55pages issue 13

#13

5 pages

55pages Creative Director Editor-in-Chief Christopher George chris@55factory.net Editor Sara Darling sara@55factory.net Contributing Editors Charlie Noble Gina Lovett Fashion Editor Sara Darling Contributing Fashion Editors Joe Toronka Roy Hilton Aesthetic Candy Contributing Creative Director Karl Allen Picture Editor Christopher Sims Art Editors Christopher George Marcin Cybulski Contributing Beauty Editors Monika Swiatek Jonas Oliver Dan Delgado Louisa Copperwaite Joanne Reyes Pidlaoan Contributors Jonathan Bright Jaswant Bhachu Designer Lyn Devenney Technical Consultant Demir Sayiner Joe Barbour

Issue 13 Between each issue of 55pages we travel a journey as individuals, of discovery and as a creative collective. Our Creative Directors journey at the moment is editing on a plain to Miami, while our Editor is between Canada and Dubai doing much of the same, all to bring this edition of 55pages to you.

Since our last issue that journey has also brought marriage to one of our editors Jonathan, and a beautiful baby to one of our illustrators Jaswant. (Which are not connected. We don’t run a dating agency!)

Inside our very lucky issue 13, we wanted to focus on the colourful and fanciful world of fashion, so we packed in four fabulous shoots.

Our cover artist Eivor talks to Charlie Noble about her mysterious homeland, The Faroe Islands, and her life’s voyage with the language of music.

And we couldn’t avoid commenting on the grubby world of the sex predator. Our Editor Sara Darling brings attention to the fashion industry, and the responsibility it has to young models in vulnerable positions. It’s a tough world and the fashion industry can be as equally tough as it can glamorous. We should know! 55pages always respects our models as professionals and takes care of them like family.

We then all benefit with amazing fashion editorial.

Editor Gina Lovett goes to Germany and ‘digs up the dirt’ on its climate hypocrisy that is quickly becoming one of the most campaigned items in Europe. With over 3000 individuals making regular protests against its fossil fuels excavations, Germany has become Europe’s biggest polluter.

Why we ask you with so much green energy investment?

Seems to be all down to profit over climate yet again.

Carry on protesting is what we say.

This has all been part of our journey the last 6 months. Now it’s time to move forward on a trip of further discovery in the world, and the individual internal journey to discover one’s higher self.

55 can’t tell you what to do- find your path and follow it.

Publisher Christopher George

Join us on social media instagram.com/55factory twitter.com/55factory facebook.com/55factory youtube.com/user/55tvc info@55factory.net www.55factory.net +44 (0) 7956 932 679

5 Cover - Eivor Photography - Christopher Sims Styling - Sara Darling Makeup - Jonas Oliver Coat - Cimone

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“It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow.

I don’t have a hole in my jeans for nothing” It’s questionable whether the young international models who are seeking fame and fortune, expect to go to a job where the photographer strips down to his smalls and acts in a suggestive manner throughout the shoot.

And that’s if they’re lucky! The same said photographer has also requested blow jobs, massages and squeezed his penis into a stylist’s back while she was working. The oddest and most depraved act that has been brought to light is when he requested that a model removed her tampon so he can play with them.

This kind of misogyny might have been expected in the city during the eighties where men were brutes, but this is the 21st century for goodness sake!

However, the fashion industry is tough and fickle, but that doesn’t stop hoards of young, innocent, fresh faces, wanting to sell their soul to the “men at the top” and make their fame and fortune. The Instagram generation boast about the perks and the “famous” models have a celebrity following that comes with it, but the reality is a lot of mucky goings on, on set.

The glamorous lifestyle, jetting around the world and partying on yachts with film stars, or dating pop stars comes once you have made it; But this doesn’t happen overnight. Unfortunately there is seedy side to fashion and batting off sexual predators who groom the innocents means that youth is stolen, and reality is distorted.

Models come over to the UK from all over the world without knowing anyone. Young, vulnerable and often not speaking great English; They have long limbs, clear skin and great genes, and are hungry for the fame and fortune that modelling offers.

So imagine how it must feel when these young girls are taken advantage of on photoshoots by a slimy photographer? As an outsider you might not realise what goes on behind the closed studio doors. Generally, the model is perceived as a canvas where she leaves her ego at the door. Her face and body is at the whim of the photographer who works her in a way to get the perfect shot. Nobody is concerned with a model’s opinion or if anything is making them uncomfortable, which is a disturbing revelation in itself.

American, Terry Richardson, one of fashion’s most recognisable names, is known for his highly sexualised, images for major fashion players including Givenchy, Vogue and Pirelli; He shot a naked Miley Cyrus, on her “Wrecking Ball”, Kate Upton in a bikini, pulling the bottoms down, and a teenage, topless Daisy Lowe kissing her then-boyfriend. However, he has recently been sacked by publishing giant Conde Nast.

Banned from shooting for any of their titles after accusations of inappropriate behaviour and exploiting young female models. This is not a new announcement; There have been many models who have spoken out about Richardson’s inappropriate behaviour over the years.

The fashion industry has no rules, and anyone can declare themselves a model or photographer. Without a governing body to take the moral well-being of models into consideration, perverts can groom girls with the promise of developing their career.

Sexual harassment on photo shoots is probably more common than the general public realises. Photographers are in a powerful position, along with their assistants and crew. It is after all a models job to be vulnerable and basically do what is needed for the shot.

Preying on young models insecurities, photographers have been known to bully and ridicule models, who are at their mercy. Whether it’s inappropriate, sexually loaded questions, not giving them any privacy to change or asking them to get into a humiliating position.

Richardson is the master of this, and has built his career on hyper-sexual shoots. But the difference with his shoots is that he gets involved and Allegedly follows through with his pornographic imagination.

Since the 90s, the he has been known for an almost soft-porn aesthetic, which includes nudity, innuendo and simulated sex acts. He is also often seen posing with his subjects, looking like the cat who has got the cream. Which he quite probably has.

Admitting the allegations against him, his team state that any sex acts have been consensual, and are not a crime. But models must realise that they don’t have to succumb to these predators, and like Weinstein these sexual predators need to be reported Fashion should be profesional as well as fun, and fashion shoots should involve mutual respect.

I make sure that they always are on mine anyway. www.diaryofafashiondarling.com www.weartstudio.co.uk

PORNOGRAPHIC PREDATORS Article: Sara Darling Illustration: Marcin Cybulski

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13

It would be fair to say that Brian Griffin has been overlooked by the British art industry.

It would also be correct to say he is one of the most prolific photographers Britain has produced.

ground. But it’s the most artistic of the creatives that use their background as a direct link to their work. Often it is their subconscious creating the works with them not truly realising it.

Having photographed some of the biggest bands of the 70s and 80s, Griffin was breaking through in the music industry during the punk era; Griffin’s craving to be exposed is relevant, as the music industry was a great vessel to gain recognition. He also covers subjects from advertising, corporate portraiture, set design and film. But with his off beat creative formats it has been at points difficult for the industry and it’s snootiness to place such an individual.

Griffin’s childhood was spent in the Black Country, Birmingham, one of the heartlands of the industrial revolution. His father was a factory worker and the family was living within the environment of an industrial city, with strong memories.

The industrial elements and mathematical layout to Griffin’s work, even in his simplest of portraits are quite hypnotic. There are also strong hints and qualities to his photographs referencing classical painting with his orchestration of people, groups and the composition of his shots.

As with most artists, to understand their work it is important to know their back-

“Techno, all the noise, all the day. Techno noise: The hammers going constantly at the steel works, rolling mills for rolling steel, forges pressing out industrial metal. So as I grew up, I always loved techno music and particular Krautrock, music artists such as Can, Ney and Kraftwerk. I ended up working with a lot of electronic musicians including Depeche Mode in the 1080s. But most of the musicians I worked with I had no real like for their music. My childhood was dark, red hot metal, smoke, fumes, smog, fog, and darkness. Everything was all covered in shit! This all led into a love of German silent cinema, black and white, electronic

Article: Christopher George

BRIAN GRIFFIN 55pages

music, expressionism; it was all part of the contrast world that I was brought up in. It was post-war, so everyone was dressed like a soldier. It was an industrial world and it seemed to me everyone worked in a factory.”

With this background to his life, it becomes clearer to understand and see the threads in his work, with the industrial mechanical and almost emotionless construction of the images and the mathematical lay out of his compositions.

What are your thoughts on repetition?

“I love it. I just love it”.

The contrast of dulcet tones in the images with that ever-present grey are almost depressing, if it wasn’t for the excitement of the monotonous and detachment of the subjects. But in that detachment and monotony, there is a sense of madness and loss of control. The more we engage in control, the more of a juxtaposition there tends to be, with being out of control yet enslaved.

Having experienced two dynamic movements in recent history, one being the Punk movement which Griffin was involved with documenting. The other the development of the business industry, where he had been working as a photographer for several years.

“Maggie Thatcher in a kind of way made me. Business all of a sudden became sexy in Thatcher’s era of the 1980 with the yuppie as an example. I had been photographing business people for seven years- things just slotted into place. My style was becoming recognised due to my working environment, subject and also my inspirations of not using natural elements in my pictures: No smiling, no feel of warmth, stark harsh locations, controlled graphic lighting. All that editorial work of the 70s was completely opposite to my style. But I didn’t give a shit really as long as I was creating images that spoke to me.”

With a stark vision in his works, the difficulties of satisfying a commercial world would always be challenging. As we see today, photographers who are more suggestive with their subject matter suffer with a successful commercial career.

“This used to bother me; I was constantly being questioned why I hadn’t been presented certain awards, or why I wasn’t in certain collections or exhibitions. It was difficult because back then it was important to have this support to expose yourself further. Now with the Internet I have so much more exposure and a global recognition.

I am far more respected on the continent than I am in England.”

Is there anticipation in Griffin’s images? It’s a question you feel compelled to ask. His images are just so two-dimensional, precisely arranged and mathematical, apparently void of emotion. But even in Griffin’s still life, there is this anticipation something is going to happen.

The ‘indecisive moment’ seems to be where this answer lies; the prior moment before an initiation of the movement or an action, and the finalisation of it. This moment that is visualised in the mind before an action is performed could explain much about Griffin’s work. The space between two moments, the ‘indecisive moment’ is what Griffin seem to be exploring.

Although he says his work is not political or socially motivated, his glorification of the worker can be recognised in much of his material, along with several projects dealing with war and death, social conditions, and photographing the working class as heroic and monumental. His work has a huge importance and testimony to so many forgotten people, who have been treated by society as mere workers and slaves.

was flourishing, society was seeing an engagement with the damn right greedy and bypassing the downtrodden.

We still live in that society; however we have much more transparancy and the mood of our times looks grimley at those selfserving creature.

‘Used’ is an expression he uses to regard his parents; living an impoverished life purely for the benefit of the ruling classes and ‘the development’ of the economy. An issue we can recognise.

It’s also in his blood coming from a postwar working class background; being overlooked was, and still is common when emerging from those backgrounds and trying to make way in many industries but it is something Griffin has resolutely avoided by remaining obscure.

Throughout Griffin’s work, there is much focus on the worker; and this is possibly why he has not been exposed as greatly as those visuals of celebrity, royalty and the wealthy elite. At a time when his career www.briangriffin.co.uk www.christophersims.com

AUTUMnS SPRING Photographer: Holly McGlynn Stylist: Aesthetic Candy Art director: Charlotte

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Eivør

Interview: Charlie Noble Photography: Christopher Sims Styling: Sara Darling Makup: Jonas Oliver

Coat - Jayne Pierson Rings - Chupi

We sit underground in Selfridges in-house venue, where Eivør Palsdottir’s band is warming up.

It seems an odd place for Eivor, whose music is redolent of her Faroese home; soothing, haunting and supernatural. As we speak, our conversation accompanied by the sound of one of her band mates practising on her trademark Shamanic drum, the bustle of London melts away.

It is clear that something of the Faroe Islands permeates Eivør; her speaking voice is lyrical and deep, and her language often falls into rolling poetry, peppered with images of the sea and the green landscape of her home. Eivør’s music too, has firm foundations in the traditional folk music of her culture, but has been mixed seamlessly with a potent mix of traditional world sounds, her unique, guttural voice, and contemporary electronica.

She has been a recording artist since she was seventeen and has enjoyed illustrious success in Scandinavia, but now, years later, her career seems to be unfolding in new ways.

Having had her music recently featured on Game of Thrones and endorsed by Elton John, one would forgive her for getting caught up in the excitement, but Eivør remains grounded, she speaks of these successes modestly, with genuine warmth and openness, more interested in exploring her processes and artistry than fame or success.

We discuss her latest album and first UK release, Slør, what it means to be Faroese, and how to survive in the industry if you don’t quite fit the mould.

Do you spend much time in the Faroe Islands these days?

“I like to spend my summers there because the summers are so beautiful. It is a place that is so dark in the winter and so light and warm in the summers”.

For those who aren’t so familiar with the Faroe Islands, how would you paint a picture of them?

“It’s a very small place between iceland and scotland, 18 islands squeezed together. They are beautiful and green. Every time I go there, life’s tempo goes down. I left home when I was 17 and moved to Reykjavik and now I live in Copenhagen, so the tempo is much faster. It’s

important for me to go home often, it keeps me grounded. The landscape is similar to a lot of England and Scotland, untamed and wild, with rolling hills and cliffs”.

Your music is extremely evocative of that landscape.

“I hear that often, but it’s not intentional. It’s just a part of the way I hear music. When I hear or write music, I often see strong images of nature and home, and it becomes part of the sound. I often say that when you grow up next to the sea, you become used to falling asleep to the sound of the waves and then you begin to hear the sea all the time. I live in Copenhagen now, but I have taken the Faroes with me. I still hear the waves”.

Is music important to Faroese culture?

“I grew up with music around me, but my parents loved to sing- very loudly. In the Faroes singing is a huge part of the culture. There was no written language there until relatively recently, so music was integral to the culture, it was our way of record keeping. My father and my grandfather were amazing at telling these stories, that have been told through various songs and poems for hundreds of years”.

Your song, Tides, references the myth of the Selkie, or seal woman. Is that one of the stories your father used to tell you?

“Yes. That myth has been with me since I was a little girl. When I was writing Tides I looked deeper into the myth and found out it exists here too in Scotland and Ireland, but the ending is different”.

Can you tell us the myth of the Selkie?

“I don’t know about the UK version, but in the Faroe Islands, she breaks the heart of a man and he kills her family. She is so full of anger and grief that she becomes a monster, half woman, half seal. She puts a curse on the islands.

The reason the story spoke to me is because it can be interpreted in so many different ways.

We (she and poet Randy Ward, with whom she wrote the English lyrics of Slør) decided to see it in a different way, that the seal woman is an embodiment of female strength and power, and that strong women are often interpreted as monstrous”.

Is that something you feel is particularly true in the music industry?

“In a way, yes. When women try to be different, to stand out from other women in their industry, they are often shunned”.

Your music, particularly Trollabundin, has a unique sound. What advice would you have for other young artists who want to stand out from the crowd?

“For every artist, whatever they do, it’s all about looking inwards. Follow your heart and, most importantly, keep going. If you’re an artist, the journey never ends, it’s something that keeps changing, your goal always moves. When I was young, I was so impatient. I wanted everything to be here, to be now. These days I’m happy to have taken the long road. I feel as though I’m just beginning, even though I’ve been doing this since I was fifteen. I feel there’s still so much left to learn. What’s really important if you want to become a singer is to learn how to look after your instrument”.

Is that where your classical training comes in?

“Yes. When I was 17, I lost my voice and I thought my life was over. I started painting just to see if I could learn a different way of expressing myself.

But then I decided to get some classical training and slowly built my voice back up. I’d been doing everything wrong and had to start over.

It has been what’s allowed me to keep going.

Learn to love your instrument”.

Bridges, your last album, seems quite tinged with sadness. Was it a form of catharsis for you?

“It was an album that was quite melancholic, longing to go home, feeling far away from everyone. A lot of personal music, about lost friendships, so yes it was quite healing to make”.

What’s beautiful about it is that someone else who is feeling melancholic, could listen to it and realise they’re not the only person who feels that way.

“That’s what I love most about music. Sometimes I feel like it’s a good friend. If you feel like someone else understands you, you feel less alone. It is unifying”.

What music does that for you?

“Leonard Cohen. I grew up listening to Leonard Cohen, I’ll never get tired of listening to him”.

Having just released Slør, you have been touring the UK Have you seen much of the country before?

“Yes, we did a small tour of the UK before.

Everyone had prepared me, that it was a really hard country to play for, a really difficult place to crack, so I was prepared for an audience of about 5 or 10. We played this tiny venue in Bristol and people were just squeezed in there and they were such a great audience, there was such a good energy. It’s been really inspiring for me to enter a new market and meet new people.

I haven’t had much chance to explore London yet, it takes a little time to get to know a new place, but I am in love with the atmosphere here”.

How do the UK audiences respond to your music? Do they dance?

“In the UK you have a lot of standing venues, which encourages people to dance, people feel more freedom to move. I love it when people dance. When I’m at a concert I love to move, even though I’m a terrible dancer. Music and dancing belong together”.

You live in Copenhagen now, do you consider it home?

“I moved to Copenhagen because I felt like a change from Reykjavik, the plan was always to go back to Iceland, but I settled in Copenhagen. Who knows how long I’ll be there? I can’t imagine never living in the Faroe Islands again”.

Do you think you’ll end up retiring there?

“I hate the word retire. My plan is to become one of those grey haired ladies who never stops singing”.

Eivør is currently touring the UK and her latest album, Slør, can be found on iTunes.

Suit - Nico Didonna Brooch - Get Clobbered

www.eivor.com www.charlienoblewrites.co.uk www.christophersims.com www.saradarling.com

Blue is the boy Photography Direction: Christopher Sims Fashion Director: Joe Toronka Makeup: Louisa Copperwaite using Nars and Bumble & Bumble Model: Sol at First Model Management Styling: Kamran Patel - Manpreet Hora - Twinkle Singh Photographer’s Assistant: Roy Hilton

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Germany:

Europe’s biggest polluter

climate hypocrisy Article: Gina Lovett On the face of it, the COP23 – the United Nations climate conference where the world’s leaders gathered to discuss how to limit greenhouse gas emissions - showed signs of progress.

Syria joined the Paris Agreement, a planetary pledge to limit global warming to within a 2°C of pre-industrial levels, leaving the US the only country in the world not to be part of this global accord.

More than 20 countries joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance to phase out ‘unabated’ coal.

But, just 50km away from Bonn, where Germany hosted the climate negotiations, lies Europe’s vastest opencast coal mine – a deep scar on the landscape and the country’s climate policy.

The Hambach pit, owned and operated by fossil giant RWE, spans 85 sq km, is some 370m deep, and contains 2.5 billion tons of lignite at a depth of up to 450m.

Scientists have calculated that 89 per cent of Europe’s coal needs to stay in the ground if we are to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. But, here in the heart of the Rhineland mining area, the world’s biggest excavators are busy extracting 240,000 tons of coal a day, enough to fill up a football stadium 30m high.

And there are plans to expand. Almost 40 per cent of Germany’s electricity comes from plants powered by this dirty lignite coal, contributing 20 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union, according to Eurostat, making it Europe’s biggest polluter. It is one of the reason

why writer and activist Naomi Klein has called the coalfields an ‘existential threat to humanity’.

This irony has not been lost on Ende Gelände - a pan-European alliance of climate action groups, large environmental organisations and left political groups aiming to ‘unmask the hypocritical climate policy of Germany’ and take the phasing out of coal into its own hands.

Since 2015, the group has led blockades of up to 4,000 people shutting down pit operations at Garzweiler, Vattenfall’s Welzow-Süd open pit mine and the Schwarze Pumpe power station.

On 5 November 2017, the day before the UN climate conference in Bonn began, thousands descended into the Hambach pit to disrupt operations and highlight climate hypocrisy.

More than 3,000 managed to reach the pit, breaking through police lines, and navigating metre-deep troughs that RWE had dug especially to keep them at bay. Activists gathered round the crater, halting excavators, conveyor belts – and a day of destruction.

The phasing out of coal is not happening quickly enough. Climate experts tell us we have probably a decade to take carbon out of our economies, before climate change will go past the point of no return. But, the number of participants in Ende Gelände is growing every year, building a movement of climate action where civil disobedience aims to swiftly end the burning of coal - here and no further.

www.twitter.com/reallylovett www.ende-gelaende.org/en

Articel: Christopher George

TUNIS

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A most unlikely exhibition space is transformed every year in Tunisia’s capital city, Tunis.

Underneath a motorway, supported by around 80 huge pillars, and surrounded by four lanes of fast moving traffic, you will find over 160 murals.

It can be a dash for your life getting to this section of the underpass, but once there it’s a spectacular vision and the most unusual gallery atmosphere, leaving me wondering why this hasn’t been created in more of the major global cities, although I can understand the health and safety aspect of a few hundred gallery goats staggering across the road with their glass of cheap wine during the early evening opening event!

Street art and graffiti are a common part of western city living and we tend to overlook much of it these days. But in the more emerging countries and cities it can be difficult for artists to place their works and messages. This open-air gallery has become an accepted part of Tunisia’s emerging art and culture scene, where there are still strong ideas of government and social control.

The works range from abstract images to messages of a controlling regime that is apparent across the globe no matter what city you live in. Many of the visuals are anonymous with apparently no works from established graffiti artists.

The artwork changes every September and remains there until the following September, which leaves the area untouched and from an almost permanent exhibition. This is unusual for street art and the areas where it is normally found as these locations can become a mishmash of work in progress, never seemingly ending.

Tunisia has had its share of difficulties in recent years; but its tourist industry has begun to recover and it seems the country has begun to engage with the contemporary art scene with these huge installations of graffiti and street art works. Tunis seems to be turning itself around.

www.christophersims.com

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Palomino Party Interview: Sara Darling Photography: Christopher Sims

Easily distracted Palomino Party chats to easily distracted 55 Editor.

Keeping it real, the Cardiff band of self-confessed show offs have been working together to make beautiful music for the past five years- in various combinations and band members, but I am assured the current outfit is here to stay...

“We’re warping into some sort of monster but I think it’s found its feet now” I caught up with charismatic front man Linford Hynes to reminisce on growing up in Wales; And find out how the unashamedly glam rock shenanigans are accepted in the Valleys.

Named after a horse with a flaxen coat, Palomino Party are a friendly, easy on the eye, alt-punk band- not something I can say I am very familiar with! So I was intrigued as to how this combination has worked so well in a country the size of Slovenia (and that’s pretty small).

Unusually, Palomino Party is a proper band. They are not a TV concoction or a back page of the music press ad; All the members know each other, and knew what they were getting themselves into, which is ultimately a band which likes to dress up and perform.

With lyrics belted out full of confidence and charisma, Linford is no stranger to the stage, coming from a background in performing arts. So the live act involves theatre and drama, with lots of dancing. You can see that he was destined to be a showman!

“I kinda started the band out of love. Well actually it was when I broke up and really needed to do something. My passion for music stems from my dad, and love of all things glam- Bowie, Roxy Music, Marc Bolan. Bowie is an endless fountain of understanding, and his use of symbolism is still so relevant. His iconography and cultural references are so inspiring.”

Clearly this has rubbed off onto the 21st century performer who buzzes with admiration for the Scissor Sisters. Stage shows and costume are definitely part of the package, and getting dressed up is part of the appeal.

“Last year, we made our music video which was loads of fun. It was inspired by Neil Barrett, Alessandro Michele from Gucci, Marc Jacobs, Diane Von Furstenberg and Studio 54 from the 70s. We take a lot of inspiration from the 1970s. It was a very vibrant period for fashion, rock and club music.”

Times are changing and there is definitely a market for personal expression. Especially in Wales, which Linford tells me is in a bit of a political bubble, although he cannot praise it enough.

And with that, my time with Palomino Party is up. I feel oddly energised as I leave the cafe and can’t wait to see for myself the magical world that the band promise on stage. Wales you have done yourself proud!

www.palominoparty.co.uk www.diaryofafashiondarling.com