Team
Photography · Jan Philipzen
Fashion · Victor Hanen
Makeup · Jenneke Croubels
Fashion Assistant · Calixte Priou
Makeup Assistant · Lou Boudin
Designers
Nicholas Préaud’s fondness for furniture and product design brings him satisfaction on different scales in different timelines. The liberty and authority these designs lend him feed his creativity to break through the boundaries between what exists in the digital and physical world. In fact, some of his projects touch upon abstraction, works that only serve the digital altar. As he investigates, researches, and develops plans and methods to bring these digital works to life – together with Kei Atsumi – Préaud finds himself invested and knee-deep in his design and work principles, an indication of a positive intensification in his design, architecture, and construction research and development.
NR: A focus on design, architecture, and construction research and development: what made you pursue a creative studio on these themes? Where did this strong affinity for these themes come from?
NP: I am a Paris-based architect and designer. I pursued architecture studies in Paris and subsequently worked in several architecture firms such as DGT Architects, Lina Ghotmeh Architecture, Nicolas Laisné Architectes, and more recently Sou Fujimoto Architects in Paris. My background is purely architectural and bridges several practices such as smaller-scale furniture or product design, and construction R&D. My practice spans today from furniture design, interior design, architecture, and R&D (all designed to be built and used in real life) to more abstract and digital works of design meant to exist only digitally. Some projects such as Casa Atibaia are ways of bridging the gap between the digital and the physical world. Initiated as a digital architectural project, we are now working on bringing it to life in the years to come.
Furniture and product design has always been a go-to theme for me to work on as it brings satisfaction on a different scale as well as a different timeline. As architects, we often get lost in never-ending processes due to political or financial parameters that are out of our control. Furniture design gives me more liberty and control over the creative process, and ultimately the finished product. Although my practice aims at a certain form of humility in the creative process, it is also progress-driven, which naturally leads me to invest time and resources in research and development. In the past two years, together with my friend and partner in this adventure, Kei Atsumi, I have designed and put together a manufacturing process for a joining system of architectural elements. We subsequently patented the design and process to bring it to life in the years to come. The joint system aims to allow for any architectural elements such as beams, pillars, or panels to be assembled to one another without any tools or a particular skill, a seemingly interesting subject for disaster relief construction for instance.
How essential is construction research and development in creating design and architecture? Do they go hand-in-hand?
They most often don’t go hand in hand at all in my experience working in Parisian firms. In France at least, these practices are very compartmentalized. Architects work on design and engineers work on R&D. I would say that focusing on R&D applied to architecture makes sense when you want to go beyond the existing techniques and processes which exist and have been normalized. It isn’t essential, but it contributes to broader progress and helps create new techniques and expertise ultimately making the construction process more efficient and sustainable.
I want to learn more about your design process. Do you start with a single concept then go from there, or an already-envisioned product? Is it challenging to lay out the design plans? How many revisions do you go through?
I usually neither iterate so much during the design process nor do I start with an already envisioned product or project. A concept often emerges early on because it makes sense, and is then pushed further until completion.
“I believe there are as many valid concepts as there are approaches to the same project.”
It’s just a matter of it making sense to the final users of the space or product, and of course to you the designer. Depending on the scale and complexity of the project, iterations and revisions are nevertheless bound to happen. This is where engineering and construction knowledge proves useful in the design process. Accurate engineering can be taken into consideration early on in the creative process to avoid painful iterations. My architectural work has been and is for now on a scale not exceeding that of a private home. In this sense, once the wants and needs of the client and the natural context of the construction have been well understood, the design plans follow easily.
Do you prioritize functionality over design in your products? Also, would you say you practice the less is more philosophy?
To a certain extent, I would say I do try to practice the less is more philosophy. I truly believe excellent functionality can be achieved without compromising on design. True utility often suffices to bring beauty out of any given design. In my work, I enjoy emphasizing the simple technicalities of how a given object, space, or building is assembled by revealing the sheer power of the forces at play. Functionality in some cases can also become overly complicated and fussy. Design that doesn’t seek to fulfill a specific given functionality sometimes brings out so much more, as theorized by James J. Gibson with the concept of affordance and perceived action possibilities of an object.
Noting the titles of your design products, there is a touch of East Asian culture in them. What lifestyle or philosophy do you practice that roots from East Asia? Is there a difference between the way East-Asian culture works and that of European and Western one?
My work is impregnated with many references to East Asian culture, specifically Japanese culture. Having been very passionate about the Japanese culture and architecture in my entire life, and having worked at internationally renowned studios led by Japanese architects such as Tsuyoshi Tane or Sou Fujimoto, I have learned a lot about, and continue to seek to learn about, how architectural design can entertain an essential relationship with its foundational natural counterpart. A simple relationship between the artifact and the untouched, and layouts intentionally designed to encompass empty space where anything can happen are essential to me, as opposed to Western architecture and its spaces impose a function on the user. The concept of ‘Ma’ in Japanese culture and architecture exactly points to this.
“The invisible aesthetic of Ma is portrayed by this energy filled with possibilities emerging from the design, an emptiness that reveals unforeseen functions.”
Let us talk about your architecture repertoire. There is a sense of calm in your designs, from the light hues of the interior to the arrangement of the fixtures and furniture.
How do you decide what color and style to use? Do you compromise with your clients’ briefs?
I tend to iterate much more on textures, colors, and furniture than actual sheer architectural geometry which comes more naturally to me. The sense of calm you are referring to probably comes from the essentialness of uncluttered spaces, once again not imposing function but revealing it. In terms of color and style, I would say I try to adapt as much as I can to the context of the design rather than imposing my own. I feel an architectural design is well rolled-out specifically when you cannot recognize its author through the style, but rather through the creative pro- cess which led to its materialization. In this sense, the creative process can lead you in so many different directions.
That is what is interesting to me; each design exists in its own context and with its own referential universe tied to it, not so much its author’s aesthetics.
“That is what is interesting to me; each design exists in its own context and with its own referential universe tied to it, not so much its author’s aesthetics.”
What has been your most challenging project so far? What and how did you learn from it? Also, how would you describe your work ethic through your projects? What architectural elements do you pay attention to?
My most challenging project has been and continues to be Casa Atibaia which I designed in collaboration with Char- lotte Taylor. This project encapsulates so much of what I try to push towards in my practice. Architecture that does not wish to disappear in its surroundings, nor shows off extravagantly either; architecture that exists through the multiplication of natural forces. Started in early 2020, the project was first rolled out as a way of putting forward ideas and our interpretation of Brazilian modernism. Having lived and studied architecture in Brazil, this project resonates so much with me. Phase one of this project which we rolled out in 2020 was met with great enthusiasm and gave us extra incentive to continue pushing for it to materialize. Phase two which will be released soon brings us even closer to this imagined dream-house and consists of a short film and VR experience allowing the viewer to immerse themselves completely in the design in a way the still shots didn’t let you. Phase three which we are very optimistic about will be rolled out in the coming years and will materialize through the construction of the house. We have been in discussion over the past year with clients who are also guiding us through the process.
A question on a title: is there a difference between an architectural designer and solely an architect or a designer?
There is no difference I know of or intended other than this title is the most broad-reaching one I could find on Instagram to define what I do, which is a broad scope going from object and furniture design, to architecture, to digital works, and research and development.
It seems that we have to look forward to your research and development content. What can we expect from you in the upcoming months?
Speaking of which, I have yet to update my website as I am waiting on legal deadlines to communicate more broadly on the R&D aspect of my practice. For the past two years, my partner in this adventure, Kei Atsumi, and I have been developing a joint system that allows anyone to assemble and disassemble architectural elements without the use of tools and without any particular skill set. This joint system is sturdy over time and can be manufactured for panel or framework structures. No tools and no skills prove useful for certain types of constructions including but not limited to emergency architecture and lower-scale wooden homes. Two years of research and development have led to the successful patenting of the system in Japan, which we are now working on marketing and developing more seriously. As this is a slow process, I do not have a date for release but we are working to get it manufactured and on the market as fast as possible.
Our issue touches on the concept of Celebration. Some people seem to only revere design and architecture for their face value. For you, why and what should celebrate (in) design and architecture? For instance, in Casa Atibaia, you seem to celebrate the force of nature. Does nature drive your philosophy in design?
As mentioned above, and also just now by you in the clearest way, my work explores the relationship each design entertains with its surroundings and founding natural elements. As our culture and humanity tend to distance themselves more and more from the most basic and essential connections we still have with the natural elements, I feel the urge to explore and question how this can still happen on a very basic level. I celebrate humility and simplicity in design, that which feels obvious, which looks like it should be rather than not. A lot actually looks like it should not.
“I celebrate the designs whose creative process and formal results are more relevant than their authors.”
Continuing the theme of celebrating nature, you also collaborated with Charlotte Taylor for Coral Arena. How did this collaboration unfold? How can your collaboration fuel the discussion on climate change?
Charlotte and I were approached by the team at Aorist, which is a next-generation cultural institution supporting a climate-forward NFT marketplace for artists creating at the edge of art and technology. Together with the team at Aorist and OMA New York which is one of, if not the, leading architectural firms in the world, we produced a film that portrays the life of a physical artwork that will be installed in the future as a part of the ReefLine masterplan—it is a digital twin to a sculpture that will live and grow over time, depicting the sculpture as a piece of resilient infrastructure. Proceeds from the sale of this release will be donated to The ReefLine, an artificial reef, marine habitat, and sculpture park in Miami Beach. This project was our first meaningful jump into the NFT format and made sense to us creatively and of course, because of the cause it is supporting. We hope the film is viewed and appreciated by many, and that it helped educate the public about what is unfolding and what has yet to unfold in the years to come on the Miami coastline.
Credits
Images · Nicholas Préaud
https://nicholaspreaud.com/
When photographer Bettina Pittaluga talks about developing film, she describes it as painting a picture – retrieving the details within the image, matching the exact skin tone of her subject. If the photographer finds joy in the technical processes of her work, it’s equally joyous to look at the final result. It is evident in Pittaluga’s photography that she approaches the development of each photograph in the context of its individual circumstance, ‘painting’ colour as it is most appropriate. In the broadest sense, her photography evokes a warmness, which Pittaluga communicates in different ways. Sometimes, her images are so dark that it’s only in the contrast of illuminated features that we see the subject, as in Pittaluga’s portrait of Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri for Le Monde’s M magazine. Elsewhere, her work highlights barely the curves of an upper arm, the contours of a profile, or the soft glow of a pregnant stomach. But other images can feel like an explosion of colour – a vivid red, or a minty green. It just depends on the natural lighting that the photographer finds herself working with.
Pittaluga’s photography is defined by the moment that it captures; natural lighting plays a part in that, but so does the emotional bond that the photographer forges with her subject. Regardless of whether she is working on commercial and personal projects, Pittaluga maintains that having a connection to her subject is essential. “My way of communicating does not change,” she tells NR, “I will always be looking for what the person wants to give me.” In a way, Pittaluga is sharing with the viewer what the person, or people, she photographs wanted her to see in the first place. The issue’s theme of celebration is an apt opportunity to contemplate Pittaluga’s work (or, rather, celebrate it) because every image is a celebration of some kind. Whether photographing a milestone – birth, love, and so on – or just capturing a moment that becomes immortalised by her camera, Pittaluga’s work is always a celebration of being human.
NR: There’s a warmth and intimacy to your work and the way you photograph people; is this an approach that you’ve always had in your work, or something that you’ve adapted over time?
BP: I don’t think I could take a photograph in another way. I think the way I photograph is intrinsically linked to the way I communicate; I need to communicate with the other person in order to capture them, in every sense of the word.
NR: You’ve previously mentioned the importance of forging a relationship with the person you’re photographing, whether that’s over a couple of minutes or much more established over time. But besides that, are there any other fundamentals that are important to a good photograph?
BP: I would say that the fundamental thing in a good photograph is to convey a truth; the reality of the moment. Of course, I need intimacy too, but I am always looking for truth. That’s the thing that want me to take a photo.
NR: When it comes to a composition, how much of the staging is a collaboration with the subject?
BP: I find my inspiration in reality, so usually everything is already there. I don’t prepare the set; it’s much more about lighting – natural light – which give me an idea of what I want. I also look for the shape and the form that I see with the light; the colours; the way the person is sitting or looking. Suddenly, it’s like I see something – I don’t know how to describe it because it’s very instinctive.
“When I am looking at the picture [afterwards], I can recognize the composition, but I would not be able to explain it when I am taking them.”
NR: What’s so compelling about your work is the fact that it doesn’t, as you say, look staged. It looks very natural.
BP: I love to shoot people in their own home because of that. I know that I will find something very intimate, not because of the intimacy, but because you can really learn about the person. Usually, I don’t know where I’m going to [shoot], so the only thing that I will ask is whether there is natural light that I can play with. But then it’s also a conversation. Sometimes people are like, “what should I wear?” and I always respond by asking, “how do you want to be represented?” I really want the person to feel comfortable and to be represented like this. And then it’s just about materials and colours – because the lighting is not the same with silver, or it’s not the same with pink or green. But again, it’s about the moment – it’s a feeling actually.
“The detail is the most important thing, it’s the emotion, which I cannot prepare in advance.”
It depends on the person in front of me. I’m following [them] in a way, I’m following what they want to give.
NR: You mention how different colours can affect the photo. Over the course of your time as a photographer, have you learned different techniques for using colour and how it will affect a photograph?
BP: I started photographing in black and white at first because I wanted to develop the film myself. I wanted to know how it works, so it was very important for me to oversee the whole process from beginning to end, when you have the pictures actually in your hand. People [had] said that it was very complicated to develop colour. And it’s really not the same process, it’s very long. But I learned how to develop colour two years ago. I think it’s true that I can see the evolution in my work [when] colour suddenly had more importance. Developing colour is like painting, it’s amazing. You have something neutral, and you can add the colours that you saw. At first, I spent, I don’t know, like seven hours on the same picture, just playing with colours, getting the exact colour of the person’s skin. By developing yourself, you can get great reds, or a really great yellow – so it’s true I am more obsessed by colours now than before. And it’s also about seeing colours with light – it’s a completely different world. Before, maybe I was seeing in black and white without knowing it, and now I can see colour.
NR: When you do the whole process yourself, it changes the way you feel about it – you don’t just press the button and wait, it’s the whole thing.
BP: I don’t take that many pictures because, with analogue, I only have ten pictures per roll.
“That’s why I love this process because it’s about taking time, I’m not in a hurry. “
Well, sometimes I only have one minute to take a photograph, but sometimes you can be really in the present and one minute feel long, so it’s how you take the time. That’s why I really love it also, it’s about taking time.
NR: It’s interesting that you describe developing colour film as being almost like a painting and it made me think, do you see your work as more being about reportage? Or is it more art?
BP: I don’t like labels and I don’t see my work as just one thing, but maybe I’m a portraitist? It’s more this way that I see my work, but it can be a lot of different things. It can be a portrait for press [work], or it can be more artistic. But I always feel poetic. No matter what the project, at the end of the day, it’s about human beings so, that’s why I think I identify more as a portraitist because most of my work is about human beings.
NR: The theme of this issue is celebration and I guess what’s lovely about your work is the way that it celebrates people, it celebrates the human form and the diversity of what it means to be a person. How do you feel celebration comes across in your work?
BP: Actually, I’m so glad you asked that. I think it’s one of my favourite questions ever and this is the first time that someone has asked. To be asked as a photographer to photograph a celebration of any kind – celebrating a child, love between two people, a transition: any kind of celebration. To me, it’s truly an honour. I think it’s the most beautiful thing about my job to be given this extraordinary trust and to be there together, to celebrate, because in a way, I am also celebrating that moment, you know?
NR: I think that ties in with something I wanted to ask you, which is that you’ve spoken previously about the concept of beauty and authenticity, whether that’s a relationship, or of a moment. How much of your role as a photographer is about being there, in that moment, and how much of it is just about pressing the button and waiting for that one shot?
BP: I don’t think you can separate one from the other. And maybe that’s what’s magical in the end – to be able to share the present together and look at it later in pictures. Usually now, with social media, we can take pictures all the time. [So as a photographer], it’s also about the fact that you cannot look at [the photographs] because it’s analogue.
“I cannot look at it straight after, so in a way, I continue to be in the moment.”
NR: As an analogue photographer, does having access to instant photography, with a phone and on social media, does it make you appreciate film more?
BP: I feel lucky to live in a moment of time when it’s so easy to take pictures. My cameras are very big and heavy, so I cannot have them [on me] all the time. To be able to take pictures anytime – and I film a lot because I like that an instant can last more than just a second, it can be longer. I love being able to record a long moment of softness or a long moment that I found beautiful. So, I’m always recording with my phone, and I love it so much, it’s amazing to be able to record so many things that inspire me in the day. No kidding, I think I have 30,000 videos [on my phone] and I buy a lot of memory. As a human being, it’s my way to express myself, to take 100 pictures of a flower in front of me if I want. It’s freedom. But with analogue, like I said, I really draw a portrait of someone, so it takes time and I love that.
Credits
Images · Bettina Pittaluga
https://www.instagram.com/bettinapittaluga/
Though Photographer Hal takes his moniker from the artificial intelligence character of the same name in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are not too many similarities between them. Whereas the sentient HAL 9000 becomes wholly untrusting of his human peers, ‘trust’ is a fundamental component of Hal, the photographer’s, work. Over the course of his career, Hal has dedicated his time to photographing couples – couples he often approaches in bars in his hometown, Tokyo – with the aim of capturing a sense of their love for one another. In his early series, Pinky & Killer DX, Hal invited couples to pose as if they’re inside a purikura (a Japanese photo booth in which the photos are printed onto stickers with effects added over the top). Later, Hal moved his couples to the bathtub and captured the ways in which his (often clothed) subjects arranged themselves in such a contained, small space. Naturally, Hal has also photographed couples pressed against the transparent plastic door of washing machines, but it is his various Flesh Love series that take the idea of capturing a couple’s intimacy to another level.
In Flesh Love, Hal vacuum packs couples in custom-sized plastic bags; their shrink-wrapped bodies carefully positioned in a way that captures the unique bond that defines that couple’s love (no vacuum-packed couple will be the same). It’s here that trust really comes into being in Photographer Hal’s work. Approaching strangers – again, often in bars – to invite them to be photographed in an oxygen-free environment is a big ask. Working with assistants who help arrange a couple into position, Hal has mere seconds to take one or two shots after the vacuumed subjects have been sealed up before reopening the bag. I ask Hal where the concept for vacuum packing couples comes from, to which he replies that new ideas always come from previous work. “It may be close to the process by which manufacturers improve their industrial products,” he suggests. And indeed, over time Hal has updated his own formula; in Zatsuran, couples are photographed in and amongst their possessions. It’s interesting to see the extent to which ‘stuff’ can shape the personality of a particular couple’s bond – a love of music could be characterised by a collection of vinyl records or, say, guitars.
In Flesh Love Return, Photographer Hal places his sealed couples amongst other settings, whilst in Flesh Love All, his subjects’ possessions are also wrapped in plastic. The result is a series of beautiful images that raise questions (namely – “how?” which is answered below), but also of what the material and built environments around can say about love. At its most intimate, Hal’s work shows how love can exist in the absence of anything else, but as humans, we instinctively build stories and connections with one another amongst the objects and environments that surround us. That’s something that, no matter how sentient he may have been, HAL 9000 could never understand.
NR: How do you capture a sense of the personality and the style of the couple in your photos?
PH: I used to choose models and the clothes or props they wear, but these days I do not have [that] much control. I thought that would bring out the individuality of the subject. I recently held my retrospective exhibition [at the Gallery Tosei in Tokyo last year] and noticed that the age, clothes, and shooting method of the subjects were linked to my age at that time. So even if you shoot a work ten years ago, it won’t be the same.
How does your work celebrate the idea (and the power) of love?
“The basis idea of my work is ‘to shape love’.”
In order to realize that, I mainly focus on couples a subject and shoot an image of two people using different methods (such as the vacuum-sealed bag or bathtub). With regards to the Flesh Love All series, I location scout first; in that time, I decide on an angle, the lens etc. Then I measure everything in the range of the camera. Based on this, I make a [big enough] plastic bag with staff over ten to fourteen days. I take it to the scene on the day of shooting, and then pack and shoot everything.
There’s an intimacy to your work – whether capturing couples in a bathtub or in a vacuum pack, do you ever feel like you are intruding on this intimacy?
My photography is not possible without a relationship of trust with the subject. We have enough meetings before shooting to [build up] communication.
What has your work, and meeting so many couples, taught you as an individual and as a photographer?
At first, I was shooting love as ‘sexual love’, but as I continued shooting, the types of love expanded to love as devotion and philanthropy towards the outside world. My on-going series,
“Flesh Love All contains a message that we can connect with, not only to ourselves, but also with outside society and we can shape the direction of love.”
You only have one or two chances to release the shutter for your photographs; are you always happy with the outcome?
I have never been, and will never be, satisfied with the pictures I take. Because there is no limit to the quality of the work.
Credits
Images · Photographer Hal
http://www.photographerhal.com/
Founded in 2009, Practice Architecture is a London based firm adept at delivering various acclaimed cultural, community and residential projects. The firm has established itself as one that creates exceptional structures with a strong sense of place, and has a hands-on approach, getting involved from a design’s inception through to a structure’s completion, and help to curate both space and the activity it houses.
For their innovative Flat House project, the firm worked alongside hemp farmers and with sustainable methods of construction to construct a zero-carbon home in Cambridgeshire from prefabricated panels, all in just two days.
Their smaller scale Polyvalent Studio project was created within the parameters of the caravan act, meaning in most contexts it does not require planning permission. It was designed by students from London Metropolitan University and constructed within just 12 days, exemplifying the possibilities of low embodied energy design and the benefits of a collaborative working process in the industry.
Practice Architecture is currently working with food growing workers cooperative OrganicLea in developing a 10-year plan for the expansion of the infrastructure at their main site Hawkwood. The project will deliver substantial new educational buildings and volunteer spaces alongside a large community hall and kitchen, and the project will be built from natural materials as a self-build, working with the volunteers on site.
NR Magazine speaks with Practice Architecture to learn more about these projects, how they incorporate sustainable methods into their practice, and their ethos as a firm.
What inspired you to start working with cultural and community projects?
We started making things in London in a very informal way. We worked a lot with our peers and what we were doing was really part of a broader DIY culture within our community. In the absence of institutions that spoke to us, we made our own spaces in which to explore our own culture. This kind of work was only possible under the provision of it being temporary, but serendipitously, almost all the places we built in this era are still here.
We made our buildings in a very hands-on way, going on site ourselves, with friends and volunteers to build a project and used very basic tools and equipment to do so. This experience continues to feed into the work we do now, our understanding of materials and the way we design with others.
More designers are using hempcrete at the moment, and I’m familiar with artists using it on a small scale with pottery and sculpture, but nothing like on your Flat House project. What was the process like when building with this material on a larger scale?
The process began with the drilling of the seeds in the 30 acres of field that surround the house. This was overseen by Joe Meghan, a hemp farmer who had supported Steve Baron the client and founder of Margent Farm in getting a licence and specifying the appropriate subspecies of plant.
Hemp is a very resilient crop, with long tap roots that help to rehabilitate and condition soils that have been degraded through industrial farming practices. It has a short growing season of 3-4 months, after which we were able to harvest the seed and stem and process it into usable oil, fibre and shiv (the woody core of the stem).
The project makes use of each element of the plant, with the oil being used by Margent Farm in health and body treatments, the fibre being made into a cladding and the shiv into the hempcrete insulation. Each element of the plant went through a different process, with the fibre being felted and blended with a sugar resin and the shiv being chopped and mixed with a lime binder.
We designed a cassette-based construction system using structural timber with hempcrete to form an insulated panel, refining the construction details with Oscar Cooper from Lignin Builds. The panels were constructed in a factory and dried before being brought to site and lifted into place over two days. The cladding was made a few miles down the road with the impregnated hemp fibre matt pressed to form corrugations. The cladding is very easy to work with as it’s light and can be cut using a simple hand saw. We were lucky that with so many elements of experimentation, everything went very smoothly, and the building came together as anticipated.
Aside from sustainability, what were the other aims and inspirations behind your Flat House project?
We wanted to demonstrate how, what are often thought of as traditional materials, can be applied in a very contemporary way using the latest construction technology. The project celebrates the simplicity of its construction and how few materials went into making it. The key thing with Flat House was not just to develop a building, but to develop a whole system that could be replicated at scale across the country.
The project has led to the establishment of Material Cultures, a research organisation that explores natural materials in the context of offsite construction. Could you talk a bit more about that?
Yes, Material Cultures is now doing the work of scaling up these ideas and applying them to large scale housing and commercial projects. We are working with a variety of clients and housing developers – people who are interested in doing things differently. Alongside this, we carry out research projects with a number of universities, developing full scale mock-ups and looking at the broader cultural context of the work we do.
Material Cultures is exploring how regional specificity and a relationship to regenerative agriculture might shape the evolution of new housing typologies. The low carbon construction industry is still relatively embryonic, which means working across many fields and disciplines simultaneously to make things happen. That’s why we are really excited to be working with Yorkshire and the North East and ARUP to develop a regional strategy for a transition to a bio-based construction economy.
It’s this kind of interdisciplinary weaving together that is going to make change happen.
What does collaboration mean to you as an architecture firm?
For us architecture has always been as much about process as it is about built form. The design is material and construction led, which means really understanding how something is put together.
“Each project is an opportunity to connect with different disciplines and expertise, to learn and test something.”
We have been really lucky to have amazing long-term collaborators such as Henry Stringer – one of the most inventive makers of things – and Will Stanwix who has over 20 years’ experience of working intuitively with natural materials.
We generally make places directly with the people that use them, whether that be through getting everyone on site during the build or developing genuinely engaged co-design processes.
How do you go about balancing space and intimacy with a project?
We are really interested in spatial qualities and the different ways in which we are acted upon or made to feel by a building. We look to create balance, often pairing close and intimate spaces with more open ones. Material plays a large role in this. Arriving at the Straw Auditorium project in Bold Tendencies you move from the harsh open floor plates of the concrete carpark into an intimate womb like space, enveloped by the tactile warmth and smell of an organic material.
What inspired you to work with cellulose-based materials for the Polyvalent Studio project?
The Polyvalent Studio project was developed with David Grandorge and students at the London Metropolitan School of Architecture. The project was a continuation of Practice Architecture’s work exploring natural construction at Margent Farm and shares a lot of the material technology developed with Flat House.
The building is designed within the caravan act meaning it can be moved in two independent modules and that it could be built without planning permission. It touches very lightly on the ground with timber footings that penetrate the soil line. These are made from Accoya, an acetylated timber product that can far outperform other timbers and represents exciting opportunities for the substitution of traditionally high carbon materials in exposed areas.
The studio was designed and built by students at London Metropolitan School of Architecture. What was it like working with students and completing the project in such a short space of time?
Building the studio together with the students was a really amazing experience. They brought so much energy, passion, and commitment. It is mournfully rare for architecture students to get an opportunity to use their hands and build things at scale.
“Building things is one of the most direct ways to learn how to design things, and the lack of genuine understanding of construction by architects is what leads to many tensions between professions.”
This project was established within the context of your research into natural materials and low carbon construction techniques like with Flat House. What other kinds of innovative solutions to sustainable construction are you hoping to work with?
We are always looking to learn about new materials. Currently this means exploring innovative straw and mycelium construction and looking at the role of chalk within structural and civil engineering projects.
With the theme of this issue being Identity, I’d love to know how you feel the firm incorporates sustainability and education into its identity.
For a long time, sustainability was something we did by default, but we didn’t really talk about it or have a way of articulating what we were doing. We saw our work as predominantly socially driven and about process – and the architecture and materiality as a means to an end.
It’s been interesting over the last few years to begin redressing and articulating an underlying intentionality behind our approach to how things are made. Underlying the design is a deep concern for how the things we make fit within a broader cycle and ecology of things. Where do the components come from and where do they end up? How can we be resourceful and responsible? It’s been great to begin to articulate these things and situate what we have been doing within other conversations around things like regenerative agriculture and the logic of global supply chains.
How important is adaptability to you?
We want to make buildings that can respond to their users. This means they need to be able to adapt and evolve. You can design in a way that either makes this very difficult or enables it. By keeping structure exposed and close to the surface and making the construction legible, it empowers residents and users to add, change and adapt.
Working with a food growing cooperative, your Hawkwood Plant Nursery project also champions natural materials and community collaboration. Could you talk a bit more about the aims for this ten-year plan?
It’s really exciting to be working on a number of large-scale food growing projects in London. These kinds of spaces are so important and so different from other types of green spaces such as parks. They offer the opportunity for a genuine connection to soil and to land – one that is mutually nourishing and that brings you into contact with most important natural processes that we all depend on like the water cycle, photosynthesis, composting and soil formation.
Hawkwood and the other Market Garden City project Wolves Lane are leading the way in setting a precedent for socially and community focussed food spaces. We are looking to embed genuinely circular principles in the project, working with the resources available on site and integrating locally sourced natural materials wherever possible. The principal being that anything we are bringing onto the site can ultimately return to those natural cycles itself, in the form of mulch and compost.
Credits
Images · PRACTICE ARCHITECTURE
www.practicearchitecture.co.uk
You would think that someone who invented some of the most iconic and instantly recognisable jewellery of the last few decades would be a household name by now, but Eddie Plein is only just getting the recognition he deserves for inventing grills. Born in Suriname, Plein moved to New York with the rest of his family in his early teens. He was an aspiring soccer player, but watching his father hustle to provide for his family in a new country Plein knew he was never destined for a traditional nine to five. It was the eighties and in Brooklyn Plein was surrounded by the budding hip hop scene.
Then, on a visit back to Suriname, he cracks his tooth and the dentist offers him a gold crown. Gold is one of Suriname’s biggest exports, which makes it a cheaper alternative for dentistry. However, Plein didn’t want to commit to a permanent gold crown and that’s when his ‘lightbulb moment’ happened. Back in New York he dropped out of college, put his dreams of being a soccer player on hold and went to dentistry school long enough to learn how to wax up crowns before starting his own business. He pioneered the technique of creating pull out crowns, which we know today as grills. The rest is history, and what a star-studded history that is. Plein, it seems, has made ‘teeth’ for all the big names. NR Magazine was joined in conversation with Lyle Lindgreen co-author of Mouth Full Of Golds which explores Plein’s forgotten story and the rise of grills.
How did the collaboration between you and Plein for Mouth Full of Gold come about? Is there a story behind it?
So I’ve been obsessed with grills since I was a very small kid. I had Gravediggaz album which had The RZA on the cover with a set of vampire fangs. I must have been like seven or eight when I saw that cover. I was just really enamoured by that image and always wanted a set. Also, I remember seeing images of Goldie in different print magazines during that kind of drum and bass era in the late nineties. So I’ve always really been drawn to the concept of gold teeth and then the opportunity came up to shoot some films with Goldie for an art exhibition he was doing.
So I shot these films and asked him loads of geeky questions and we just hit it off and ended up doing more projects together. We were going to New York to shoot a graffiti film and I wanted to get a set of teeth made while we were there ‘cos there wasn’t really anyone in the UK doing it. Goldie casually mentions that he used to live with the guy whose brother invented grills. So me being quite inquisitive, I was like “No one invented it”, and he was like “Nah, I used to live with the guy in Miami, his brother was like an OG New Yorker.” Goldie is very immediate so he was like “I’m gonna call Lando now in Miami, get Eddie’s number and when we go to New York we’re gonna go meet up with him.”
We go to meet Eddie at the Coliseum which was the original spot where he kicked off his career. We turn up there and we’re waiting and waiting and he doesn’t show up. Then this big fight kicks off on the block outside the Coliseum and we are like there with all this camera kit. So as the fight kinda calms down, the questions start coming in about “What, did you guys film anything”. We were trying to say “No, we’re just waiting for someone”. And then Eddie casually rolls up, pushes through the crowd, to say “what’s up” to Goldie. Then someone from the group is like “Who are you?” and he says “I’m famous Eddie. Gold caps, the Coliseum.”
“Then it’s like a scene from the godfather, and people started coming out of their stalls like welcoming Eddie back to the block.”
So we end up walking away from the Coliseum. He’s shaking hands with people who are like “Eyy, I haven’t seen you for twenty years”, “Eddie, you ‘da man”. Then we end up jumping in this cab and going to Eddie’s house in Brooklyn. We go to the basement of his family home to film and do an interview with him. And it’s the very basement where the whole story started. So Eddie very casually starts telling us about, “You know I made these teeth for Nas, Ludacris, CeeLo”, and the list goes on and on. We’re filming as he tells his story for the first time in a very humble way. And,
“I was just thinking he’s either one of the most amazing fashion icons you’ve never heard of or its straight cap. ‘Cos it was just unbelievable.”
So we shoot a piece for Eddie, and it was originally going to be a five-minute film. However, then I ended up going out to Miami to meet his brother Lando, who was Goldie’s roommate. It was from there that the project just got bigger and bigger and snowballed into this story that spans like thirty-plus years. Eddie and his family just made teeth for everyone, like teenage Jay-Z through to André 3000. Eddie’s reach across the east coast of America is so deep.
Do you think Plein’s work helped shaped both regular peoples creative identity through self-expression, and creative identity in the music/rap scene in Queens, Harlem and Brooklyn, in the ’80s?
A hundred per cent. So at that point in time, the youth of New York was going through times of great austerity. New York had been bankrupt, The Bronx had been burnt, and you have a collection of youths’ who were trying to find their identity and their voice in, essentially, a city of no hope. So from that, graffiti spawned with people wanting to make their mark. It’s the same with hip hop and just jewellery in general, with the concept of jewellery allowing you to pick something personal, to your taste. Through this period of great austerity, you have finance coming to the city in the form of crack cocaine. Then the finance surrounding hip hop that kind of follows the crack era. So through coming of age, and coming out of austerity, people will always use their fashion and their jewellery as a way to express themselves.
The book’s blurb describes Plein as ‘one of the greatest fashion icons you’ve never heard of’. Do you think it’s a common issue for black creatives and pioneers to be overlooked whilst their work is stolen and appropriated?
Sadly yes, I do. And I think that an element of it is to do with just how fashion is perceived in certain cultures. Obviously, the big fashion houses have the money and resources to preserve their legacy. You have fashion houses that have hundreds of years of history. And it’s all documented and archived and they lean into the history to make themselves prestigious.
With a lot of people like Eddie and Dapper Dan, for example, their work is often overlooked. In that era, there was a lot of pressure on them with what they were trying to do, and how they were trying to build their legacy. Certainly, with Eddie, it became a very competitive game and it got to a point where Eddie got kind of tired of the process. You wanna move on to something else, and you maybe don’t have the resources. The book is a big part of that, it shows his legacy kinda just in a basement, discarded. That’s why we did this project, to preserve it.
“Eddie was definitely a pillar in that world, by allowing people to customise and show their personalities. Eddie’s whole idea of making grills really comes from having quite an outside perspective.”
He wasn’t part of the dope game and he wasn’t necessarily in the hip hop community at that point, as he was really focused on being a soccer player. However, he was in Brooklyn and was watching guys on the block, seeing how the jewellery developed from subtle chains into these massive rope pieces and four-finger rings. So through watching how people are expressing themselves it allowed him to have his lightbulb moment. He cracked his tooth when he went back to Suriname and all these pieces suddenly came together in his head. Like “I’ve seen how fashion is on the block, I’ve seen this advert for dental school when I’m riding the subway”. He’s thinking “You know I could make these caps and sell them to people” and then with that he’s able to facilitate what people want. So, he definitely helped shape people’s creative identity. I think just from people really pushing fashion and wanting to stand out and it being very competitive, from what I’ve heard it was very competitive in fashion in that era, it allowed Eddie to kind of just push what he was doing. Just create whatever he wanted.
The book’s blurb describes Plein as ‘one of the greatest fashion icons you’ve never heard of’. Do you think it’s a common issue for black creatives and pioneers to be overlooked whilst their work is stolen and appropriated?
Sadly yes, I do. And I think that an element of it is to do with just how fashion is perceived in certain cultures. Obviously, the big fashion houses have the money and resources to preserve their legacy. You have fashion houses that have hundreds of years of history. And it’s all documented and archived and they lean into the history to make themselves prestigious.
With a lot of people like Eddie and Dapper Dan, for example, their work is often overlooked. In that era, there was a lot of pressure on them with what they were trying to do, and how they were trying to build their legacy. Certainly, with Eddie, it became a very competitive game and it got to a point where Eddie got kind of tired of the process. You wanna move on to something else, and you maybe don’t have the resources. The book is a big part of that, it shows his legacy kinda just in a basement, discarded. That’s why we did this project, to preserve it.
And do you think that books like Mouth Full of Gold will help solidify those legacies?
Yeah after that first encounter with Eddie, this is maybe six or seven years ago, I went away and started looking into Eddie but there was nothing online about him, it was completely tumbleweeds on Google. As we have developed the project, more stuff is starting to go online about him. I feel like what happened with Eddie is he sort of disappeared into the shadows just as the wave of the internet really broke. Because he didn’t transport his legacy online, it can feel like it doesn’t exist.
So I feel what the book does is solidifies that history, with all the evidence and the archival images, in a physical place. Obviously, there are things going online as well, but if twenty years down the line of certain sections of the internet don’t exist anymore or we move onto a new form of communicating, at least it’s there documented in print. Making sure it’s told in a really heavily researched format, so the next generation that will uncover the culture will have that information.
What’s your opinion on the issue of cultural appropriation with many white celebrities wearing grills, such as the Kardashians, Harry Styles and Madonna to name a few?
So over the last decade, grills have transcended to high fashion. They are now viewed as an accessory, in the same way that you might look at a prestige wristwatch, but their placement is just in the mouth. What they represent is so synonymous with that culture and history that you shouldn’t be able to view them on a celebrity and not be able to identify immediately where that style originates from. There’s always gonna be that thing where people look at grills and immediately identify them with hip hop.
I feel like they’ve gone to a high fashion space where people are just using them to accessorise. Now, whether a celebrity really understands the culture is another question. I personally look at their motivations of why they wear them, the designs they pick and the longevity of wearing them to kinda understand why they are rocking grills. I do think a lot of celebrities are disingenuous with it. I think they use grills as a press moment for a music video or a carpet walk. As soon as you see a set that they are wearing, you never see it again. So,
“I think a lot of the motivations behind celebrities wearing them, comes from quite a disposable place.”
I think that mainstream attraction has its positives for the jewellers. When someone sees a set of grills on a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, it’s gonna lead to interest for jewellers and they need to have an economy that stimulates their business. So it’s a positive in the sense that it allows jewellers to have an audience which helps them involve the art form. But their bread and butter clientele doesn’t come from that space, and it comes from a more authentic place. It will always exist like in culture in a very deep rooted place as it has so much history behind it. It often peaks in the mainstream and then it kind of rides a wave and disappears, but it has always had its roots in black culture in a very authentic way.
With many things that are culturally appropriated, it can be almost impossible to pin down a sole original creator, but obviously, grills are Plein’s invention, so I’d be interested to know what his opinion was on people, who aren’t black or from that culture, wearing grills is?
I mean I wouldn’t want to answer on Eddie’s behalf, but we’ve had conversations about it. From a business point of view if you came down to Eddie’s shop and the money was alright he’d make the teeth for you. Every shop Eddie’s had he always created a vibe that was very much linked to his personality. You’d go in there and he’s got crazy pictures of soccer players on the walls, or traditional Surinamese woodwork, or pictures of grills he’s taken and just like a vibe. The communities Eddie based his shops in, that would stimulate his business, have always been predominantly black communities. So at those points in time when Eddie was making grills, it was intrinsically linked to hip hop and black culture. But I think in terms of Eddie’s clientele he will make teeth for anyone. Eddie is more interested, and we have had a few conversations about this, in what you want. There are certain things that he won’t design, like if he’s just not feeling the vibe or the motivations that are there. I remember once he was telling me a story about André 3000 when he wanted a copper set of teeth. Eddie was quite against making these teeth for André 3000. He didn’t want him out there wearing a copper set that he made which looked cheap.
What was the most interesting thing you discovered while working on Mouth Full Of Gold with Plein?
Two things. First was that Eddie made some teeth for Allan Iverson at the height of his basketball career. He came to the store in Atlanta to get a set of teeth made. So that in itself was interesting. But then Eddie alluded to the fact that his wife used to play bingo with Iverson’s mum when they left New York and moved to Virginia. Also that Eddie’s daughters went to the same high school as Iverson. So Eddie was telling this anecdote of how Iverson is like a god at this point and he comes to the store and Eddie’s like “Oh yeah my wife used to do bingo with your mum and my kids went to your high school” and suddenly everyone knew all the same people and everyone’s business. I’ve never seen any pics of Iverson wearing his grills, he had rose gold grills before anyone was really into rose gold so that was quite interesting.
The second thing was the most interesting, Eddie told me that the majority of the images in the Nelly – Grillz music video with Paul Wall, Ali and Gipp are all from Eddie’s shop in Atlanta. This was like at the end of his big run in Atlanta before it kind of changed hands to a Houston take over. So Eddie told me they’d come and asked to use all the images from his store. It was a song about grills but Eddie never cameoed and wasn’t in the video. I’ve been through it frame by frame and there’s a picture, which is in the book, of Eddie and Ludacris that you can see just tucked away in the corner. I thought that was quite interesting and also quite sad to uncover that.
Plein describes Atlanta as a resurgence of New York but with a different vibe. Did that difference have any influence on his work at the time?
Yeah in New York he would make a lot of single sets where he would very often put two or three teeth together. People might have eight caps at one time but very often it was like two’s and three’s. So really,
“Flavour Flav was one of the first customers he had where it was like six teeth put together. It was becoming less caps and more grills in New York.”
But when Eddie goes to Atlanta he starts making more grills with six teeth and eight teeth put together. So it ushers in this era in his creative career where it’s about making bigger put together pieces. This allows him to start experimenting with diamonds. Before customers might say “One tooth, cover it in diamonds. The next tooth I want you to put a Benz symbol.” However then you have Goodie Mob come in, with CeeLo and Big Gipp in particular, and they really pushed him to try different things. So you have CeeLo asking Eddie to make him six teeth put together that are all like classic New York nugget-style, or Big Gipp pushing Eddie to make platinum grills which they hadn’t really done before and wasn’t on his radar.
It was different from city to city. Eddie tried to strategically place his brothers in different states so that they could replicate the success they were having in New York. So when his brother Lando goes to Miami, where he meets Goldie, he’s going into a culture where everyone just has permanent gold teeth. They would go to the dentist and get their teeth filed down and have just permanent crowns in. It was culturally evolved from street culture, so a lot of pimps and hustlers would have one or two permanent crowns. Also, the dope boys were getting their shot at the top so they were trying to evolve it and be like “Nah I’ve got like eight on the top and eight on the bottom”.
Lando went into that culture and was like “I’m trying to make these pull out teeth”, and everyone was just laughing at him thinking “Why do you want your teeth to come out if you’re really street? You should commit to them so they are in there permanently.” So Lando has to figure out how to evolve in Miami and he starts making grills that could go over permanent teeth, grills over grills.
Plein suffered from people copying and undercutting his work, do you think his so-called downfall was inevitable or could it have been prevented to some extent?
Yeah, I’ve spoken to Eddie quite a lot about this, so in New York, his downfall was that in the booth in the Coliseum he housed the whole process in that booth. It essentially put the whole production on display so you could see how it was done. The issue with that was other jewellers could come by and see how he did the whole process. Then you are faced with all the copycat jewellers who understand how to do the process but without necessarily having spent the same amount of time as Eddie sitting in the basement like learning how to wax up perfect teeth. So also he was undercut by jewellers who make an inferior product and Eddie prided himself on the quality of his teeth. So those mistakes in New York he definitely took them away with him and in Atlanta, the idea is that he kind of had a shop front where people could come and kick it. Play pool, order their teeth and hang out drinking. It became like a social club and then a building to the right housed the lab, so you have a team there that’s away from the openness of the shop.
“Really the way to not fall off is to just keep evolving and I think Eddie as he moves into the millennium he’s on top of the world and he’s king of the game.”
He had this element of being complacent and thinking “you know what like fuck the internet I’m not into the internet like I don’t need to do that people can come and find me cos I’m the best”. But then other people with a bigger platform, like Paul Wall, come along and the phone starts ringing less. I think for Eddie, and he talks about it in the book as well, there’s kinda like a denial of falling off. He just got outsmarted and out-hustled by someone who came in and had that massive platform. You gotta have that fire to keep evolving but, around the sort of mid 2000s, Eddie’s already twenty years in the game. That’s a long time to keep reinventing yourself. After the Atlanta store closed Eddie’s dad in New York got sick so Eddie went back to care for him for the best part of a decade. He kinda took himself out of the game to reevaluate what was important for him, you know his dad being his idol, so he wanted to go home and play his part there.
Do you think that the use of gold grills as a form of self-expression amongst African American and Latin American communities can be seen as a form of activism against colonisation which stole natural resources such as gold from Africa and Latin America?
Yes I do. I think gold crowns themselves date back to like to the late 1700s. As I researched the book I found that diaspora communities will often take what is essentially a crude form of dentistry, not getting a porcelain crown but a gold one because it’s often cheaper. They will take it and make it an investment piece for a rainy day. There’s a school of thought of protecting the wealth by putting it into your teeth.
I made a film about this true story in Lando’s shop where some guys in Miami had been on a bit of a crime spree. They knew that they were going to go away for a long time so they went to Lando and got all these permanent golds put in. The police tried to understand what was the point of it when they were about to get banged up and go away for time. What Lando brought up was “Yeah you’re gonna go away for a long time, but you are gonna sit in a cell knowing that you have all this gold and diamonds in your mouth and when you come out you’ll have enough capital to get started again.”
Also, people have taken this often cheaper form of dentistry and revitalised it in a way where it’s flamboyant. Pre grills you see it in West Indian communities, people still have one or two teeth here but it still looks fly and it still looks affluent. It’s definitely a thing where people do take it and use it in a way that’s a reaction to recourses that have been taken.
“Through colonisation people are taking those resources and when recourses are taken away from you in abundance, even if it’s like a small way of having them and being able to show them off it’s still a very defiant act.”
Do you think that grills will retain their popularity going forward with music artists such as A$AP Rocky and Rhianna continuing to keep them in the spotlight? What are some ways you think they might evolve in the future?
I think in terms of its popularity it’s very cyclical. New generations take an interest and that really pushes jewellers to innovate the teeth to crazy levels. We are seeing it now with a lot of 3D printing, enamel painting, certain stones which are being set like opals which you haven’t really seen before. At the moment one thing that’s happening is this wave of perfect veneer teeth that’s becoming very popular. You go get your teeth filled down like shark teeth and you get the veneers put over them like Tipp-ex white teeth.
But then Rocky has got some amazing tiny diamonds that are actually drilled into his teeth in the enamel and I think that’s something that could take off. I think Drake has a nice diamond in the front of his perfect teeth. Gucci Mane had all his veneers done and then he went and got amazing single diamonds put into those veneers. It could be that it becomes an amalgamation of the two cultures of perfect veneers and a sort of variation of grills.
I think they always will continue away from the mainstream. Gold teeth are consistently present in cultures and communities away from the hype. Miami and New Orleans have such a deep history of permanent golds such an ingrained part of their culture I don’t think it’s gonna leave. I think that shows where you stand with the culture. Like are you gonna continue to wear your grills when it cools off? Or are they gonna go in the drawer?
Have you ever seen a strangers family portrait and wondered what their lives were like. Have you ever pondered what it would be like to be part of that family? Would you stand out or would you fit right in? Czech photographer Dita Pepe attempted to answer these questions with her series ‘Self Portraits with Men’. Posing as a wife, partner and mother she photographs herself with different men and often his children in each man’s typical real-life surroundings. Sometimes she includes her own daughter into the mix, but it is impossible to spot the interlopers in these seemingly genuine family portraits. In doing so she explores how personal identity can change dramatically in relation to the people in our lives and our own surroundings.
Identity, particularly female identity, is something that Pepe has always been fascinated by. After running away from home at the age of eighteen she went to work in Germany as an au pair and she states that at that age she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. “Unconsciously, I was still looking for female ideals to inspire me” Photography became a way for her to explore self-perception and she began taking self-portraits in various different disguises. NR Magazine joins the artist in conversation.
What does identity mean to you as an artist?
My interpretation of the word “identity” is based mainly on my age and experience related to it. The creative ability to think naturally has a big influence as well. The first thing which comes to my mind are words said by Z. Bauman – the greatest artist is someone who is able to adapt to the contemporary liquid society. Each of us has experienced the necessity to adapt to a change in the present situation connected with the pandemic.
Identity is thus something very subjective and unstable. I can identify with something or someone with my whole heart, however, it can change due to various circumstances soon afterwards. Surviving is the goal.
Your work involves exploring other possible identities, do you think the rise of social media allows people more freedom to explore their respective identities, or does it restrict them further?
Social networks are a tool and they can definitely help us in some ways. However, I would compare them to fire. We use it to cook food, it keeps us warm in winter, but it can also burn down our whole house.
There has been a lot of studies on the impact social networks have on our brain and changes in our behaviour.
On the other hand, social networks enable me to get to people I could not meet otherwise. Or maybe I could, but the way to a personal meeting with them would be too lengthy. Information from social networks is – just as photographs – misleading since the observers do not often know or see the things in context.
You consider your art practice as a form of therapy, but is all art not a form of therapy in one way or another?
Yes, of course, there are a lot of activities that could be described as therapeutical and do not even necessarily have to belong among artistic ones. However, art brings us a different kind of knowledge. Sometimes, we are even unable to describe some experiences and feelings with words. I have experienced personally how photographing people influenced me. At the very beginning, I photographed nothing but still lives, I was afraid to address a stranger. Then I started to take photos of my own self, and later I plucked up the courage to photograph my family and friends. And today, I am even not afraid to address a person I do not know at all and who is often also very hard to obtain for being photographed.
“Taking photos enabled me to get into worlds that are beyond the bounds of my life. I keep on finding something new for me. And I keep on being amazed.”
You seem to seamlessly inhabit the lives of other women in your work, do you think this highlights how women are taught by society to play different roles and thus possess the ability to slip from one role to another with apparent ease?
I think that men play different roles too. I am interested in discovering a variety of perspectives on life. I search for inspiration for myself, I would like to feel more peace inside me and to live in balance.
Has the pandemic changed how you approach your art practice and if so how?
First of all,
“I realised that art is a luxury. It cannot be taken for granted and it is very fragile. I dedicated more time to the art of communication with my close ones.”
You worked with fear, nobody knew what would come. It was the very first time when we could experience such an intensive time with our families.
Online exhibitions, lectures and concerts were a kind of substitution but they can never substitute personal experiences.
Your work is often compared to Cindy Sherman’s, what other artists do you draw inspiration from?
Works by Diane Arbus, August Sander or Richard Avedon have always really spoken to me. I am happy when something touches me deeply. I feel that it resonates inside me a long time afterwards and also inspires me subconsciously. The latest thing that made a deep impression on me was a film from 2017 called On Body and Soul by the Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi.
You stated that you started these bodies of work as a way to figure out your own identity as a woman. Have you reached a conclusion about that?
Thanks to my work and people I met through photography, I am definitely more open to difference, and on my travels, I have also learnt about other cultures and views on identity. I am definitely more empathetic. And with age, I am also more aware of my own value.
What exactly do you want viewers to take away from your work?
While working, I mainly try to gain something for myself. Then I also want it to bring something to the people physically participating in the process of photographing. To be honest, I do not really and intentionally think about viewers. However, I think that my works speak to people who try to solve similar things in their lives as I do in mine.
So probably it should be food for thought…?
What advice do you have for young creatives looking to explore identity and photography?
I would advise them to engage in it if they see a meaning in it. To be open to other worlds, not only to photography. I believe that interdisciplinarity and overlap are important. Not to be discouraged when their dream photography school does not admit them because there are more ways to make photography be a part of your daily life.
Are you working on any specific projects at the moment and what plans do you have for the future?
Yes. It has become a rule that I work on more projects at the same time. To finish the book Borders of Love (Hranice lásky) is the priority for me now. It is an artistic experiment, in which I want to demonstrate that a creative process, which is mainly focused on dealing with trauma, has a therapeutical potential under certain conditions. I also dream of forming a community of students who would like to pursue deeply and on a long-term basis the topic of the therapeutical potential of photography.
Credits
Images · DITA PEPE
https://www.instagram.com/dita_pepe/
As I enter an entryway clothed in a mass of tendrils and leaves, a restaurant heralds the space with diners enclaved among the green shrubbery. I follow the walkway until I find myself at the footsteps of a staircase, leading towards the gallery. Fondazione Sozzani presents the exhibition Milano. Fotografie 1956 – 1962 of Paolo di Paolo, curated by Silvia di Paolo in collaboration with Bvlgari. The series of photographs displays di Paolo’s adoration and admiration to the city of Milan, which meant a sense of traveling to a foreign country for the photographer. The exhibit showcases di Paolo’s conception of Milan, an unprecedented and untouched look before globalization. Mist hovers, residents and pigeons flock the city center, and the romance of typography and companionship croons the metropolis: the photographs lull the visitors back into the ripening state of Milan.
Humid air permeates the quaint space of the exhibit, stirring up warmth against the twenty-five-degree weather outside. The sliding door remains opened, stuck in its machinery, but whirs whenever a guest walks into the area. As I make my way inside, the glint of the seventeen overhead warm lamps, dangling over the square-shaped metal railing, reflects on the glossy purple floor. It adds illumination into the space as if the two closed windows on the left side are not enough to spill the sunlight inside. Positioned in the middle, a DNA-shaped metal seat waits for three tired guests, but there are only two visitors at the time, myself included.
Strolling to the left side by the entrance, di Paolo’s reverence for Milan springs up. The photographer captures four open windows in an architecture for La natura resiste. From afar, a person holds onto the railing of a window as they dust off the beam they crouch on, but the attention suddenly diverts to the sawed trunk and branches attached to the remains of the tree with a rope. The classic human versus nature tale leaps off the frame, a lost narrative from the two images of Fiera di Milano that position beside it. In these two photographs, captured in 1962, a crowd inspects the thermal circuit breakers with its cresting gray thin wires inserted into an unwieldy-looking box where the name KLIXON remains embossed on the side. The business men’s observant and analytical gaze at the device outlasts their time so much that they have forgotten to notice the two nuns in their habit uniforms that observe with them, who are enthralled by how the device functions. As di Paolo walks further in the 1962 technology fair, he captures three men and a woman peeking through the viewfinders of the cameras nestled into the walls which promise 3D images during the decade.
The year 1960, two years before the fiera, means di Paolo goes to Bar Jamaica and weaves through the bustle of Milan’s folks, photographing their humane interaction by giving each imagery his definition of grandeur in the city life. An orator raises his hands as he looks at the ceiling, swooned by his own declarations and dismissing the puzzled looks of the man behind him. A man sits beside a woman and courts her, bending his head sideways to usher humor into his punchlines, while she directs her eyes far from his presence. A woman looks behind her to find a man in his pensive expression as he raises his small cup, snugged between his forefinger and thumb, just below his lips. On the other side of the room, a group of men gambles in a room clothed with bathroom tiles. Here, the primary subject wears an unperturbed expression while a lit cigarette snuggles between his teeth, oblivious to the curious onlooker behind him who stands too close to the player and desires to offer advice on which card to throw on the table.
Magnolia on the radar, the celestial flow of luxury in the 1960s: di Paolo walks into the Aretusa Night Club, his camera in tow. Inside, an overhead lamp casts shadows across the space, illuminating romance and haze to wrap with the nostalgia of the evening. A man hooks his arm around a woman’s hips and tugs her to his body. They sway to the soft hum of the music and pay no attention to the patrons that surround them as they gaze into each other’s eyes, falling and ruminating. Such a sight differs in Sala da ballo as patrons dance to the sound of the live band, a mix of piano and guitar tunes over the saxophone lullabies.
Di Paolo commands his camera to record the political discussion in Duomo, the heart of Milan, when the year pivots back to 1958. The frantic pigeons flap their wings aggressively as they flock the city center, masking over the photograph. As one sees beyond the birds, residents crowd beside the monument of Vittorio Emanuele II to participate in political exchanges in their heavy winter coats, handheld purses and attache cases, tipped hats, and cigarette stubs between the lips. In the background, the forgotten era of typography in a myriad of designs and styles pepper the antique and historic architecture of Milan, a slow ascent towards modernization and minimalism.
The photographer’s storytelling on Milan endures as he captures a lone man walking on the roof of the cathedral with his phone on his ear, his scrunched eyebrows signal distressed against the lush and resplendent of the church. In Sul tetto del Duomo, – on the roof of Duomo – di Paolo hovers his camera to carpet the shot with the cathedral’s poignance, a registered vaporous memory to last and test time. As di Paolo walks down the cathedral and into the streets of Milan, he bumps into a couple, innamorati a Milano, lazing in the angle of a street – the man in trench coat looks afar as contentment flashed across his face and lets the woman beside him rest her cheek and hands on his left shoulder. Milan serenades the couple in the shelter of its romantic arms, enshrining their affair with a state of zen and mirage for years to come.
Dusk turns into nighttime, and the city center glows with Christmas string lights and street lamps. Di Paolo shoots four photographs for le luci di Natale as the exhibit forwards in 1962 and demonstrates the solemn celebration far from the Western upbringing. A policeman wears his cap and stands alone in the corner of a street, watching the pedestrians cross as the rattle of the tram passes by. Cars honk as they jam the street and appear slower than the crowd who germinate the sidewalks on foot. A policeman – his back facing the lens – stands outside Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Duomo, watching the residents stoll around the space and away from the frenzy Milan encounters today. The last photograph, the one that sits on top of the three frames, shows street lamps decorated with sticks of light to emulate fireworks in a starless sky. Here, a sense of finale has dawned in defiance.
I step back from the four photographs of le luci di Natale and turn around to find myself alone in the room. The afternoon sun creeps into its peak, and the rays pass through the window panes and bounce on the floor, attempting to replicate the reminiscence of Milan between the 1950s and 1960s. The longer I remain in the four walls of Fondazione Sozzani in Via Corso Como, 10 with Milano. Fotografie 1956 – 1962 of Paolo di Paolo, the more I realize that the beauty, divinity, and fertility of the bygone years persist.
Credits
Images · FONDAZIONE SOZZANI
For more information visit
Fondazione Sozzani
Corso Como 10, 20154 Milano
tel. +39 02.653531
galleria@fondazionesozzani.org
The designer behind some of Tiffany’s most iconic pieces, Elsa Peretti, died at the age of 80 on 18th March 2021. Somewhat unintentionally, this editorial becomes a tribute in her honour.
Born in Italy, Peretti moved to New York in the late 1960s, finding work as a fashion model (a job that gave her financial freedom, having previously been cut off from her eye- wateringly wealthy, but inwards-looking family in Florence). In New York, she became a regular at Studio 54, accompanied by a posse including Warhol, Liza Minelli and the designer, Roy Halston Frowick. It was the through the latter that Peretti’s career blossomed; she designed jewellery for Halston’s eponymous line, and it was him who introduced her to Walter Hoving, CEO of Tiffany & Co. in 1974. By Peretti’s own telling, she was “hired on the spot,” and so began a collaboration that would last until her death. A few years ago, when Peretti threatened to quit the partnership, the company were quick to renegotiate a contract for a further 20 years – which would have lasted until what would have been her 92nd birthday.
With only a few years off celebrating half century of Peretti’s designs for Tiffany, her pieces are icons for a by-gone era. The mesh scarf necklace, for example, which debuted on the runway of Halston’s fall collection in 1975, is evocative of the disco age. But Peretti’s designs remain unequivocally timeless. Peretti reintroduced silver as jewellery to a world in which it was confined to use for accessories and homeware.
Her appointment at Tiffany came as the brand was looking to reach a broader audience – a woman who couldn’t afford to buy herself gold or diamonds, and a woman who wouldn’t necessarily rely on a man to do so for her. The necklace, Diamonds by the Yard (its name coined by Halston), made diamonds affordable by spacing small stones out along the chain. Peretti designed for the modern woman, and was herself, a modern woman. Tall, intimidating (by all accounts) and famously short-fused, Peretti retained the rights to her designs and name. Designs like the Open Heart, Bean and Bone capture the fluidity of form that defined Peretti’s designs.
Her work coalesced organic forms with sophistication and elegance. In the 1980s, the designer escaped the chaos and debauchery of New York to Sant Martí Vell, a small village in Catalan – where, since her early modelling days, she had gradually been buying up the abandoned houses there. She would spent most of the rest of her life there, working with artisans around the region, restoring her own private village, and continuing to design for Tiffany. Like her work for Tiffany, Peretti herself has remained something of a lasting icon. Photos of the designer at work in her New York apartment from the 1970s capture the essence of what makes Peretti’s designs so alluring. The ease with she fuses the natural world with luxury are demonstrative of a designer’s natural instinct for shape, composition and the beautiful things in life.
Team
Photography Teresa Ciocia
Fashion Oana Cilibiu
Make-Up Manuela Renée Balducci
Nails Roberta Rodi
Casting Isadora Banaudi
Models ADELE aldighieri and VIKA yakimova at Fabbrica Milano and Margot hubac at THE LAB Photo Assistant Jacopo Contarini
Fashion Assistant Mathilde ProiettI
Production Thirteenth
Production
Words Ellie Brown
Discover more on tiffany.com
Designers
“I keep coming back to water scenes. I keep coming back to rivers and lakes. I keep coming back to oceans. I like to explore the interaction of people, particularly of young boys and men, with water. Water can disarm even the most armed of facades. Becoming one with water is not about rushing but rather about flowing. And flowing is the closest thing to being.”
Denisse Ariana Pérez is a Caribbean-born, Copenhagen-based copywriter, author and photographer. She is obsessed with words, people and imagery and finding ways to make them speak to one another. Her photographic work has been featured on It’s Nice That, The Guardian, El Pais, VICE, Afropunk, Dazed, Ignant, Marie Claire, Hunger, Atmos, Sand Magazine, Paulette Magazine and Accent Magazine.
Credits
Photography and words · DENISSE ARIANA PÉREZ
www.denissearianaphotography.com
www.instagram.com/denisseaps
