BABI PUNK
CONTENTS RUNNING + FITNESS + FOOD
08 BY RUTENDO SANGANZA Lost BoyStory: This photo is inspired by the models(ReSéan Russel) style and desire for fashion..
12 KIERA VARRESE My poem, Armour, is about the confident facade we build to counter our insecurity. I explore the..
14 TAJ STODDART the story behind the work I wanted to go for during this shoot was something dramatic look so that when you look at the photo you notice ...
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‘EROTIC DREAMS’
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EXCLUSIVE!
INTERVIEW WITH REBECCA GILPIN 18 VIVIENNE WESTWOOD 'S PROJECT An inspiration for us should be Vivienne’s Westwood approach towards fast fashion industries:
MAGIC CARPET RIDE This time, for this interview, we are going to talk with Rebecca about art, so here are the main points about art and herself as an artist ...
36 ALONE take it as it is, and understand it for what it is. simple. yet so complex. thoroughly relax into the imagery and let your heart wander with hers, and let yourself be inspired to recreate in some way.
The painting refers to a complex of emotions in a number of three, placed in a pyramidal shape, being represented by hope, despair, and disappointment.
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AUGUST 2020 | ISSUE 03
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BY Isa Rose 7
BY RUTENDO SANGANZA Lost Boy Story: This photo is inspired by the models(ReSĂŠan Russel) style and desire for fashion. While being talented and a diamond in the ruff, the young mans desire is to be free and expand his life into the city, waiting for an opportunity to find him somehow.
"She watches the city and smokes her cigarette; she ponders on how exactly she could reach her own level of personal success before it is too late." CHASING TWENTY ONE A young woman(Keara Coe) is breaching the age of 21, while also realizing she is at the beginning stages of adulthood.
BY RUTENDO SANGANZA
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I SHALL BE TOO LATE!
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OH DEAR! OH DEAR! OH DEAR! Silvia Traistaru lives and works in Bucharest as a visual artist and independent expert restorer. Most of her artistic pursuits fall under photography and video, but a special side of her work remains drawing and painting. An important theme which she often uses is the portrait that underlines the realities of post-communist Romania.
Cultural, political, social and economical pretexts are central to her work, unveiling the missing pieces of the system that she is part of. Using a visual approach that concentrates on the individual and his identity, through both personal and collective history, her works allow the viewer to analyze the role of social memory in Romania's daily life.
BY Silvia Traistaru 11
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My poem, Armour, is about the confident facade we build to counter our insecurity. I explore the internalisation of the comparisons we make between ourselves and others. I am inspired by the intricacies of everyday emotions and interactions, that are so particular yet so universal. BY Kiera Varrese
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ThIS MONTH COVER BY TAJ STODDART
the story behind the work: "What I wanted to go for during this shoot was something dramatic. when you look at the photo to notice how it’s not necessarily very clear but something to look twice at to fully grasp."
And that’s something I try to do with all my work. Because I didn’t want to just capture something boring but actually more and more complex. The red light is an expression of emotion and captures a feeling for the viewer to relate to. 14
Experiment I used to live passionately, but life killed me. I used to believe that life is a blessing. Now I’m not so sure anymore. Everything is illusory, in vain, a sick experiment of an even sicker creator, who enjoys seeing us writhing in our own birth pangs. To what purpose, would be the question. But the question has become an assertion, because its answer is no longer necessary. It has turned into an illusion as well, the illusion of futile knowledge. What is the good of knowing the purpose of your creation if you cannot change it, alter it, modify it? Our world was placed onto the giant table chess of human kind. I woke up into the middle of the game. The bishops got mixed up with the pawns, the rooks had left on knights’ back, the kings and the queens had mingled with one another, combining themselves until they couldn’t tell black from white. Nobody knows whose turn it is, but the moves are being executed in frenzy. And the frenzy of power gives birth to monsters, hideous monsters, deformed, multiple-headed, with hidden and not so-hidden faces, with venomous mouths, that feast on the whites and the blacks alike. Difference made us indifferent. But indifference won’t make us different. On the very same table we live our lives, removing one another from the game, unaware that an invisible hand is guiding us, is leading us to death. And then what? Darkness? Void? Enlightenment? Immortality? No, not at all. Once the table is cleared out, new black-and-white armies will be taking our place. Again and again. Because time is long, oh, it’s neverending, nothing gets lost, nothing is gained. When the game is over, there starts another, lost in the mist of the absolute. Who are you? Who am I? If I answered you nothing, you’d probably be offended. But even nothingness is too much for the one who does not count, who won’t leave a mark, whofails to exist into the endless immensity of space. It is embedded in my brain. It tells me what to say, what to write, what to think, what to do. It’s also in you and in you and in you. It’s in all of us, but it’s not the same. It’s now looking at me with my very own eyes and laughs. Experiment BY Fndreea Florescu
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its dreams and hopes, its desires and ambitions, but it cannot pursue them, it’s not allowed to disobey the wind. And what are we if not some bigger leaves, with hands and feet instead of stems and stalks, with a body instead of a blade, with veins and arteries instead of ribs and midribs, with blood instead of sap, with skin instead of pod, and with a god playing the role of the wind? The fall of man, just like the fall from the tree, probably from the same Garden of Eden, has thrown us into the current of the sin’s impermanence. And, just like wilting, dying is nothing else but another step towards the regeneration of the matter. The roaring in my ears grows stronger and stronger. The mocking laughter spits into my face. Just now? It seems to say. Just now, yes, but it’s not too late. For the barriers of time had dissolved. Now, the time is patient with everything and anyone, an endless field of seconds, minutes, and hours, that dilates and contracts, giving birth to nothingness. Time is dead. Gone. And we, caught living in it, are struggling to get alive out of death. Or to get dead out of life?By thinking we were dead, we were resurrected. And, by thinking we were resurrected, we let ourselves get killed again. And again. As many times as the clock will forever spin its hands around us. I’ve realized just now, you roaring voice. I’ve realized what it’s been under my nose since forever, under my very eyes, too naïve and new to see it. Pain, happiness, war, peace, life, death. I’ve forsaken them like some sheaths, like sometoo tight a bark. I’m empty now, but my emptiness hides the fullness of inexistence. For I don’t exist, but I am. I am not, but I live. And, for being so empty, your spears will passthrough me without touching me, without hurting me.There’s only us now, just as you wanted, you and me alone. Forever. And ever. Knowledge is evil. Ignorance is blissful. These words have never been truer. Fighting against the windmills was never more prevailing. I’m hungry for deliverance. I’m thirsty for oblivion. There’s nothing honourable in death. It’s nothing but a waste of life. What do I have to do in this miserable world in order to feel like I’m living? 17
Vivienne Westwood 's project
An inspiration for us should
However, most of the
be Vivienne’s Westwood
people around the globe
approach towards fast
seem to ignore this issue as
fashion industries: Her work as an activist is meant to open our eyes to stop buying, and start creating a non-polluted environment. In an interview with Naomi Campbell, she talked about this ongoing issue: "Buying less and choosing quality means that designers can make better fashion, not just lead by
they’re taking part in the consumerism parade, which does not only harm us but the environment directly by polluting the air with nocive smoke and the water\soil with very bad chemicals. In the end, it’s about being an active anti-consumerism activist, not only for our gain but in order to stop pollution and abuse
marketing and commercial
towards discriminated
interests," she said. "Fashion
people put to work in
is part of the culture, but
inhumane conditions or
not at the moment."
underpayment.
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It's pretty much capitalism in a nutshell. Fast fashion it’s often linked with underpaid workers, manual labor, pollution, and denial of human/workers' rights.
Greenwashing is a marketing scheme...
-Introduction in fast fashion-
-How to fix this issue?-
For us to discuss and find solutions in order to
There are some things that we have to do in order
stop the fast fashion industry, we have to define it.
to stop the mass production of clothes, shoes, and
So, what is fast fashion about? Fast fashion is the
accessories: for example, we have to learn what
act of creating and selling clothing only for it to
brands are fast-fashion producers ( Zara , HM ,
wear one season.
Stradivarius, zaful, etc) then we have to stop
It's pretty much capitalism in a nutshell. Fast
buying from them. Another thing we could do is to
fashion it’s often linked with underpaid workers,
reuse clothes, mainly by buying from second-hand
manual labor, pollution, and denial of
or directly from designers. Don’t forget that these
human/workers' rights.
companies are greenwashing most of their
In one particular case, children under the age of 18
campaigns in order to trick people into buying
were allegedly forced through a government
more and more of their products. Greenwashing is
transfer program to work in the Long Shoe Factory
a marketing scheme in which you are tricked into
in China’s southeastern Guangdong Province,
believing that the company sells eco-friendly
which is owned by Taiwan-based Dean Shoes Co.
products.
Ltd., a supplier of footwear to Nike, Inc. Spokespersons for both Nike and Longfa Shoe Factory denied the allegation that underage
By TODORAN E.T.
workers were being used and said hiring underage
GRAPHIC DESIGN BY Iasmina Angheluta
workers would violate company policies.
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interior
BY Maija Elizabeth Ekey
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maija's collages deal with themes of space, place, transparency, and conditioning. she uses color and shape to create dreamlike images in which the viewer is given room to explore their subconscious mind. maija uses art as a tool to dismantle inherited beliefs and build realms of new possibility.
B Y ~ R U B Y B E C K @ r a r t g r e m m
LINO CUT & WATERCOLOUR @RARTGREMM
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BY O'DONOGHUE @LESBYANKA
THE PYRAMID OF EMOTIONS The painting refers to a complex of emotions in a number of three, placed in a pyramidal shape, being represented by hope, despair, and disappointment. Although divided in two, the work wants to present the same landscape, but in a different light from the reality that we all know and see. If on the right this is a normal landscape that we occasionally encounter in nature, on the left we cannot say the same thing. Although apparently, the landscape itself is commonplace, it has a change in the perspective of observation similar to when we look at something,
hand then we see through some glasses that distort the image and its chromaticity, such as sunglasses. Tus, the work refers to everyday life similar to a banal landscape, but seen from another perspective, reality seems to be distorted, but it is really what reality and life mean. These emotions and feelings, hope, despair, and disappointment are emotions and feelings that all people experience daily, they are proof of the reality that is not seen at first sight. Thus, the characters in the work symbolize through their gestures and dynamics, each one, an emotion that is attributed to him. What inspires me to create my art are my own feelings and emotions and I try to transpose them in an objective way where all people can find themselves
BY PAVELESCU RALUCA. 24
25
GNIDLUAPS NAILLIJ YB
FLAMING BALL WITH FLEETING LIGHT,CHASING ERAS TO A BLACK HOLE,BEGGING, “SUCK ME IN.”CLOSE YOUR EYES AND LET THE SCREENBRIGHTEN, HEALING SCORCHED NERVES.FEEL THE PRICKING OF UV RAYS CLIMBING ACROSS YOUR PORES.LET THEM ENVELOPE YOU,ITS A HUG. RELISH IN THE BUILDING MELANOMA,MELTING AWAY THE HOLLOW EASTER CHOCOLATE LONELINESS.
BY GRACE RODRIGUE Â I was inspired to take these pictures because I was in a hotel in Copenhagen and I was watching the people go by from the view of my window and I was thinking about how they all have their own lives and how I would only see them for this one second that they are passing me and probably never again. So I snapped some pictures to capture these moments.
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MAGIC CA R 28
with Rebecca Gilpin This time, for this interview, we are going to talk with Rebecca about art, so here are the main points about art and herself as an artist : She started studying about 5 yrs ago and has a master's degree in fine arts, called, Master of art'' and also did some teaching too. When talking about exhibitions with her she seemed excited to tell us more: I had some at the university but I had my first solo show at the jam factory(...) '' The meaning of her paintings We all know that beyond every painting, drawing or sketch it's a well-endorsed message. Rebecca's work depicts mainly some experiences that she won't be comfortable talking about such as romance, or her exboyfriends: , (...)"Because I walk and talk through the exhibition and have music that goes along with the paintings. So I make very clear what's every piece about. And I have the exhibition text everywhere." Exactly, that's how people that go to Rebecca's exhibitions can understand the message inside her mind when painting those canvases. Everything is planned in detail only for you -the one who sees- to understand.
Plans for the future? I want to have some exhibits around the globe and donate more to hospitals. I want to make artwork for public transport so when you go down into the tub the walls to be painted. I want to make big murals and write slogans on them "something happy", "A piece of love", that would be beneficial for everybody.
ARPET RIDE.
Social Media and influence over modern art Minimalism is pretty much the hype since a decade ago and continues to be that way, but Rebecca didn't mind sharing with us her opinion on this subject: "I don't necessarily like modern art. I like 1940's, I like the New York art scene. I like art that means something. Art that has something behind it.'' "If your work doesn't have any substance... there is no reason.'' Just inspo\art fav If you're an artist or researching art, you might have some favorites art personas. here are Rebecca's Helen Frankenthaler, Mary Hellman, Chris Martin. (the NY art scene and the stories behind their work) In terms of the way I hang the works: Mark Rothko used to hang his paintings low, as you could nearly walk into them. I feel like I incorporated that in the way I work ...like walking into my mind imagination! Time travel? No, it's not a joke, we just asked Rebecca, If she could go back in time, what advice would she give to herself:" And we were surprised by her truthfully answer that sounded just like this : "Not to worry about making mistakes, to encourage making mistakes, as if you wouldn't do them your work wouldn't evolve. And the work would be boring." Take more risks and don't be afraid to focus on your work. I guess if you're an artist and you're very young, and you don't have anything lined up for you just go and find the opportunity. Go out, do it now. I would say to other artists always carry business cards on you. Talk to everyone, about what you're doing, tell everyone that you're an artist ... to just see that pice a look at it and see how that awakes something in you.
THAT WAS REBECCA GILPIN FROM UK. 29
EGAYOV • 4 EGAP
Protect Black Women
PROTECT BLACK WOMEN
I wanted to use my platform, as small as it is, to speak out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, in support of protecting black women, in support of the justice that Breonna Taylor deserves, whose killers are still walking free. I was scrolling through pictures of the protests and came across a photograph 31
of @anazadialeona by @adrian_cobb at an LA protest on June 8th, 2020. Although the strength of the image makes it powerful, it was the emotion in the subject’s eyes, her facial expression behind her mask, that I wanted to capture in my drawing. BY Alia Arif
Paternal love BY Alesia Cida
First picture-‘Paternal love’2020-Romania was at
This specific framework caught my eye. A dolls
the house of one really fun family.They are both
house near 4 empty glasses of beer and one
pretty young and they have two cute girls. The
ashtray. I did not arrange anything, I found them
father, acts a little bit like a teenager. He has 2
exactly like that. It shows me the story of a
motorcycles, drinks a lot of beer and smokes a lot.
teenager who suddenly had to grow up and take
When I visited their house, I was surprised by many
care of his new family, but he somehow managed
beer glasses and cigarette butts.
to remain a teenager.
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‘Erotic dreams’
‘Erotic dreams’I was thinking about what makes a dream erotic. The things that happen in it which might be sexual, the people involved, the atmosphere. In this photo, I tried to illustrate the feelings and sensations perceived by the person dreaming. The sexual atmosphere can be created by certain colors and motifs. Here, I used neon colors and bootleg pokemons , with a touch of 00’s aesthetic to create the ambiance of an erotic dream. What I wanted to achieve is the vulgarity of a dream, without showing much skin and being too obvious.
MY BATTLE WITH MYSELF IÂ HAD NEVER
AN
EATING
TRULY
DISORDER
AND
IT
DISAPPEARED
BY TODORAN E.T.
As I said before, everything started -more or less- as a goal: the goal to be healthy. In time, I realized that my main goal wasn't to be skinny or healthy but to gain control over my life. This goal of earning control happened right after my parents got divorced. However, I won't tell you exactly how many pounds i lost. That's irrelevant, and I'm not trying to spread a negative message. I only want you to know that there is hope after any storm. This was my storm, a storm that many other people had experienced it, sadly. It's a sensitive topic, many have died to mental illness, but I'm willing, to be honest with you and explain what was going on inside my mind at that point.
Food was no longer food, it was just numbers and how to burn those numbers. Even tho' i felt like heaven when dropping some weight, on the contrary, mentally I started feeling like hell. I was no longer entertained by going out with my friends, I started isolating myself, I started losing it. Physically I started having pain: every muscle I had felt sore, felt like I was ripping it off my bones. I was dizzy, pale and I no longer had any other goal: just to have control - over my body and over how people perceived me-. In conclusion, if you or anyone else you might know it's battling with any mental illness, just know that you are loved and believe me, in the end, it won't matter.
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ALONE TAKE IT AS IT IS, AND UNDERSTAND IT FOR WHAT IT IS. SIMPLE. YET SO COMPLEX. THOROUGHLY RELAX INTO THE IMAGERY AND LET YOUR HEART WANDER WITH HERS, AND LET YOURSELF BE INSPIRED TO RECREATE IN SOME WAY. the motion occurring is being captured on camera and therefore the photo series flows together like a wave of emotion. the viewer may scroll through them and feel an ounce of what was coursing through the veins of the subject while this photoshoot was happening in real time. that is the whole hope, the whole goal of any art. to make the viewer feel an inkling of what is being expressed, and once this has been achieved, the whole point of creation has been pushed across. take a moment to look at this impromptu photoshoot and connect it back to your own humanity. your own waves of emotion and spontaneity.
to put it simply these shots are taken in the bedroom in the middle of the night, after she sketched a third eye onto her forehead with charcoal on a whim. they are raw and unfiltered, and they showcase the power all women hold deep inside of them, and the creativity that pours from their very souls. they are blurred and still, blue and red. they are contrasting yet aligned in the way that they are all a window into the emotional world of a female. and it just goes to show that these very opposing subjects can flow together perfectly in unison. continually the subject can be viewed progressing from one position into the next throughout the piece.
BY Chloe Defrance 36
C A P T I V A T I O N
The photograph entitled Captivation is inspired by the willingness to be bold and push the limits of society's standards. I’ve always had a passion for being able to take simple things and turn them into something beautiful and daring. I use my photography to express people’s true selves and the imagination within them
The black and white around the whole picture symbolize the “facade” people use to hide who they are due to fear or judgment from society. The color in the eyes shows that one’s true self is always there, and shall take on the world swinging, once they’re ready.I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, 'Fuck that. I want to be a superhuman - David Bowie
BY Donya M.Amini @donya_maphoto
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BABI PUNK ISUUE 3 AUGUST 2020 Cover Image TAJ STODDART Editorial ONDY WARHOL Editor TODORAN E.T. GRAPHIC DESIGN O.W/Iasmina Angheluta Contributors Isa Rose, Rutendo Sanganza, Silvia Traistaru, Kiera Varrese, TAJ STODDART, Fndreea Florescu, Maija Elizabeth Ekey , Ruby Beck, O'Donoghue, Pavelescu Raluca, Jillian Spaulding, Grace Rodrigue, Rebecca Gilpin, Alia Arif, Alesia Cida, Naulia, TODORAN E. T., Chloe Defrance, Donya M.Amini, SUBMISSIONS BABIPUNKMAG@GMAIL.COM Subscriptions Visit babipunkmag.wixsite.com or contact us at babipunkmag@gmail.com
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