The Forumist #06 URBAN

THE

FORUMIST

ISSUE 6

Urban

It’s time to return to our roots and where The Forumist’s true life lessons were learnt. Looking back at our most powerful memories of the past, the visuals are always of dirty subway stations, busy streets and abandoned industrial buildings, the lyrics are those of A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Run DMC, and the groundbreaking sounds come from Joy Division, The Cure, Talking Heads and Happy Mondays. It makes us realise that we are urban animals in our hearts and souls.

As the days get shorter and weather colder, instead of hibernating, we head back into the hub, the city, the place we came from. We want to be inspired and to inspire others, to tune into the rhythm of urban life.

This, and the questions surrounding what is affecting our daily modern existence, became the focus of issue 6. The diversity of the intermingling lives, all the genders and ethnicities gathered within each city, is the essence of what keeps an epicentre generating energy, innovation and excitement. We asked our collaborators to tap into the inner pulse of different places around the globe. We hope that what they found gives you more reasons to keep on fighting, moving on and evolving.

COVER: PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTIAN COINBERGH, STYLING BY EMMA THORSTAND, MODEL ZACHARIAS AT MIKAS, VINTAGE T-SHIRT STYLIST’S OWN

Editor-in-Chief Pejman Biroun Vand

London Fashion Editor Sara Dunn

Creative Direction Daren Ellis

Paris Fashion Editor Théophile Hermand

Fashion Co-ordinator Emma Thorstrand

Stockholm Editor Weronika Pérez Borjas

Managing Editor Gustav Bagge

Paris Editor Sophie Faucillion

Marketing Manager Magnus Rindberg

Contributing Designer Daniel Björkman

Contributing Photographers Christian Coinbergh (Sthlm) Oskar Gyllenswärd (Sthlm) Harling & Darsell (Berlin) Elis Hoffman (Sthlm) Gary Sobczyk (London) Felix Swensson (Sthlm) Elise Toide (Paris) Contributing Fashion Editors Josef Forselius (Sthlm) Andrea Horn (Berlin)

Contributing Editors Tor Bergman (Sthlm) Tanya Kim Grassley (Sthlm) Julien Millet (Paris) Tsemaye Opubor (Sthlm) Ashik Zaman (Sthlm) Arijana Zeric (London) Advertising ad@theforumist.com Event Co-ordinator Jon Forsgren

Web Producers and Partners Fröjd Printing MittMedia Online Editors Sidsel Löyche Veronika Natter Pauline Suzor Clara Uddman

© 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without permission from the publisher. The views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily shared by the magazine www.theforumist.com info@theforumist.com

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After graduating from Tokyo’s renowned Bunka Fashion College, and then working for Issey Miyake for more than 10 years, Tsumori Chisato debuted her own exuberant line in 1990.

Her imaginative designs involve luxurious textiles, technical innovation, intricate beading, embroidery, appliqués and her own hand-drawn prints, the latter hinting at her youthful aspirations to be a manga illustrator perhaps. For AW15, she said she was inspired by crime-fighters including Catwoman and Batman — but only in their retro incarnations. So what should a modern-day superhero wear to save the city from fashion crimes? According to Chisato, sophisticated silhouettes, colour blocking, fun prints, intarsia knits, oversized collars, intense blues — petrol and midnight — a little bit of sparkle and a touch of fur. When it comes to channelling the superpower of looking fabulous, we think she has it just right.

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WONDER

WOMAN With a collection that combined comic books with clothes, the sexagenarian Japanese designer Tsumori Chisato hit the AW15 Paris catwalks with a zap! Bang! Pow! Photography by ELISE TOÏDÉ Styling by THÉOPHILE HERMAND

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ALL CLOTHES: TSUMORI CHISATO HAIR AND MAKE-UP: CAROLINE FENOUIL MODEL: PAVLINA DROZD AT SUPREME

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Ilkka and the Angels of São Paulo Design has a serious problem: it’s creating too much waste. It is time design grew up and started finding ways of turning ‘wasted’ into ‘wanted’ Words by TANYA KIM GRASSLEY Portrait by PIERRE BJÖRK

Ilkka Suppanen (b. 1968) is one of the world’s most loved Nordic designers. Ilkka was launched into the media spotlight in 1997 when took part in an exhibition called Snowcrash at the Il Salone furniture fair in Milan, with three other young Finnish designers. Since then, Ilkka has won numerous international design awards, the most recent being the Torsten and Wanja Söderbergs prize, 2015.

Although a product designer by trade, Ilkka is interested in how design can solve more complex challenges. “Design,” he says, “is basically the act of changing existing situations into preferred ones.”

Designers’ skills may have evolved in the industrial age, but these skills have never been more relevant.

“Solving problems is a designer’s job. Designers today need to share their problem-solving processes with the world, so that we can start collaborating and drive radical, incremental change,” Ilkka explains.

The conviction that design needs to design change was crystallised when Ilkka travelled to São Paulo in 2011. He was invited by Dr. Maria Cecília Loschiavo at the University of São Paulo to meet Coopamare, a self-organised cooperative of Catadores, or urban recyclable materials collectors. You can see them pushing carts around the streets of São Paulo, collecting all sorts of materials, from paper to aluminium cans.

Maria had asked Ilkka to explore how design can help increase their income. It became obvious that the cooperative needed more “design” work than a single product idea. The Catadores work around the clock, six or seven days a week to support themselves and their families. Many of them are homeless. But despite the obvious challenges, Coopamare and other coops of their kind are very well organised. All the coops form an established national network and have contacts to other waste collecting networks in

other countries, such as the Union of Waste Pickers in India. Any improvements Coopamare can achieve can be transferred across their network. Although organised like Internet, they have barely any access to Internet. A huge opportunity is being missed, says Ilkka, and that is the social aspect of sustainability.

As megacities increase in size, so does the “informal” economy of people struggling to support themselves outside the formal system. In this sense, Coopamare is at the forefront of global change.

Coopamare’s members have a deeply specialised knowledge and wide range of skills for handling all types of recyclable materials, from the deconstruction of mobile phones and electronics, to identifying all types of metals and plastics. All the materials that do not go to landfill pass through their hands.

Theoretically, service design could help increase the efficiency of the existing process, and extend the collection services to new customers as well as designing new services. Product development could explore how low value materials such as paper could be turned into a simple product such as a packaging or insulation material and sold back to their existing business customers. Communications design could get householders and other stakeholders to use their services, which in turn could increase recycling as a whole. Additional incentives could be designed into the system to meaningfully engage local businesses and global brands. And the laws need to support the cooperatives rather than hindering or even criminalising them.

Ilkka and I travelled back to São Paulo with Innovation Planner Karina Vissonova, to map out Coopamare’s process and offer suggestions for immediate improvement. Coopamare explained how they never used the word waste or trash, because so much waste is avoidable. They explained how when

TOP: ILKKA SUPPANEN. CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP CENTRE: COOPAMARE IS A MEETING POINT AND COMMUNITY CENTRE AS WELL AS A SORTING PLANT. COOPAMARE STARTED WHEN A GROUP OF FRIENDS COLLECTED RECYCLABLE MATERIALS TO RAISE MONEY FOR A STREET PARTY. IT TOOK DECADES TO GAIN FORMAL PERMISSION TO USE THE SITE UNDER THE FLYOVER; PHOTOGRAPHS BY TANYA KIM GRASSLEY

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a certain toxic blue dye is used on a fabric softener bottle, it cannot be recycled; how slightly reducing the thickness of the same bottle would dramatically reduce costs and waste; and how mobile phones packed with lithium, gold and other valuable metals can be easily reclaimed, but instead are poisoning our environment.

“Please tell the companies,” asked Coopamare. One member showed how he could list the characteristics of plastic or polymer just by listening to the sound it makes when crushed in his hand. Another explained that recycling mobile phones was there most lucrative form of income and wanted us to ask mobile phone companies to send them old phones to dismantle.

Another requested a simple machine so they could start disassembling aerosol cans for recycling.

Ilkka says: “There has been so much talk about Design Thinking in the last decade, but its design for the few.”

Design is creating a design divide: those who have access to smartphones and bottled water, and those who don’t. But design can help develop value networks that endorse meaningfulness, connectivity, value, and identity for every stakeholder involved.

The sum of all parts can easily enable incremental value for the network, and for society – if that is the shared vision. Add information technology into the mix and the impact can be rapid and exponential.

“The key lies in localised value network innovation,” Illka concludes. “As a network grows, so do new opportunities for mutual value.”

Coopamare continues to help turn wasted trash into wanted resources. They perform an invaluable service. They go about their daily work without any help, and without any thanks, invisible to the rest of society. Just like angels. www.clubofhelsinki.com, www.suppanen.com

Face Time How to define beauty in 2015? With runway looks changing dramatically each season and new inspirations being endlessly provided online, it’s no longer about one trend that will speak of now to future generations Words by TSEMAYE OPUBOR Artwork by JOE CRUZ

Influenced by religious icons, portraiture, pop art and tribal decorations, the illustrator Joe Cruz chooses to celebrate beauty using found imagery, a photocopier and chalk pastels: “I’m trying to create a new aesthetic to embrace the feeling of youth in our generation.” The brightly coloured results speak of strong women and diversity in all aspects.

In earlier decades, beauty was easier to pinpoint. Back then, it usually related to a specific era, a celebrity, an ideal based on a certain body shape, gender, race, age, country or social status. In the 1970s it focused on hair length and volume, and shiny, embellished make-up. Then came the 1980s and big hair, and bright make-up colours reigned supreme. The 1990s was the age of grunge and heroin chic, when fashion magazines embraced a painfully thin physique, a gaunt face and hollow-eyed look.

The 2000s brought hair extensions, lash extensions and Botox into the collective beauty consciousness of the masses.

Nowadays, thanks to social media and the digital world, we can find thousands of examples of the current beauty trends, making it harder to predict what will be current next month, season or year. The playing field has widened and the only thing we know for sure is that beauty today is an individual expression of a mash-up of trends, interests, song lyrics and whatever else moves us.

Make-up, adornment and beauty ideals have been positively affected by this new individuality. Even gender stereotypes are slowly being broken down as men, too, join the beauty party by wearing make-up if they choose to and by redefining ideas about what beauty means to them.

The British make-up artist Pat McGrath, who has worked on campaigns for Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci, and is often referred to as the most influential make-up artist in the world, summed it up in an interview with Vogue last June, saying: “Make-up should be playful and be a form of expression that’s worn to inspire confidence. If you feel great in the look you’ve created for yourself, I’d call it a success!”

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Name: Elina Nilsson Job: producer, B-Reel Creative

Today’s Stockholm is home to many of the digital innovations that are making urban life more manageable. New ground is being broken and development is being pushed forward in areas as diverse as medicine, science, advertising, film and technology, to name just a few. We like to call these innovators the New Rebels. By putting their creativity, intelligence, passion and energy into finding new areas to develop in their chosen fields, this new generation is changing the way we live, unapologetically following their hearts, playing by their own rules and living their dreams. We gathered together seven of these New Rebels working in the digital industry to find out more about what they do and why they do it.

Why did you choose to work in your industry instead of doing something else?

“Everything started with me watching my big brother tinkering with our first computer. I was too young to try – at least my mother said – but as soon as I was home alone the exploration of the machine started. It was love at first sight. Later, my interest in photography appeared, and when I was 13 years old, I planned my own exhibition. Pretty quickly I realised that I was more interested in the entire creative process rather than the photography itself. I had the opportunity to study at Hyper Island, where I developed my skills even further. Next up was B-Reel, which is a perfect match for me, as we are always driven to find boundary-pushing ideas.”

What motivates you in your work?

“I love to be surrounded by great talents and together find solutions to combine the world of storytelling and technology. It really doesn’t matter what it is – a game, a website, a huge light installation or a brand platform. I love to make things happen.”

Name: Maria Nilsson Job: production manager, Splay

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“Can I answer with a GIF?”

Why did you choose to work in your industry instead of doing something else?

“Coming from working on traditional TV productions like [the style-advice show] Trinny & Susannah, I was intrigued by the idea of working with new media channels, since linear television is getting more outdated. Splay is giving me the opportunity to work with premium content on digital platforms that reach a younger audience.”

What motivates you in your work?

“To meet people from many different places and backgrounds, to be a part of digital development and to have the opportunity to have a holistic perspective, yet still be able to focus on the details, is what motivates me.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“Fax machines!”

Name: Dr Ashkan Fardost Job: I don’t have a job title… “…I have a mission – to communicate how the ever-faster advancements of science and technology affect our lives now and in the future. My mission requires me to be different things each day.”

Why did you choose to work in your industry instead of doing something else?

“Some days I’m a global speaker, at events such as TEDx and awesome places like Hyper Island. Other days I’m a science reporter on Swedish Television, SVT. I also help companies to reap the benefits and navigate the challenges of new technologies. The freedom to be something different every day is why I chose to not pursue the traditional path in life.”

What motivates you in your work?

“Science and technology bring inspiration, hope and empowerment.

Today, for example, anyone with a computer can take a world-class university course, create beautiful music, start a business or send a crowdfunded satellite to space – yes, Google it.

“Anyone can turn any idea into reality with little or no money.

Advancements in medicine are taking us closer to cures than ever before. Contrary to the apocalyptic world we live in according to mainstream media, the world is actually becoming a better place, a lot of it thanks to science and technology.

“Having the opportunity to inspire and empower audiences, and convincing them that they have the power to do anything, change anything, with the help of technology, is the most motivating force that I know of.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“I don’t wait around until I get picked by person or company. I don’t hope to be discovered by someone. I don’t wait for permission to do something. With the help of technology and hard work, I can become whatever I want and achieve whatever I dream of. So far so good.

“Living with this mind-set is largely thanks to the books and lectures by Seth Godin. Especially his book The Icarus Deception.”

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Name: Anton Holmquist Job title: tech entrepreneur Why did you choose to work in your industry instead of doing something else?

“The choice came naturally for me, since there are really not that many things that interest me. Since I was a kid I have always been interested in technology, and programming in particular, so doing something else seemed far-fetched.

“When I’m by the computer I get that almost manic urge to create something. It’s so much fun!

It’s all about problem solving and finding good solutions. I really enjoy the industry and all the great people I get to work with, so I can’t imagine leaving it anytime soon.”

What motivates you in your work?

“First of all, it’s very rewarding to see a project grow, bit by bit every day, until it becomes something usable. Often it’s not until shortly before launch that a project actually looks decent. That vision keeps me motivated throughout the process.

“Second, I love the idea of creating something that other people would want to use. Just finding out that there is some traction to what you are doing is an amazing feeling.

“Also, learning is a big motivator. There are so many things to know, and working with people with different knowledge and experience from mine is very developing.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“My naivety. I’m not afraid to try new things or jump into fields, not knowing what awaits there. The worst thing that can happen is that you fail, learn and then try something else. It’s not that bad.”

THIS PAGE: FAUX-FUR COAT BY STAND, TOP BY ALTEWAISAOME, TROUSERS BY RODEBJER OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: LEATHER JACKET FROM STAND, T-SHIRT BY COMME DES GARÇONS, LEATHER TROUSERS BY RODEBJER. ALL CLOTHES BY H&M, VINTAGE HAT STYLIST’S OWN. JACKET STYLIST’S OWN, SWEATER BY H&M, KNIT BY BACK, TROUSERS MODEL’S OWN

THE NEW

REBELS

Fighting the system nowadays isn’t about smashing things up, it’s about sharpening your intellect and using it to change how we all live. Meet Stockholm’s digi pioneers — the modern-day revolutionaries challenging the status quo, here taking their stance in Dr. Martens, a brand that matches their spririt and drive Words by TSEMAYE OPUBOR Photography by FELIX SWENSSON Styling by JOSEF FORSELIUS Special thanks to DR. MARTENS

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Name: Martina Elm Job: co-founder and CEO, Confetti

Name: Abraham Asefaw Job: founder-director, The Pop Up Agency

Why did you choose to work in your industry instead of doing something else?

“I didn’t really choose to work in this industry, I ended up here by accident.

“Three and a half years ago, I didn’t have a smartphone and I had never owned a computer. I was working as a chef, and one of my best friends, Jonatan, was in the midst of doing his first start-up with two other partners. One night, Jonatan and I met to prepare a DJ set, and I randomly met one of the other founders, who I guess thought I had something. I got offered a job interview for a community manager role. I don’t know what happened, but I managed to land the job!

“After that, I completely fell in love with the start-up scene and I’ve been in it ever since. I love technology and what it enables me to do, as well as the openness and inclusiveness of the tech community.”

Why did you choose to work in your field instead of doing something else?

“I studied law and politics, and the only reason I’m in the creative industry today is thanks to my younger brother. He told me I should give it a try since I had been doing projects in my free time and I clearly enjoyed it. I gave it a shot and did it for a while, and it went well. From there I decided to study on an Interactive Art Director course at Hyper Island and it was an amazing experience. Things kind of fell into place after that. It was a long journey. I did a lot of things to get to where I am today.”

What motivates you in your work?

“Learning new things and having fun motivates me, as well as creating great products and experiences.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“I do what I want, not what people expect from me.”

Name: Hoa Ly Job: co-founder of Shim; PhD in psychology Why did you choose to work in your field instead of doing something else?

“I think psychology, the study of people’s minds and behaviour, is the most fascinating and powerful knowledge there is. However, presently, there’s no scalable way to help people apply psychological knowledge in their everyday life. I want to change that. That’s why I have chosen to work with Shim.”

What motivates you in your work?

“Building and creating something meaningful and relevant for a lot of people.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“While everyone else in the tech world is working on building tools and services for optimising people’s lives, me and my team are working on building a service for people’s minds. That’s what makes me a digital rebel.”

ABOVE: DR. MARTENS 1B60 RIGHT: DR. MARTENS 8053 WIGAN OPPOSITE PAGE: DR. MARTENS 8761 PREVIOUS PAGES: LEFT, TOP: DR. MARTENS 1461 WIGAN LEFT, BOTTOM: DR. MARTENS PILLOY RIGHT: DR. MARTENS 1460 MONO HAIR AND MAKE-UP: SARA ERIKSSON STYLIST’S ASSISTANT: MARKUS SAARIKOSKI SPECIAL THANKS TO: DR. MARTENS STORE, KATARINA BANGATA 15, STOCKHOLM

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What motivates you in your work?

“This is not a 9-to-5 job for me, it’s a lifestyle. I keep learning things and challenging myself by working with so many talented people. I am sticking to my passion, and connecting with my passion, on a daily basis. I keep re-evaluating myself and asking is it still interesting? Am I still passionate about it? This is important on all levels, not just in terms of this industry. We are all complex individuals and the key to staying motivated is holding on to our passion.”

The thing that makes you a New Rebel is…

“I don’t box myself in. I came into the game late and from a different perspective, and I knew jack shit.

My various experiences have made me who I am and that is reflected in the way I approach what I do in this industry.”

THIS PAGE: LEATHER JACKET BY BLK DNM, SWEATER BY MONKI, TROUSERS BY GANT OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP: CAPE BY H&M, SKIRT

BY BACK. FAUX-FUR COAT BY BLK DNM, SHIRT BY HELMUT LANG, TROUSERS MODEL’S OWN, TIE BY PIERRE CARDIN

Wir Sind Berliner The German capital has become a hub for creative energy like no other place.

Four of its inhabitants who are part of the buzz tell The Forumist about the chemistry they have with their urban landscape Words by WERONIKA PÉREZ BORJAS Photography by HARLING & DARSELL Styling by ANDREA HORN

Kira Stachowitsch Do you dream of editing the freshest fashion magazine, influencing with your own style, and DJ-ing in the greatest party city in Europe? Well, the Austrian Kira Stachowitsch has done it all. The brains behind the magazines Material Girl and Indie provides a cocktail of colourful, multicultural fashion straight from Berlin ’hoods.

What has been your best experience DJ-ing in Berlin?

“I used to DJ with my friend – the artist Daliah Spiegel – before she moved to Shanghai last January.

We played at quite a few of the infamous Berlin Fashion Week opening parties by the bloggers from Dandy Diary. We particularly loved playing at their punk/squat house-themed party, which was pretty wild, and I also vividly recall another of those gigs, where Daliah and I were wearing dozens of fake glueon tattoos on our faces and bodies that did not come off for days. I went to all my appointments at the fashion trade shows wearing those tattoos the next day, naturally.”

I know that your favourite areas are around Kreuzberg and Neukölln, areas where immigrant communities blend with bohemians.

What crossovers from international communities can you see in fashion?

“I think the last show of the Serbian-born and Berlin-based designer Sadak, which incorporated flowing, unisex designs with silk burkas, is a perfect example of the blend of greatness that surrounds us here. We are an international team from very diverse backgrounds here at Indie and Material Girl ourselves – taking in all those influences is key to talking about popular culture today.”

Name the most Indie-like persona you’ve ever seen on the streets of Berlin and who do you think would make a perfect Material Girl?

“If I may dream away into previous eras, I see a young David Bowie or Nick Cave wandering the streets of Neukölln — our Indie spirit animals. And for Material Girl, maybe Jane Birkin.”

Dandy Diary DRESS BY STINE GOYA, BOOTS

BY PREMIATA

David Kurt Karl Roth and Carl Jakob Haupt are the sharp fashion critics behind Dandy Diary – in their own words, “the most massive men’s fashion blog in the world”. Their adamant approach and astute sense of humour make them stand out on the fashion-blog scene. Haupt explained further…

What is the most embarrassing fashion trend in Berlin right now?

“Most embarrassing is that many, many people still dress in this whole gothy, layered, Rick Owens style and see themselves as at the fashion forefront. This look has had its time, but we have definitely moved on. Berliners to me seem very slow in adapting new tendencies in style and stick to trends for too long.

It’s the same with all these generic techno clubs. Most of them still look like Bar 25, which of course was legendary but closed, like, five years ago. No one really seems to want to add something new to their scene.”

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I just saw your Berlin City Tour editorial and found it very witty and amusing. Could you tell me more about your thoughts behind it and what you wanted to pinpoint about the city?

“The tourist look is one of those looks everyone would agree is ‘unfashionable’, but with fashion trends such as normcore and a general functionality trend in high fashion, it has become really cool.

Though it’s much harder to decode than, let’s say, high heels, a Birkin bag and a fur coat. During the shoot, people on the street didn’t recognise us as fashion guys, but rather just as two of the city’s thousands of tourists. Total camouflage in a very trendy way.”

Has living in this city sharpened your sense of fashion in any way?

“Maybe not in fashion. We seek fashion inspiration in other cities such as London, which is much more forward. But Berlin is a great city to learn about liberalism in. It’s definitely one of the most liberal cities in the world. I don’t know why this doesn’t really affect the fashion scene. So much more should be possible here, but most of the scene really sticks to old ideals, old looks and the trends they know from the US and London. So all this liberalism doesn’t really lead to new creative levels. It’s a pity.”

ABOVE: TOP AND TROUSERS BY PAUL SMITH BELOW: JACKET BY TATA CHRISTIANE, T-SHIRT BY G-STAR

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Emma Czerny When the Canadian musician Emma Czerny moved to Berlin, she found a keyboard on the street where she lives. With childish energy and heartfelt, lo-fi dream-pop, she continues her music adventures as Magic Island.

How were your personality and your music influenced by moving from Canada to Berlin?

“Before Berlin I actually lived in Poland, where my father is from, and prior to this, Canada. As an artist I definitely became naked in Berlin, embracing my inner identities and demons without fear – the ability to openly exist and express yourself is something invaluable that the ethos of this city offers.”

What is the first sound that comes into your mind when you think of Berlin?

“The emotional journey of a techno set. Where the introduction of every new element – snare, high hat, etc – cannot go unnoticed, and progresses this story that your body and mind are understanding symbiotically.”

I know that you found the keyboard you are performing with on Sonnenallee in Neukölln.

What other surprises has the city given you?

“I’ve furnished my flat mostly with found objects.

Furniture. Quite an assortment of cassette tapes.

Berlin has an amazing ecosystem of sharing, trading, donating, borrowing… Contemporary communism.”

Your songs are very heartfelt and talk about feelings. Is Berlin a city of love for you?

“Any city could be full of love, it just needs to come out of you first. Many loves have been loved and lost here, and I hope to continue that way. I am addicted to love, but I am also addicted to the suffering that comes from losing it. A high is nothing without an equally severe low.”

Kianí del Valle The contemporary dancer Kianí del Valle creates her conceptual worlds in motion between Berlin and London. Born in Puerto Rico and educated in Canada and New York, she constantly explores the blending territories of movement, music, choreography and film in her multifaceted creation.

How have the different places where you have lived inspired and changed your creative expression in dance?

“Living in different places has definitely shaped my work incredibly. There is a little bit of every city in my dances, from the way I move to the selection of music.

Everyone should be an immigrant at some point in their life. Not only because it exposes you to different cultures, food and people, but also because of the struggle. It’s good to reach a point in life where you feel proud of your own struggles.”

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The relationship between one’s surroundings and body is extremely important in the performing arts. Which spaces in Berlin influence your work directly or indirectly?

“Directly, living in Neukölln. I like to be exposed to the hectic mix of cultures in each city. Neukölln gives me that; other parts of the city feel like suburbia to me. Maybe I like the craziness. Indirectly – the canal.

It’s not the Caribbean, but I have realised that having water close to me makes me feel good. I love water.”

You are not only a dancer but also a creative director for dance movies. What projects are you working on at the moment?

“At the moment I am working with a group of dancers in Berlin, for what has become the beginning of my dance company. I am also working on a series of nine dance films in collaboration with many music producers I really admire and am writing a feature film with my creative partner Paola Baldion. And working on Alien, a project that joins all this forms together – music, dance and film.”

THIS PAGE: TOP AND KNICKERS BY AMERICAN APPAREL, RING BY CEASE & DESIST. DRESS BY AMERICAN APPAREL OPPOSITE PAGE: DRESS BY GANNI HAIR AND MAKE-UP: VELTA BERZINA USING MAC COSMETICS ART DIRECTION: ANDREA HORN

Feel the Noise Hanna Järver is part of the new guard of up-and-coming musicians creating a new wave sound in Stockholm today. Her debut EP, Smutsen (Dirt), came about after spending time in a Hungarian wine cellar and embracing inspirations such as the sound of her own bones cracking. Anekdoter, her follow-up single to Ingenting Skrivet and Samma Gamla Himmel, is out next month, so we searched her out to discuss style and the city’s rhythms Words by WERONIKA PÉREZ BORJAS Photography by OSKAR GYLLENSWÄRD Styling by EMMA THORSTRAND Special thanks to LEE JEANS THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JACKET AND PONCHO INSPIRED BY LEE’S ALASKAN PRINT BLANKET LINING. BOYFRIEND BUTTON-DOWN SHIRT IN CORDUROY, LEE’S ULTIMATE SKINNY-FIT SCARLETT JEANS IN A COATED FABRIC. BOYFRIEND SWEATSHIRT, VEST BASED ON THE 1931 RIDER JACKET, LEE’S BOOTCUT-FIT JOLIET JEANS. A CLASSIC CHIC BIB IN LIGHTWEIGHT DENIM OPPOSITE PAGE: LEE’S SHERPA LINING JACKET AND CLASSIC RIDER JACKET ALL ITEMS ARE AVAILABLE AT WWW.LEE.COM HAIR AND MAKE-UP: LILLIS HEMMINGSSON

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What’s it like being a young artist in Stockholm? Does it inspire you?

“It’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many talented and creative friends.

It seems like there’s a music studio in every basement here. I also like living in a big city because it contains more different kinds of people.”

The video for your single Samma Gamla Himmel has a mysterious Swedish forest in the background. Are you very attached to nature?

“I spent my childhood summers at a farm with my family. It was always the best time of the year. But I wouldn’t like to live in the countryside, because I would feel too isolated and restless. My life isn’t divided into weekdays and weekends, it’s almost like every day is both Saturday and Monday. That fits well with living in a big city, where there is always something happening somewhere.”

Do any of the sounds of Stockholm inspire you?

“The first thing that comes to me is the metro line – the monotonous voice on the train, all the people talking on their phones, the signal when the doors closes and the train starts rolling. It’s where I come up with a lot of ideas for new songs.”

You’re known for wearing comfortable hoodies, sweatshirts and denim. Would you describe your aesthetic as normcore? What is the recipe for a hipster-ish Stockholmer’s style?

“During my teenage years I tried out many different styles and cared a lot about my looks. I think my style now is a reaction to that. I want to have a more natural look and be able to just get up in the morning, put something on and leave.

“Fashion to me is about being comfortable. It’s important that my clothes represent my personality. I like scruffy jeans and hoodies and I mostly buy clothes at vintage stores because I don’t like it when they look all new and ‘shiny’. My tattoos are a big part of my style – something that is 100% me. I guess there is no recipe if you are a true hipster!”

Do you remember your first favourite pair of jeans? Can you tell us what they were like?

“They were probably a pair in typical 1990s style. I’m wearing really nice jeans in a lot of pictures taken when I was about five years old. I want to have them now! My dream jeans would have a high waist and straight legs and be black or light blue.”

You write, sing, produce and even direct your videos. What creative outlet would you like to try next?

“Photography is really hard, but it’s something I’d like to get better at. I also like letters, so maybe I should try out graphic design.”

What’s your favourite way of spending long, dark autumn evenings?

“Probably in the studio. I also enjoy going to yoga classes and hanging out at the climbing centre, practising bouldering.”

JACKET BY DIMEPIECE, SUNGLASSES BY MONOKEL

HAIR AND MAKE-UP: BROOKE HILL, MODEL: MONICA WISEMAN AT JE MODEL MANAGEMENT

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GENERATION

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As darkness falls, the city stage is set for a riot of modern hooligan, grunge and punk. Bring imagination, fantastical creations and authentic vintage finds and let the party begin Photography by CHRISTIAN COINBERGH Styling by EMMA THORSTRAND

JUMPER BY SANDRO, NECKLACE BY THE BLACK ROSE

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THIS PAGE: TROUSERS BY GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI, BOOTS BY OFFICINE CREATIVE OPPOSITE PAGE: HOODIE BY ADIDAS, TOP BY MUGLER, VINTAGE TIGHTS STYLIST’S OWN

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VIRPI PAHKINEN DRESS BY INA HJELTE, BELT BY ACNE STUDIOS, BOOTS BY ACNE STUDIOS, BRIEFS BY CALVIN KLEIN

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OPPOSITE PAGE: DRESS BY MINIMARKET, DENIM DRESS STYLIST’S OWN, TROUSERS BY THE NUMBER, HEADPIECE BY JH NOCTURNAL, SHOES BY SCARPA FOLLOWING PAGES, FROM LEFT: THEA WEARS VEST BY DICE KAYEK, TOP BY BRUUNS BAZAAR; EMLY WEARS TOP BY COMME DES GARÇONS; ZACHARIAS WEARS TANK TOP BY JULIUS, TROUSERS BY HAIDER ACKERMANN

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THIS PAGE: JACKET BY KLARA MODIGH, CORSET BY CHANTAL THOMASS, SKIRT BY JOSEPHINE BERGQVIST, MASK MADE BY STYLIST OPPOSITE PAGE: ZACHARIAS WEARS VINTAGE T-SHIRT STYLIST’S OWN, TROUSERS BY NEIL BARRETT; EMLY WEARS TOP BY COMME DES GARÇONS, SKIRT BY NINA RICCI, VINTAGE TIGHTS STYLIST’S OWN, BOOTS BY PATRIK GUGGENBERGER

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DRESS BY BELSTAFF, SCARF FROM BEYOND RETRO

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THIS PAGE: JACKET BY NATHALIE BALLOUT, CAPE (WORN AS SKIRT) BY PATRIK GUGGENBERGER, VINTAGE BRA AND BELT STYLIST’S OWN OPPOSITE: TOP BY CALVIN KLEIN JEANS, HEADPIECE BY MALINDA DAMGAARD 31

THIS PAGE: TOP BY NATHALIE BALLOUT, VINTAGE DRESS STYLIST’S OWN OPPOSITE PAGE: VINTAGE T-SHIRT AND BOOTS STYLISTS’ OWN, JEANS BY RICK OWENS DRKSHDW HAIR AND MAKE-UP: LILIAN HEMMINGSSON MODELS: IA AND THEA AT ELITE, AND MAGNUS, ZACHARIAS AND EMLY AT MIKAS PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: HANNES SÖDERQUIST SPECIAL THANKS TO: FRIDA, HJALMAR, LISA, OLIVER, ALEX, ANDERS AND FRESHTHE

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Mighty Aphrodites Make way for the multitalented and multicultural Mahoyo. With projects encompassing music, design and fashion, the hardworking duo are breaking down boundaries, one stereotype at a time, and giving women everywhere a voice Words by TSEMAYE OPUBOR Photography by ELIS HOFFMAN

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Farah Yusuf and MyNa Do are the two powerhouses behind Mahoyo, a Stockholm-based art, fashion and culture duo who work as DJs, stylists, costume designers, photographers and artists on projects that take them far from home. “We want to use culture as a weapon,” says Yusuf. “Many of the ideas for our projects come from our travels and our interest in developments in the urban music, fashion and art scenes around the world.”

Using their multidisciplinary platform and an urban, feminist perspective as their starting point, they explore ideas and work on projects in the global cultural sphere. “We also want to use culture as a way to make changes in society, especially for women, for people of colour, and for the LGBTQI community.”

This year the duo have been promoting The Mahoyo Project, a documentary film they produced last year in collaboration with Flip-Flop Interactive that examines and aims to break stereotypes based on gender, race and location. The film follows Mahoyo during a cultural exchange that took them to South Africa to join forces with local artists who are active

in urban music, fashion and dance in Johannesburg. It is meshed with interviews with Mahoyo collaborators from Stockholm’s creative scene as well.

“The Mahoyo Project has received such a great response. It’s made us want to do another film,” says Do. “The trailer was featured on Solange [Knowles]’s website, after first being featured on the Okayafrica website, which opened up our project to many more people than we imagined. We haven’t really marketed the project that much, but the film has been shown at festivals in Berlin, Philadelphia and Stockholm.”

Yusuf and Do have been close friends since childhood, growing up together in the small Swedish town of Oskarshamn. Mahoyo was born seven years ago, starting off as an e-tailer that offered unique streetwear items specially selected from international labels. They then started arranging parties and events for their network of friends, which included an urban posse of dancers, MCs and DJs in their town.

Trips to Tokyo and New York gave them creative energy and they started DJ-ing, which opened up further opportunities, with highlights over the years including DJ-ing at the VICE x Smirnoff party in Berlin in 2010 and opening for Robyn in concert at Helsingborg the following year.

“Going to Tokyo was an eye-opener. It really changed everything about the way we approached work,” says Yusuf. “We met people who had several

different professions at the same time – people who worked as graphic designers and DJs and stylists.”

“We hadn’t seen anyone working in multiple areas like that before we saw it for ourselves in Tokyo,” says Do. “We also saw a lot of women DJ-ing there and that encouraged us to step up our game and to create opportunities for other women to DJ. We wanted to show it doesn’t always have to be guys.”

The two explain that they haven’t followed a singular path in the development of Mahoyo projects, but rather have been “doing things that [we] feel are important” – “Everything we do is activism, because of who we are,” says Do. Requests for their DJ workshops and styling have led to the duo working across a broad range of areas within the cultural landscape. Their work is gaining recognition and their presence at festivals around the globe, such as Afropunk Paris and Afropunk New York earlier this year, means they’re reaching a much wider audience. They have also recently designed costumes for a play by Farnaz Arbabi, opening this month at Unga Klara theatre, Stockholm.

“It’s surreal to meet young women and people of colour in cities around the world who know our work, and they thank us for giving them a voice,” says Yusuf. “I feel so blessed. We hustled like hell in the early days. It’s hard to believe that the things we do today all started from a web shop, but they did.”

THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE TOP RIGHT: FARAH YUSUF OPPOSITE PAGE, FAR LEFT AND BOTTOM RIGHT: MYNA DO

Where is your favourite place for writing music?

“It can differ hugely from day to day, depending on my mood. With the EP that is coming out soon I’ve been feeling very restless, writing and producing all around the world. Me and Linus Wiklund have been in a little village in Sweden, in Skåne, Ibiza, LA, everywhere. The music changes with the place.

Sometimes I need to be alone in my room, sometimes I invite family and friends to play together. But if I had to choose just one place, it would be Vejbystrand in Skåne – a beach where my creativity flows freely.”

Are you more of a city or nature person?

“I like contrast – first writing out in the wild, then a quick trip to New York or LA. I travel to big cities to collect impressions and then I take them back to a peaceful place and transform them into songs.

“I love human encounters, listening about different lives. After periods of being enclosed in my own world, I thirst for inspirational exchange. It’s also cool to meet somebody totally different and talk about something other than music. My brain is full of music 24/7, so it’s good to change the topic.”

What would your dream city look like?

“It would be surrounded by majestic nature – huge mountains, huge lakes – but also ultramodern. Kind of a mix of Lord of the Rings and Tokyo.”

You were raised in the suburbs of Stockholm – how did the city influence you?

“Growing up, I was rather inspired by escaping reality.

I wanted to be somewhere else, away from school.

But what inspired me positively was that Botkyrka was very multicultural and full of different kinds of music. At my school in Alby we made our own plays and wrote music together. Many girls were not afraid to just go for it and follow their dreams. There was a sense of sisterhood and community that definitely formed me as a person.”

What’s your favourite place in Stockholm today?

“My parents run a cosy bistro, Rost at Wollmar Yxkullsgatan. It’s definitely my favourite hangout, mostly because of the wonderful regulars who go there. Each time I go, I end up hugging and kissing half the visitors. You can meet the most interesting people and hear best stories there.”

Tales of the Unexpected Noonie Bao is the surrealist singer-songwriter of unimpeachable pop with a name that makes her sound like an anime character and a reputation for tussling with gigantic vacuum cleaners. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, just watch the video to her hit I’m in Love — you’ll be as hooked as we are Words by WERONIKA PÉREZ BORJAS Photography by OSKAR GYLLENSWÄRD Styling by PEJMAN BIROUN VAND ABOVE: TOP BY ANN-SOFIE BACK RIGHT: DRESS BY MONKI, TOP BY MARIMEKKO OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP BY MARIMEKKO HAIR AND MAKE-UP: OSCAR SVENSSON AT MIKAS

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You have a very quirky and colourful visual world.

Even your website is more of a personal gallery of inspirations than a typical page about a musician.

How does the visual world influence your music?

“That’s true, I am becoming more and more visually inspired. I collect weird images from the internet and often look at inspirational pictures while I write. I have thousands of surreal pictures on my iPad; they stimulate my fantasy. For my new EP I was working with Sebastian Mlynarski, the director of the video to I’m in Love. When I met him, I knew immediately that he was a person who could make the visual world I have in my head happen.”

Would you like to do your own movie?

“My dream is rather to write the soundtrack to an entire movie. I often watch films on YouTube, but I take away the sound and think about how I would put my own music to each scene. My favourite films are The Fifth Element, Pan’s Labyrinth, Spirited Away and Wes Anderson movies. If I made my own film, it would probably be a mix of fantasy and Wes Anderson.”

How is your new EP different from the one before?

“The first one was a collection of my songs that I had been writing since I was 15 and I was finally ready to get out. This one is definitely more attached to the more recent years of my life. I wrote a lot of the tracks just with a guitar and piano, and then I added the whole world around. I listened a lot to older singers such as Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega.

The sound could be described as fantasy/Nintendo game/1980s. My lyrics often talk about daring to be yourself and not caring what others think, fighting your fears and following your own way.”

You also often collaborate on projects and write songs for other singers. How does it feel to give away your songs to somebody else?

“I love social meetings and writing together. That’s why I started writing for others in the first place.

Before, I used to sit so much on my own. At first, it was very difficult and I was afraid that I would not be able to write with somebody else, because it’s so personal, but I decided to try, just because I like conquering my own fears. I don’t really care what happens with the song itself – whether it will come out or not finally – but I enjoy the meeting and the collaborative process.”

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MASTER OF CEREMONIES (SARA, THE KEY HOLDER), CONJURES FORTH THE REAL WORLD WITH XENIA MASK (2015); PHOTOGRAPH BY PER KRISTIANSEN. THE ARTIST YLVA OGLAND. SIBYLLAS KÄLLA (2014); PHOTOGRAPH BY RODRIGO MALLEA LIRA. THE BIRTH OF XENIA (7) (2014); PHOTOGRAPH BY RODRIGO MALLEA LIRA OPPOSITE PAGE: SPEGLAD KÄLLA (MIRRORED SPRING), SNÖFRID ET LES CONTRE ESPACES (2011–14); PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA SVENSSON

Everyday People Carving out his creations using a hammer and chisel, drills, acid and even small explosives, the artist Vhils composes exquisite visual poetry on the walls of the world Words by SOPHIE FAUCILLION & JULIEN MILLET The Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, has been interacting with the urban environment for more than 15 years. His internationally recognised trademark is the forming of dramatic, oversized portraits made by carving directly into outdoor walls. The process often involves industrial methods such as drilling and controlled explosions, and Vhils’s subjects are often formerly anonymous local citizens.

Thirteen years before Farto was born, activists – including his own father – liberated his country from a dictatorship, thus awakening hope and making it possible for Farto to experience freedom and become Vhils. As though reconstructing a story, Vhils started cutting through portions of the successive layers of advertising posters that had appeared on the walls of Lisbon after the Carnation Revolution. Posters that had covered the liberators’ slogans of a nation finally free to express itself, to dream, to live.

He could have used a brush, a spray can or a marker pen, but instead he chose the hammer, a tool that can be used both to build and destroy, and one that felt natural in his hand. It allowed him to create a new way of writing urban poetry.

On run-down walls of cities, Vhils reveals and iconises unknown faces, representing the beauty and spirit of a neighbourhood. They’re faces that become familiar but could quite easily be any one of the people you pass without noticing while you roam the same streets each day.

Vhils has invented his own creative path. He integrates explosives within his palette, arranging them as small strokes, like an impressionist artist would. The explosion does not only call into question the existence of the place, but also creates something in a fraction of a second. And after the chaos, when the smoke clears, a new work of art is born. Vhils often uses a camera to film this painless birth of his creation. The blast is indeed a magic work of art in itself, reminding us that even the universe was born from a great explosion. Back then, only our creator could enjoy the show, now we have cameras, and after “REC” there will be always the “PLAY”, as there will always be Vhils.

Vhils has previously had solo exhibitions at Skalitzers Contemporary Art in Sydney, Clark Art Center in Rio de Janeiro and Lazarides Rathbone gallery in London, and has collaborated on music videos with artists including the Portuguese soul/trip-hop band Orelha Negra and U2. He will also feature in Street Art Show, opening at the Magda Danysz Gallery, Paris, on October 24. Get there if you can.

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© THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ALEXANDRE FARTO (MOSCOW), IAN COX, RUI GAIOLA, IAN COX (NUART FESTIVAL, NORWAY), JOÃO RETORTA (TABAJARAS, BRAZIL), JOÃO PEDRO MOREIRA (PROVIDÊNCIA, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL), RUI GAIOLA OPPOSITE: LEONOR VIEGAS

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Kings of the Concrete Jungle Not just the ultimate urban sport, parkour is also a frame of mind, where you have to overcome physical and mental barriers to get from A to B the quickest way possible. And it looks pretty cool, too. We headed to London’s South Bank to talk to the talented young freerunners Will Fraser-Coombe, Azan Ahmed and Jamie Guy about the modern world, facing fears and why they’ll never be able to do a regular 9-5 Interview by ARIJANA ZERIC Photography by GARY SOBCZYK Has this sport changed you on a more spiritual level?

AA: “I’ve gained a lot of confidence through parkour. Also, aside from the physical-strength building, patience, creativity and determination are all traits that I have acquired from training.”

WF-C: “I don’t feel it has changed me on a spiritual level, but I do feel it has changed the route my life was taking for the better. It got me away from alcohol, drugs, violence, etc. If you knew me, you wouldn’t think it, but I used to have anger problems and I suffer with mental-health issues as well. It helps me control and manage them, and helps me deal with certain situations better than I would have before.”

JG: “It has changed the way I interact with people and the world, but it has shaped the person I am today. Having started the discipline in my teenage years and continuing for the past 10 years, I now understand the importance of focus in life for achieving goals. This skill, which I attribute solely to my being able to overcome mental obstacles when trying a new move or going for a scary jump, has transferred over into my everyday life and allowed me to do just about anything I set my mind to.”

Has it shaped your view of your surroundings in your everyday life?

AA: “I can never look at a bench or wall the same way again. One of the best things about being a traceur is that you can never feel alienated by your surroundings. We’re at home wherever we go.”

WF-C: “If you step back and take a good look at it, the human body wasn’t designed to be sitting in an office from 9 to 5, just to spend your spare time in front of a computer or a television. And it certainly wasn’t made to be confined to certain spaces. It was made to move, to hunt, to chase. And with the development of the mind and imagination, it was made to express. It’s natural when you’re a child, so why let your creativity die as you age? Why would you let adventure die? Freerunning brings us back to what it is to be a human being instead of a human doing.”

JG: “The world is no longer the dull, mundane cage that we are psychologically and sociologically conditioned to believe exists. After just your first jump, your eyes will begin to open up to the virtually limitless possibilities surrounding you. A wall no longer presents restriction but the freedom to move and express yourself in ways you would never think are possible until you let go and just jump.”

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Did it actually encourage you to do other things in life that you wouldn’t have considered before?

WF-C: “If I hadn’t got into freerunning, I would have been like everyone else, going to university, probably getting drunk every other weekend and working a job that I have no passion for. Instead, freerunning introduced passion and adventure into my life. It also got me into film-making, which I do in my spare time and I absolutely love it. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, ‘Unrest is the mark of existence.’”

JG: “As parkour was so fresh in the small city I am originally from, I was blessed with being one of the first handful of people to push the discipline and help it grow in my area. I took part in many performances and media work, and was in the opening ceremony for the European Athletics Indoor Championships.

But the most rewarding thing I have done was teaching. To inspire young and older generations through movement and lifestyle gave me a sense of purpose I would not have today without parkour.”

AA: “The beauty of parkour is that every movement is your own, so whatever you do is unique. It gave me the confidence to pursue acting and public speaking.

I would have never stepped on a stage a few years ago, but now I have a passion for performing.”

What is the level in the UK like compared with other countries?

WF-C: “The UK has a pretty good scene, with highlevel athletes with teams like Storror and Prodigy of Movement, as well as solo athletes such as Joseph Marx. Things like kongs and basic flips and runs are to such a high level, but take GUP – a Spanish freerunning team – for example. They have a much nicer flow to their movements and work efficiently.

Then, with a German style, they focus on strength and technique. Each country has their own style, which makes them incomparable, and you even get that down to individual athletes.”

AA: “Personally, I experienced what it was like to not have a buzzing scene when I lived in Qatar. Although it wasn’t ideal not having anyone to train with, it was great introducing newcomers to the lifestyle, and now there is an emerging scene in the Middle East.”

JG: “The UK was one of the first places in the world where parkour really exploded, thanks to the media.

The most common thing I hear from people from other countries is that they wish there were as many people practising in their countries as there are here.

Many people travel to London to train here due to the number of locations that have caught the eye of the world through videos posted on the internet.”

Where do you see the scene going in the future?

AA: “Onwards and upwards! Schools are now offering parkour as an extracurricular activity and there are now official coaching qualifications.

Parkour is becoming increasingly globally recognised.

We’ll have everybody jumping around in no time.”

WF-C: “I can see it being as big, if not bigger, than skateboarding and BMX-ing, which are both still huge sports these days. The level of freerunning only gets higher and the moves get crazier with each generation being brought into the sport.”

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Outside the Wall Meet Rebecka Bebben Andersson and Jakob Ojanen: two compelling artists with disparate practices whose bodies of work notably derive from their experience of the city Interview by ASHIK ZAMAN Artwork by REBECKA BEBBEN ANDERSSON & JAKOB OJANEN

Jakob Ojanen Your body of work sees works depicting exteriors and facades from the urban cityscape. I enjoy how it intersects painting and photography so seamlessly.

“Painting constitutes my body of work. Or perhaps rather the core of my practice is the search for painting for which I’ve worked with a diverse material and technical approach, which perhaps doesn’t strike everybody as painting. For example, iPad drawings or the use of found objects. In paintings that incorporate photographic prints of urban surroundings and facades where graffiti had been removed, I saw a close but random kinship between the artistic, painterly practice in the studio and the work applied in society to remove and alter painted city surfaces. Those are two aspects I’ve tried to depict in my paintings. Maybe that’s why it’s worked so well with a hybrid technique.”

Rebecka Bebben Andersson In today’s contemporary art, we are always speaking of interdisciplinary artists, and in your case this couldn’t be more accurate. You’ve studied architecture, scenography and then fine art.

“I’ve always been very interested in new subjects and techniques, which essentially I think is because I’m rather restless. I constantly corner myself into situations beyond my command to see how it will play out. When I’m interested in something, I really devour it, which naturally impacts on what I do and comes through in my art.”

I first learnt of your work with NOLLI STHLM, a project where you examine your perceived freedom of movement and restrictions, and how this changes over the course of 24 hours, which is presented in 24 city maps of Stockholm. One for each hour. What prompted this work?

“I was first exposed to Nolli maps while studying architecture. They are a form of maps that describe the public and private spheres as black and white. I started reflecting about how I carry myself in the city and sensed that perhaps, rather than real obstacles, it might primarily be intrinsic feelings and perceptions that keep me out of certain spaces in the city.

“I thought of how a Nolli map could be made true of my own experience and about how I perceive Stockholm. Why am I choosing this street to go home? Would I still choose it two hours later in the day? And why am I heading home at this particular hour? The more I thought of it, the more restricted I felt.”

One of your recurring performances, Dygnsteckning, also uses the city as a clear point of departure. You basically draw nonstop over 24 hours from behind a window in a public place that looks out into the city. What have been your discoveries?

“The most obvious thing is that I end up doing drawings I would never do otherwise. I just let go of self-censoring and a sense of control. The most important thing is that I want to experience the city.

In a way, it’s an act to defy myself and the conclusions I arrived at with NOLLI STHLM. Exposing myself to my own fears by sitting somewhere alone at night,

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which I normally wouldn’t dare to do. To know what room a woman can actually command if she wants.

“The drawings then beome a side effect of the performance itself. I’m scared as I sit there drawing.

I feel like prey. Men yell at me, which just affirms what I already thought, even if it caught me by surprise when four guys were trying to get inside via the ceiling of a pavilion where I was drawing.

It’s apparently incredibly provoking that women do things that have not been sanctioned by men.”

Your graduate project at Mejan is composed of a large-scale installation of a set decor depicting woods, a play on light and shadow, which allude to the fear and menace you might feel in the city at dark, perhaps often as a woman. I was bowled over by this work.

“I focused on the feeling that the public domain doesn’t really exist. That perhaps it’s partly just decor. Take a park as an example. If you’re scared to spend time there, then the park doesn’t quite exist as a choice of somewhere to go. It’s merely there as a backdrop. Something pretty to look at from the outside. If you were never to find yourself inside it at a given point in time, then in essence it doesn’t exist.

Supported with a textual work about my experiences as a girl growing up in relation to men, the exhibition became much clearer – I’ve felt the freedom [ Jag har känt på friheten]. And then the added subheading – But there was always someone else there.”

Jag har känt på friheten is currently on view at the subway station Odenplan in Stockholm until December 6

To me, I feel there’s something faintly melancholic about them, as though they say something about time and the perishability of all things.

“I myself don’t see them as melancholic but, rather, as an attempt to point at the time aspect in painting. For me, painting is timeless, in so far that everything happens at the same time. It makes for a documentation of events, brushstrokes of other doings that happened in the studio. There’s also time as a narrative itself and, moreover, the composition of an image is also conditioned by time. Lastly, there’s the time aspect of the viewer seeing the work.”

You’ve also worked on sculptural assemblage installations that strongly allude to the city with components such as grids and bricks.

“Yes, it’s grown on me a bit modestly, but essentially traces of it date back to my years as an art student, when I was trying to work more spatially and with an installation approach. With these new works I think there was a subconscious wish to put painting against something new in my practice. Essentially, a wish away from photographs.”

So if I were to ask you whether what you do is urban art, what would you say?

“I weigh against the urban. It is, after all, in the city that I live and work. Had I lived in the woods would I have been painting trees? The big narrative continues to be painting.”

THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: NOLLI STHLM #19 (2012), SILKSCREEN AND DRAWING, BY REBECKA BEBBEN ANDERSSON; UNTITLED (OBJECT) (2013) AND UNTITLED (THESE WALLS DON’T LIE) (2014) BY JAKOB OJANEN. OPPOSITE PAGE: JAG HAR KÄNT PÅ FRIHETEN (2015) BY REBECKA BEBBEN ANDERSSON

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Street-food serenade Every big town has it own treats. From suya in Lagos to strömming in Stockholm.

Rapper and amateur chef Mange Schmidt has made it his lifelong quest to find the most delicious street-food dishes from all corners of the globe, an undertaking that he is pursuing together with Pilsner Urquell.

Welcome to the world of compressed food culture Words by TOR BERGMAN Photography by PEJMAN BIROUN Special thanks to PILSNER URQUELL

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Fish and chips, frankfurters or a quick curry – wherever a bunch of people are gathered together in the world, they usually need a quick, tasty meal. Dishes served from stalls in the street are, in fact, the very essence of food culture. A bite on the go was even an integral part of daily life in ancient Rome, whether that meant nibbling on salted peas or grabbing a sausage or fried fish on the way to the forum. And it always came with garum, of course, that mysterious sauce made from rotten fish that, these days, we find labelled as “fish sauce” in various Asian countries. A necessity for every Roman, more popular than ketchup is today.

Better known as a rapper, Mange Schmidt has also worked in a lot of restaurants and bars, but never actually as a full-time cook. He was brought up in a food-loving household and, as a kid, his father would take him to Günter’s sausage stand in Stockholm, one of the few quality hot-dog vendors in Sweden at that time. “If you asked for an ordinary Swedish hot dog, Günter wouldn’t rest until you had tried one of his lovely handmade sausages sourced from all over the world.”

Günter served young Schmidt his spectacular sausages with sauerkraut and his secret hoy hoy sauce, which was made to a recipe known only to a trusted few. It was from these encounters that Schmidt’s lifelong quest to find top-quality street food began – a quest that has taken him around the globe. However, tonight, we meet at his flat in Skanstull to talk about urban street food, and it is his version of his first great street-food meal that he is preparing: a kabanos in a baguette, served with his own, very tasty chimichurri, rather than Günter’s well-kept secret. There’s nothing like your first kiss.

Maybe it was while eating this dish as a kid that he got interested in how sublime treats like this were actually created. Later he realised that he needed to make most of the ingredients himself. From his own roti bread to homemade ketchup and caramelised onions. During trips to Zanzibar or the Middle East he always found himself searching for the perfect pilau or falafel, as well as the secrets behind a great sauce or piece of bread. And now his own, thoroughly investigated recipes have been published in Street Food – An Introduction, which

he wrote with Jonas Cramby. In this, every dish is made from scratch. “Of course you can buy a quality sausage or bread if you want to. I actually bought these sausages today at Hötorgshallen. But some of the sauces and other stuff really need some serious preparation. So it’s street food all right, but not necessarily fast food – and definitely not junk food.”

Schmidt’s missionary work on street food has also caught the attention of Pilsner Urquell, who picked him to be one of their ambassadors. And this classic original pilsner, the world’s first pale lager, is also the perfect accompaniment to the dishes that Schmidt serves. For some reason, wine rarely goes well with street food – pilsner has that perfect bitterness that suits these flavoursome, often-spicy offerings. “If I could have picked one drink to work with, that works well with my recipes, Pilsner Urquell would have been my first choice. It is also very genuine – just like the food that I like.”

Today, street food is becoming part of upmarket-restaurant culture and can be found on the menu at chic bars and bistros. And at home, the search for the perfect dumpling, taco or spring roll has only just begun.

Notoriously nervous about following trends, Swedes have been baking levant flatbread long enough. It is time to make room for local specialities from all over the globe and to transform neglected classics such as pizza or kebabs into elegant taste explosions. “I have a hunch that quality kebabs will be the next big thing.”

And maybe that’s part of our interest in street food: to turn the mundane into something magnificent. Maybe we will soon start seeing late-night Gothenburg classics such as the halv special becoming a gourmet’s delight. Exotic or not, street food is food culture in a nutshell.

Try a snack in a new port and you can tell straightaway whether it was good choice of destination – a truth that has left many Swedish towns as rather dark chapters in the history of human civilisation. But now, hopefully, all that is about to change.

Check out Schmidt’s videos on the YouTube channel Pilsner Urquell Sverige