT DELIVERS COMPLETE ELEGANCE IN NATURAL FORMULAS

Sheer Tint Natural Glow 40ml, £32.95 (4 shades)

I

f you are used to buying your cosmetics from a sophisticated department store, but you’re looking for something that’s free from toxins, then you’ll love Organic Glam. Eye and lip pencils are formulated without artificial preservatives, fragrances or hydrogenated fats. Nail polishes are free from toluene, dibutyl phthalate and formaldehyde. Some highly beneficial ingredients have been added to the range: foundations and blushers are rich in antioxidant botanicals; concealers treat with tea tree and lavender. Eye and lip pencils contain natural beeswax; eye shadows are made from pure mineral powders; lipsticks are infused with shea butter, green tea, grape, lemon and orange.

But it’s the luxury qualities of a truly classic range that have won so many women over to Organic Glam: the long-wearing, silky, ultra-flawless foundations; rich, creamy lipsticks; completely wearable, blendable eye shadows. Then there are the signature products, such as the mascara – five years in development, 60% organic and vitamin-rich – that curls, lengthens and conditions and is perfect for sensitive eyes. Or the Lip Plump, in either Ultra Glossy or High Shine, to bring fullness on its own or over lipstick.

Products are presented in sleek black and gold hard-wearing cases. Enter the party season confident in the knowledge that you look good, and that your skin is loving what it’s wearing, too.

Loose Powder Matt 5g, £34.95 (Matt or Shimmer)

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Mineral Eye Shadow Shimmer Light Gold 2.8g, £18.95 (5 shades)

Liquid Eyeliner Black 5ml, £17.95 (black or brown) Liquid Shimmer Highlighter Silver Ice 5ml, £19.95 (3 shades)

Lipstick Red/Pink 3g, £17.95 (8 shades)

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Available in-store and online at theorganicpharmacy.com

Eye Shadow Palette Nude Brown/Smokey 4g, £32.95 (3 shade palettes) Mineral Eye Pencil Dark Brown, £15.95 (3 shades)

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exhibitions

For thousands of years, humans have decorated their skin with dyes, tattoos and tribal scars to express their identity. The exhibition Celebrating Skin: A 3D Canvas for the 21st Century celebrates this tradition and takes it one step further

UNDER THE SKIN Words Yewande Ajayi

P

hotographer Charl Marais and artist turned make-up professional Bethany Alderson have joined creative forces on a new exhibition with interpretations that use the skin and body as a new kind of canvas. By engaging new technology to bring to life their stunning imagery, they take the visitor on an extended journey into their creative process and inspiration.

Concepts such as fluidity, vitality and movement are illustrated through the use of oil paints, make-up and water in 15 distinctive portraits that explore an awareness of how unique and incredible people are. Bethany states: ‘Our skin is our “covering”, our “shield”, and what lies beneath is so amazing … I would like to feel I have brought this to the surface in the exhibition and revealed the person within.’

The exhibition will be partnering with Spindrift, an informationtechnology company using their expertise to marry new media and art in a fresh and modern way. They will provide immersive digital customer journeys for visitors, including short films, live-streaming video, animation and augmented reality.

Visitors will be able to create their own dedicated microsites linking to the art on show, as well as upload their own content to form part of the exhibition. There will also be a facility to purchase favourite pieces as numbered limited prints.

Celebrating Skin will be on at the Gallery at Oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf, London SE1 9PH skinexhibition.com, coinstreet.org charlmarais.com, bethalderson.com

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beauty

super sizes

Neal’s Yard Remedies Lavender Bath Salts 500g, £14.60 made with lavender-oil infused salts from French salt marshes, these smell unbelievably good. Deeply relaxing and restorative; 100% natural nealsyardremedies.com

Yes To Cucumbers Color Care Conditioner 500ml, £8.99 with organic cucumber to hydrate and nourish hair, centaurea extract to prevent brassiness, Dead Sea minerals and green tea, a natural antioxidant that protects hair from environmental pollutants beautybay.com

Yes To Carrots C Loves Your Hair Pampering Carrot Juice Shampoo 500ml, £7.99 SLSfree shampoo with extracts of organic carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato, potent antioxidants to cleanse and moisturise normal to dry hair. Contains Dead Sea minerals beautybay.com

A mega spree-or-steal bath and haircare selection that will leave you – and your bank balance – feeling amazing

By Jenny Page

Super-size tips Decant some of your shower gel into a pump dispenser and use as handwash. Or pour your shower gel, shampoo and conditioner into 50ml bottles to use next time you’re travelling

Faith In Nature Enriching Seaweed Shampoo 400ml, £4.89 / 5 litres, £43.84 blends protein-rich seaweed wild-harvested from unpolluted deep seas with essential oils of lemon, lime, tea tree and ylang-ylang. Lowfoaming, great-smelling.

Free from SLS, artificial preservatives and colours. Conditioner also available (prices as above) faithinnature.co.uk

Neal’s Yard Remedies Seaweed & Arnica Foaming Bath 200ml, £14 / 1 litre, £38.90 infusions of mineral-rich seaweed, comfrey and arnica are combined with essential oils of lemon, pine, juniper and lavender to soothe tired muscles, detoxify and revitalise.

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Faith In Nature Chocolate Shower Gel & Foam Bath 400ml, £5.25 / 5 litres, £51.27 luxurious, SLS-free shower/ bath gel contains organic chocolate, whose antioxidant flavonoids protect against free radicals.

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Neal’s Yard Remedies Revitalising Orange Flower Shampoo 200ml, £11.35 / 1 litre, £37.60 an SLS-free, nutrient-rich blend of moringa, camelia and passion flower to nourish hair, with orange flower to revitalise.

Gives normal hair shine and protects from urban pollutants.

Conditioner also available in 200ml (£11.35) and 1 litre (£34.40) sizes nealsyardremedies. com

Essential Care Gentle Herb Shampoo 30ml, £2.60 / 200ml, £10.50 / 500ml, £22 Soil Associationcertified, SLS-free shampoo is 100% natural and suitable for coloured and children’s hair.

Contains organic aloe vera, organic coconut oil and a blend of other organic, biodynamic herbs to stimulate healthy hair growth, relieve an itchy or flaky scalp and boost shine essential-care.co.uk

Aveda ShampureTM Conditioner 50ml, £5 / 250ml, £12.50 / 1 litre, £36.50 provides protection from environmental stress and damage.

Formulated with 25 pure flower and plant essences. For all hair types aveda.co.uk

Aveda Smooth InfusionTM Shampoo 250ml, £15.50 / 1 litre, £45 awardwinning, SLS-free shampoo contains an exclusive plant-infusion blend that naturally resurfaces hair to reduce frizz and unwanted wave. Protects against heat-styling damage aveda.co.uk

All products featured are paraben-free. For more details, and other large-size products, visit individual brand website 52 | sublime

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Wild Rose Smoothing Facial Care BEST SKINCARE BRAND 2011

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debate

DIALLING DOWN Words Safeera Sarjoo Illustration Matt Hertel

SEPTEMBER: NEW SCHOOL YEAR FOR THE KIDS, AND BACK TO WORK. AUTUMN BRINGS WITH IT A BUZZ OF ENERGY – IT’S A TIME FOR FRESH STARTS. OR DOES IT ALL FEEL LIKE MORE OF THE SAME? SUBLIME CONSIDERS WHAT A SIMPLER LIFE MIGHT LOOK LIKE

T

he sound of the morning alarm, and our contempt for it, is probably one of just a few things that unite us as human beings.

Loud or quiet, sharp or soft, it indicates the start of yet another day, kicking off a personal routine that we have honed to perfection to ensure maximum efficiency and punctuality. Leaving the house with a fully charged phone might even take precedence over eating a sustaining breakfast.

Not only do we fail to realise that there are various things we do that might harm us, we sometimes overlook our relationships with those close to us as well. But why would we notice? After all, what we’re looking forward to is the end of the month, and enough cash to see us through to the next.

Essentially, we have grown up in a system that emphasises the importance of money. Without it, we won’t keep a roof over our heads, we won’t eat, clothe ourselves or provide ourselves and others with a comfortable standard of living. Even the notion of being happy is structured around the health of our bank account.

BUT WHAT IF, LIKE SOME, YOU BEGIN TO TIRE OF THE RAT

race and decide to downshift your life, freeing you to make the most not only of your material possessions, but also the people around you? How easy is it to have a life that looks like this?

Leading a more sustainable lifestyle, one that cuts out the materialistic element, will still require money. But at a time in which the country’s finances aren’t in the best state, opting for fewer hours of work is a crucial sacrifice rather than a luxury. The rise of technology has brought with it great convenience, and has undoubtedly become a significant part of our lives. But there was a time not so long ago when we had the upper hand over technology, a time when we were easily able to switch off and give more attention to one another. The addictive drive within us to use technology is a big issue downshifters face.

Sally Lever, a coach, writer and educator, says: ‘One of the criticisms I hear of downshifting and living more sustainably is that a collective move in this direction will take us “back to living in the dark ages”. Somehow a slower, less highly technological way of life is perceived as “backward-facing”.’

Adopting this idea and believing in it indicates the power and authority technology holds in our lives. Ask anyone how they got by without the internet and Google, and a blank look sweeps over their faces as they recollect a time where dial-up was deemed ‘advanced’.

Achieving a downshifted lifestyle can also be particularly difficult in social terms. Lever highlights that simplicity is the driving force behind living sustainability and, to a large extent, this also applies to downshifting too, as you look to maximise the life span of what you own. ‘Somehow we’ve come to associate progress with more

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debate

sophistication and complexity in our technology, and yet simplicity is often the more elegant solution and the more sustainable,’ she points out.

There is sometimes a concern that those who downshift may become acutely isolated from society. Clive Hamilton, the founder and former director of The Australia Institute mentioned in his 2003 discussion paper Downshifting in Britain: A sea-change in the pursuit of happiness some of the socio-political implications for those who downshift. He explains that downshifting is sometimes regarded as an alternative way of living that simply coexists with what is deemed a normal lifestyle.

Downshifters ‘reject the largely unquestioned assumption of British

politics that voters respond first and foremost to the “hip-pocket nerve”. These voters, who comprise at least a quarter of the adult population, might be called “anti-aspirational voters”, and perhaps a similar number may dream of making the same shift but do not have the courage or, in some cases, the wherewithal, to make the transition to downshifting.’

The downshifting movement also challenges the very same ideas about how to improve society and one’s individual life. Economically biased notions clash with those that downshifters hold as they avoid the depths of consumerism, while mainstream politics and the media strive to push a consumer lifestyle as an essential.

Even though downshifting isn’t the dominant lifestyle in today’s society, it is growing in popularity, as Hamilton points out: ‘[There is] a large class of citizens who consciously reject consumerism, at least in its more obsessive form. While diverse in their reasons for downshifting, they agree that excessive pursuit of money and materialism comes at a substantial cost to their own lives and those of their families. Some of them also believe that consumerism and money-hunger have social and environmental costs.’

Withdrawing yourself from the hustle and bustle of everyday life can be tricky and tedious, and even though a simpler life still requires a steady income, it offers much more in terms of quality than the busy lifestyle we’re used to. But most of us won’t make a significant change unless we are pushed to, as Lever describes in a 2008 article.

‘If we get made redundant and decide to start our own business, for example, that business opportunity was always there ready for us to pick up whether we got made redundant or not. It’s just that we do not generally go looking for those opportunities, or have the courage to act on our findings unless we feel forced to.’

But making that change can do you the world of good. Lever describes how the rat race resulted in her health becoming poor – not just in the physical sense, but also emotionally and spiritually.

The importance of multitasking, and taking work home with you, can lead to conditions such as Busy Lifestyle Syndrome. The condition manifests itself as an increase in absent-mindedness and forgetfulness because of the never-ending stream of information people absorb.

Always being on the move and living in a never-ending work bubble influences you to make poorer choices for yourself, which, as a result, can have a detrimental effect on the environment around you. Lever’s first major change was to embrace vegetarianism, learning about the wider impact of her diet and how her choice benefited her surroundings and animal welfare.

‘I was beginning to feel as though I was making a larger contribution

to society than just fixing myself.’ A lot of what Lever and Hamilton say boils down to how one defines happiness. Is it that material objects and wealth equal true happiness, or is it much simpler – enjoying strong relationships and good health, and the ability to have control over your life?

Tracey Smith, who put together the first National Downshifting Week, has pursued a simpler lifestyle, scaling back on the things she doesn’t need. ‘Many people want to pull back from the throwaway, takeaway society we have found ourselves in. I would love a glass of champagne as much as the next person, but I don’t need it.’

The most important element Tracey has taken from the whole experience has been passing down these values to her children, who have a full understanding of what it would mean to accumulate material possessions.

‘My children realise that if they want consumables, it means that Mum and Dad have to work harder, which in their eyes equates to less playtime with Mum and Dad.’ Smith’s insight strongly suggests that downshifting appears to be not just a matter of saving money, but about doing some soul-searching to find out what really makes you happy. While people know that non-material hopes will bring them happiness, the eroding effect of materialism on society presents a conflict of values.

‘Somehow we’ve come to associate progress with more sophistication and complexity in our technology, and yet simplicity is often the more elegant solution and the more sustainable’

It’s a concern that runs deep: Hamilton reveals that an overwhelming

number of people are concerned about the set of values they’re leaving for their children. Younger generations are becoming more and more tech-savvy, which poses a problem with new products being consistently introduced to the market, boosting what is already a huge consumer sector. What needs to dawn on people is the same thing that Lever realised, prompting her to make changes.

‘When I consume technology for technology’s sake, then what I’m effectively doing is wasting valuable time and energy on a new gadget simply because I think it’s clever or pretty, or that it says something wonderful about my identity,’ she explains.

Swimming against the tide of a materialistic society is much easier said than done. But commitment to change, and acting on what our conscience may be prompting, can pave the way for others, teaching valuable life lessons that don’t revolve around a large bank balance.

Sustaining relationships and building a blissful life is the definition of happiness that downshifting reflects – as well as an exit strategy from society’s rat race.

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design

F

rom leather made of recycled fish skin to quilting fashioned from recycled plastic, Brazilian fashion label Osklen has consistently placed itself at the leading edge of ethical and environmentally friendly fashion.

Founder Oskar Metsavaht trod a less-than-conventional path to the door of international sartorial stardom by training as an orthopaedic doctor. But in 1997 he established Osklen, and along with his team has been promoting a philosophy of fashion borne out of a harmonious relationship with the environment ever since.

Metsavaht is the founder of Instituto-E, a Rio-based non-profit organisation which gives fabrics made using sustainable methods an environmental seal of approval. Metsavaht has been nominated as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for his work, and this year received a London-based Luxury Briefing Award, taking his place among the best and the brightest of the luxury fashion industry.

BRAZILIAN SOUL Interview Zara-Jade Bestwick

Sublime: When and how did you decide that fashion was your calling?

Oskar Metsavaht: Clothes and fashion were simply an expression of

my lifestyle; they were my way of communicating myself to the world. It started with a high-tech anorak, when I was a member of the first Brazilian team to climb the Aconcagua in the Andes. I used my medical knowledge, allied with a sense of aesthetics, to create a coat that was ergonomically perfect for climbing and suitable for very low temperatures, but which was also visually appealing. After the expedition, it became an object of desire.

My sound knowledge of sports medicine, along with a background in art and philosophy, has been present in all my work since I made that first piece, and I use all these in the creation of my collections.

S: Do you have other passions aside from fashion that help you to create?

OM: I love art, architecture, design, photography, movies, sport

Designer Oskar MetsavaHt has always been ahead of the curve.

But people are finally starting to catch on to his ideas – both in his homeland and beyond

and travel. All these things help me to create because they are each a part of my lifestyle. Osklen is where I show my lifestyle to the world. My collections are a reflection of what I think is beautiful and comfortable, combined with elements of art, fashion and design.

S: Where does the sportswear aspect of your design come from?

OM: I’m an eclectic person, who admires movement in dance and sport as well as the design of the clothing or equipment which forms part of the performance. The design of a surfboard and its fins, and the look of a dancer’s costume, for example. I enjoy sports – surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding – and I appreciate classical dance such as ballet, and at the same time, capoeira.

At the beginning, all Osklen clothes were inspired by sportswear, and today the technical ergonomics of comfort and performance are still a foundation of our collections.

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S: What’s the story behind the birth of the brand Osklen?

OM: For the first ten years, the influence of sports in the brand was very visible. From 2000 onwards, we began to focus more on fashion design and luxury, but the issues of environmental conservation and socio-environmental education have been present throughout.

Osklen has always been about communicating something. It was never a brand that just makes clothes to wear; they are clothes with meaning, made ​​for people who identify with the lifestyle we offer.

‘For me, buying sustainable products from Brazil means you are helping to promote a better quality of life for Brazilians’

S: There always seems to be a thoughtful intelligence to the Osklen collections. how do you achieve this?

OM: We don’t make clothes just to be worn, but clothes that express

something, whether it’s a state of mind, a belief or an interesting shape. Perhaps it is this way of looking at my creations that makes the collections consistent and – why not? – intelligent. Whenever we are creating a collection, we are also learning about a theme.

In the Royal Black AW 2012 collection, we pay tribute to AfroBrazilians. My team and I attended classes by experts in black culture in Brazil. We seek knowledge beyond the clothes in all our collections, because that’s how we communicate with the world.

S: What first prompted you towards sustainability, and what has it enabled you to create?

OM: As a child, my family taught me the importance of preserving the environment, and today it is still for me one of the most important values. My last name, Metsavaht, means ‘guardian of the forest’ in Estonian and Finnish. My family comes from Estonia, and I am an honorary consul of that country. I always thought of using fashion as a means of communication, and the environmental preoccupation has been there even from the first t-shirts I ever did.

S: What do you think is the secret behind Osklen’s success and popularity?

OM: We do not have a secret, but I would say that success comes from

being consistent in research and design. All the projects within Osklen are completely interconnected: the clothes, the fashion show, the campaign, the stores, all are part of a larger whole that is harmonious and true to its ideals. Anyone in the world who has had contact with the brand will recognise its design, its shops, its publicity. We are a brand that can work on every aspect of a piece with complete consistency of integrity and authority. Perhaps this is our secret.

S: What does Osklen want to say to the world as a brand?

OM: We represent the kind of lifestyle of people who know that

drinking coconut water with your feet in the sand is as luxurious as drinking champagne from a crystal glass. Or that being at a rave in a tropical forest is as chic as being at a gala ball in London. Or

that using helicopters for snowboarding in Alaska is as soulful as searching for waves to surf from a fishing boat in the Fiji Islands.

The new luxury is to understand that sophistication comes from simple things and noble values. Then to bring all these to expression in an original design, with universal aesthetics, at a high level of quality and using as socially and environmentally sustainable practices and materials as you can get.

S: What can we expect from Osklen, and from yourself, in the future?

OM: Today I can understand why people used to call me a visionary because of the things I said and expressed 20 years ago. In the early 1990s, Brazil used to copy European and North American products as they were considered the best. Brazilian products and brands were poor-quality copies of well-known luxury brands. With Osklen, I did exactly the opposite. We found that original design inspired a new way of life – ‘Brazilian soul’. It’s an expression I created to communicate what we are and what we have, which is different from other cultures.

I was the opposite of the mainstream in Brazil at that time. I was a physician who became a designer inspired by Brazilian culture instead of the American Dream or the European idea of luxury.

The Brazil we know today is, as I always said we would be, a new economy based on creativity. Brazil must develop economically to bring a better quality of life to its still poor population. But this development must be socially and environmentally sustainable.

For me, buying sustainable products from Brazil means you are helping to promote a better quality of life for Brazilians. In past decades, it has been cool to buy products with American iconography, or which had a European luxury design, or affordable products from China. But now it is much cooler and more chic to buy products from Brazil because the American Dream has grown old, European luxury has become snobbish and Chinese manufacturing is not socially fair.

The future I see for Osklen is a mix of European luxury, American technological advances and Chinese fair prices, infused with Brazilian soul’s creativity and a sustainable ethos. osklen.com

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talent spot

ELEANOR BOLTON A

recent graduate of London’s Royal college of Art, Eleanor Bolton is well on her way to making an impact with her over-proportional coiled pieces. More than a statement, and reminiscent of African tribal jewellery, Eleanor’s work has an organic fluidity and form which show the simple beauty of the symmetry between the large and the small.

For her MA, Eleanor developed her own craft technique, coiling and hand-stitching cotton rope to create large-scale, lightweight tactile structures. Getting the best from her medium by using techniques and processes which amplify the natural charm of the raw materials, Eleanor has created bold, delicate sculptures with more to them than meets the eye.

Inspiration is drawn directly from the material itself, alongside the more

visual references of nautical knotting, a cat’s cradle, a fisherman’s jumper and snakes and other reptiles. Both skill and intuition are used as fine tools with which to tease the rope into its own evolving forms.

By sensitively responding to the unique character and identity of the materials, Eleanor is able to set up striking reflections of the natural irregularities in the world around us.

By the end of 2011, exhibitions of Eleanor’s work will have been put on at London’s Saatchi Gallery and the New York Museum of Art and Design, so that her pieces will have spanned the seas with their nautical grace. Winning awards from the Goldsmith’s Company and H. S. Walsh & Sons, it is work that is already proving itself in both form and fruition. eleanorbolton.com

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talent spot

sanne schepers Interview Laura Santamaria

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images © PETER STIGTER

talent spot

BACK TO FRONT, INSIDE OUT: SANNE SCHEPERS IS TURNING THE WORLD OF FASHION UPSIDE DOWN

‘I played with the inside and the outside, making it reversible.

It’s possible to wear everything in five different ways’

D

utch designer Sanne Schepers loves a challenge. With daring dexterity she has brought her pioneering concept of a ‘fivelooks-in-one’ dress to life, resulting in her triumphant 2011 win of the sought-after Lichting Prize. Sublime talked to Sanne at Amsterdam International Fashion Week in July.

Sublime: Tell me a little about the concept behind the collection.

Sanne Schepers: It started off very abstract, on a kind of twinset

principle. I came up with a reversible design by cutting the garments at two different points, and was then able to turn them partly inside out, with the finishing on the inside becoming visible. My way of cutting divides the patterns into top and bottom, which enables me to make complete outfits from one small layout. It seemed simple, but constructing it was quite difficult as I had to execute it in a flat, almost two-dimensional way, like a drawing.

The construction and finishing were all done by hand. I played with the inside and the outside, making it reversible. It’s possible to turn the top and the skirt inside out to the left and to the right, and you can of course wear the dress without turning it, too. So the effect is five outfits in one.

It’s interesting because it’s very conceptual, but also really wearable. That apparent contradiction is important in my collection right now. It’s difficult to tell what is what; is that the inside, or the outside? Which bit is the lining? Is that a ribbon finishing, or just ribbon embroidery? I did ribbon embroidery too, to mix it up even more, and every skirt in the show is actually the inside of the dress without you being able to see it. I like that.

My collection is all about the concept of a new design principle, a new way of dressing yourself.

S: Is that because the wearer can also create their own outfits, so they

I made my first dress, the white one, with a different fabric for the front and for the back, then I turned it so that it became a whole different concept. The twisting is really visible, with one fabric at the front and another at the back. That was already a development for me. The first time I did the cutting and the twisting, I didn’t know what to expect. It’s fun to play with the proportions within patterns to see what the fabric does, what twisting does, what cutting does.

You can get really unexpected results.

have more involvement?

SS: Yes! The wearer has a lot of involvement in this collection. You

S: What’s your plan now that you’ve graduated and are a prize-winner?

can play with the dresses because there’s not just one way of wearing them: this is their dress.

It’s necessary to look at the pieces in different ways, because they’re so multi-layered. I play with the lining, so that I can do a yellow dress with a red lining, and then when you turn it you get, for example, a red top and a yellow skirt. Turning it the other way around, you can have a red skirt and a yellow top. You can bring your own new twist to it.

Have you already got ideas that you want to develop?

S: You said the pattern was very difficult and complex. How did you come up with it?

SS: I was fascinated by the principle of the twinset – two different

parts that belong to each other. I translated that into a pattern with mouldings. It was what I was interested in, and it was a challenge – I like ‘difficult’. I like to create problems and then solve them! I must have made a million toile samples, as the process went on for a year, and isn’t over. I keep seeing things that can be improved on, and I would like to develop it even more.

S: Was your initial aim to make an outfit you could use in multiple ways?

SS: When I applied to study at L’Institut Français de la Mode in Paris

I was asked to do something around the concept of the front and the back in garments, and had to design and make a sample for the admissions panel to inspect.

SS: I want to develop this concept further, looking at the construction

and the craftsmanship. I’ll be doing that at IFM in Paris, which is great as I’ll be able to connect with highly professional companies to make prototypes and access production facilities.

S: do you see your pieces going more the way of couture, or crafted, in the way that they are constructed?

SS: They are couture right now, because everything is hand-stitched,

but I really like that they are wearable at the same time. Sometimes couture is perceived to be more like costume, but it’s so important that it’s wearable, otherwise it is a contradiction. It’s vital that people want to wear the dress – they’re not just for the shows. The show is there to make it visual, to show the dresses moving and to demonstrate the concept, but it’s actually more significant that they’re wearable. The show is just a moment.

S: so Your collection couldn’t just be hanging on a shop rail …

SS: No! Someone has to be there to explain the dress: I really like that,

that’s special. I would like the wearer to appreciate that attention to design and finishing in the dresses. I don’t have a certain type of wearer for the dress, as long as she appreciates it and sees the craftsmanship and love that has gone into it. sanneschepers.com

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ethical trends

Kill Spencer quick-release key chain $25 Material is manufactured on family-built machinery in New Jersey using proprietary patented water repellent and sustainable wax formulas and processes killspencer.com

Gudrun & Gudrun hat with contrast, €50 100% hand-farmed Faroese wool gudrungudrun.com

Untouched World Tohu tee, NZ$100 Made in New Zealand from 160gsm MountainsilkTM untouchedworld.com

MORE FROM LESS

Monkee Genes skinny slate chino £62 Lightweight organic sateen fabric topman.com

Gudrun & Gudrun sweater, €320 hand-knitted in 100% wool gudrungudrun.com

Cliff Belts reversible cork belt, $100 Each belt is handmade from cork fabric and reversible: two belts in one cliffbelts.com

iLoveHandles Rock Band, $19.95 Rock Band turns your iPod nano into a revolutionary new watch. The genuine leather strap has a special notch to accommodate the iPod nano’s built-in clip ilovehandles.net

By Zara-Jade Bestwick MAKING THE MOST OF THE ETHICS BEHIND THE BRANDS, THE RAW MATERIALS INVOLVED AND THE QUALITY OF THE CRAFTSMANSHIP, THESE PIECES ILLUSTRATE THAT STYLE DOESN’T HAVE TO COST THE EARTH.FOR ALL OF US, IT’S DEFINITELY WORTH THE INVESTMENT

Bourgeois Bohème Bobo Janus black, £74.50 Bourgeois Bohème is run on an ethical business model that aims to facilitate an attitude of compassion towards humans, animals and the environment bboheme.com

Kill Spencer repurposed olive drab backpack $340 Repurposed military truck tarp material backpack killspencer.com

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ethical trends recycledAdjAd

Sprout Watches green degradedbamboo dial and black resin bracelet watch, $65 Made from biodegradable corn resin sproutwatches.com

Jungle Berry rainforest silver ring, £30 Handmade with silver and tucuma seeds sustainably harvested in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil jungleberry.co.uk

Josh Jakus Um Hold purse, $39 Grey wool felt from factory excess is cut from an innovative one-piece pattern joshjakus.com

Gudrun & Gudrun cardigan with hairy shoulders, €280 100% hand-knitted cotton gudrungudrun.com

Tricotage tank top with rounded neck, €57 100% organic cotton jersey tricotage.dk

Kayoo Hitam ring, $16 Made by the artisans of Bali from arang wood kayoojewelry.com

Barbara i Gongini leather pants with zippers, €440 100% lamb’s leather. High quality and artistic responsibility are included in all parts of the process barbaraigongini.dk

Jungle Berry palmwood silver ring, £30 Palmwood is salvaged from waste offcuts and made into jewellery in the Amazon rainforest jungleberry.co.uk

NAE Vegan B-gun boot €115 The NAE ensures that none of the components in their products are of animal origin nae-vegan.com

Kyser by Joy O twinewrap necklace in recycled steel, $268 Adjustable 36-inch chain features three intaglio pendants representing life’s relationships kylerdesigns.com

Sonya Kashmiri Miss Kim bag, £345 Black textured vegetable-tanned leather. Lined in organic cotton sonyakashmiri.com

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places

SHOP IN A BOX Words Kirril Shields Photography Pia Robinson

Feeling the pinch of high rents, enterprising retailers in Australia have made use of tiny, unused spaces to promote their own unique brand of creative, intimate purchasing

I

n an attempt to offset Brisbane’s soaring real-estate prices, shopkeepers and café owners in this east-coast Australian city are adopting a ‘shoebox’ approach to retail. The idea is to alleviate some of the pressure of renting by cutting down on shopfront exposure. To compensate for lack of floor space, these businesses pride themselves on the individual artistry found within the shoebox itself, and are working towards selling the perfect cup of coffee or niche bicycle component instead of promoting a wall of product and, in turn, mass consumption.

Reminiscent of Japan’s Atelier Bow-Wow – an architecture firm whose work is often shaped and influenced by Tokyo’s shortage of residential space – these Brisbane premises are barely bigger than the size of a shipping container and hold, for example, a coffee shop, a bicycle store, a bespoke tailor, a florist, even a barber.

Appearing almost a decade ago in the less conservative suburbs of Brisbane such as Fortitude Valley and West End, these shoeboxes were mostly home to coffee bars. They made use of empty and undervalued units of spare realty that larger merchandisers had overlooked. Some of these sites were just big enough to fit a coffee machine and the barista who operated it. These shoeboxes were tacked onto the backs of existing premises, or were built into an established shop that had a tiny amount of square meterage to let.

Over a span of ten years a trend took hold, a desire that was moulded

by a certain stratum of Brisbane society who sought the intimacy and sophistication these small compartments were offering. As the popularity of coffee destinations such as Jamie’s Espresso Bar grew, insightful retailers came to realise the profits the shoebox trend was harvesting and acted accordingly.

Subsequently, Brisbane experienced a revolution of sorts, where the need for design, style and simplicity began to prevail over the consumer’s desire for enormous shopping centres. The shoeboxes

Some of these sites were just big enough to fit a coffee machine and the barista who operated it soon became a seemingly natural part of the city’s fabric. Proprietors invested in the boutique shops that held merchandise ranging from jewellery, flowers and customised bicycles, to wine and tapas.

One of these proprietors, Erik Van Genderen, owns a small bicycle outlet in West End called Gear. As he is spatially restricted, his stock is hand-picked and ranges from bicycle components to designer cycling wear. This, he believes, enhances his success, by adding to the shop’s uniqueness. ‘A small space,’ he states, ‘requires the owner to be a bit more progressive, and the products they sell have to stand out.’

There are an estimated 20 to 30 of these shoebox stores in Brisbane.

The largest of these is 25m2, and while many are found close to the central business district, the trend has gradually spread to the outer suburbs. Steve Drew, the owner of EVO Espresso, established his

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shoebox in 2007 in the middle-class neighbourhood of Yeronga some kilometres from Brisbane’s inner hub. Due to the success of EVO, Steve has since opened a second café in a further-flung region of Brisbane, this time attached to a local gym.

An urban planner working for Brisbane City Council believes these shoeboxes are a cultural marker, a coming of age, and will hopefully continue to flourish. ‘People from Brisbane who travelled overseas saw it work, and the development industry responded accordingly.

‘Inward-facing shopping centres, while convenient and popular, can dominate local retail,’ he says. ‘They ring-fence the experience and make it difficult for local high streets and neighbourhood centres to compete. The small stores offer an experience from street to counter that’s more human in scale; more intimate. Therefore, if they’re more intimate, the city overall will surely be more intimate and, subsequently, more charming.’

Brisbane experienced a revolution of sorts, where the need for design, style and simplicity began to prevail over the consumer’s desire for enormous shopping centres

These shoeboxes have produced – and continue to produce – such an

effect that new developments are incorporating the idea into their structures. For example, South Bank’s Espresso Garage is housed in a tiny three-walled concrete container that itself is built into the ground level of a recently erected apartment block.

In part, the ongoing success of these shoeboxes is due to Brisbane’s year-round sunlight and the city’s love for the outdoors. Patrons at cafés such as Espresso Garage sip coffee in outdoor public courtyards; a bicycle mechanic spreads his or her tools across the pavement when the shop becomes crowded.

But this success is also a product of the artisans housed within the shoeboxes; the baristas, bicycle experts, florists, barbers and tailors that realise knowledge and a belief in the product they sell can be as influential and profitable, if not more so, than an over-abundance of floor space. They are an interesting example of the current way shopkeepers are reverting to a past epoch of bespoke service and sales, while also satisfying the modern need to consume.

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music

coming in to land Words Hanspeter Kuenzler

After many years of nomadic existence, Feist finally stopped moving and sat down to write her fifth album, Metals

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F

or eight years, Leslie Feist, alongside cheeky multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Chilli Gonzalez, maverick producer Mocky and the singing, sexual-role-defying conceptualist electro star Peaches, made up a group of expat Canadian artists living in Paris and Berlin called – no more than semi-seriously – the Canadian Crew.

Feist made her own records, too, but mostly she earned her living by miming the mad but musicianly sidekick in Peaches and Gonzalez’s live shows, where she could be seen doing strange things with sock puppets and melons, or tap-dancing in a fluorescent bathing suit.

Then came The Reminder. Recorded with Gonzalez and Mocky, it was her fourth album. It contained a superior brand of electronicatinged, folky, singer-songwriter fare, made different and special

by Feist’s unusual voice, which can switch between Lolita-like insouciance and steely determination in the course of a single word.

At first, the album garnered excellent reviews but modest sales. Things changed, however, when the childlike ‘1234’ was licensed for an iPod Nano advert, and other songs from the album began to accompany a multitude of spots selling anything from perfume to mattresses.

Luckily, Feist’s songs were too strong to be flattened by such media overkill. The Reminder ended up selling more than a million copies and landing her five Juno Awards (the Canadian version of the Brits) as well as the Short-List award (the US version of the Mercury Prize). Now, 35-year-old Feist is back with her fifth album, Metals.

If anything, it is a stronger album, with more emotional depth and demonstrating a keen desire for musical innovation, heard mostly in several fascinating string and choir arrangements.

Sublime: Metals. Why is the album called Metals?

Earlier today someone said it seemed much more cohesive. For me, it’s all an education because I only feel it and know it from the inside. It’s more of an album for me, in the sense that I’ve never written all the songs for one record at one time, which I did in this case. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that.

S: Was it a conscious decision, to write all the songs in one bunch, or were there certain circumstances that led to it?

LF: It was the result of not writing on the road. All the other records

I’ve made I wrote while on tour, for the most part. For this one, I took a year off. I had space for it; I lost all my habits, I lost the ‘muscle memory’ of all my songs. I had been playing them for so many years. I have a friend who’s an author. When I was coming towards the finish of the endless Reminder tour, he said: ‘You need to pull up the drawbridge and let the castle go quiet, find a new vocabulary.’ I really related to that.

‘All the other records I’ve made I wrote while on tour, for the most part. For this one, I took a year off.

I had space for it; I lost all my habits’

Leslie Feist: I needed a title that could change, that could be interpreted

in every possible way. One that was a bit of a hinge, or pivot.

Something with some weight to it, something heavy where, if you said ‘metals’ to a hundred people, they would all have a different, you know, word association. I’m gonna do it to you: ‘metals’. What’s the first word that pops into your mind?

S: Quicksilver, strangely.

LF: Quicksilver! You see, amazing. I should actually do that, ask

everyone for their word association. Until now, I’ve never done that, I’ve just been saying, if you picked a hundred people, they’d all say something different. Probably ten of them would say gold or silver, something like that, but others would say watches or scaffolding, or a shovel or an axe.

Or it could be raw, like ore, something that’s found deep in a mountain, that you have to dig through rock and earth to find, and which then gets changed by fire. It so depends on who touches it as to what will be done with it. You can see I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it! It’s hard to find an album title. But I feel pretty good about this one.

S: The album goes off in many different directions sonically, much more so than the last one. Fair comment?

LF: It’s interesting – I was so inside making it, and it’s only less than

a month ago that I finished the mixes. I was mastering it here in London, I guess only a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been in rehearsals. So I’m still in it. This is the first time I’ve really talked about it, and I’m getting a lot of different observations.

S: Is that what success brought you? A year to reconsider, reorientate yourself?

LF: I’d say that’s the most tangible thing. Previously I’d never been able to stop, and if I had, I’d have gone to get a job in a restaurant or something. So yes, it bought me time more than anything else.

I guess that was the flipside of how fast, and how busy, and what a rocket-fuelled, strange new ride that was, for the final couple of years after Reminder came out. But it did result in my really being able to invest in some stillness. Mentally, physically just not moving, and trying to get my mind to slow down along with my body.

S: When one reaches the end of an intense period of work, or whatever it may be, and all of a sudden the tension and the pressure are gone, there is a danger the resulting vacuum brings on depression or even physical illness. Did that happen to you?

LF: It must have. I remember landing in Toronto and being plunged

back into a relatively normal life. I had been on the road for eight years! There wasn’t any remnant of a regular life there for me to come home to. Even the idea of home had changed. It wasn’t even a reaction to Reminder, my need to stop. The Reminder tour was an amped-up, gladiator version of what I’d already been doing for a long time. I hadn’t put roots down in an age. I knew I would kind of land, in Toronto, after touring because I wanted to remind my family who I was and see them, and old friends, and stir up the ghosts of that former life.

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idea of going back. Home wasn’t such a big theme for me, compared to a much more microscopic range of things: the movements of all that motivates you; watching people clumsily fall and trip over each other; just the tangled mess of our intertwined lives, and how we affect each other.

S: Who are the male voices that occasionally appear on the new songs, like some Greek chorus?

LF: That’s just the band – you mean in ‘A Commotion’? There’s quite

some masculine power there! I’ve never had guys using all of their testosterone in one single moment. The female choir, that’s myself as well as the four women who came to play all the string parts on the album. What I liked about that was that they don’t consider themselves singers, necessarily. They do sing while they play – that’s actually the concept behind their quartet. They’re called The Real Vocal String Quartet, and they sing and play at the same time, which creates this really beautiful eight-part counterpoint. But they don’t use their voices in an opera diva sort of style.

S: ‘A Commotion’ – is that one of the songs in which we can hear most of your newly discovered vocabulary?

LF: Yes, and in ‘The Bad in Each Other’, ‘Undiscovered First’ and

‘Getting home, my mind could at last unravel from the steel ball it had become. It had been a long time since I hadn’t felt I was in a bubble, on the outside of what was going on’ S: You haven’t just been touring for eight years; you’ve been living in different places as well. I live in London, German is my native tongue, and I always feel I’m a different person in English than in German because I’m just not completely at home in the language, I’m ever so slightly too slow for spontaneous jokes and the like. Did you experience something similar?

LF: Absolutely! My mind was so tensed up by the exertion needed to speak French. I was in Paris for five years. But I was constantly away for months at a time: I’d come home for one week, be away for five months, come home for two weeks. So my French never really improved. Every time I came back, I had to start learning the language all over again. I was always a sort of French three-year-old, a Zen three-year-old, living only in the present because I couldn’t speak in the past or future tenses. At some point it changed the way I spoke English, because my mind was always thinking in this threeyear-old mode. It was just nothing compared to what you need in order to communicate your actual self!

Getting home, my mind could at last unravel from the steel ball it had become. It had been a long time since I hadn’t felt I was in a bubble, on the outside of what was going on. You can’t really talk about where you are, because you don’t know. You are on the outside of where you are, even while you are there. Going home was a relief. I talked for a long time, because I could.

‘Comfort Me’. They were all written around the same time and they all inform each other, they all point to each other. Maybe threequarters of a song would be found on the Tuesday, and on the Wednesday night at 2am I’d be out there again trying to find a piece, and I’d think it was the final piece of the song but then it became the root of a whole new song. They were really interconnected.

S: What extra things have Chilli Gonzales and Mocky brought to your own perspective?

LF: It just keeps getting deeper. Our history at this point is so vast,

we’ve done so many things with each other, we’ve had so many names, so any identity crisis and ego-related persona stuff is completely gone. Not that there was ever a crisis! Gonzalez’s first production apart from his own stuff was my album Let It Die. He was trying his best to make his persona disappear in the music because the two had always been so interlaced. He’s got a giant personality, and the way he plays music for himself is all part of the same picture.

His attempt to be the Burt Bacharach to my Dusty Springfield, circa 2003, was an attempt to discover a musical identity instead of a persona. I can barely remember that time. Now we really come in as musical minds, and we take the role of producer and share it among ourselves.

S: When it came to recording Metals, did you ever have a fear that ‘1234’ might become an albatross around your neck? That people would want you to do the same thing again and again?

LF: It could be that that’s gonna happen. I can’t really predict

LF: Maybe not so much. More recently my life had been split between

reactions. I certainly couldn’t have predicted what has already ended up happening. That was like something out of a novel. The reaction part has always been a mystery to me, and you know, in general a positive mystery, because if eighty people come to my show or 800, my side of the equation remains pretty much the same.

One thing you never learn is a secret password, like why did so many people all react at the same time and create the circumstances around ‘1234’? You could never recreate that. Even if I’d wanted to stop it, I couldn’t have. You can’t start it and you can’t stop it, you just have to accept it. Right now the only thing I can do is make a record. Much like I felt for The Reminder, I just made the record I needed to make. There’s no other reason for making a record than to be selfish and to please yourself.

Toronto and Berlin, and I’d kind of already dipped my toe in the

Feist, Metals (Universal)

S: Would you say the lyrics of the album might be bundled, thematically, around the idea of coming home?

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music review

By Hanspeter Kuenzler image: Gregg Greenwood Photography

S

t Vincent is the nom de plume of 29-year-old multiinstrumentalist and singer-songwriter Annie Clark from Dallas, Texas. Recording music in her bedroom from the age of 13, she acted as tour manager for her uncle’s group Tuck & Patti at age 17 before entering the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston. But, as she says: ‘They can teach you to be an athlete, but they can’t teach you to be an artist’, and so she quit, joining, first, The Polyphonic Spree, and then the similarly eclectic-minded Sufjan Stephens. (At present, she is also working on an album with David Byrne.) Strange Mercy is the third album made under her own steam. Compared to the exquisite, chamber-music-like preceding album Actor, here Clark is barely recognisable as the same artist. The silken and subtle strings have made way for sleazy-sounding analogue synthesisers and sharp electro beats.

Among the musicians supplying the grooves are Midlake drummer McKenzie Smith and Moog master Bobby Sparks, who has often worked with Prince. What remains the same, however, is Clark’s sharp ear for finely woven melodies – one particular highlight being the glorious‚ Bowie-esque ‘Cheerleader’, also‚ ‘Northern Lights’. The contrast between Clark’s sweet voice (often producing disturbingly dark and sexual lyrics) and the incredibly dirty grooves and riffs creates a deeply intriguing and fascinating dark/ light dynamism.

St Vincent, Strange Mercy (4AD)

Phall Fatale

Kill It Kid

Brothers of Brazil

Bobby Valentino

Phall Fatale is the new band of famed drummer Fredy Studer, who generally works in the outer reaches of improvised jazz and rock. Here, he has assembled an outfit that contains, among other things, three doublebasses, toy piano and beer bottle – but also, crucially, the two singers Joana Aderi (who also contributes electronics) and the soulful Joy Frempong. The focus is firmly set on the song, although it is difficult to describe a style that reaches from the blues across the central European song tradition and industrial rock right through to Annette Peacock’s more daring adventures, and that builds heavily on the dynamic potential of strange sounds. This is gripping stuff.

The rather off-putting name hides a young quartet from Bath with a remarkably fresh perspective on the dirty side of the blues. Singer Chris Turpin can howl a bit like Robert Plant, and sweet-voiced Stephanie Ward is the perfect foil for his raw emotionality.

Influences range from Queens of the Stone Age to Woody Guthrie, and in between songs we get samples from Alan Lomax’s collection of American folk song. This is the band’s second album – an exceptionally powerful as well as beautiful work.

Brothers of Brazil are guitarist João Suplicy and drummer Supla (he of the zebra-like drum/suit combo and the bleached spikes hairdo). Together they make quite a racket – but they are also capable of a fine bossa nova moment or two. Singing mostly in English, and produced by Mario Caldato Jr (Beastie Boys, Tone Loc) they have created a punchy fusion of rockabilly, punk, bossa nova and samba, mostly played on acoustic guitar and super-busy drums.

Singer, violinist and guitarist Valentino began as a Fabulous Poodle before becoming a mainstay of the 1980s London pub-rock scene as a member of The Hank Wangford Band. Of late, he has rejoined old pals including pedal-steel player B. J. Cole in Los Pistoleros. Cole turns up, too, on this, Valentino’s fourth solo album. It is a typically jovial, mock-elegant and cocklewarming collection of mostly selfcomposed Western swing, faintly reminiscent of the great Dan Hicks, and dominated by Bobby’s irresistible swing fiddle and deep come-hither voice.

Kill It Kid, Feet Fall Heavy (One Little Indian)

Brothers of Brazil, Brothers of Brazil (Side One Dummy)

Bobby Valentino, Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake (Handmade Music)

Phall Fatale, Charcoal From Fire (kuenschtli.ch)

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film

the boy mir

By Lucy Purdy

P

eering round the camera lens with a mischievous grin, the sun-scorched face of eight-year-old Mir edges into frame near the beginning of Phil Grabsky’s documentary film The Boy Mir. The Brighton-based film-maker decided to travel to Afghanistan after being haunted by a newspaper article about a US aircraft accidentally firing on an Afghan wedding. The pilot had reacted to a flash of celebratory gunfire, and turned a day of dancing and joy into one of misery as dozens were injured or lost their lives.

But he needed a human face to tell the story of a decade of turbulence in Afghanistan – ‘I thought, surely these people can’t all be bearded, malevolent males and burqa-wearing, hidden-away terrorists?’ – and there, stepping into the spotlight without prompting, was Mir. The story begins in 2002, shortly after the fall of the Taliban, when Mir is living with his family in a cave near to the recently destroyed huge stone Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Existing in abject poverty, they face an everyday struggle to find the essentials of food and firewood. But Mir scampers around with a perpetual cheeky smile on his face while his frustrated parents bicker with a caustic aggression, and half-brother Khushdel ruminates gloomily on their future.

When they move back to their home village, Mir gradually transforms from a happy-go-lucky infant into a thoughtful, more serious adult in a journey captured over ten years of

filming. He hankers after a mobile phone, cheerfully describes his two donkeys as ‘my motorbike and my jet plane’ and goes from dreaming of becoming ‘a headmaster … or president!’ to realising that his future is far less assured.

Grabsky captures with heart-rending simplicity the growing pressure on Mir to abandon his education and help his ill and illiterate father support the family by herding goats and working in the coal mine. We then see Mir as a rugged-faced 18-year-old, and his journey into adulthood is complete – yet his future holds so many questions.

This is not a political film per se, and it is all the more fascinating and poignant for it. Grabsky has created an intimate portrait of an Afghan family which sits apart from most other documentary films about the country. The piece does not ignore the wider questions raised by the allies’ presence, and of the future of Afghanistan, but above all this is a film about people trying to live their lives against insurmountable odds.

Grabsky takes the conflict, anguish and humour which float to the surface of such a struggle and skilfully weaves them into a beautifully captivating and authentic portrait.

The Boy Mir is on general release following its UK premier on 28 September theboymir.com

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books

SUBLIME READS

By Jon Fordham

Changing the Lens The Creature: Did you ever consider the consequences of your actions?

You gave me life and then you left me to die. Who am I? Dr Frankenstein: I don’t know.

The Creature: And you think I’m evil?

Frankenstein (the movie)

O

ne striking thing about reactions to the recent riots in English cities was the diversity of perceptions. There was talk of an immoral society, a ‘broken Britain’; there were urges to return to traditional notions of discipline; David Cameron referred to the younger looters as ‘feral’; Russell Brand called for a spiritual response, while others pointed to the need to accept collective responsibility for the ugly actions witnessed on high streets.

I wonder if we have underestimated the power of the beast that consumerism has unleashed. Certainly, from the risk-taking, thrillseeking, short-term-gain-oriented behaviours of those few August

The Thrifty Forager

by Alys Fowler (Kyle Books) £16.99 In a time of rising food prices and shrinking economies, a change of perspective in how we see the world around us is very timely. In her second book, Alys Fowler combines the fast-growing trend for foraging with the necessity for thrift, and the result is marvellous for countryside and urban dwellers alike. Fowler encourages us to expect discovery of a tree full of mulberries, or blackberries ripe for picking, in a car park as much as a country lane; she reveals that figs and raspberries often grow in parks; and that you can eat poppy leaves or mahonia berries picked from a city’s edible landscape. Since reading the book, I must confess to having started scanning the side of the railway track on the way home from work for signs of dinner.

As you’d expect from a former presenter of Gardener’s World, Alys Fowler’s knowledge is comprehensive, covering all you need to know to get started, what to pick and when and the dos and don’ts of foraging, combined with a deep understanding of land use and management. Case studies such as the community gardens in Todmorden, near Manchester, whose residents have gone beyond growing their own to create a whole sustainable village, are inspirational, while a plant directory packed with specific information and a seasonal ‘at a glance’ foraging table are helpful features in the final part of the book. Fresh, verdant, attractively designed and a tad quirky, The Thrifty Forager is highly recommended.

nights, it would seem that the voracity of the late stages of capitalism have left an indelible imprint on the brains of a generation who have grown up in its shadow. Bombarded by advertising, celebrity, branding and all the other trappings of a soulless culture aspiring to the acquisition of things that will probably be always out of reach for most, no wonder the generation that are seeing the stellar rise of the social media may prefer the thrill and braggadocio of an evening spent setting fire to things and helping themselves to sportswear to a quiet night in front of the telly.

Where can our troubled, vulnerable youth go for respite? Put simply, we share a responsibility to maximise young people’s potential.

From babies, to teenagers, through to adults, the love that is poured into people through relationship, concern and empathy generates maximum profit. When other resources run out, that which is freely given from the heart remains. From psychotherapy and neuroscience, to spirituality and the art of foraging, here are three titles to encourage us in the task.

Seeking Silence in a Noisy World by Adam Ford (Leaping Hare Press) £7.99 An area widely explored by books such as Abbot Christopher Jamison’s Finding Sanctuary, Anglican priest Adam Ford’s approaches for quelling the hubbub of modern life by seeking silence are various and eclectic. Ford takes us on a whistle-stop tour of different religions, people and landscapes: from Buddhist meditation and Quaker silence to Christian hermits; from travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor and Thomas Merton, to the Australian outback and the Black Hills of New Mexico. He also appeals to the lover of nature, recommending the song of the nightingale, forest-bathing, observing the silent walking of elephants in Kenya and communing with trees, as methods towards achieving inner tranquillity. He even finds time to explore the darker side of nature – through Buddhist tales of demonology, Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness and the lonely fate of isolated prisoners of conscience.

Ford is an advocate of mindfulness and meditation, and I expected as I read Seeking Silence to be cast into a cocoon of reflectiveness. However, the breadth of his eclecticism threatens also to be his downfall.

Certain sections fall short in depth and seriousness of tone: there are no great gems here. This may be for those who like their spirituality on a pick-and-mix basis. For a general survey of silence’s various angles, Seeking Silence is adequate. But I couldn’t help concluding that Ford had spread himself rather thinly. The ‘Tree as a Counsellor’ section – recommending talking to trees for hour-long sessions – threatened to bring the entire subject into disrepute.

The Selfish Society: How we all forgot to love one another and made money instead

by Sue Gerhardt (Simon & Schuster) £8.99 The Selfish Society opens with an arresting quote from poet Adrienne Rich: ‘In those years, people will say, we lost track/of the meaning of we, of you/we found ourselves/reduced to I’. She proceeds to explore territory revived by books such as Oliver James’s Affluenza, rallying against the rise of consumerism, an increasingly fascinating area when considered in the light of the recent rioting that took place in the UK. A pyschotherapist, Gerhardt looks at how our society, culture and politics got to where they are today, and her diagnosis – that individualism has confused material well-being for happiness, that community, care and family have been superceded by self-interest, self-absorption and self-centredness – is succint and timely. The forces of the late stages of capitalism, Gerhardt argues, have eroded emotional links with other people – family, neighbours – away.

The road map for change lies in valuing emotional awareness and relationship, particularly in parenting, since how babies’ brains are conditioned will have a major effect on their ability to show empathy in later life. Gerhardt’s somewhat visionary perspective is to see a growth of emotional awareness spread through family and social networks into politics and the global family through cultivating loving, tolerant, nurturing family units from as early an age as possible.

Displaying a sound grasp of the latest neuroscience and a disdain for Thatcherite ideology that has messed with our minds, her rallying cry is for empathy, compassion and connection.

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collaborations

LIFE in colour Interview Charlotte Foxton

Italian coffee company Illy is entering the world of fashion and the arts, enlisting the help of an up-and-coming designer from Cameroon

A

lioum Moussa’s work doesn’t adorn the covers of fashion magazines, nor do his models walk the runways of the world’s fashion capitals. And you won’t find him mixing with the hipsters in dimly lit bars. His growing contribution to the fashion industry may be quieter, but it is no less moving or significant.

Moussa’s work is an explosion of colour, which perfectly reflects his unwavering positivity, his love of humanity and a fierce pride in his roots. His current project, a collaboration with Italian coffee company Illy, is a collection of pieces inspired by the environmental message which is so important to him. The colour and utility style of his Illy pieces echo the simplicity and ecological conscience that pervades his body of work. Talking to Moussa, I was struck most by his modesty and humility, something you rarely find alongside a great love of fashion and style.

Sublime: What first made you become an artist?

Alioum Moussa: Ever since I was a child at kindergarten I’ve had a gift

for colour. I was hooked on drawing and miniature model-making using paper, cardboard, cans and pieces of fabric. I used every little thing I had at my fingertips in my environment. After leaving high school in 1994, I decided to train with a Chadian artist who was living in exile in Cameroon at the time of the Chadian civil war.

In his studio I learned how to hold a brush and stretch canvas. It was the starting point of a long story that helped me get ahead in advertising and computer-aided design (CAD). Meeting other artists and makers has also enabled me to have sharp eyes, and to seize every opportunity that comes my way. That has helped me to achieve the maturity that’s in my work now.

S: What would you say are your main influences, both artistic and personal?

AM: I was born in the far north of Cameroon, in the Sahel desert.

My parents each come from different cultures; my mother is Fula and my father was Kanuri. I grew up in the south of Cameroon, in an area of deep forest. Now I spend my time between Africa, Europe and the United States on artistic exchange projects. All these things really shape the way I see the world, and how I think about my work in space and time. Meeting people, and travelling in nature or around the world, are the key elements that have contributed to shaping my point of view, and that enrich me personally.

S: Looking at your work, the first thing you notice is the colour. has your work always been so positive and uplifting, or is there a dark side to you?

‘Colour is at the heart of my work – it’s like a mirror and a light at the same time’

AM: I would say that a line, a shape and a colour are the three key elements that form the basis of my work. Colour is at the heart of my work – it’s like a mirror and a light at the same time. I’ve always had a desire to translate cheerfulness and joy into my work. I’m the kind of person who naturally loves everything that is positive. I am a maker who communicates ideas, and I hope that good triumphs over evil, that capitalism doesn’t destroy humanity. That doesn’t

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collaborations

‘I want to develop a responsible and sustainable fashion brand that is ethical from beginning to end, from the concept itself to the marketing and selling of it’

mean that death is not a part of my work, that I don’t tackle issues such as suffering, oppression, injustice or the destruction of the ecosystem.

S: Tell me about the doGoodGoods project. How did that come about?

AM: DoGoodGoods is an experimental artistic project inspired by the ‘fashion victim’ phenomenon. It came into being as a result of things I noticed in some of the great African metropolises, in Cameroon in particular. People like to wear smart clothes and trendy fashion brands that cost a lot of money. The phenomenon is very visible among the youth, mostly from the middle class, who struggle to live a decent life and eat for just one dollar a day but who will buy a $150 shirt just for the sake of image. Alongside the image phenomenon is also the issue of waste. I ask myself what we are going to do with all the clothes we no longer use, which we throw away. doGoodGoods is designed to transform discarded clothes into unique works of art.

S: The project is about both art and fashion. Have you always had an interest in the fashion industry? How close is the link between art and fashion, in your opinion?

AM: When I was younger, I was a model for a friend who is a designer.

I liked to wear fashion brands, to be chic and stand out when we were going to parties or big ceremonies. I was a victim of chic, of beauty.

I’ve always been very interested in the fashion industry, but I want to develop a responsible and sustainable fashion brand that is ethical from beginning to end, from the concept itself to the marketing and selling of it. I want it to be fashion that takes into consideration those who wear the clothes, as well as their environment.

S: ‘L’humain dans tous ses états, l’humain dans tout son éclat, porteur de sa différence et de sa curiosité mais l’humain toujours ouvert au prochain.’ (Man in all his environments, Man in all his brilliance, with all his differences and his curiosity, but always open to the new) – could this be your motto, or mantra? How would you apply this to your art?

AM: It’s a good quote, one that inspires me, and in which I recognise

myself. My work has always involved others; I shape my work with others. Over the past five years, I have travelled around the world essentially on experimental projects that are linked to the exploration of other cultures. I work with makers who come from different disciplines such as music, architecture and the theatre.

S: What does the future hold for this type of sustainable art? Is sustainable fashion the future, given our increased awareness of the world around us?

AM: The world is changing, and people’s interests are changing. In spite of the economic crisis, the fashion industry has seen great economic growth. People still want to look after their bodies and pay attention to their image. Sustainable fashion is already carving a pathway into the future.

S: The aprons you have designed for Galleria Illy are colourful, and have great flair. Is this combination of utility and style important to you?

AM: ‘Stylish’ and ‘useful’ are important adjectives. My pieces combine beauty and usefulness perfectly, I think.

S: If you could dedicate the Galleria Illy exhibition to someone, living or dead, who would it be?

AM: I would dedicate the exhibition to my friend Goddy Leye (founder of the ArtBakery in Bonendalé-Douala, Cameroon) who sadly passed away. He was an example of greatness and unfailing generosity. Also to Michelangelo Pistoletto, for his commitment to art with humanity and love without distinction. These two men, great and talented artists, have one thing in common: they gather people together and share without discriminating. illysustainart.org

S: And the project with Galleria Illy? What drew you to it, and how does the exhibition fit into your body of work as a whole?

AM: It’s all thanks to the Pistoletto Foundation in Biella, Italy. During my residence in 2010 at UNIDEE (University of Ideas, ‘an open laboratory for projects of socially responsible transformation’), I entered the Illy Espresso competition to design new packaging for their coffee. That was the starting point. I came first out of 14 candidates from all over the world. When I went back to Cameroon, the people in charge of the Cittadellarte (Pistoletto Foundation) asked me to design aprons for the event at the Galleria Illy. The project fits perfectly with my work philosophy, which is multidisciplinary.

alioummoussa.wordpress.com

Lady GoodGoods by Alioum Moussa Galleria illy runs from 12 September to 16 October 2011 at flos and moroso, 15 Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R

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urban living

VOCATION RELOCATION Words Safeera Sarjoo

London has a reputation for nurturing a thriving artistic community. But it has not served its creative industries well in terms of providing affordable space in which to work – or ensuring that studios are preserved during regeneration

D

espite London being home to thousands of artists, there is a seemingly limited amount of affordable studio space on offer. Urban regeneration may be having a positive influence for other projects and sectors, but as Matthew Wood, founder and project director of Second Floor Studios & Arts (SFSA) has found, it does not extend to guaranteeing any improvements for artists.

That’s why, together with co-founder Kelvin O’Mard, he set up the SFSA and, working in partnership Emafyl Properties, is now able to offer financially manageable studio space for up to 300 artists. Along with an education centre, open-access fine-art print studios and a 3,000 sq ft gallery, Wood and O’Mard have essentially created one of Europe’s largest centres of affordable studio space.

‘Urban regeneration for the affordable studio-space sector, the sector we are a part of, wipes us out because it means a loss of space for us. Affordable studio space is never strategically planned into urban renewal,’ Wood explains.

Revamping our urban spaces is needed in order to make them more

‘Hundreds of artists and other creative practitioners lost their space through the regeneration of the Olympic site area, and there was no help or support offered to relocate, or to understand artists’ needs’

dynamic and interesting. But a key factor to take into consideration is ensuring that urban regeneration doesn’t mean using space that is already occupied by artists.

‘The Olympics is a good example. I’m not going to sit here and maintain that the Olympics are bad for London, but hundreds and hundreds of artists and other creative practitioners lost their space through the regeneration of the Olympic site area, and there was no help or support offered to relocate, or to understand artists’ needs.’

While politicians continually touch on the topic of how the creative sector is important, there is no mention of providing affordable work spaces, even though the industry is regarded as ‘a sustainable sector for economic growth’.

‘We need to present ourselves as rival investment opportunities – that’s how we’re delivering this project. With urban regeneration, we need to be more strategically built into that structure.’

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He continues: ‘The direction for this project is to build one of the largest affordable artists’ space programmes in the UK. The overview is to deliver in excess of 300 affordable workspace units spread over around 150,000 sq ft of space. Inclusive to that will be our gallery space, the Prince Studio, and we also have plans for an open-access jewellery-makers’ studio. I’ve also considered looking at an open-access ceramics and glass studio, because there is significant demand for that.

‘The project will also have long-term engagement with further and higher education.’

Membership with Second Floor Studios & Arts provides more than just studio space. ‘I’m planning to provide a lot more opportunities for professional development for our members, because that’s something that’s always lacking. I want to offer the studio space, but also training programmes, especially on the business side.’

It may have been a long time coming, but Wood has had a stroke of luck with Emafyl Properties, who are in tune with the value of the creative industries.

‘They have grasped the concept of our bringing them solid economic return on the capital investment and on the long-term rental income. All credit to them, because a lot of property developers don’t understand the value that we represent.’ secondfloor.moonfruit.com

‘The direction for this project is to build one of the largest affordable artists’ space programmes in the UK’

Open Studio will be open to the public on Thursday 17th (5pm - 9pm), Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th (11am - 6pm) November

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section innovation energy title report

The global energy crisis has been dismissed as the creation of overzealous film-makers with a penchant for pyrotechnics and improbable storylines.

But in reality, it is one of the most pressing issues facing the modern world.

Innovation in energy is never more to be welcomed, and there are some exciting new developments in the pipeline

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O

ur energy system has served us well for a very long time.

Oil, gas and coal, known better as hydrocarbons, continue to power big, booming cities. But for how much longer?

Energy has become such a hot topic that even in politics, potential candidates need to have a green policy. Without one, they might find themselves unelectable.

As the sources we depend on for our energy are having a dire impact on the environment, we’re faced with a problem. Global demand is on the rise, and there are growing pressures to find ways to generate energy through alternative avenues. With an estimated 20trn barrels of oil still available, we’re covered for the next 40 years.

The problem lies in recovering this oil using existing technologies.

Shell GameChanger published in 2007 a book called Technology Futures that gave insights into how technologies might emerge down the line.

‘The challenge for the future will be finding new ways to access

and convert these resources into affordable energy in socially and environmentally responsible ways,’ write Leo Roodhart and Dave McCormick of Shell GameChanger.

The current scenario with energy is a somewhat grim picture.

Dominated by fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal represent just over 80% of the way we obtain our energy. Nuclear energy makes up 6%, while biomass (natural waste products) accounts for 11% and, shockingly, only 3% of the world’s energy supply comes from renewable sources.

Research and study are ongoing into potential sources that could benefit the environment and that do not rely on a limited supply of hydrocarbons.

The main issue with new production sources is finding a costeffective way to produce the energy itself. The way energy sources translate down to three key sectors prompts consideration of our consumption. Agriculture, industry and services account for 46% of energy use whereas mobility and residential use jointly makes up 54% of energy output and is split down the middle. To put it into perspective, our way of living and our reliance on private as well as public transportation, collectively make up a larger percentage of energy consumption than that of the key industries.

image: Atelier Illume (and LAVA)

It is imperative either to find a way to extend the life of fossil fuels, or

Sustainable tweaks have transformed an award-winning design for the Masdar City Centre in Dubai from a symbol of crazed civic growth into a carbon-neutral blueprint.

Solar umbrellas line the central plaza, faces tilted towards the beaming sun, while façades on the building are also capable of adjusting to capture sunlight. Wall surfaces adapt to changing temperatures, water is stored underground and gardens line the development’s rooftops.

Though the design, by Sydney-based LAVA Architects, will reportedly now have to be scaled back due to financial constraints, it was plucked from hundreds of entries from all over the globe and has been billed as an exemplar of sustainable urban development

to generate energy sources that are able to compete genuinely with fossil fuels and meet high demands. With 40 years now our essential cap, oil giants such as Shell have a responsibility to humanity and to our environment. But with progress at a snail’s pace, they risk leaving future generations dry of energy and facing real uncertainty.

‘The complexity and cost of the infrastructure needed to use a given energy is perhaps the main factor that will determine whether and how fast a technology can develop to unlock additional energy resources and achieve mass-market impact. Hydrogen fuel, solar power and wind power all require different infrastructure investments before they can deliver significant amounts of usable energy,’ the report says. The research going into alternative energies doesn’t just look to replace non-renewable sources but at how to create electricity, for example, from the most outlandish materials. There are designs for the future, too, that work hand in hand with alternative energies such as solar, wave, hydroelectricity and geothermal.

With a secure infrastructure in place that handles the fossil fuels we already consume, this gives corporations time to plan, research, structure and implement other frameworks that can ease our reliance on fossil fuels.

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section innovation energy title report

A delicate blend of diplomacy and progressive Thinking heads up the CV of un sustainable energy chief, scott foster

PLAYING IT RIGHT Interview William Kennedy

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s director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Sustainable Energy Division, Scott Foster and his team advise dozens of nations on energy issues, from the analysis of markets to the implementation of new sustainable technologies. Prior to taking up his current position in February 2011, Foster worked on energy policy for more than 30 years with both governmental and non-governmental organisations, seeking practical solutions to climate change in the process. He spoke to Sublime about decreasing consumption, increasing energy efficiency and the future of European power.

Sublime: Everyone recognises the United Nations, but they may not know the UNECE. Can you introduce us to the organisation, and your role within it?

Scott Foster: The UNECE is one of five regional commissions that are part of the UN family. There’s a region that covers Latin America, one that covers Africa, then Asia and the Middle East. The European region is actually the most extended in terms of geography. It was set up in 1947 by what’s called ECOSOC (UN Economic and Social Council), so we’ve been around quite a while. In fact, UNECE covers 56 countries, including the EU, non-EU Western and Eastern

‘The next decade is going to see an enormous transition from what was to what will be.

All you have to do is look at the latest BlackBerry to realise that the next technology acceleration is going to be happening in energy’

Europe, South-East Europe, the Commonwealth and independent states, and then North America except for Mexico, which is part of the Latin American contingent.

UNECE’s objective is to promote pan-European economic integration, which is kind of a catch-all phrase. The mandate of the different activities we do can vary over time, depending on the member state’s need or desire. So we have a constant dialogue among the member states to advise what the UNECE should be working on.

I’ve been with the Sustainable Energy Division for all of seven months, so you’re talking to a relatively new person in this role, but I know both of my predecessors who have been with this division for quite some time. We have a staff that works on sustainable issues, but we deal with a range of topics, including energy efficiency, natural gas, electricity, coal – any issue relating to energy. My role as director is to engage in conversation with the member states about the programmes they wish to pursue, then help the team to facilitate the gatherings of experts that explore the various questions put to us, and essentially to ensure the smooth functioning of the group.

S: Looking at the broader role of the United Nations regarding climate change, the nations of the world haven’t come to an agreement or signed a treaty, yet investment has risen substantially in clean and sustainable energy. Do you see an agreement like the one proposed in Amsterdam as essential in the battle against climate change?

SF: The process of dialogue, of moving towards a broad framework agreement, is highly valuable. To end up with a definitive document signed on the dotted line and agreed to by all parties with commitments of various sorts would be an outcome which might be considered desirable. But if you’re speaking in terms of where we’re going in the fight against climate change, many countries are undertaking a range of programmes and policies, trying to shift and adapt their systems and lifestyle policies as part of that fight.

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Governments are moving forward; companies and individuals are moving forward in making adaptations both in terms of investment and lifestyle choices. My view personally, and also at the UNECE, is that an ongoing, engaged conversation leads to concrete action: that’s the part that matters. To end up with an agreement would be great, but it’s the action that counts more.

S: From a policy perspective, is there a country that the UNECE works

mix if we don’t get it right. We want to enhance the renewables contribution, but they have to make that contribution at the right point of development and to the right degree.

If you look at the situation in Spain, in Switzerland and even in California in the late 1970s with the wind farms that sprang up, all of the projects were well intentioned and had good concepts behind them but they weren’t necessarily planned and implemented in a way that credited potential renewables contributions.

with that does things particularly well on that front? Is there a specific policy that’s really advancing the fight against climate change?

S: Can updating existing technologies play a role?

SF: I’m likely to paint all countries with a rather black brush because

SF: We’ve got specific work under way trying to help countries to

I have some strongly held views. Every country in the world is massively guilty on the question of subsidies. In one way or another, subsidies are out there, and it would be wonderful if the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules could eliminate them tomorrow.

That won’t happen. There’s a dialogue that has to be entered into, because people believe that such-and-such an industry is somehow a strategic industry. It’s actually a deep market distortion that sends the wrong price signals on buy-and-sell to consumers.

How do you deal with that in a politically sensitive environment?

We’ve got to find a way that allows the body politic, in whatever country you’re talking about, to accept a transition away from subsidies. I know the G20 has this at the top of their list, and that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is working on that aggressively. I wish them the best success; we’re likely to work on ways to collaborate with them. But getting prices and tariffs and subsidies all sorted out so that we have the signals that consumers need in order to react properly, that would be a first major step.

From a policy point of view, at the sustainable energy division of the UNECE we have a phrase that captures what we’re all about: we’re trying to help member countries secure affordable and sustainable energy. By ‘secure’ we mean security of supply – that means making all of the appropriate investments to deliver energy that’s needed for economic activity to users. The affordability aspect means we have to develop an environmental energy market that consumers are able to afford, that contributes to their daily welfare and that has to be done in a sustainable way.

Sustainability I would describe as having three distinct poles. The first one we all know about: using resources in a way that ensures future generations also have access to resources. So it’s climate change, it’s resource management, it’s resource development all are hugely important.

The second pole, which is often overlooked, is the economic pole. You might believe very much in technology X because it’s the solution to all our problems, but if it’s way out there in terms of cost of service then it’s unlikely that populations of people will tolerate its being introduced on a stand-alone basis.

The third pole, I would say, is policy and the political together.

The political and regulatory framework has got to be seen as working to the benefit and welfare of communities, helping with social development, and so on.

When you take all of these three things together, we need to have a sensible regulatory policy that allows the investments to be made to deliver the energy, but in a way that’s in equilibrium and that satisfies the environmental constraints we have in place. I’m the world’s biggest fan of renewables. I’ve been working on renewables since the late 1970s, but I also recognise that a number of countries have probably gone too far, too fast in trying to introduce certain renewables technologies where there’s no real capacity for the system to absorb them. Either it’s fly-by-night installers, or the equipment doesn’t work properly, or the financing falls apart. There’s a serious risk of discrediting what should be a valid contribution to the energy

improve the thermal efficiency of existing coal plants, some of which have been working for 50 years or longer. Now that looks like we’re investing in coal, which is counter-intuitive in terms of climate change. But if you could improve the efficiency of a plant, say, from 23%, 24% efficiency to 38%, which is the ceiling for traditional coal plants, or even higher, up to 44%, if you use some of these gas-coal technologies, that leap in efficiency would constitute a major contribution in the fight against climate change.

Ultimately we’ll either have to figure out a way to capture and store the carbon that’s emitted, or we’ll have to transition to a non-carbon-emitting technology. But in the meantime there is a pathway to that sustainable future that we have to follow. If we try to accelerate beyond it, we’ll get ourselves into an economic hole, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

‘I would love to be able to tell everybody tomorrow to go out and buy a non-polluting car.

But if they want to accelerate from 0 to 60 in three seconds, that isn’t going to happen. We’ve got to find the way to have the impact that’s needed for us to live in a sustainable way’ In a nutshell, we have to look at improving the efficiency of the existing systems, and get the programmes and policies to work properly so that we have fair and equitable exchanges of energy and technology. Then we can start thinking about the next generation, which might be nuclear or it might be next-generation gas. Certainly it will include renewables and electric vehicles. But we will look at each technology in its time, and take into account its appropriate level of contribution.

S: How difficult is it being an advocate of a measured approach when there are so many people, rightly or wrongly, who think that if something isn’t done dramatically and immediately, it might be too late?

SF: We are absolutely convinced, along with all the member states

and representatives that come to our meetings, that we need to accelerate our intervention and do it on a scale that has an impact.

That is a driving force. We’ve got to react efficiently, effectively and quickly, but if I try to tell you that in three years’ time the price of oil is going to be $700 or $20 per barrel, I already know I’m going to be wrong.

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The challenge is that we start picking on the technology that is ‘the solution’. We are concerned that governments are making mistakes with these bets. It’s up to the governments to set in place a policy framework that’s sensible, that’s sustainable under the three poles I mentioned and that arrives at results that are deliverable.

The reason for the measured approach is that we do not want to fly in the face of economic reality, or the need for people to develop and grow and have a roof over their heads and heat in their homes.

You’ve got to satisfy multiple constraints. While I state a measured approach I’m trying to take account of those multiple objectives, while recognising that we’d better move quickly, otherwise we’re going to be building dykes and more air-conditioners because we’re faced with a changing climate.

If I look at Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, and think about it as a place on the map, it’s rather small compared to other geographical gatherings around the world. Considering we have a 700m-population continent with a $20trn economy, with very close proximity in terms of the buying and selling of power and economic activity, Europe has a certain density that exists nowhere else in the world. If we can get the rules of the game right – and let’s get rid of the subsidies and distortions in prices and tariffs – if you could have fair-trade arrangements between the different groupings, we could enormously improve the technical, economic and environmental performance of Europe. There’s huge potential here that we’re not yet achieving: the UNECE platform is the right place to achieve that potential. That’s what brought me to this job.

‘Simply asking you to turn down your refrigerator dial so that you’re consuming less energy and not cooling your fridge too much, doesn’t actually work.

You’re not going to get individual consumers in the collective vision to change their behaviour’ The second thing that I absolutely believe is that the next decade is going to see an enormous transition from what was to what will be. All you have to do is look at the latest BlackBerry and at other mobile phones, to realise that the next technology acceleration is going to be happening in energy. We’re going to move quickly and at scale, and we’re going to change how we do what we do. People will still require energy services but we’ll have to do it in a different way. If we can get the rules of the game right we will facilitate that transition. Again, it’s not just about looking at the potential of Europe but at the potential that tomorrow represents.

S: Let’s backtrack for just a minute and look at consumption again. How important is reducing consumption for Europe and for the developing world? Is it something everyone will have to come to terms with?

SF: The reality is that the world is filled with individual agents called consumers who, in their individual actions – turning on the light, for example – are making their own buy-sell decisions. That is adding up to a changing climate because you and I are actually the ones causing this to happen. The task for policymakers is how to identify the right agents for change. Simply asking you to turn down your refrigerator dial so that you’re consuming less energy and not cooling your fridge too much, doesn’t actually work. You’re not going to get individual

consumers in the collective vision to change their behaviour, so you’ve got to identify the right channel through which to have a bigger impact across a broader scale. I would love to be able to tell everybody tomorrow to go out and buy a non-polluting car. But if they want to accelerate from 0 to 60 in three seconds, that isn’t going to happen. We’ve got to find the way to have the impact that’s needed for us to live in a sustainable way, and that’s an ongoing search.

S: Looking at nuclear power: it has clearly demonstrated some of its dangers in Japan recently, but it is a source of low-emissions energy that the world is very reliant on. Do you see it playing a role in the future of the world’s energy?

SF: Nuclear is going to have to satisfy our security concerns. We

saw it after Three Mile Island and it was reinforced in a major way after Chernobyl. Now you have Japan, which is one of the leading countries in terms of nuclear power, dealing with consequences that were frankly unimaginable. I held this view before the Japan accident, and I still hold it today: nuclear power should not receive any special consideration, so again, I’m anti-subsidy. It should be one of the fuels to compete for its share in the marketplace.

If your issue is with carbon emissions, then have a carbon market and carbon pricing that achieves your objectives. Maybe put a tax on or set up some kind of trading system – I don’t want to judge because this is a discussion that’s under way – and let nuclear compete in a fair way for its share. What’s happened in Japan is likely to lead to a new set of approaches and costs for meeting security requirements.

I suspect nuclear will face a bigger economic hurdle, let alone the political hurdle, with the population. There’s even a debate going on in certain regions of France about nuclear power, and France, as you know, has been largely accepting of nuclear. I’m not anti-nuclear, but it’s got to prove its economic merit.

S: Is there a technology that you would say you’re particularly hopeful for, or excited about, whether it’s one that’s commonly adopted now, or one that’s still in the trial phase?

SF: I’ve always been intrigued by solar photovoltaics. Their technical

performance could bring them to grid parity. They keep getting closer and closer, but it’s always a target that seems to move farther and farther away. Everybody and their brother is working on different approaches to photovoltaics and I’m waiting for the day, because I would love to put a photovoltaic roof on my house or have a car with a voltaic skin on it.

The other aspect I’m hopeful for is the electric vehicle. A lot of people are concerned about the charge range. There’s range-phobia, if you will. But just think back to the earlier part of last century, when people were transitioning from horse and carriage to automobile.

There weren’t gas or petrol stations all over the place; they would have had the same range concerns and everyone would have had to carry their own flask of petrol in the car.

If I come at it from the position of a policymaker who has to make big decisions, the area that will require the most attention is actually carbon capture and storage. If they can make that work – thinking about the amount of coal and gas that’s out there – getting cost-effective carbon capture and storage up and working properly would balance those three poles I mentioned earlier to do with sustainability, affordability and security of supply. It addresses the economic, the environmental and the political.

I know that people are thinking about 2020 or 2025, and carbon capture and storage is one step. Maybe a next step is carbon extraction, if we want to get into the God role of managing the climate. But as far as I’m concerned, carbon capture and storage is the most prominent prospect, if it can be made to work properly.

S: Finally, imagine we’re looking 50 years down the road and the world has made significant strides towards combating climate change and

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energy innovation report section title

OIL

35% AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY AND SERVICES

COAL

GAS

BIOMAS

46%

25% 21%

POWER GENERATION AND CONSUMPTION

MOBILITY

27%

10%

NUCLEAR RENEWABLES

6% 3%

RESIDENTIAL

27% Data source: Shell GameChanger Technology Futures Report, 2007

TRANSITIONING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY, WHAT DOES EUROPE LOOK LIKE? IS IT STILL RECOGNISABLE AS THE EUROPE OF TODAY, IN TERMS OF THE ENERGIES WE’RE USING, OR IS THE EUROPE OF YOUR IMAGINATION A VERY DIFFERENT PLACE? SF: There are multiple levels to your question, but I’d say the first level is market organisation. If we do go down a path towards a sustainable future, you will have better integration of energy networks across the continent. I’m not limiting myself to the EU; I’m saying across the whole ECE European region. The rules of trade and transit have been made efficient, so there’s less of a national perspective and more of a market perspective. That’s actually quite important and has many ramifications. There will be a much more sustainable blend of distributed power generation of a renewable nature, with various sorts of storage capacity, both in transport and in other ways. There’s a lot of novel technology out there that will contribute.

You will still have large central stations with carbon capture and storage, but you’ll have the supergrid. There will be the smart grid, and you’ll have what’s called domotoics: it’s an expression that I love, that I’m trying to introduce into the English language – it’s robotics and domo, which is Italian for house, so it’s basically the smart house. As you’re sitting in your apartment, you don’t know what the price of electricity is in the UK right now. But by having

automation, your house is going to be in constant contact with an internet-reported price, and it will know at any given time how to respond. So you will be automating both the information-gathering and the response – the refrigerator will make a decision, should it cool or not cool for the next ten minutes, or the next hour.

You will have a Europe that’s much more price-responsive, with greater price elasticity, much more storage capacity and many more renewables in the energy mix. Thus, renewables aside, your average capacity factor for central power stations is going to rise from a current level of around 52% to 53% – that’s an OECD average – closer to 70% to 80%, which is the normal industrial availability for factories in operation. The only reason we’re at the lower level now is because of the cycle of supply and electricity. Once you have this price responsiveness in the storage capacity, you instantly flatten your load curve and your central power stations are able to operate baseload and accommodate more of the renewables.

We are also likely to see significant changes in transport demand and the way the transport sector looks in terms of the energy that’s driving it. So yes, there will be significant changes, and yes, they will be steep, not gradual changes as these new technologies become available. It’s actually a pretty exciting future that we’re looking to.

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space energy

W

ith our desire for energy, and the price we’re willing to pay for it, on a seemingly unrelenting rise, the need for reliable, clean and affordable power is undeniable. To date, financial and creative investment in alternative energy (think wind, water and ground-based solar power) is increasing. But the electricity such technology produces is only supplementary, with many developing countries still facing massive shortages. Add into the equation the cost and associated risk of nuclear energy – the only other largescale, non-carbon, baseload power option – and it’s clear an effective, pioneering energy alternative is required.

Thankfully, Space Energy is preparing to beam greener energy to earth

in the form of Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP). While this project – expected to come to fruition in the next decade – involves satellites, NASA scientists and a sizeable fan club, it belongs anywhere but in the pages of even the most fast-paced science-fiction novel.

To explain: Space Energy, which is founded by the serial entrepreneur Peter Sage, is aiming to be the first private company to harness and commercialise SBSP and send clean, effective energy almost anywhere on earth. According to their current business plan, this involves launching 15 solar-powered satellites, complete with huge photovoltaic panels, into space. These use low-power radio waves to transmit solar power to receiving antennae back on earth.

The satellites will be positioned 36,000km above our heads and constantly face the sun, meaning they will function 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

With some antennae to be constructed in rural areas that can’t currently access mainline grid power, the potential benefits for remote communities are immeasurable. Their electrification should result in clean running water, refrigeration for medicine and crops, power for schools, homes and hospitals and an overall improvement in the standard of living.

For Space Energy, there are two key stages to development. The first involves launching a prototype satellite into low earth orbit,

which will demonstrate the full technology. If this is successful, the company will enter into power-supply contracts and construct the commercial-strength satellites. While the project’s second stage may be a while off, an ongoing reduction in launch costs and growing public support make SBSP a real possibility.

In fact, photovoltaic panels themselves – the technology that converts

solar radiation into direct-current electricity – have come a long way in recent years. Six years ago they were made from a heavy glass substrate but are now built from an ultra-light film substance that weighs 100 times less than its predecessor. This in turn reduces launch costs dramatically.

Weight aside, when it comes to energy production a single Space Energy satellite is roughly equal to a large nuclear power station. And once you factor in decommissioning costs, and the expenses associated with nuclear waste, SBSP is noticeably cheaper than the nuclear alternative. It’s also safer, with zero risk of contamination, suggesting that satellites could be a viable alternative to nuclear power.

Additionally, SBSP is 43 times more effective than its groundbound counterpart. So in space, a single square-metre solar panel will produce the equivalent of 43 square metres on earth. Thus there’s a huge leap in efficiency. There are also no spatial constraints, and the issue of aesthetics doesn’t come into play. (Unlike wind farms or transmission lines, it’s rather difficult to spot a satellite.)

But the idea of placing solar panels in orbit where the sun never sets, rather than on rooftops, has existed for decades. What has changed is the concept’s commercial viability. With a socially aware business mind like Sage’s behind the project – admittedly he leaves the science to the scientists – SBSP is being proposed to the right people, proving its practicality and taking advantage of that moment when people drop their scepticism and think ‘this idea might actually work’. Who would have thought the final frontier could provide a green energy solution? spaceenergy.com

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SuperSmart Grid

Image courtesy of esolar

energy innovation report

W

ith more than 60 oil-producing countries already past their production peak, the world’s energy demand is expected to increase by 50% by 2030. And with tighter limitations placed on greenhouse-gas emissions, green energy is on everyone’s mind. While Europe is rich in renewable resources, some of which are weather-dependent, these are not evenly spread and are often located in marginal areas, far from consumption centres. Many of these renewables cannot reach certain consumers, and are struggling to meet demand. The need for a new, inclusive grid and a reliable energy supply is painfully apparent.

Interestingly, though, a renewable energy solution may be geographically

closer than we think. The North African desert region is known to have huge potential for wind and solar power. With open land, plenty of sun exposure and a virtually flat landscape, power produced here could exceed the energy demands of Europe and the Mediterranean many times over.

All that’s needed to harness this potential is a simple technological step. The electricity produced in the proposed African wind and solar farms needs to travel to European load centres. While the current AC system can’t do this due to high transmission losses, an upgraded SuperSmart Grid (SSG) could connect the European electricity market to its North African neighbours. This would integrate renewable energy sources into the European grid.

Begun in 2006, the SSG aims to merge super-grid and smart-grid competences into a comprehensive network. A super grid is a highvolume, long-distance energy transmission web, and a smart grid is an intelligent electrical network which endeavours to predict and respond to the behaviour and demands of both suppliers and consumers. Recently, the SSG and the corresponding US organisation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have begun negotiations to verify consistent standards. This will ensure that devices and systems can be designed and implemented in a similar way across the globe.

The SSG is being developed by a group which divide its time between the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Climate Forum. Headed up by Antonella Battaglini, the team believe SSG’s development is a prerequisite for moving towards a power sector that could be 100% renewable.

investigates what needs to happen at political and economic levels to realise the SSG without delay.’

After an initial bout of scepticism, the SSG concept is capturing attention across Europe. As well as optimising pre-existing energy systems by connecting them to a reliable source of green energy, SSG is also expected to reduce dependency on the imports and infrastructure currently needed for energy production and transmission. For this reason, says Battaglini, ‘SSG is more and more appreciated and the term is becoming widely used’.

Incredibly, the recession has failed to dampen the SSG’s progress.

In fact, it has done quite the opposite, with the topic of grid infrastructure appearing more important than ever. Right now Europe is re-examining its energy policies, focusing on a faster phasing-out of nuclear energies and all the while considering fresh ways of upgrading its share and use of renewable energies – most of which are only possible with a new electric grid infrastructure. It’s interesting to think that all we may need to get one step closer to a 100% renewable energy supply is an upgrade. supersmartgrid.net

As Battaglini explains, the proposed SSG ‘would allow the transmission

Image courtesy of www2.sea.siemens.com

Image courtesy of supersmartgrid.net

of electricity over long distances, across different wind and weather regions and would combine wind and solar potentials, thus smoothing overall variability’. As it is, the current grid, which does not cover the entire area in question, is ageing and in need of expansion. To be truly effective, it needs to become ‘smart’. That is, it needs to be ‘capable of managing large numbers of decentralised units and, in the near future, providing demand-response capabilities. The SSG process

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Photo: Marsha Miller/UT Austin

energy innovation report

Left to right Mike Kotschenreuther, Swadesh Mahajan, Erich Schneider, Prashant Valanju, 2008

A Nuclear Future Without the Weapons or the Waste

P

owering the planet while combating climate change poses one of the major challenges for the energy of the future. But a group of physicists at the University of Texas think they’ve found an important solution in a familiar, albeit contentious, source.

‘Nuclear energy is probably the most dependable tried-andtested technology which can see us through the next 30 to 40 years for decarbonisation,’ affirms Professor Swadesh Mahajan. While nuclear energy ranks among the lowest carbon-emitting energy sources available, the earthquake in Japan offered a reminder of the dangers surrounding its radioactive waste-products, and fissible materials remain relatively scarce. However, Mahajan and his fellow researchers, Mike Kotschenreuther and Prashant Valanju, are convinced they’ve developed a fission-fusion hybrid that can address many of nuclear power’s most pressing concerns.

‘For nuclear energy to be sustainable, you have to have fuel available for a long time and you have to be able to handle the waste,’ says Mahajan. ‘What we do is bring in an external agent, a fusion neutron, in order to deeply affect fission, so that two of those cardinal sins, that is, the waste problem as well as the eventual inadequacy of the fuel, can be taken care of.’

The team’s proposed reactor would use deuterium-tritium plasma to

produce streams of neutrons, the addition of which to relatively abundant materials such as Thorium would create a usable fuel for today’s reactors. This would reduce the demand for materials such as the limited Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239 – and perhaps, more importantly, diminish the half-life of radioactive waste.

During the process, ‘well above 90% of the waste would be destroyed in a small number of decades in our process, rather than of the order of a century or two for other processes’, says Kotschenreuther.

There’s another advantage as well. ‘The way we destroy the waste, we transmute its elements efficiently into other elements, and we are not able to make bombs out of the material,’ Valanju clarifies.

It’s true that fear of nuclear bombs and waste have created unease around nuclear power. But the Austin researchers see nuclear as essential, given the harm caused by C02-emitting technologies, and the intermittencies could well plague widespread green-technology implementation for years to come. Moreover, with India’s and China’s governments committed to large-scale nuclear projects, finding a good and affordable solution to nuclear technologies could prove essential in the short and middle term.

The scientific community has embraced the team’s research, but the technology is still some way from becoming a reality, explains Mahajan, both in terms of time and cash. He and his colleagues need to raise about $10m, and contract engineers to design a prototype of the reactor.

If their concept proves correct, as rigorous testing suggests, the world could be taking a crucial step towards controlling nuclear waste and weapons proliferation, and the world’s carbon emissions, within the next two decades. w3fusion.ph.utexas.edu

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Photo: Courtesy by the EBRD

energy innovation report

Enguri hydro power plant in Georgia

a pioneer energy equity fund

A

€40m pot of cash has been established to help Turkey and surrounding countries tap into cleaner energy resources.

The money has been set aside by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to develop private hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass and solar-power projects in what is one of the world’s most energy-intensive regions.

The money will help establish the Clean Energy Transition Fund, which backers hope will eventually swell to €200m.

‘The region is rich in clean energy resources, but they remain largely unused,’ explained Alain Pilloux, EBRD managing director for industry, commerce and agribusiness. ‘With our support, we will provide private developers of energy projects with capital and expertise to implement power projects in line with the governments’ ambitious clean energy targets.’

The fund will also provide financing for clean generation, energy-efficiency equipment and service suppliers. The EBRD has already funded 44 projects in 19 countries, ranging from Poland to Tajikistan, since January under its Sustainable Energy Initiative. ebrd.com/pages/sector/energyefficiency

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energy innovation report

Image ©Andrew Aitchison

Midlands Wood Fuel One of the winners of the 2011 Ashden Awards, Midlands Wood Fuel is helping pave the way in making wood a more reliable and user-friendly fuel.

Based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK, the company supplies chips to more than 100 homes, business and public-sector customers such as libraries and schools.

The wood comes from sustainable sources and is seasoned for a year before it is chipped to make it burn more efficiently. It is low-grade timber which has very little other market value. The company has nine depots sited near clusters of customers to minimise the carbon impact of transportation.

Last year, Midlands Wood Fuel supplied 5,253 tonnes of wood fuel across the Midlands, saving about 3,700 tonnes of CO2. The business expects to enjoy a major boost from the arrival of the Renewable Heat Incentive in 2012. When the Green Deal aspect of the scheme is introduced, a tariff will provide fixed annual payments to people who install renewable heating systems.

The RHI Premium Payment will be worth around £15m, and will be spread across a range of renewable technologies and to all regions of Great Britain. wood-fuel.co.uk

Solar Tunnel If you’re travelling from Paris to Amsterdam, part of your journey may well be fuelled by the sun – 2011 has seen the dawn of Europe’s first solar-powered trains.

The Solar Tunnel project symbolises the meeting of rail travel and renewable energy with 16,000 solar panels, equivalent in size to eight football pitches, installed on the roof of a high-speed rail tunnel in Antwerp, Belgium. The energy generated will be used to power trains and railway infrastructure such as signalling and the lighting and heating of stations.

Energy produced by the installation will enable 4,000 train departures per year to run exclusively on solar energy, with the output estimated to be equivalent to the annual consumption of approximately 1,000 homes.

The project is a collaboration between Belgian rail operator Infrabel, renewable energy developer Enfinity, solar construction company Solar Power Systems and local municipalities and finance companies. As the first of its kind to deliver energy directly to trains onsite, the project’s performance will be closely monitored to decide on the future of other similar projects. www.enfinitycorp.com

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energy innovation report

Oxford PV

Sound of Islay tidal power array Despite the comforting predictability of the sea’s ebb and flow, tidal power has traditionally attracted less attention than wind and solar because of relatively high start-up costs and a limited number of suitable sites.

Though the chilly depths of the Scottish seas may be attractive only to the bravest of swimmers, the area is thought to offer as much as 25% of Europe’s potential tidal-energy resource.

After getting the go-ahead from the Scottish Government in March, ten one-megawatt turbines are set to be placed on the sea bed off the west coast of Scotland between the islands of Islay and Jura, renowned for the fortifying quality of their malt whiskies.

The strait possesses the magic combination of high currents and being sheltered from storms, and the £40m scheme is expected to generate enough clean, green power to run 10,000 homes – twice the number currently on the island – as well as Islay’s eight malt whisky distilleries.

It will use tidal turbines, which are similar to smaller, more stumpy wind turbines and which have been developed by Hammerfest Strøm AS after years of testing in the fjords of Norway.

The scheme will harness the power of tidal waters moving up to three metres per second, while remaining invisible above the water.

ScottishPower Renewables is expected to have machines installed as early as 2013.

Though it is expected to become one of the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, the Islay scheme may soon be dwarfed by a much larger scheme planned for the nearby Pentland Firth as the tidal-power movement gathers pace.

Proposals are tabled to produce 1,600 megawatts of energy there in the coming years.

A company based in Oxford, UK is developing a new film solar technology which they predict will cost half as much to manufacture as the current cheapest thin film cells.

Oxford Photovoltaics say they have developed new solar cell technology which is manufactured from cheap, abundant, non-toxic and non-corrosive materials and which can be scaled to any volume.

Harnessing the sun’s energy, the solar cells are printed onto glass or other surfaces and are available in a range of colours. They are billed as being ideal to incorporate into glazing panels and walls in new buildings.

Working with Isis Innovation, Oxford University’s technology-transfer company, the team has combined earlier research on artificial photosynthetic electrochemical solar cells with semiconducting plastics, enabling them to create manufacturable, solid-state, dye-sensitised solar cells. While other technologies are currently hampered by the scarcity of the minerals used, Oxford PV’s technology replaces the liquid electrolyte with a solid organic semiconductor, allowing entire solar modules to be screen-printed onto glass and other surfaces. They say green is the most efficient ‘semi-transparent’ colour for producing electricity, although red and purple also work well.

The technology was developed by Dr Henry Snaith of Oxford University’s Department of Physics. He says: ‘One of the great advantages is that we can process the technology over large areas very easily. You don’t have to worry about extensive sealing and encapsulation, which is an issue for the electrolyte dye cell.’ Oxford PV predict that their mechanism will eventually match the unsubsidised cost of electricity generated from fossil fuels. isis-innovation.com

hammerfeststrom.com

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Revolution Door Millions of people pass through revolving doors each day all over the world, and the inventive Revolution Door offers a way of tapping into this energy resource. Designed by Fluxxlab studio in New York, the technology can be installed in existing or new doors with a mechanical/electrical system harnessing and redistributing human energy through an output device. Each person’s contribution to the energy cycle is shown on a display as a way of raising awareness and creating a metabolic relationship between people, technology and architecture.

Fluxxlab describes the mechanism as an ‘urban turbine’. A typical Revolution Door in New York can power 16 fluorescent bulbs for an entire day.

Such an energy flow could provide lobby lighting, for example. A number of similar projects are in operation worldwide. fluxxlab.com

Pavegen Systems Pedestrians pounding pavements all over the world could soon be creating renewable energy with every step through a concept developed by a UK company.

Paving pioneers at Pavegen Systems have developed a technology which transforms the kinetic energy from human footfall into renewable electricity. Perfectly suited to urban environments with a high footfall density, Pavegen’s slabs are capable of powering low-energy, off-grid applications from overhead pedestrian lighting to underfoot way-finding lighting, ticket barriers and signs.

The slabs are made from 100% recycled car tyres.

Pavegen say that up to seven watts of energy can be generated from a single footstep. The electricity can be used immediately, or stored in batteries for later use.

Pavegen is set to be installed in Europe’s largest shopping centre, Westfield Stratford, and will also line the main pedestrian bridge linking an Underground station with the London 2012 Olympic Village.

The technology has also been installed in a secondary school in Kent, where educational displays throughout a corridor are lit up by staff and students walking past on their way to and from lessons. pavegen.com

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energy innovation report

Pylon design Architects, designers and engineers in the UK were challenged to rethink the design of one of the most crucial yet controversial features of modern Britain: the electricity pylon.

There are more than 88,000 pylons in the UK, but the familiar steel lattice tower has barely changed since the 1920s.

Six designs have been shortlisted in the competition, run by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the National Grid and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Their brief was to design a pylon which has the potential to deliver for future generations while balancing the needs of local communities and preserving the beauty of the countryside.

A display featuring scale models of the shortlisted designs forms part of the London Design Festival, and will be on display at the V&A Museum until 5 October.

‘Britain will see the equivalent of 20 new power stations constructed by 2020, and we need to use electricity pylons to get this new, low-carbon energy to televisions and toasters, dishwashers and DVD players,’ said UK Energy and Climate Change minister Chris Huhne.

The competition attracted 250 designs from around the world, hoping to secure the £10,000 prize. An overall winner will be announced in October. ribapylondesign.com

Judges decided the exaggerated reach of Ian Ritchie Architects’ pylon design Silhouette became an ‘animated character of the landscape’

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energy innovation report

Parans Solar Lighting Sun-seeking designers at Swedish company Parans have created a system which captures the rays of the sun to bring natural light indoors.

The Parans system captures and leads sunlight into a building, via fibre-optic cables, from a receiver outside and helps illuminate rooms or parts of rooms where the sun doesn’t reach.

Their latest developments make it possible for the sunlight receiver to follow the sun through daylight hours. One receiver is capable of capturing enough natural light for a 40 sq m room.

The company was founded in 2002, and the first version of Parans’ patented technology was commercialised two years later following collaboration with Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg. Their products are now sold all over the world.

‘We have made good, concentrated progress in development during the last year,’ said CEO Nils Nilsson. ‘Our new Parans system provides higher brightness, is easier to install and is smaller in both size and price compared to its predecessors.’ parans.com

Image: Adam Moerk

Active House As the world’s first CO2 neutral home, the Active House is groundbreaking as it produces more energy than it consumes. The self-sufficient house collects and stores solar energy with sensors measuring heat, CO2 and humidity in all rooms. The total window area is twice the size of a normal house, allowing for plenty of light and minimising the need for electric lighting during the daytime.

Automatic window-opening mechanisms let in fresh air when necessary, maintaining perfect climate control. Sensors turn off electric lights when people leave the room and the floor tiles are made of recycled glass.

It is estimated that, with the surplus energy produced by the house, it will take 40 years to balance out the energy it has taken to produce the building materials. After that, it effectively becomes a below-zero CO2 house as it returns more to nature than it has consumed.

The design of the house seeks to optimise positive impact on occupants, environment and climate, embracing architecture and liveability with a holistic approach to sustainability. The house won the Green Good Design Award 2010. activehouse.info

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energy innovation report

R2B2 In R2B2, by German graduate Christoph Thetard, electricity-guzzling kitchen gadgets have been designed out of the equation.

The machine combines a coffee grinder, hand blender and food processor, encased in a stylish wooden unit and powered by a pedal-driven flywheel.

Chopping herbs, grating cheese or even mixing cocktails, all tasks are accomplished with just a few turns of the pedal.

Cutting out the need for electricity, R2B2 can also store energy, is virtually silent when running and has been created with the future in mind: it is designed to last a lifetime. christoph-thetard.de

NOVAK ROCKING CHAIR While the Novak chair may look more at home on a space ship than in your house, it has certainly created a fair amount of hype over the last couple of years.

Until now, only prototypes have been available, but the development stage is almost over, with a production piece going on show at Vienna Design Week from 28 September.

The concept is to produce energy while relaxing on the chair, with an integrated kinematic mechanism harnessing the energy produced, either to light up an LED reading lamp, charge an iPod or even store it in batteries under the seat. The idea taps into the human habit of automatically engaging in a rocking motion when sitting in a chair of this kind.

The chair was designed by Petr Novak at Czech design studio Novague, whose mission is to utilise the energy all around us and transform it into something useful. novague.com

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photography

Sublime talks power with the third laureate of the prestigious Prix Pictet

A THOUSAND WORDS Words Katrine Carstens Photographs Mitch Epstein

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‘I wanted to photograph the dangerous trinity of corporate power, consumerist advertising and a spellbound citizenry’

‘I

wanted to photograph the dangerous trinity of corporate power, consumerist advertising and a spellbound citizenry – one that believes that success means having more and using more. American Power is an active response to the American Dream gone awry.’

The inspiration for this five-year project, spanning 25 states, came to Mitch Epstein as he photographed a small town in Ohio being levelled to the ground in 2003 after it had been bought out by utility giant American Electric Power. This drastic move by the company came after snowballing complaints of health problems stemming from their power plant, and a gagging order was imposed to keep residents quiet.

Epstein reflects: ‘I photographed a consumerist society inured to the consequences of unbridled consumption. Many living in the shadows of power plants despaired of their polluted water and air, but did not have the economic resources to relocate.

Growth no longer meant progress but self-destruction.’

Seeing the human and environmental cost of growth up close awakened an urge in him to investigate in more depth the role of energy in the United States. The end result was American Power, a series of pictures looking at the impact of government, corporations and mass consumption on nature and human life.

Epstein comments: ‘We now need to export a revised model of growth, a revised American Dream. In American Power I included pictures of renewable energy – wind, biotech, solar – to show that a healthier, more economical and compassionate way of life is possible.’

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‘We now need to export a revised model of growth, a revised American Dream. in American Power I included pictures of renewable energy – wind, biotech, solar – to show that a healthier, more economical and compassionate way of life is possible’ To circulate the work beyond the art world Epstein and his wife, writer Susan Bell, created an interactive public art project, using billboards in Ohio and a website (whatisamericanpower.com).

American Power earned Mitch Epstein the 2010 Prix Pictet, sponsored by Geneva-based private bank Pictet & Cie. This prominent award for photography and sustainability was launched in 2008. Sir David King, Chair of the Judges, said: ‘Epstein’s epic, beautifully realised photographs employ a vantage point that is so perfect as to subtly disorientate you, while at the same time delivering a message of great power.’ Mitch Epstein won the award from a shortlist of twelve photographers, whose collective works will be shown around Europe.

Epstein has published seven books, including the retrospective monograph Mitch Epstein: Work (2006), Recreation: American Photographs 1973–1988 (2005) and Family Business (2003). Family Business received the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. As well as being a photographer, he has worked as a director, cinematographer and production designer on several films. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. mitchepstein.net

American Power is published by Steidl (2009), £48 rrp

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sustainable fashion

MAKing IT BIG

by Frances Corner Professor Frances Corner OBE is Head of College at the London College of Fashion

Feeling stuck in a rut, bored with your job – or just glad you’ve still got one?

For students and workers in the creative industries, raw talent on its own will never be enough to get on. For the rest of us, we probably could do better

W

e see a lot of talent at the London College of Fashion.

That’s what we are about – nurturing future world leaders of fashion. I am privileged to see talented young designers at the birth of their career. But watching students progress through the college, and looking at their experiences afterwards, I know that success demands a great deal more than just talent.

Of course, talent is a prerequisite: there is little point in embarking on any of our courses without an eye for colour and style, hands that can craft and a brain crackling with originality, any more than music is the future for someone who is tone deaf. But talent is not enough. We also look for students who can maximise on that talent, who have the ability to learn and are dedicated to hard work. These two qualities are necessary, whatever field you choose to excel in.

Talent needs to be fostered and built upon. There are probably a million talented artists in this country with a magnificent ability to paint or draw. Yet most of them dabble, for they are ‘good enough’. The brave ones put themselves up for criticism: they explore different techniques and experiment with various styles.

They learn about colour, light and shade, seeking to understand those who came before them so that they can use that knowledge to create something original of their own. For many young people, a lack of selfconfidence is masked by arrogance, which stops them from listening.

Humility in the face of past masters is what is needed.

there is a lot of raw talent out there. They are always waiting to snap up the schoolboy stars, but most are let go long before they are considered good enough for the first team. These are the ones who think they are too good to need to learn, and are not prepared to put in the hours of practice it takes to get better. They want the lifestyle of a Premier League footballer without understanding the sweat needed to achieve it. The famous American inventor, Thomas Edison said: ‘Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.’ This is true in any field.

Most of us do not have extraordinary gifts, but that is no excuse for

not capitalising on our talent. In today’s economic climate, young women now could be working for the next 50 years as the pension age continues to rise. If they work only for the money to keep themselves alive, they are wasting a great deal of their life. We need to make the very most of the talent that we have.

Success does not mean reaching the top; success means being happy.

Nowadays, not only is a job not for life, but changing career is common.

Matthew Parris, the Times columnist and former Conservative MP, says: ‘If you don’t succeed at first, then by all means give it a really good go, but then give up and try something else.’

He claims to have failed at six careers before finding his calling.

Everybody can follow their dream, but it takes courage. A fear of failure drives many people into safe jobs and second-choice careers. One should not spend the rest of one’s life wondering what would have happened, if only. Failure can bring rewards, demonstrating our strengths as well as our weaknesses. Failure can be part of learning, seeing why not to do something in a certain way.

The terrible British habit of delighting in the fall of an idol stems from the bitterness of the many who never dared to try and who hate anyone who succeeds. Yet we need talent in this country, a small island with dwindling natural resources which has to rely on the skills of its people. Instead of pushing for the safe and the routine, we need to be nurturing and upskilling people, encouraging bravery and natural talent.

A fear of failure drives people into safe jobs and secondchoice careers. One should not spend the rest of one’s life wondering what would have happened, if only

Determination and hard work must go hand in hand with talent in

order to succeed. The script for the film that made Hugh Grant’s career, Four Weddings and a Funeral, was rewritten 17 times before it was accepted. Watch it again today: it stands the test of time, being both tightly written and incredibly funny. Now that the writer, Richard Curtis, is famous, he is no longer subjected to that discipline. Sometimes it shows.

United States President Thomas Jefferson said: ‘I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.’ This has been echoed across the centuries by most successful people, particularly in sport. Any professional football club will tell you that

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ethical stores

MERCI Words Zara-Jade Bestwick

S

ituated in the Marais district of Paris, Merci helps to break down every stereotypical notion that might exist between the rival left and right banks of the city. By encompassing some of the raw artistry and literary intellect from the left bank within a space graced by the refinement and opulent elegance of the right, Merci has been able to establish a collaboration of talent from across Paris, and indeed the world.

Set up by the founders of the children’s brand Bonpoint, MarieFrance and Bernard Cohen, a veritable magpie’s nest is spread across three storeys, covering a staggering 1,500m2 of a former factory.

In keeping with all unconventional dwellings, Merci cultivates the different moods and attitudes of home from the Book Café,

A charming, beautifully conceived mini-department store is a home from home

where you can view and purchase old books, to the corner florist

by Christian Tortu. With an abundance of nooks and crannies for vintage furniture, a laboratory in which to create your own fragrance, custom pieces and crafted designer goods from names such as Yves Saint Laurent, François Azambourg and Comme des Garçons, great design here is second to none.

While you are greeted on entering by a quirky vintage Fiat 500 decorated with seasonal goods, tactile elements abound such as wood, concrete and glass, amplifying an intensity of light and warmth that welcomes you in.

As if that were not enough, Merci is a non-profit organisation, so that aside from vital running costs, all profits are donated towards children’s charities in Madagascar and India.

Merci, 111 Boulevard Beaumarchais, 75003 Paris merci-merci.com

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Shirt, Boudoir D’huitres leather chaps, Mikel Bennett necklace, stylist’s own cuff, Lady & Ruin shoes, Jil Sander

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section fashion title

ENRAPTURED Photography Lindsay Adler Styling LSC

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Dress, Boudoir D’huitres crown, Savannah Wyatt necklace, stylist’s own ring, Lady & Ruin cuffs, Ben-Amun

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Dress, Charles Henry bolero, Eva Nyiri necklace, Betsey Johnson bracelet, J. Cottingim

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Dress, Boudoir D’huitres chain hood and earrings, Laurel Luxe ring, Lady & Ruin cuff, Ben-Amun

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Dress, Charles Henry bolero, Eva Nyiri belt, Logan Neitzel necklace, Betsey Johnson bracelet, J. Cottingim

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Dress, Sunghee Bang epaulettes, Logan Neitzel necklace and ring, Lady & Ruin necklace, Ben-Amun

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Dress, A La Disposition necklace and cuffs, Ben-Amun gloves and neckpiece worn as headpiece, Lady & Ruin bracelet, Lady & Ruin body jewellery, Armor

Photographer Lindsay Adler, lindsayadlerphotography.com Stylist LSC for 4Season Style Management Hair CheVogue Make-up Hagen Linss represented by Kess Agency Assistant Stylist Kristine Souza Model Celia Becker at Muse Management

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fashion Dress, Amaya Arzuaga necklace and belt, Maria EscotĂŠ

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show me Photography Ale Burset Styling Kattaca

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Jacket, It-Spain dress, Dsquared2 shoes, Amaya Arzuaga

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Dress, Maria EscotĂŠ jacket, It-Spain shoes, Amaya Arzuaga

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Trousers and shoes, Amaya Arzuaga bra, Wolford jacket and sleeves, It-Spain

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Dress, Amaya Arzuaga shirt, BDBA tights, Wolford gloves, Maya Kaloyanova necklace, Maria EscotĂŠ bracelet, Mango Photography Ale Burset, aleburset.com Styling Kattaca, kattaca.com Hair x-presion.eu Make-up Lewis Amarante Assistant Gabriel Diaz de la Morena Model Ivetta at Uno BCN Post production F16 producciones/diego speroni, f16producciones.com

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For ever England Photography Charl Marais Styling Rachel Gold

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fashion Previous page Ali Vintage Dior coat, Oxfam James Pinstripe jacket, Newell Bespoke hat, Stylish Angel Odile Blouse, stylist’s own halter catsuit, Deploy

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This page Odile Bag, stylist’s own sports briefs, stylist’s own Ali Leather jacket, Stylish Angel necklace, Stylish Angel Left Odile Tweed jumpsuit, Seroge hat, Stylish Angel belt, stylist’s own James Two-piece suit, Newell Bespoke shoes, Izzue

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This page Jacket, Newell Bespoke shorts, Izzue necklace, Stylish Angel socks, stylist’s own shoes, Underground Left Wraparound coat dress, Youmewe shirt, stylist’s own

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This page Trousers and scarf, Seroge shoes, stylist’s own Right James Three-piece suit, Newell Bespoke shoes, Underground Ali Wrap trousers, Seroge belt, Stylish Angel blouse, stylist’s own shoes, stylist’s own

Photography Charl Marais Styling Rachel Gold Hair and make-up Beth Alderson Models Ali, Odile and James A. at Select Stockists deployworkshop.com harrods.com (Izzue) newellbespoke.com seroge.com stylishangel.com underground-england.co.uk

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29/09/2011 15:33

places

‘I

t’s an easy walk – anyone can do it,’ said Harry, our guide. The vibe from the Zermatt tourist office was a little more cautious: ‘It’s quite demanding – three hours hike up and three hours down. You need to have the right level of fitness.’ But no one could quite explain what the hike to Zermatt’s Monte Rosa Hut is really like.

A week before I left on my first summer trip to the Alps, I received an email saying, ‘Bring good hiking shoes. You will need to put crampons on at the end of the hike’. I suppose this was a warning of sorts, but there was still no mention of jumping over 200-metre-deep crevasses, climbing down vertical ladders or the fact that the hike finishes with a serious rocky ascent.

It may well be a reflection on the fitness of the group (some were over 60), but we left Zermatt at 7am, took the train up the mountain and hiked for four hours solid. The first hour took us along an easy mountain path, affording great views across the valley, the Monte Rosa glacier and its namesake hut.

‘It looks about 20 minutes away,’ I joked, looking across at the hut,

its angular glass exterior gleaming like a shard of ice. ‘No, no, no,’ said Harry, ‘it’s just that the autumn air is so clean the distance looks less.’ We crossed a few sandy patches, all of which Harry called ‘Miami beach’, before reaching a waterfall. Since it was early in the day, the water gushing down from the glacier was relatively calm, but you could still hear it well before it came into view.

The descent to the water consisted of a metal ladder which had somehow been bolted onto the sheer rock face. The more cautious members of the group used a rope, but most just nipped down the steps, hoping not to fall to the rocky bottom. Once down, we crossed a swing bridge made of wooden slats and the serious part began: on with the crampons and on to the Monte Rosa glacier.

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places

After the violence, heartbreak and upheaval that was for decades almost synonymous with Lebanon, some of its As if skiing in Switzerland wasn’t energetic enough, first you’ve got to reach your ski hut. That’s no laughing matter when it comes to the luxurious new Monte Rosa Hut – but the hike is worth it

ON AN ALL-TIME HIGH Words Gabriel O’Rorke

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The Monte Rosa Hut is a collaborative project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the ETH University of Science and Technology in Zurich. The university worked with Swiss architects Bearth and Deplazes and the Swiss Alpine Club. The hut is surrounded by the highest peaks of the Swiss Alps, and is inspiring not only because of its glittering crystal shape but also because it demonstrates state-of-the-art technology. Far from any public utility network, the Monte Rosa Hut relies completely on its own energy production, water collection and systems for treating solid waste and wastewater

Made out of 420 prefab wood elements, the Monte Rosa was built in the most environmentally self-sustainable way possible – it generates as much as 90% of its own energy needs

We walked in single file, winding our way from flag to flag with a steady crunch of metal on ice. Not helping any fraught nerves, Harry informed us that the glacier is 300 metres deep, a sobering thought when jumping across the multiple crevasses that scar the landscape.

‘Well, if you fall down one of ’em, you’re in just as much trouble if it’s ten metres or 300,’ said a fellow hiker, in what could be described either as rampant optimism or rabid pessimism. Having jumped and stumped across the glacier (Harry suggested I walk less aggressively when my crampons fell off for the third time), we finally hit the rocky ascent to the hut. From the other side of the valley, the Monte Rosa looks deceptively close, yet right to the last climb it seemed to refuse to get any nearer.

The final climb looks like nothing more than a half-hour scramble, but it took at least an hour and a half. Zigzagging up the steep, boulder-ridden terrain was both physically and mentally challenging: the former because of the altitude, the latter because, for the majority of the way, the path points in the opposite direction to the hut.

After several hours of hiking, we finally reached the Monte Rosa Hut, standing proud at 2,883 metres and glowing bright in the sunshine with its aluminium walls throwing back reflections of the surrounding Swiss and Italian mountains. All efforts, exertions and suicidal feelings were forgotten.

images this page: Rob Freeman

places

It took six years of planning, 1,200 helicopter flights to ferry all the

materials and a construction period of two summers to build what is being dubbed the ‘mountain hut of the future’. Constructed under the patronage of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC), it is a groundbreaking blend of the latest technology and striking modern architecture. The all-Swiss design not only showcases the country’s talent, but makes repairs and spare parts easy to come by.

The great accolades for its futuristic qualities chiefly come down to its ambitious design. Made out of 420 prefab wood elements, the Monte Rosa was built in the most environmentally self-sustainable way possible – it generates as much as 90% of its own energy needs.

There are solar panels for heating the water, and a photovoltaic array for generating electricity (this is supplemented only in emergencies by a small electricity unit run on rapeseed oil). A ventilation system pumps fresh warm air into the bedrooms, and the stairwell functions as an air-supply duct.

The water used in the hut itself is meltwater, which is collected in the summer, filtered and stored above the hut. Wastewater is purified in a biological microfiltration plant and reused for the lavatories and washing machines.

The irregular octagonal floor plan is divided into ten segments, with the dining room and kitchen on the ground floor. A cascade staircase surrounded by a window wraps around the hut like a ribbon, linking the floors and allowing fabulous views of the famous Matterhorn. As you explore the hut, you can feel a slight movement in its structure.

This is because the thick walls not only provide insulation, but are designed to withstand winds of up to 250km/h, as well as earthquakes.

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compared to others of its kind, the Monte Rosa is high luxury.

Not only does it have flushing toilets, but there are blankets on the bunks rather than rough wool rugs, and there’s even a sauna. some rules, though – like the 10pm bedtime curfew – remind you of its communal and utilitarian roots There are a total of 18 guest rooms, spread over three floors and

packed with bunkbeds which sleep up to 120 people. This may sound like a lot, but mountain huts serve a purpose and, compared to others of its kind, the Monte Rosa is high luxury. Not only does it have flushing toilets, but there are blankets on the bunks rather than rough wool rugs, and there’s even a sauna. Some rules, though – like the 10pm bedtime curfew – remind you of its communal and utilitarian roots.

Most people use the Monte Rosa as a one-night stopover before hiking back to Zermatt, or continuing over into Italy. Climbing is hugely popular in the summer months, and Zermatt has over 400km of signposted paths suitable for all levels of walker. Some walks wind along forest paths, others are good for seeing alpine wildflowers, waterfalls and wildlife. For professionals or thrill-seekers, there’s the Matterhorn peak to conquer.

But before and after hiking to the Monte Rosa, you will need a base in Zermatt. The four-star Park Hotel Beau Site has outstanding views of the Matterhorn, comfortable rooms, plentiful food and a good pool and sauna to ease aching muscles. If your muscles aren’t quite sore enough, then summer skiing is a must. After all, Zermatt boasts Europe’s largest and highest summer skiing area.

There are 25km of pistes and eight ski lifts, which remain open all summer. This may not sound like much compared to the 350km of pistes in winter, but it is great for one or two days, and perfect for anyone who finds a full day of skiing too much. The sun and relatively high temperatures make the snow slushy after midday, so it’s a case of getting out early and coming down the mountain for, or after, lunch.

September and October are great months for summer skiing because the snowfall is becoming thicker and more frequent. This means the pistes further down the mountains are starting to open, but it is still mild enough to enjoy hiking in shorts and a t-shirt.

As for the hike to the Monte Rosa Hut, the further I get from it the more my memory softens to its hardships. Be sure to take a couple of litres of water (something I failed to do), and a good packed lunch with plenty of high-energy snacks (I failed again here). And keep your mind on your feet on the way back down – someone in my group had a nasty fall, saved only by a boulder that happened to come between him and an emergency helicopter ride home.

In hindsight, it is the hardships that make the hike memorable, challenging and worthwhile. If the thought of rösti and a bunkbed on arrival isn’t motivating enough, just think of people’s faces when you tell them you visited the ‘mountain hut of the future’, somewhere you can only reach by foot or mountain rescue helicopter. inghams.co.uk myswitzerland.com swiss.com

The pride of Zermatt’s summer snow is the Klein Matterhorn cable car,

which soars up the incredibly steep mountain face, grinding to a halt at 3,820 metres. This is Europe’s highest lift-serviced summit.

Glacier skiing is not nearly as scary as it sounds. Forget images of near-death experiences on sheet ice: the summer slopes are broad, well-groomed and suitable for beginners and intermediates alike.

Meanwhile, more advanced skiers can try to keep up with Europe’s racing teams who train here, or take on a few black mogul runs.

If you are really keen on beating your speed, then there’s a new gadget on the market to help you: Recon-Zeal’s Transcend Goggles have a polarised screen and inbuilt LCD display which shows you how fast you are going, your altitude, the temperature, your rate of descent and – if applicable – how long your jumps are.

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good brands

Aveda really works … not just for your skin, body and hair, but for the global environment and communities in developing nations around the world

I

t’s not often that a beauty company decides it wants to change the world. But when one does, you can be sure that their entire outlook is going to be something rather extraordinary.

Founded in 1978, Aveda has always aimed to take its place in the beauty industry with effective, botanically based products that help the planet as much as its customers. And – a rarity in today’s capitalised world – they are a company that hopes for economic success only if it comes hand in hand with being environmentally sustainable and responsible.

Aveda aims to change the way everyone views the world around them.

TRUE BEAUTY Words Liz Schaffer

They want to promote the idea of community – while finding new ways to give back – and alter the very notion of environmental leadership. They are an industry leader in using organic ingredients, and are working to replace as many virgin materials in packaging with as much post-consumer recycled content (PCR) as possible.

Moreover, thanks to their extensive use of wind energy, Aveda helps keep 7.2m pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year – surely a green company if ever there was one.

But what is undeniably most inspiring is Aveda’s Earth Month campaign. Designed to raise the awareness, funds and followers desperately needed to support environmental initiatives, they have raised more than £9m, money passed on to Earth Month organisations working for biodiversity protection around the world.

This year, Aveda’s Earth Month focused on clean-water rights.

There is a dire need for efforts like this; a staggering one in eight people worldwide lack access to safe water supplies, and the ongoing water and sanitation crisis has claimed more lives than any war.

Considering how much water is used in the average UK home on a daily basis, such figures don’t seem logical. It’s this discrepancy that has moved Aveda to act.

Revenue from this year’s campaign was channelled through the Global Greengrants Fund and used by Aveda to support 35 regional partners working to preserve clean water in areas where Aveda does business. The money was raised through individual donations and the sale of particular products. For every organic lavender Aveda Light the Way Candle purchased, which normally retails at £16, the company donated £12.80 to GGF. In addition, Londoners were encouraged to lend their legs to April’s five-mile Aveda Walk for Water, with similar family-friendly events unfolding across the globe.

People even donated to the cause by booking an appointment with their

Aveda stylist, many of whom then chose to pass on the profits to clean-water partners. Importantly, while Earth Month may have passed, Aveda are still flying the clean-water flag with their website reminding visitors just how easy it is to change the world. Their simple advice is threefold: to support organic farming, conserve electricity and occasionally pass up meat. Shockingly, it takes up to 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat – and if that doesn’t make tofu sound more appealing, we don’t know what will.

Empowered by their unique mission and a string of successful environmental projects, Aveda believes that authentic beauty works in harmony with the greater web of life; that it is inherited, selfless, sustainable and works towards something bigger.

As Aveda’s president Dominique Consell points out, ‘Said simply, beauty is as beauty does.’ aveda.co.uk

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