THE LAKE #004 by THE LAKE MAGAZINE

Salted teenager of the year

THE LAKE

THE LAKE WE ARE FOOLISHLY Ambitious

#4 / 180515

TEENAGER OF THE YEAR “The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves.” - Charles Bukowski

CONTENTS REGULARS:

PUBLISHER

News 04 Robotech 52 On Press 54 Clothing 56 Clothing 58 Plimsoll 60 ART: John Murray Kalashnikovv

16 22

14 28 32 48 40

MUSIC: Louis Moholo Julian Redpath Wax Junkie

Editor / Art Direction Stefan Naude’ stefan@thelake.co Existential ADVISOR Brendan Body brendan@thelake.co COVER

PHOTOGRAPHY: Stalker Kluk CGDT Dale Yudelman Quick Fix Summer & Kayrin

THE LAKE MAGAZINE PTY LTD info@thelake.co

10 38 50

LIFE: MEMA 12 Roger Young 24 Josh Redman 44

Hayden Phipps Photography Roger Young Kaftan Man Kristi Vlok Art Direction / Styling Toni Greenberg Make up Leandi Esterhuizen Hair / scar Studio The Ground Floor Studio Lighting Big Time Studios Retouching Frances van Jaarsveldt photographers

FASHION

Hayden Phipps Oliver Kruger Jacqui Van Staden Sean Lorenz Matthew Kay Grant Payne Loucas Polydorou Ane’ Strydom Dale Yudelman Ian Engelbrecht Maarit Kytöharju Marcelino Rodrigues Zak Noyle Ockie Fourie Sarah dePina

Kristi Vlok kristi@thelake.co

CONTENTS PHOTO Dale Yudelman Two boys - Yeoville , Johannesburg: 1986 - ‘Suburbs in Paradise’

Contributors

The views and opinions expressed within the editorial and advertisements of THE LAKE do not necessarily reflect those of its staff, nor any of its associates.THE LAKE and anything contained within is copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, copied or stored electronically without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Sandiso Ngubane Fred De Fries Ruan Scott Rick De La Ray Sarah-Claire Picton Bod & Brett

Advertising / MARKETING Brett Bellairs brett@thelake.co Brendan Body brendan@thelake.co COPY EDITING Christine Stewart ONLINE / SOCIAL thelake.co Submissions info@thelake.co

PRINTING PAARLMEDIA Paarl Media Group Tel: +27 21 550 2500 Email: info@paarlmedia.co.za

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NEWS Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A9 by B&O Play There are few more contentious topics in technology than fashion. For some it is a fundamental prerequisite in anything and everything they buy, for others it is a superfluous luxury symptomatic of an excuse for high prices and a lack of substance. Bang & Olufsen’s staggering BeoPlay A9 is unlikely to convince members of either camp to change sides, but they should at least be able to agree on one key aspect: there is no lack of substance here. Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A9 We could spend quite some time on this section, but as pictures famously tell a thousand words we don’t need to tell you the A9 makes quite the first impression. Both minimalist in styling yet attention grabbing in its shape, the A9 will blend into a room and draw attention to itself in equal measure.

the A9 has three audio modes (wall, corner and freestanding) and there is no unsightly power brick to hide because the transformer is built in. Up close and personal build quality is predictably strong. The actual construction materials are no great shakes given moulded plastics are used front and back, but they seem durable with tasteful matt finishes, well put together and held in place with a steel brand. In any case the front is typically covered by fabric with white, grey, black, brown, green and red covers available. INFO: www.ashift8.com

Part of the reason for this is size. The A9 is a whopping 700mm in diameter, stands 908mm tall and weighs 14.7Kg - the latter two figures include its striking wooden legs. Interestingly enough the A9 has a sunken carry handle at the rear so it can be moved around the home, but we suspect it will find a primary place in the home or workplace and stay there. That said placement is surprisingly flexible as

adidas “Respect Your Roots” Founded in 1998, adidas skateboarding creates footwear and apparel for skateboarders distributed through a global network of skateboarding retailers. Adidas skateboarding Announces “Respect Your Roots” Special Edition Superstar RYR Honors Skateboarding Pioneers Kareem Campbell, Joey Bast, Drake Jones and Richard Angelides. As a part of a brand-wide celebration of adidas’ iconic Superstar, adidas skateboarding honors K areem Campbell, Joey Bast, Drake Jones andRichard Angelides for its Respect Your Roots tribute series. The Respect Your Roots series recognizes these four skateboarding pioneers as early adopters of the Superstar for both style and function and pays homage to their contributions to the progression of modern street skating. Four different capsules comprised of a Superstar in a signature colorway, silhouette, and a sublimated graphic T-shirt featuring historic action photography pay special tribute to each rider’s legacy. INFO: www.adidas.com/us/skateboarding

Sony Smartband SWR10

DIANA+ PINHOLE-MULTI OPERATOR

SmartWear lets you stay on top of things that matter. It interacts with your smartphone or tablet and lets you see your life as you live it. A fun and animated Android app records your physical, social and entertainment activities. For any given day, you can see how active you were, where you went, what pictures you took and how you have been communicating with your world.

You’ve never seen a pinhole like this before! The Diana Multi-Pinhole Operator camera allows you to choose from 1, 2 or 3 pinholes on a shot. You’ll capture absolutely wild photos on medium format film when you use with the included color gels. Pinhole photography has never been this fun, unique and easy! • Uses 120mm film • Comes with color filters • Choose to expose through 1, 2 or 3 pinholes • 3 Photo Formats – Shoot 12 classic square shots, 16 small squares or endless panoramas

The Lifelog app can see if you’ve been walking, running, cycling or travelling by train – and how you’ve slept. It also lets you see photos you’ve taken, music you’ve listened to, games you’ve played and how much you’ve socialised with a friend. Discover just how much you live. INFO: www.store.orange.com/za 04

INFO: www.exposuregallery.co.za

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NEWS DOKTOR AND MISSES Dokter and Misses is a Johannesburg-based multi-disciplinary product design company. Established in 2007 by Industrial designer Adriaan Hugo and Graphic Designer Katy Taplin they develop furniture, lighting and interior solutions for various applications for private and corporate clients as well as educational institutions. They have designed custom furniture for the University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg and the University of Witwatersrand Architectural departments; redesigned the trophy for the MTV MAMA awards and most recently the interior for a locally designed and manufactured modular, prefabricated nano-home POD-iDLADLA. Their hand-painted Kassena server was awarded 2003 Object That Moves by the Southern Guild Design Foundation and their limited-edition collectible work has been exhibited in London, Miami, New York, Dubai and Basel. Products show a common theme: pieces can be best described as modernist, with strong construction lines and bold colours that form graphic shapes and spaces. The work is conceptually smart – juxtaposed ideas that would usually clash come together to form innovative wholes. INFO: www.dokterandmisses.com

LALA DRINKS CABINET

HINGE SERVER / 3 DOOR

PIPE PLANTER

POWDER COATED MILD STEEL / WALNUT TOP TINTED GLASS SHELVES / SR071

POWDER COATED MILD STEEL / ASH LEGS / PLYWOOD BACKING BOARD + DOOR INTERIORS

POWDER COATED MILD STEEL / REMOVABLE DRIP TRAY / TRELLIS OPTIONAL

L-1500 x W-450 x H-900 mm / various colour options made to order.

L-1370 x W-540 x H-900 mm / various colour optionsmade to ord

L-250 x W-255 x H-VARIABLE mm / various colour options available.

HOUDT ROLLS OUT NEW 2015 LIMITED CELL PHONE COVERS

LG G Watch R

Renowned South African lifestyle and accessory brand, HOUDT, gets ready to launch a limited collaborative cell phone cover range with seven top South African artists and illustrators. The distinctive wooden covers feature designs from artists such as Kronk, Marchant and Hanno just to mention a few. Each artist has produced 50 beautiful handcrafted handsets available in Rosewood and can only be purchased at the iFix Cape Town store or on their website. The limited range of cell phone covers will retail from R499,00 for the iPhone 5/5s models and R599,00 for iPhone 6. To view the new HOUDT limited cell phone cover range, you can visit www. ifix.co.za or the iFix Cape Town store situated at 11 Buitensingel Street Gardens, CapeTown, trading from 09:00 17:30 Mon-Fri and 09:00-13:00 on Saturdays.

Simplify your life with the LG G Watch R. Powered by Android™ Wear, the LG G Watch R is compatible with Android 4.3+, and features a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 400 processor, and an always-on IPS display – so you can get a clear view of the information you need, right when you need it. Plus, with a long-lasting 410mAh battery, and a certified water- and dust-resistant case, you can rest assured that your watch is up to the challenge of your day. In addition, the LG G Watch R’s black strap can easily be changed out with your favorite 22mm band – making it easy to create truly a custom look.

INFO: www.houdt.co.za

INFO: www.store.orange.com/za

Type: Type: Smartwatch System: Android Wear Processor: 1.2GHz CPU Display: Yes / 1.3” / P-OLED

Nikon Df 16.2 MP CMOS

SOL-SOL Menswear

Representing the pinnacle of modern-retro design, the Nikon Df is a smaller-size, classic looking full frame D-SLR equipped with mechanical dials for setting shutter speed, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation, exposure mode and release mode independently to bring users the ultimate in flexibility and control. The Df features world-class Nikon imaging technology, including a 16.2-megapixel full frame CMOS sensor and the EXPEED 3 image processing engine, with an ISO range of 100-12800 (expandable from 50 to 204800), to deliver exceptional images.

SOL-SOL Menswear are getting you ready as the nights start getting colder.

Features: 16.2MP FX-Format CMOS Sensor EXPEED 3 Image Processor 3.2” 921k-Dot LCD Monitor Optical Glass Pentaprism Viewfinder Dedicated Still Image Only Camera Rugged Magnesium Alloy Body INFO: www.ormsdirect.co.za 06

First look at their Fall range includes Coach Jackets and a bomber jacket. These are paired with some classic 6 panels with a nod back to the American baseball heroes of old, fabrications like heavy twill, tweed and corduroy with frayed embroidery details all add to the collection. These fall pieces are also a taster for what you can expect in the upcoming Winter drop, Rain resistant Parkas, heavier Bombers, Longer length rain coats, chinos joggers and of course tees and headwear. Available at Smith & Abrahams, Astoreisgood, DIP street, Thesis, Superbalist and through the SOL-SOL online store.

INFO: www.sol-solmenswear.com THE LAKE

THE LAKE

NEWS BILLABONG PREMIUM FLEECE

thalia strates HANDBAGS

THE ULTIMATE WINTER SURVIVAL KIT

Luxury handbags and accessories entirely handmade in south africa.

Just in time for the frosty mid-year months, Billabong has introduced a range of premium fleece hoodies that are formidable protection against the brutal winter chill.

Manufactured in a small artisan factory in cape town by a team with over 30 years of experience in luxury leather goods. Thalia Strates is inspired by real life luxury and stripped down sophistication. A brand that is modern yet retains femininity, functional yet classy and timeless. The materials used include, but are not limited to genuine bovine leather, water buffalo and game such as springbok fur. The use of natural materials means that each product will become more beautiful with age and wear.

For years fleece has proven to be one of the only materials capable of withstanding the bitter draughts that torment South Africans every year. A winter arsenal is incomplete without a cosy fleece sweater to lock in the warmth, but with their premium fleece hoodies, Billabong has taken the quality and comfort of ordinary fleece to new heights. True to its name, the premium fleece is softer, lighter and more comfortable than regular fleece - making it an essential for surviving winter.

Hailing from cape town, south africa,Thalia Strates was born into a family of mixed decent- a greek father and a german/dutch mother born in namibia. With two very unique and ultra classy grandmothers who were big role models in her life, the seed of appreciation for quality rather than quantity was planted right from the beginning.

While most fleece garments are designed with only function in mind, Billabong has created a range of premium fleece hoodies that are practical without sacrificing stylishness. The hoodies come in combinations of classic greys and polar blues. Paired with crisp chinos or a rugged pair of jeans, the premium fleece hoodie is sure to be a man’s best friend this winter.

After completing a degree in fashion design at the highly acclaimed fedisa, strates spent her next two and a half years working as a stylist, traveling and tampering with clothing design as well as online advertising. In september 2013 thalia strates launched her eponymous brand which has seen huge organic success over such a short period of time. Today the focus is on building a brand that signifies quality and reliability, products that people invest in and aspire to own.

The premium fleece retails from R999,95 and is available at Billabong stores.

INFO: www.billabong.com/za

INFO: www.thaliastrates.com

Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A9 by B&O Play Danish design house Bang & Olufsen has been cranking out some gorgeous, great-sounding audio products recently, like its H6 headphones and A9 speakers. The latest addition to the company’s luxury-minded BeoPlay line is yet another stunner. The BeoPlay S8 is a 2.1 speaker system—one 1.7-foottall subwoofer and a pair of 6-inch-diameter satellite speakers. It looks like a miniaturized, free-floating version of the BeoLab 14 5.1 surround-sound setup. The resemblance is no coincidence, as both systems share the same sculptor: Longtime Bang & Olufsen designer Torsten Valeur of David Lewis Designs.

and RCA audio input; you can connect a streaming device or any audio component, but the system doesn’t have an integrated wireless receiver. (The new Audioengine B1 Bluetooth receiver would pair nicely.) The satellites are also connected via wires: One from the subwoofer to a single satellite speaker, and one that connects the satellites to one another. INFO: www.ashift8.com

Each piece in the set is a seamless, unibody slab of aluminum. Beyond just looking slick, these matteblack aluminum speakers are equipped to deliver a knock-out blow: The 8-inch bass driver in the class-D sub is powered by a 280-watt amp, while each of the satellites have a 2.5-inch driver powered by dedicated 140-watt amps. These amps that drive the satellite speakers are enclosed inside the subwoofer tower. Table stands and wall brackets for the sats are included in the box. It’s not a wireless system, but wires and inputs are kept to a minimum. The subwoofer has 3.5mm input

Sony SmartWatch 3 Sport Impressive standalone functions Even without your smartphone, SmartWatch 3 SWR50 is a fun and useful accessory. You can fill it with music to take with you if you’re going for a run. When you’re out, you can track your activity and movements as well as sync with your Lifelog when you come home. Contextually aware and smart Android Wear gives you useful information at a glance and responds 08

THE LAKE

to your voice. It feeds you relevant and specific information as you move. At a glance, you can view tiny snippets of useful information on the go. It could be flight information, tips based on your interests, or messages of any kind. User input is seldom necessary. However, if you need to interact with Android Wear, voice input is the best and easiest way. INFO: www.store.orange.com/za

CONVERSE CONS CTAS PRO INSPIRED BY JASON JESSEE • SUEDE BACKED CANVAS •LUNARLON SOCK LINER • CONS TRACTION RUBBER

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BLUE NOTE Louis Moholo INETRVIEW - FRED DE FRIES

PHOTOGRAPHY - Maarit Kytöharju

Louis Tebogo Moholo (1940) is the only surviving member of South Africa’s legendary jazz sextet The Blue Notes, which consisted of Moholo on drums, Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Johnny Dyani on bass, Dudu Pukwano on alto saxophone and Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone. As a multi-racial band in apartheid South Africa. The Blue Notes found it increasingly hard to get gigs. In 1964 they went into exile to Europe. After the band disbanded, Moholo played with the crème de la crème of the international jazz scene, including Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Peter Brötzman. In 2007 President Thabo Mbeki awarded The Blue Notes the national Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for ‘excellent achievement’. This interview took place in Moholo’s house in Langa.

town at Bosman’s, hire purchase, 25 pounds in instalments. But then the 60s happened, Sharpeville and all that, and we got arrested because I was active. You couldn’t just stand and watch. So we started throwing stones. We were thrown in jail. So the Boer comes here and says: you’re playing music. So they took my drums and broke them. So when I come out of jail my drums were not there anymore. There you go. That’s sick.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE A JAZZ MUSICIAN DURING APARTHEID?

WHAT MAKES A GOOD DRUMMER?

The Boer man, they thought Africans were lazy people, so they would arrest us. They arrested us and took us to dig potatoes. Because we were musicians! They would come into this house, man, and break in that motherfucking door - for playing music. We were so thick-skinned. It was like: yeah there they come, fuck you guys, arrest us. Of course they would do it. So after some time we thought we should go away from South Africa. Chris (McGregor) had such a tough time - he would have to paint his face black and pull up his cap to come here to this house. We thought we should go away and preserve the music, because they were trying to kill our development. WHY DID THE AUTHORITIES SEE JAZZ AS PROBLEMATIC? Because they are stupid. They’re stupid guys, man. And because they’re very mean people, they got no soul. And we got soul, that’s why we allowed them into our country, we are so kind. And then they fucked us up. They banned people like Max Roach. He did a record We Insist! (1960). It was banned. But then, these records would slip in. There were some Americans that would come, like navy and doctors in the docks and they knew the situation in South Africa and would give us the LPs. Also, there was an English contingent in Simon’s Town. And they were playing people from England and America on the radio to entertain the troops, and I just fell in love with Ted Heath, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. We hooked up to that station. It was a hip thing to do, if you were civilized. We were not as stupid as the Boer made us look. HOW DID THE DRUMMING START? When we were young the Boy Scouts were passing here, and we would follow them, boom boom. We were: wow! And my mother would be there watching us, and then we reached that corner there and our mothers would collect us and we would come back crying. So we come in here (points at the backyard) and go in the back. And I’d collect a tin and another friend another tin. Kids organize themselves. Here’s a paper, so we roll up the paper and that’s your horn. So off we go, toot toot, boom boom. So we knock each other out as kids would. And then mother: why you making noise man?! Stop it! So one thing leads to another. This guy wants to start up a band, and I got chosen to play drums. For some reason I freaked out and played too much. I got crazy, as kids would. I was fired. I felt very bad. Then when I was 17 we were lazing about, and it was: let’s start up a band. And I said I wanted to play drums. We had to go and buy a drum set, in

Hard work. And luck. There’s a lot of luck involved, pure luck. Right place, right time. You’re lucky to be there. You’re in there, in all that good music because you’re lucky. You could also not be recognized and just die by the roadside. I am lucky. Not everybody experienced my shit. Also, being born in South Africa, the sympathy you receive. The Americans hugged us, even Max Roach went: oh my man! Kenny Clarke loved us. Wes Montgomery came to the airport to welcome us as The Blue Notes. And now? I’m this age, 75, I don’t bother anymore. I don’t play the drums anymore, haha, I just look at them and they play by themselves. That’s fantastic shit man. It’s easier now than before. I don’t have to play so many notes. It’s like Miles (Davis), only one note in a bar. Haaarrrrrr. One note can freak you out. HOW DID YOUR FATHER LIKE YOU BECOMING A JAZZ MUSICIAN? He was a football player for Western Province and would say to me that I was a young delinquent and he was shouting at me: you are nothing, I was in Umtata, playing football! So I was: I wish I were you daddy. He said: you do fuck all, you should listen! So next thing I’m in Paris. But he died before I could boast. I would have invited him to England. In the end he was very proud. YOU WENT TO EUROPE IN 1964? We started in Paris, where we met Mister Dizzy Gillespie. He was so nice to us. James Baldwin was there, he loved us so much. We came from this troubled country. Sharpeville had happened and Mandela had been arrested and the Boer was under heavy manners.

working there with John Stevens. So we were with Yoko and all of sudden there’s this big noise outside and we don’t know what the fuck is happening. The kids shouting! About a hundred of them, following this car. And who comes out? This guy with the specs. Oh my god, someone said, it’s John Lennon. He comes to check out his chick, Yoko Ono. So there he is and he comes into the anteroom, and we, avant-garde, are jolly people, very nice. So we go: hey John, right on. And he’s like: can I…. Of course John, of course my man. So John Lennon is there strumming along with us. And then he is interested in me. He wants to make a record and I was invited, but my wife didn’t want me to go to New York and I didn’t want to either, I wanted to play with Dudu. IT WAS IN DENMARK IN THE MID-SIXTIES THAT YOU DISCOVERED FREE JAZZ Well, we were playing heavy bebop with The Blue Notes, which overflowed into wow, yeah, let’s be free man. And freedom makes sense to us. We were told we should play like Charlie Parker, and we were: we don’t want to play like Charlie Parker, we want to play like us. We had the material to do it. South Africa has a different outlook on music as a whole. Here we don’t count. Somebody starts: yehaoliyeha, and then we join in. People just join in, that’s the magic of it. It became the thing. It was avant-garde; throw that book away man. SO YOU DIDN’T PLAY JAZZ STANDARDS? Of course we knew them from left to right. That’s the easiest thing to do. But we didn’t like it very much. We were so much bigger than this. So when free music started happening, we took it with both hands. It made sense: my hands are free, my feet are free, my mind is free, free music.

EXILE MUST HAVE BEEN VERY HARD? Exile is the motherfucker; I don’t wish it on anybody. Really hard. It doesn’t make you happier that you are in Europe, because you don’t qualify here, you don’t qualify there. How many times have I been turned back at the borders? Every five years you needed a new stamp from the South African embassy. I go back and they say: why you play for ANC and the PAC? I say: I’m like a hired gunman, I play for my money. No sir, you know we don’t like ANC and the PAC, so why are you playing for them? They go to the office, tear my passport and write “cancel, cancel, cancel” on every page. So that it’s really fucked up. Go fuck off, vat jou goed man, voetsek. Then I went to the English and they gave me a pink passport, for refugees. YOU’RE THE ONLY BLUE NOTES SURVIVOR. WHAT’S THE SECRET? I don’t know. Inside I’m fucked up (he had a heart attack and has a pacemaker). And I’m still fucked up that these guys aren’t there. Sometimes I go to the sea and sit at the shore, and then there’s the conversation we have with the sea. And then Feza, Dudu, Johnny, Chris and Nikele suddenly speak back. And I’m so sad that I cry. Here I am in South Africa, enjoying the freedom and they never did come back, but worked so hard, up and down the motorway, fighting apartheid. And I’m the only one. Tears start falling. None of them experienced a free South Africa. YOU HAVE PLAYED WITH AN ENDLESS NUMBER OF MUSICIANS. IS THERE ANYONE MISSING ON THAT LIST? Ornette Coleman. I did play with (Archie) Shepp, but I would’ve wanted to play with Ornette. I was ready for him, but he had so much ties with different kinds of situations that he wasn’t allowed. Yes, he’s still alive, but somehow that train is gone. I’m not really desperate anymore. I was desperate at some point. YOU DID PLAY WITH EVERYONE ELSE? As I said: lucky. THEY WERE LUCKY? Yes, but it’s not for me to say this, it’s for you to say this.

FIVE ESSENTIAL MOHOLO ALBUMS The Blue Notes Legacy / LIVE 1964 Ogun

Brotherhood Of Breath Procession 1978 Ogun

Tern Moholo , Stabbins, Tippett 2003 Atavistic

Blue Notes Blue Notes For Johnny 1987 Ogun

Dedication Orchestra Spirits Rejoice 1992 Ogun

YOU WERE IN ENGLAND DURING THE SWINGING SIXTIES. WERE YOU PART OF THAT SCENE? The pop guys were our friends. The Blue Notes had a concert in Cambridge when Yoko (Ono) was THE LAKE

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PARASOL SIAN ELIOT / mema designs INTERVIEW - RICK DE LA RAY

PHOTOGRAPHY - SARAH dePINA

‘mema designs’ studio is the result of a collaboration between Sian Eliot and Ari Geva. With fourty years’ experience between the two of THEM, and a year of play, research and development, THEY offer a unique product to the lighting industry. ARE YOU WORKING WITH MEMA FULLTIME NOW OR ARE YOU STILL CONSULTING PARTTIME AS ‘PROJEKGIRL’ AS A DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURER? I’m juggling a few different projects while building and launching Mema designs. So apart from Mema, I also consult as a product designer helping other people to design and manufacture their products, as well as designing and manufacturing bespoke lighting pieces. WAS IS IT A CONSCIOUS DECISION TO GET INVOLVED WITH LIGHTING AGAIN AFTER WILLOWLAMP OR WHERE THERE ANY OTHER OPTIONS YOU WERE CONSIDERING AT THE TIME? I left Willowlamp in order to diversify my designing/ making experience, so the idea is always to try different things when I get the opportunity. However working with light is so much fun - I love engineering little bits and pieces which click together - it’s a bit more technical which is always more fun. Also I think the way the object/light fitting transforms at night after the light is switched on – it has a magic to it which never fails to please me. Fortunately I have found time to work on other products too, mostly keeping with metal because I have a few really great engineers and metal workers who I work with. R&D on developing new products requires time and money so I need to be patient and know that it’ll take a few years for some projects to come to fruition. Some ideas might only find their moment in the sun next decade and that’s ok. HOW DID YOU END UP MEETING THE ELECTRONICS ENGINEER ARI GEVA AND WHAT LED TO THE DECISION TO START A BUSINESS TOGETHER? Ari’s son is my friend, so he introduced us. When we met, Ari told me that after 30 years of being an engineer he wanted to finally make art. I ultimately want to bring electronics into the work I do, so that it can be more interactive. So 2+2 and the collaboration between us happened. I can teach him how to make things and he can teach me how to put a circuit board to it. He’s a lot older than me and so he’s a good coach when it comes to dealing with people and making business relationships. We joke that he’s my psychologist! And he brings me food! I am the one with the mechanical engineering experience, and he is the one with large scale project management and electronics experience, so we are learning a lot from each other. I’ll do a maths course and he can be my tutor! He also has a wonderful fun-loving nature which brings a much needed light-heartedness to our creative process, since I tend to be a bit hard on myself in the learning process. All of these combined qualities are what makes the collaboration endure and grow J

element to the phonetic words you find. I wanted to find a word that meant ‘calling’ or ‘invite’ and Mema is an isiZulu and isiXhosa word for ‘send out an invitation to others’. I was looking at many different languages, but I liked this word the most. You see I want the work we make to draw people in and engage them.

that! Like wow!), but we’ve decided to keep our business within a human scale. So we’ll continue to develop tools, but they will mostly be hand operated by people and ultimately the work remains a handmade product. This is also more appropriate for a South African context.

WHAT LED TO THE IDEA OF WORKING WITH ‘FINE ALUMINUM WOVEN MESH’, WAS IT A MATERIAL THAT YOU WORKED WITH BEFORE MEMA?

THE DESIGNS COME IN A VERY UNIQUE COLOR WAY. WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE ON THE COLOURS, DOES THE MATERIAL COME IN SILVER AND WHAT DO YOU USE TO COAT THEM WITH?

I previously worked with steel mesh and I loved the way light reflected from it. I knew immediately that it would make a good material for sculptural lights.

It’s anodized, which is an electro-dyeing process. This color way was chosen by me and developed with our supplier who does the dyeing. Basically the metal gets dipped into a tank with magnesium or other chemistry ‘stuffs’ J and when a current is charged through the metal it causes the natural oxide layer on the aluminum to go hard and be dyed. It’s really interesting and has taken us a while to get it right! I am very excited about the colors we can do – the designs we launch in late 2015 will probably have bright colors!

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE MATERIAL THAT APPEALED TO YOU? It looks like silk fabric but it is metal! I love metal. And I‘ve done pattern making and sewing in the past, so the two elements are coming together quite nicely for me. IT SEEMS THAT YOU HAD TO EXPERIMENT QUITE A LOT WITH CONSTRUCTING THE ‘TOOL’ OR MOLD YOU USE TO SCULPT OR EMBOSS THE MATERIAL WITH? Ari and I have been experimenting since late 2013! It’s been really fun and I’m glad that I’m working with someone who is as hardegat as me – we might have given up long before we cracked the process J We’ve tried approximately 4 different techniques so far and are happy with how it is going now. HOW LONG DOES IT NORMALLY TAKE TO CONSTRUCT A LAMP IN ITS ENTIRETY AND WHAT PART OF THE PROCESS WOULD YOU SAY IS THE MOST DIFFICULT? The commercial lead time is 6-8 weeks, because we have a variety of parts and suppliers. But once all the materials and components are at hand and the mesh has been prepared, it takes me about 8 hours to ‘stitch’ it together and do the final forming. The final forming happens with everything joined together. That is definitely the trickiest part. Metal doesn’t like to be bent twice!

IS THERE ANYTHING BEHIND THE MEMA NAME, WHERE DOES THE NAME STEM FROM?

IF THE DEMAND ALLOWS IT WHAT SORT OF PROCEDURE WOULD GO INTO MASS PRODUCING A CERTAIN DESIGN OR PATTERN?

I have been learning a bit of Zulu (dropped out of class recently) and I love the simplicity and visual

We’d have to develop a digital/robotic process…. we’ve discussed it and it is possible (Ari can do

HOW MANY DIFFERENT STYLES DO YOU HAVE WITHIN THE RANGE RIGHT NOW AND IS THE ‘UKHAMBA’ THE MOST PROMINENT MODEL AT THE MOMENT? The ‘fan’ is the first design in the ‘ukhamba’ range – it’s the only design (in 3 different sizes) currently available. We’ll be launching a new design within the next 6 months. At the moment we have the first batches of production to manage as well as the business systems like CRM and accounting software to set up. I’ve recently designed the website

which took me a while because I am a novice at that. Everything takes time when you are DIY-ing a business, but I am happier to be slow and thorough, and launch just one product at a time. DO YOU SEE YOURSELF MOVING TOWARDS PRODUCING THE LAMPS ON A MUCH A LARGER SCALE LIKE THE SCULPTURES YOU PRODUCED WITH WILLOWLAMP? That’s always a goal. I love working at an architectural scale! Right now because I’m dealing with a whole new process, which has no prior examples, I am happy to be working at a smaller scale for now. The giant sculptures can come laterJ. That’ll be amazing (not just because I love scampering up and down scaffolding)! Planning for a large scale project is also more daring and requires a bigger team. So it’s more exciting and rewarding as a group effort…it’s lovely. UPON PLANNING A NEW MESH DESIGN, WHAT SORT OF WORK GOES INTO CONSTRUCTING A NEW PROTOTYPE FOR A POTENTIAL NEW DESIGN? We are working with a 2D material and creating 3D structures, so there’s a series of tests that go on. I use rhino 3D to create some tests first, and then transfer onto cardboard which gets formed. Once I am happy I will make a prototype in mesh. It’s pretty hard to get software to flatten out a 3D form without breaking it up into many pieces…. The biggest design challenge is to construct a 3D object with the fewest seams/joins as possible. WHERE DO YOU DRAW MOST OF YOUR INSPIRATION FROM WHILE WORKING ON NEW DESIGNS? The material and the physical process is most often where I get my ideas, but there are many things that spark an idea. Sometimes ridiculously ordinary objects make me think - because of a construction detail I never noticed before. I also looked at millions of fashion references last year. Iris van Herpen is a mind blowing fashion designer. Sometimes it’s combinations of colors that get me excited, maybe in a painting or the sky. You never know where you’ll find the inspiration. And you don’t always know what to do with it either.

TOP 5 workshop albums William Onyeabor

Who Is William Onyeabor? 2013 Luaka Bop

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Arthur Russell The World Of 2003 Soul Jazz Records

Nina Simone I Put A Spell On You 1965 Philips

Kate Bush The Whole Story 1986 EMI

Astrud Gilberto Astrud Gilberto Album 1965 Verve Records

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STALKER IAN ENGELBRECHT INTERVIEW - RICK DE LA RAY

PHOTOGRAPHY - IAN ENGELBRECHT

“I find myself often taking both film & digital camera to jobs and projects, because I want to capture the images on both mediums, purely because I want to have both at my disposal at a later stage. ” AFTER SCHOOL YOU STUDIED AT THE RUTH PROWSE SCHOOL OF ART. WERE YOU INITIALLY CONSIDERING BEING AN ARTIST AND WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO STUDY PHOTOGRAPHY? At school I didn’t take any art classes, but in my Matric year I started a part time B/W photography printing course at Frank Joubert Art Centre. During my time there my lecturer mentioned to me the idea of doing a full 3 year course after school. Before this course I had never seen photography as a career, due to the fact that the school environment I was in saw art as a luxury. IN 2013 DURING YOUR FINAL YEAR AT ART SCHOOL YOU STARTED A PROJECT CALLED ‘SEED OF MEMORY’ BASED ON OLD FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS WHICH WERE TAKEN DURING APARTHEID. DO YOU STILL FEEL CONNECTED TO THE PROJECT ? The project was started in 2008 (my final year at art school). I still feel very much connected to it; the whole idea was to take old photos which had been forgotten and make them relevant again. They worked as a fractured timeline of both my parents and me growing up in South Africa. In my work one of the main themes is nostalgia. Therefore I will always feel connected to the work. WHAT DRAWS YOU TO SHOOTING ON FILM AND WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST FRUSTRATIONS AROUND IT? The uniqueness of each shot has always been what draws me to it, the fact that you are never quite sure how the image will look when it’s developed. Now in this age of digital photography so many photographers rely on the grade they put on their images in order to make them stand out from the rest, with film you don’t have to worry about altering the final images. The beautiful grade you get from film is all naturally there. But the biggest frustration has always been the costs of developing and printing - I do have sleepless nights about the day when they announce that 35mm film is being discontinued. WHAT CAMERA ARE YOU SHOOTING ON AT THE MOMENT AND HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT CHOOSING THAT PARTICULAR MODEL? Currently I switch between a Minolta XD5 and a Canon A-1. The Minolta was my father’s old camera that he gave to me about 13 years ago. The Canon was just a special deal I found at The Eye on Loop St. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SHOOTING IN THIS FORMAT AND WHERE DID THE INTEREST IN IT COME FROM? I’d say I have been shooting film for the past 15 years, I think the interest stems from a time before digital cameras became commercially affordable and the fact that it was all I could use back then. Also when I started shooting I shot mostly on B/W films because I had the access to develop and print the images myself, there was something

quite magical about being in control of the entire process.

Simplicity. I like shooting a subject that is not overstyled within an environment that is not cluttered.

IS THERE A PARTICULAR BRAND OF FILM THAT YOU HAVE FOUND WORKS BEST FOR YOU OR DOES IT DEPEND ON THE TYPE OF SHOOT YOU WILL BE DOING ?

HAVE YOU FOUND THAT CERTAIN PROFESSIONAL CLIENTS ARE KEEN FOR JOBS TO BE SHOT ON FILM AGAIN OR IS IT MOSTLY A FORMAT THAT IS USED FOR PERSONAL AND ARTISTIC VALUE THESE DAYS?

Almost all my shots are taken on Fujifilm Superia/ Proplus 2, for no other reason than that it’s super affordable and very reliable.

It’s very rare nowadays to find professional clients that will commission jobs to be shot on film; sadly it’s now a case of clients who have become too used to quick turnaround times. Shoot the job and they want the low res the same or next day. Nowadays art directors on set usually sit at the computer watching the files come tethered in, editing the shoot as you go; also it’s just the fact that many clients don’t trust film and fear that they don’t have control over the final product.

DO YOU WORK FULLTIME AS A PHOTOGRAPHER NOW OR DO YOU STILL DO ASSISTING WORK ON THE SIDE? I’m currently pushing to do less assisting work, but with trying to establish myself as a full time photographer I don’t always have constant work coming in, but assisting has always been a good income for me when I’m not shooting. Specifically working on international jobs with foreign photographers, there is always a huge amount you can learn from the guys coming over, and the money is always pretty good. What’s great is with the money I earn off those bigger assisting jobs I can take time to work on more personal projects.

FILM AND THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IS QUITE A PRICEY EXERCISE THESE DAYS. DO YOU FIND THAT IT MAKES YOU THINK MORE ABOUT THE SUBJECT MATTER THAT YOU CHOOSE TO DOCUMENT?

With regard to local, the list is long, almost all the upcoming photographers in Cape Town are constantly influencing my growth. People like Kent Andreasen, Adriaan Louw, and Ane’ Strydom are all producing some incredible work which in such a small town, constantly inspires one’s growth. WHAT ELEMENTS DO YOU CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING TO DECIDE TO SHOOT DIGITAL OR FILM WHEN YOU APPROACH A CERTAIN PROJECT OR JOB? I find myself often taking both film & digital camera to jobs and projects, because I want to capture the images on both mediums, purely because I want to have both at my disposal at a later stage.

Canon - AE-1 Program

I do find that my images/ shoots are a lot more curated, coming down to such things as the perfect location and the correct model.

A LOT OF YOUNG AND UP AND COMING PHOTOGRAPHERS SEEM TO TRY AND SIDESTEP WORKING AS ASSISTANTS THESE DAYS – HOW MUCH RELEVANCE DO YOU FEEL THERE STILL IS WORKING AS AN ASSISTANT ? I do feel if you plan on working as a commercial photographer it is still very relevant, there are so many elements to make it as a successful photographer both on the technical and business side of things and I feel if you do work closely with someone experienced it can only work in your favour. WHAT APPEALS THE MOST TO YOU ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL WORK WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT? What I love about my personal work is the fact that all that separated me from my subject is my camera and the image is a reflection of what I see.

WHOSE WORK LOCALLY AND ABROAD WOULD YOU SAY HAS INFLUENCED YOUR GROWTH AS A PHOTOGRAPHER THE MOST? With regard to international photographers one of my biggest influences growing up was definitely Ryan McGinley. His images are just beyond incredible; his early work which was a more candid documentation of subjects was a big influence.

Minolta - XD-5

SOUND BITES DIIV Oshin 2012

Air Moon Safari 1998

Captured Tracks

Virgin

Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon 1973 Harvest

J.A.M.C. Psychocandy 1985 Blanco y Negro

The Smiths The Queen Is Dead 1986 Rough Trade

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY PERSONALLY MAKES A SUBJECT OR ENVIRONMENT BEAUTIFUL - WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO CAPTURE A CERTAIN ENVIRONMENT? THE LAKE

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abstraction JOHN MURRAY INTERVIEW - RICK DE LA RAY

PHOTOGRAPHY - OLIVER KRUGER

“A commission can have parameters. I think it is important to keep the ‘client’ in mind, but most importantly to stay true to your own work. It is really up to the artist to establish those boundaries right from the start.” YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH SOME MAJOR CHANGES OVER THE YEARS, FROM MORE ILLUSTRATIVE-TYPE OBJECTS TO PORTRAITS, AND NOW A MIXTURE OF MINIMALIST SHAPES. WAS IT AN INTENTIONAL EVOLUTION OVER THE YEARS OR DID IT JUST DEVELOP NATURALLY ON ITS OWN?

and remains of history.” IN A SENSE I FEEL YOU HAVE BEEN SIMILAR TO AN ARCHAEOLOGIST WITH YOUR FOUND OBJECTS AND BROKEN SHARDS IN SOME OF YOUR EARLIER WORKS SUCH AS “OBJECTS OF UNIMPORTANCE” AND “PATTERNS WITH MEANING”.

I think it has been a bit of both. I started studying Graphic Design at the University of Stellenbosch and changed to Fine Art after two years. It was quite a radical shift for me and I always felt very torn between design and painting. This has had an influence on how my work has evolved.

Yes, I think these works illustrate my fractured way of looking at things. I like the idea of sifting through various objects, shards and images in search of something tangible, but unlike the archeologist my work doesn’t reach a conclusion.

Initially the abstract works served as an escape from figurative painting, but what used to be a schism has become more of a symbiosis. For me these paintings function in a space of disorientation, falling short of being fully representational or coherent. YOUR LAST TWO EXHIBITIONS HAVE STUCK TO THE SAME ABSTRACT NATURE REGARDING THE COLOR AND FEEL AND SIZE. DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE REACHED A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SETTLE FOR A WHILE? A Yes in a way, but then again change is integral to everything. I think one always wants to improve or develop. I am never really satisfied after completing a painting. I always think about how to approach the next work differently. I think the figurative work might come to the fore again. It won’t replace the abstract paintings though. YOUR USE OF COLOR IS A LOT BOLDER THEN YOUR EARLIER PIECES, WITH A MIXTURE OF PRIMARY AND PASTELS LAYERED ACROSS THE CANVAS. WHAT DRAWS YOU TOWARDS CERTAIN COLORS AND THE WAY THEY COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER? Colour is an incredibly complex phenomenon. I find it very difficult to restrict myself to certain colours. I often set out to make a painting using specific hues or tonal values only to realise that I have gone through the whole spectrum. I think this adds to the “frantic” quality of some of the abstract paintings, where colours compete like they would in a supermarket. WOULD YOU CONSIDER DOING A PORTRAIT SERIES AGAIN OR DO YOU ONLY DO THEM ON COMMISSION THESE DAYS?

for a rug, but it worked really well. Southern Guild and Paco must really get the credit for that. SOME ARTISTS REACH A POINT OR A SAFE PLACE AND THEN ONLY PRODUCE A CERTAIN SIGNATURE STYLE OF WORK. HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR WORK EVOLVING IN THE FUTURE? It is difficult to look too far into the future, but as mentioned I would like to bring the abstract and figurative works closer together. DO YOU STILL WORK WITH CHARCOAL MUCH THESE DAYS?

DO THESE FOUND OBJECTS RELATE TO EACH OTHER?

I still work with charcoal. I am in the process of doing a series of charcoal works on paper. It is a medium entrenched in me, due to the many hours spent in the drawing studio as a student!

Yes, but I think it is often quite subtle or not important. I like the idea that there is flux and that the meaning can’t really be pinned down. SOME OF YOUR PORTRAITURE LEAVES A HINT TO SOME OF PETER BLAKE’S WORK IN THE 50s. WHICH ARTISTS DO YOU FEEL HAVE BEEN CRUCIAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR WORK? It is difficult to answer, because there have been so many at different stages. I have always looked more at figurative painters than abstract painters and specifically at art with a strong graphic quality. As a student I was influenced by the photomontage work of the Russian Constructivists and artists such as Hannah Höch and John Heartfield. I have also always identified with the tactile qualities of ‘outsider art’.

I am always thinking about the portrait. It is almost an intuitive reaction that I have when I stand in front of a canvas - to want to make a portrait. Portraits are very specific things, because inevitably they deal with identity. In a South African context it is difficult to make a portrait that is apolitical. In the past I often made portraits thinking I was dealing with identity, but I realise I was quite naïve in my approach. I think these days I am more interested in the portrait as something elusive or even abstract.

DURING 2014’S DESIGN INDABA YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH THE MASTER CARPETMAKER PACO PAKDOUST WHEN HE DID A SERIES OF WOVEN CARPETS USING LOCAL CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS’ WORKS. HOW DID THE COLLABORATION COME TO LIFE AND IS IT SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULD CONSIDER DOING AGAIN?

“I think it must be very fulfilling as an archaeologist to filter through the artifacts

It was a collaboration initiated by Southern Guild. Initially I thought the painting would be too ‘busy’

WHEN YOU GET ASKED TO DO A COMMISSIONED PIECE, HOW MUCH CONTROL DO YOU HAVE OVER WHAT GOES INTO THE WORK IN THE END IN TERMS OF COLOR AND ARRANGEMENT? IS IT SIMILAR TO A DESIGNER WORKING WITH A CLIENT OR ARE YOU OPEN TO INTERPRET AS YOU SEE FIT?

A commission can have parameters. I think it is important to keep the ‘client’ in mind, but most importantly to stay true to your own work. It is really up to the artist to establish those boundaries right from the start. REGARDING YOUR WORK PROCESS – DO YOU WORK ON MULTIPLE PIECES AT THE SAME TIME OR DO YOU FINISH THEM ONE BY ONE. DO YOU FIND THAT THEY CROSS-POLLINATE THEMSELVES IN A WAY? I work on multiple pieces at once. It helps me not to get too sucked into one work. It is also practical to work on something else while waiting for paint to dry. ARE YOU ONLY REPRESENTED BY WHATIFTHEWORLD GALLERY NOW OR DO OTHER GALLERIES ALSO DEAL WITH SOME OF YOUR PIECES? At this stage I am represented by Whatiftheworld only. They really put a lot of effort into their artists, so I feel very happy to be represented by them. SOME OF YOUR SKETCHBOOK WORK LEANS VERY MUCH TOWARDS THE SATIRICAL ‘BITTERKOMIX’ STYLE OF ANTON KANNEMEYER AND CONRAD BOTES. WERE YOU IN INFLUENCED BY THE WHOLE ERA AT THE TIME AND DO YOU STILL SPEND A LOT OF TIME WORKING ON SIMILAR ILLUSTRATIONS? Initially as a design student Anton and Conrad were lecturers of mine and later became friends. They exposed me to illustration and comics and I think a lot of students were energized by the stuff they were doing. I definitely learnt a lot from them especially in terms of drawing. The best teachers are those who teach through their own work and they were definitely doing that. WHAT DO YOU FIND THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS WHILE YOU ARE WORKING ON NEW CONCEPTS? Staying committed to the process. It often takes a long time to complete a body of work and selfdoubt is part of that process. It is important to learn to deal with that, especially in the insular confinement of a studio.

STUDIO HITS Bob Dylan Time Out of Mind 1997 Columbia

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Linton Kwesi Johnson LKJ in Dub 1980 Island

Nicolas Jaar Space Is Only Noise 2011 Circus Company

Midlake Bamnan and Slivercork 2004 Bella Union

Ali Farka Touré The Source 1993 World Circuit

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Bullets for Bafazane Murray Turpin / Kalishnikovv Gallery INTERVIEW - sarah claire picton

PHOTOGRAPHY - Marcelino Rodrigues

“Kalashnikovv went from concept to reality through a cocktail of blood, sweat, tears as well as trial and error. In collaboration with my business partner Matthew Dowdle, our first point of departure was a city-based, temporary gallery concept called satellite spaces///The untitled gallery.”

“LIFE IS COMPOSED OF DIFFERENT INVENTIONS”MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV (INVENTOR OF THE RUSSIAN AK-47). DOES THE NAME OF THE GALLERY HAVE ANY REFERENCE TO MIKHAIL?

Constitution Hill every June and last but not least we have just started our own arts development trust called CREATE.THE.CITY to facilitate creative based mentorship and public art projects.

We chose it as a reference to the Kalashnikov being a widely chosen tool of liberation in African Revolutions, by extension challenging prevailing white-cube gallery structures and an “elitist air” that we wish to redefine and expand upon; a kind of “liberating art for the people”, disrupting the status quo discourse in its true and simplest sense and essentially attempting to create an all-inclusive creative platform.

WHO IS PART OF THE KALASHNIKOVV FAMILY AT THE MOMENT?

GUNS ASIDE, WHAT CONCEPTS ARE CURRENTLY BEING GIVEN LIFE INSIDE THE SPACE? A broad range of practice and concepts at any given time, it can go from a contemporary painting show to a conceptual show utilising installation and live streaming to another location, to launching the First South African Graffiti book and back “online” again with the digital Residency “Floating Reverie”. TELL US HOW THE KALASHNIKOVV WENT FROM CONCEPT TO REALITY, AND HOW IT HAS GROWN IN TERMS OF SIDE PROJECTS AND COLLABORATIONS. Kalashnikovv went from concept to reality through a cocktail of blood, sweat, tears as well as trial and error. In collaboration with my business partner Matthew Dowdle, our first point of departure was a city-based, temporary gallery concept called satellite spaces///The untitled gallery. Every 3 months we would curate a large group exhibition in the regenerated urban areas of JHB (i.e. Newtown, Maboneng and Braamfontein). The series became very popular and momentum built up quickly; the developer of Braamfontein area - Adam Levy - believed in us and our vision to such a degree that he very generously offered us a rent-free space for 3 months. We have been the creative bane of his and Carl Ascroft’s existence ever since and are planning many more interesting collaborations to come for the next few years ahead. The long and short of it all, in collaboration with PlayBraamfontein and Matthew Dowdle, I created the type of Gallery that I had always wanted to be a part of as an artist but never found. Side projects and collaborations at present include: “Floating Reverie”, an online digital residency Project, and The Black Cube Sessions which is one of our Conceptual based events combining music and art. We are also in our 3rd year of our 4 day Arts and Culture Youth Festival Basha Uhuru which is done in collaboration with

Too many people to mention here and constantly growing, just check out our new website dropping mid-June but to give you some idea we currently work with Love and Hate (cpt), Mega Bonanza, Skullboy, Evl Jon, Lazi Mathebula, Craig Smith etc. but it’s also important to note that we treat our gallery more like an agency, in the sense that we are building an interdisciplinary creative network as much as a traditional gallery and still very much championing the notion of the independent artist above all else but with a support team. WHAT TYPES OF DISCIPLINES AND MEDIUMS DO THE GALLERY INCORPORATE? All and anything, we don’t believe in the categorisation of creativity or manifestation thereof, this being said it obviously still must be relative to our own aesthetic ethos and vision, we are a ride or die Gallery - from Durer to Digital. WHAT ELEMENTS DO YOU CONSIDER WHEN YOU CHOOSE AN ARTIST TO BE REPRESENTED BY THE GALLERY - IS IT AN ORGANIC PROCESS OR MORE STRATEGIC? Their work must aesthetically resonate with us first and foremost, thereafter their theoretical framework or lack thereof. That being said everything is at once organic and strategic, I view the gallery as an extension of my own practice as an artist and by extension all artists we work with as my collaborators. CAN ARTISTS APPROACH THE GALLERY OPENLY (INTERNATIONAL OR LOCAL)? Our focus is currently primarily about developing relationships with local artists and institutions but we are open to international collaboration and dialogue. HOW DOES KALASHNIKOVV FIT INTO THE REALM OF SOUTH AFRICA’S CONTEMPORARY AESTHETIC?

WHAT SORT OF AGREEMENT DOES THE GALLERY HAVE WITH ITS ARTISTS IN TERMS OF THE FINANCIAL SIDE OF THE BUSINESS? Cheeky - ask my accountant…….aka mutually beneficial and always in favour of the artists. HOW HAS THE KALASHNIKOVV CHALLENGED YOUR LONGSTANDING IDEOLOGIES TO DO WITH ‘ART’ AND ALSO ‘MAKING ART’ AS AN ARTIST….? To some degree I suppose but that’s the beauty of the project space//commercial gallery dichotomy we push, its doesn’t always have to be about “the money honey” but also simply pushing all creative boundaries and creating new platforms to showcase this work. DO YOU FEEL THAT THE GALLERY COULD BE AN EXTENSION OF YOUR WORK IN SOME WAY OR DO YOU TREAT THE GALLERY AS COMPLETELY SEPARATE FROM YOUR PERSONAL WORK? As mentioned above it is completely an extension of my work but also exists in the collaborative realm. I choose to look at it as another medium for me to be creative with and a rare opportunity to be in a constant dialogue with many artists at any given time, they only make me a better artist and I hope I do the same for them. I find curators that are artists to be more engaging, the ability to talk from first-hand experience both theoretically and practically makes the conversation all-encompassing. IF THE WORD ‘CREATIVE’ WAS TAKEN OUT OF THE DICTIONARY, WHAT WOULD YOU REPLACE IT WITH? Imaginarium or fucker, can’t decide.

IF KALASHNIKOVV WAS A PERSON HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE HIM OR HER? Bjork - Beastie boys - Biko - Basquiat - Banksy all fucked into one. DO YOU THINK KALASHNIKOVV COULD FUNCTION AS A SPACE IN CAPE TOWN AND ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO EXPAND AT THE MOMENT? We have a 2 year plan for CT, so see you soonish... DOES THE GALLERY GET THE COMMERCIAL SUPPORT IT NEEDS IN ORDER TO KEEP GOING? Not every month without fail, but that’s why we sell guns and alcohol inbetween. YOU HAVE BEEN DJ-ING AS M18J92T, IS THERE SYMBOLISM IN THE NAME? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED WITH IN THE PAST WHICH IS RELEVANT IN TERMS OF YOUR ROLE AS CO-DIRECTOR AT THE GALLERY? Indeed, now they call me “Sunday Morning”, I was also in a multimedia band called ‘mtkidu’ for 5 years, fusing art, design, storytelling and music. I guess my experience in other creative fields lends itself to, and reflects itself in, the broad gallery program we curate yearly. YOU HAVE BEEN MOVING AROUND JOHANNESBURG FOR A LONG TIME NOW. WHAT DO YOU FEEL HAS BEEN THE MOST RELEVANT CHANGE WITHIN THE CITY IN THE LAST 10 YEARS? The movement of creative hubs and collectives from peripheries to the centre. This is important as the centres have the potential to be more inclusive and diverse than either suburbia or townships individually.

GALLERY MIX TAPE The Notorious B.I.G. Life After Death 1997 Bad Boy

Aphex Twin Windowlicker 1999 Warp

Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks 1977 Virgin

Fantasma Free Love 2015

Bonobo The North Borders 2013 Ninja Tune

We don’t, some of our artists even exist in the realm of the anti-aesthetic norm. Also it’s important to note that we don’t just prescribe to the notion of creative validation or worth through academia i.e. studying for a B.A.F.A.

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Artful Dodger ROGER YOUNG WRITER - sandiso ngubane

PORTRAIT - HAYDEN PHIPPS ON SET - Loucas Polydorou

On most Friday nights Roger Young can be found behind the decks at Hectic on Hope. It’s a real dive bar - pool tables, cheesy disco lights and fans (not air-conditioning) blowing onto the dance floor. On Fridays, this joint, complete with bar attendants who look constantly pissed off and act as if they’ve never seen your face before in spite of the fact that you are always there, is transformed into Evol.

It’s the kind of party where almost everyone is either a creative of some kind or an art kid from Michaelis, UCT’s art school. It’s a gathering of Cape Town’s hipsters, but don’t let anyone hear you say that out loud! Basically, everyone kind of, sort of knows everyone there. The party tends to find its groove in the early hours of Saturday morning, way after the kids have had a fair dose of alcohol, MDMA or whatever it is they get off on. Young, who for the purposes of this party, goes by the DJ Kak Emotional moniker, can often be seen sweating away behind the decks and you’re almost guaranteed to spot him ducking under the box between tracks, definitely up to no good. At 42 years old, Young has not yet pulled the plug on the fun. Most people his age, he says, imagine that he has this glamourous life and, on every other night, has a young hipster lay sucking him off while he snorts a line off her youthful, plump breasts. Oh, how he’d love that, but that’s not quite how it is, he claims. “Somebody recently called me the Hipster King”, Young laughs as we speak about his larger-than-life persona over beers at the Kimberley Hotel, a Cape Town watering hole he frequents. “Firstly who still uses that word? And secondly, I’m not fucking every twenty-year old “hipster” girl, you know. I go to a place like Yours Truly and mostly I get ignored. A lot of that stuff is like, people my age, who have settled down and stopped partying and they see me hanging out with young people and writing about it and they assume…… I dunno.” “People of my generation, specifically, think I’m constantly jolly and happy that I’ve acquired some sort of celebrity status. It’s weird. I’m a writer, not a celebrity. Like I go out and I am surrounded by a lot of much younger people, I dunno, the people I hang out with are my friends, they’re not fodder, they’re not disposable. And as much as they are often my inspiration, I’m sure some of them think I’m a bit gross.” He adds that South Africans in general have this “Calvinistic” outlook where it is generally accepted that, at a certain age, one must move to the suburbs, get married and wait to die. “Because I haven’t done that, there’s this perception that there’s this other magic whereas, in fact, my life has it’s own banality. I’m this guy who goes out drinking, dancing, having fun and I enjoy it. I just chose to carry on enjoying culture as it happens. That’s it.” Young’s party reputation is nothing new. From selling drugs in the early nineties to living on the

streets of Hillbrow, Johannesburg, and even robbing people, reading through his as yet unpublished memoirs, you get the sense of someone who has been there, done that, got the tee but continues to wear it, albeit in a different and perhaps slightly better, if not far less hectic manner. You’d have to be a real fuck up not to pick yourself up and try to do things differently had you been through eight years of homelessness in the middle of Hillbrow, losing a career and watching life pass you by, losing friends and having one helluva heroin addiction.

But the London dream fizzled out as quickly as it had bloomed. Joburg would happen soon thereafter. In Yeoville in the early 90s, Young would find himself in the midst of a ‘Democratic Utopia’, a place where “the dream had been realized” and where people of all races had been living side by side for quite some time. It was shortly before the country itself became democratic and the sense of freedom, of liberation, was palpable. “There was a sense of freedom about Yeoville that hadn’t spread to the rest of South Africa, and with that came a special level of celebration. No one was going to arrest us because the cops had no clue what was going on. There was this sudden influx of drugs, black and white people were suddenly getting along; no one knew what the fuck was going on, what the future was. So, it was a world that came into being around me and I wasn’t going to not enjoy it.”

It begins after high school when Young left Durban, his hometown, against his father’s wishes. He finds himself in Cape Town looking to study photography, but that didn’t last very long. “I had a choice which was to either find something else to study or go to the army and I wasn’t going to fucking do that so I found a shitty film school in Cape Town.” “There was this huge burgeoning house music scene that was kind of in the middle ground between what ERA and Caprice is now: that sort of young, rich white people, Jewish or from London or whatever. And with that was an underage kind of scene and there was this club in Green Point, which was my point of entry and there was with girl…” Young fell badly for this girl, who he wishes to keep anonymous (“Could you imagine how annoying it would be for her to read this?”), so badly that he eventually got a forever mark- a tattoo- dedicated to her, inked on his right arm. “We eventually had a bit of a teenage romance but she had to move to London. I wanted to go with her but didn’t have any money. My parents were fairly wealthy but there was no money coming from them. My mom would sneak me some at times but from my dad- not a chance!” His father, Young adds, wanted him to become a builder and take over the family business. That was never going to fly. Desperate to get to London and have his fairytale love story he figured the easiest and quickest way to make money in order to get there was through selling drugs. “I found this guy, a body builder, who knew people who brought in MDMA. I sold that and took a lot of acid for like six months”.

There was a lot of partying, but at the same time, Young had this desire to prove his father wrong by creating a career for himself as a writer and filmmaker. “My whole life I wanted to do something that would impress him, but only joining the family business would have done that.” His father was not the only person Young wanted to prove wrong; there was also his ex-teenage love - two people he all but felt rejected by. “After it ended she sent me a letter saying white South Africans are ignorant,” he says. “Just by living here I was continuing to perpetuate injustice and basically if I wanted to be a good person, I would leave South Africa. She felt that South Africans were horribly materialistic as a consequence of colonialism and apartheid, and had nothing left to contribute. Former President Nelson Mandela had just been released, many whites were suddenly facing the reality of the society they had lived under, and this, Young says, was a culture shock for many, “You experience that and you can’t formulate a response. You react, you run.” Her advice to him was that if he wanted to “make movies like David Lynch, you can’t do that in South Africa, leave!”

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Young’s response was to pull a zap sign at that and he became determined to make a career for himself in South Africa, writing, making films, taking pictures; making the work he wanted to without running away from his context, and so he decided that he would never live anywhere else in the world. But making films in South Africa and being white, there’s a balance one has to strike or risk being totally off the mark and this is something Young has become careful about. Having a loud presence on social media, often calling out white ignorance, means he himself can’t be found wanting when approaching the inevitable race issues. It’s either that or, like most Afrikaans filmmakers do, you ignore the existence of black people altogether. “It was unhip, at that time in Yeoville, to profess ignorance of the black experience. We were all over, doing things together but we never got to know each other, really. I didn’t know my black friends as much as I knew my white friends, because we thought of ourselves as being too beyond race to talk about that. I think there was also a fear of exposing myself by asking questions. I didn’t want people to know I was that sheltered white guy.” Anyone who has read any of Young’s work or simply follows him on social media would probably find this uncharacteristic but even though Young is finding his place within the racial discourse, this puts him right in the shit with white people on the one hand, probably thinking ‘why the fuck are you speaking for them (blacks)?’ and black people on the other hand also probably thinking ‘what are you, our white savior?’ “I’m kind of right in the thick of it,” he digresses. “I’ve had people ask me why I even feel the need to say anything and I’m like, well, I’m a writer, you know. I want to get to a space where I can make what I want to make and that space doesn’t exist in this country. To pretend that it does is false and that would lead to making shit art. To be quiet would lead to frustration.” In his latest short film Boat Girls Young steers clear of telling the black story as he does in Keys, Money, Phone - two films that, in spite of having white people dominating the cast, are filled with commentary around the topic of white privilege. The latter follows jock Seb (played by Anton Taylor), and his misadventures after leaving his, well, keys, money and phone in a cab when he gets home to the Southern Suburbs after a night out. The cab has driven off and Seb spends the night trying to find someone, somewhere to give him shelter for the night, but in typical jock style, he swears at women, disrespects other people and 25

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Shooting on the film is going ahead in spite of the fact that Roger has no money to fund it. “We just want to get started. We are tired of waiting around for people to get back to us, so we’re gonna shoot where we can and what we can with the little bit of cash and the equipment we have at any given time.”

rather than recall that he left his assets in the cab, chooses to say the cab driver “stole” his things. It is unmistakable commentary on white, male privilege and it is done without overtly badgering the audience with the message. Notably, black people only appear in subservient roles- a security guard, a petrol attendant- and this is something Young’s critics might point out. The fact is, Seb is a Capetonian jock and unfortunately, his only interaction with black people is most probably at the entrance to his complex, ordering food at McDonalds, or filling up his car at the petrol station. But this is my observation, why has Roger Young decided not to reflect on the black experience more broadly? “I was once told by a black consciousness academic that, as a white filmmaker, I had no right to try to represent the stories of black South Africans. Keys, Money, Phone, and my next film, called Boat Girls at the moment, are a reaction to that idea.” He adds that in future it should and will be possible to tell those stories in collaboration with other writers, filmmakers, etc. “I think it is entirely correct that I cannot know and speak to the experiences of black South Africans, but I also think that film is a collaborative medium and if I find strategies to co-write and co-direct, then it must be possible to come up with ways of representation and storytelling that confront this result of systematic oppression. We bring a new way of living into reality by telling it into reality, with stories.” The film he is currently working on, a feature titled Love Runs Out, is about being young in South Africa today: the racial integration, the party scene, drugs, sexual exploration. This Young tells me without giving too much away. Considering how entrenched in today’s scene Young himself is, it will be interesting to see how he captures the Zeitgeist. I imagine that his experiences in pre-democratic South Africa Yeoville and his experiences in a Cape Town

that is finally confronting its colonial city image, thanks to the scribblings of writers like himself and movements like UCT’s Rhodes-Must-Fall, will aid in the process. If anyone can, he is most probably best placed to tell these stories because the decks at Hectic on Hope is not where the party ends. As we’ve established he remains very much into it. “The bottom Iine is that I want to tell the truth. I know this sounds pretentious but there’s a certain fragility to the human condition and I want to unfold those layers and present it. In order for me to do that I have to hang around people who are alive and still living. It’s another cliché but the most beautiful people I ever knew died young and tragically.” Shooting on the film is going ahead in spite of the fact that Roger has no money to fund it. “We just want to get started. We are tired of waiting around for people to get back to us, so we’re gonna shoot where we can and what we can with the little bit of cash and the equipment we have at any given time.” His memoir won’t be coming out any time soon, Young tells me, because he has a lot on his plate with the films and other work but there’s no doubt that when it eventually drops, the thousands of “friends” and followers he has on social media will be bracing themselves for a further peek into the mind of a man who is something of an urban legend to some. Roger Young is a name that rolls off many a tongue and even out the mouths of those who have never interacted with him anywhere beyond the interwebs. He admits that he is partly to blame for creating this larger-than-life persona. “When I was getting off heroin I was trying to become part of the world again and people generally didn’t want to know me,” he says. “In media, there were new people who didn’t know me. I couldn’t rely on who I was before. The fact that I’d written stuff ten years ago was not good enough. I had to start writing more than just good work, so I would embed something of

myself in my writing so that editors would know who I am. I was constantly reintroducing myself to the world, often coming across as an asshole, writing about very specific things so that people got to know me again, forcing myself back into the public consciousness, to get closer to making films.” “Obviously it’s a double-edged sword because by doing that, people start thinking they know who Roger Young is.” When strangers meet him, Young says they expect the same person whose work and status updates they read on the internet. “This person that I created is very much like a dancing monkey. People come up to me and ask what I thought of a particular movie or a particular artist and they want to hear “Roger Young”, but that’s not on tap, you know. And often people come up to me and offer me drugs, because of my writing.” In his journalism Young often mentions his current drug use (Psychedelics on safari anyone?), isn’t this hypocritical given his past as a heroin addict? “I managed to get clean off the smack when I realized my addiction wasn’t to the actual drug, I was addicted to self-pity.” “And you know, I’m a Gemini, so the idea of there being a public Roger Young and a private one is weird but I’ve kind of become used to it, and if people do want to speak to me, or to offer me kindnesses, well, it would be rude to say no.” Young pauses here and thinks for a bit, surveying the juke box rave unfolding around him on a mid-month Thursday night at the Kimberly Hotel, an air of chaos about to break, and he smiles, “You know I had this English teacher, Mr. Stokes, and Mr. Stokes once said to me, “Everything in moderation, including moderation itself”.” And he smiles as another drink is magically delivered into his hands.

TOP FIVE Depeche Mode

Mazzy Star

Grace Jones

The KLF

Prince

Black Celebration

So Tonight That I Might See

Slave to the Rhythm

Chill Out

Sign o’ the Times

1986

1993

1985

1990

1987

Mute

Capitol

Island Records

KLF

Paisley Park

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LADY SNOWBLOOD KLuK CGDT / LEVIS STRAUSS STYLING / PRODUCTION - Jeandre Venter

PHOTOGRAPHY - Grant Payne

Model // Ariel @ d’Xim model agency / Production // moreFIRE Hair + MUA // Misaki Hara / Wardrobe // KLuK CGDT + LEVIS STRAUSS THE LAKE

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SOCIETAL BLUES DALE YUDELMAN WRITER - RUAN SCOTT

PHOTORAPHY - DALE YUDELMAN PORTRAIT - JACQUI VAN STADEN

It is early evening and sitting across the table from me is Dale Yudelman. He focuses on me over the edge of his wire-framed sunglasses. He doesn’t take them off. I look back trying to find his eyes... Dale is a photographer. He has no official educational documentation stating his intelligence regarding the use of a camera. Nope, Dale has the accolade of life and hard work carved out on his totem pole. Over 4 decades of actively shooting ‘societal blues’ has resulted in a myriad of awards, exhibitions and successful collaborations. A quote by American artist Chuck Close is something he likes to refer to when asked about his work ethic. “Inspiration is for amateurs. Only amateurs sit around waiting for inspiration to hit. There is no waiting. You make art. The inspiration comes in the process, the energy and motivation is in the doing.”

call” he says, and on his return to native soil in 1996 he approached his career with renewed energy and confidence. His first major work since arriving back home and first collaboration was with artist Arlene Amaler-Raviv. Extending his reach into mixed media (photography and painting), Dale and Arlene had numerous successful exhibitions over time; a notable show called Livestock was shown at the Havana Biennale in Cuba and later acquired by Standard Bank for their Corporate Art Collection in Johannesburg. The work explores social issues such as the monetary value of bank notes vs. the

topic like a new democracy and basing it on Cole’s most famous work. Considering street photography or rather social documentary photography, there is the idea that the photo should by no means be subject to post production. Some opinions state that it robs the image of its sincerity and authenticity. Dale oiled my rusty brain and explained that “photo manipulation starts way before post processing. The frame the photographer chooses to capture only represents a portion of a bigger picture”. So it is in photojournalism where a moment is being captured to depict a bigger story; the final frame is still

Having been ripened with camera knowledge from an early age, ironically enough by “serious amateur photographers” as Dale refers to them, didn’t harm his knowledge pool either. His dentist father, chairman of the Camera Club of Johannesburg at the time, schooled him in the use of a camera. Dale jokingly adds “It is safe to assume that the chemicals my father used in his makeshift darkroom, which also happened to be my bedroom, seeped into my system, predisposing me to getting hooked on photography at an early age.” The time spent at the Camera Cub alongside his father was also rife with comments, criticism and advice. So growing up amongst the camera craziness had its advantages.

IMAGE - Frank Zappa - Los Angeles: 1992

The yearning for freedom of expression led to his departure in 1986, not only from fulltime photojournalism, but also from South Africa. Politically, the country was on the verge of a revolution and didn’t exactly foster the ideal climate for exposing the truth as he saw it. Leaving for London and later Los Angeles, he earned bucks by freelancing for the LA Times, The Guardian and other publications. He recalls a paparazzi-type job where the assignment was to get pictures of a naughty Boy George on the run. He refrains from elaborating simply stating that it was one of the worst assignments ever. One of the highlights was photographing musician Frank Zappa at his home in LA. It was also during this time abroad that Dale picked up a stray guitar and started playing for kicks - a hobby that grew rather serious and spanned a decade of his life playing in a band called Hall Of Souls. His ten-year stay abroad was a massive “wake up

Made in RSA began with Dale visiting an expo centered on empowering women, where he met a vendor promoting self-defence. Part of her exhibit featured a bowl filled with DIY knives confiscated by police and displayed as evidence of gang fights and suburban violence. Intrigued by the uniquely personalized objects he set up a time to photograph the weapons and further understand the social implications of this sinister cache. I am…, created in 2007, was a series focusing on the issue of isolation as experienced by foreigners seeking refuge in South Africa. The works are a combination of classified job seeker ads, common in grocery stores, coupled with stirring pictures of solitary individuals. The images reflect on the barriers faced by refugees in terms of language, skills and ongoing social exclusion. On new media, and the immense photo sharing culture of today – something not available when Dale was growing into photography - he has this to say: “I think it’s great that there is access to media formats and streams where budding photographers or hobbyists can showcase their work and efforts.” Other than a personal website showcasing his work, he declines the opportunity to build on a social profile, believing that the world is bombarded with enough images on a daily basis and doesn’t feel the need to add to the bloated picture pool online.

When the time came for Dale to enter the job market, he naturally gravitated to something in the line of photography. His first job as a photojournalist at the Star Newspaper in Johannesburg during the late 70s and early 80s has continued to influence him in a way that is still evident in his work today. Besides the lasting impression of working in the journalism field, the fast paced world of shooting on film for news media in those days seemed very limiting and contrived to Dale’s inclinations and eye for the aesthetic. He spent his free time roaming the streets or wherever he happened to be, capturing moments of the human psyche that reached out to him. A collection of these images during this period can be seen in the series ‘Suburbs in Paradise’.

the somewhat dreary, emotional and ironical moments around us. His pictures capture and depict emotions coupled with struggle, departure, fight and flight.

African currency of cattle, which through the ages has represented wealth and social status in many indigenous tribes across southern Africa. In his more media covered and recent work, Life under Democracy, he portrays society and its Zeitgeist in South Africa post 1994. This has been credited as the pinnacle of his career - a project that won him the prestigious Ernest Cole Award. Dale says he drew inspiration from Cole’s banned book from the 60’s - House of Bondage, which tells the story of being a black person in South Africa during the apartheid era. For this project Dale captured the content with his IPhone using the app Hipstamatic - technology has come a long way considering he remembers rubbing Vaseline on his lens to create a blurry- edged effect.

subject to what the person behind the lens chooses to snap and portray. He adds “the closest you can ever come to the absolute truth in photography would be a photo finish at a horse race”. Dale, not being into horse racing, focuses on capturing life. He seamlessly succeeds in highlighting

Currently Dale resides in Hout Bay, South Africa, having just returned from Cleveland, Ohio - where he undertook a 3-month artist residency in the USA shooting a new project and teaching young students new photographic skills. He likes to spend his downtime with a camera in hand searching markets for treasure. As for music and computers, these also feature prominently in Dale’s life, that is to say he admits to playing air guitar occasionally and might look at getting an Xbox when or rather if he retires. It would be a welcome upgrade from the Asteroids arcade game and pinball machines he played back in the 80s. FOR MORE INFO VISIT - www.daleyudelman.com

TOP 5 ALBUMS James McMurtry Too Long in the Wasteland 1989 Columbia

Bob Dylan Infidels 1983

Chuck Prophet Balinese Dancer 1992

Burning Spear Love & Peace 1993

Roger Waters In the Flesh 2000

Columbia

Homestead

Heartbeat

Columbia

I was struggling to make a connection with art, digital applications, and Dale’s photojournalism background, especially when choosing a sensitive THE LAKE

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IMAGES - Suburbs in Paradise: Johannesburg circa 1980’s - Clockwise - Blind Buskers / Christmas Parade / Wedding / Policeman

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IMAGES - Life under Democracy: 2012 / Clockwise: Church Service - Johannesburg / Girl - Coronation Park Squatter Camp - Krugersdorp / Homeless Woman - Cape Town / Elia Mashao - Tshwane

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IMAGES - Top to bottom: In a City : 2009 Recycle Man / Angel / Made in RSA: 2010 / T Reality Bytes: 2002 Table Mountain / Picnic

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GHOST FOLK JULIAN REDPATH INTERVIEW - RUAN SCOTT

PHOTOGRAPHY - MATTHEW KAY

“Genre always just feels like a nonsense thing. I don’t think anyone really wants to be labelled so it’s just best to make up your own thing; I like the sound of Ghost Folk. I think genres are bad for music especially in this country, all the shows are always a rock show or hip hop show where it’s so genre specific and it’s just boring.” CAN YOU GIVE US A BRIEF TIMELINE OF YOUR LIFE SO FAR AND WHERE ARE YOU BASED NOW? I didn’t realise I needed glasses until I was about 18 and that mixed in with my hyperactive personality meant everything before that was a kind of a blur of frustration, miscommunication and a lot of anger attacks which meant school was shit and I loathed it completely. I went to a lot of different ones sometimes because we moved and sometimes because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. We moved around a lot because my dad, Dave Redpath, was a poultry farmer and he moved around for work. Skateboarding was something I found I could channel my energy into and I did that for a long time. After school I lived in London and then Oxford for a bit then I came back to South Africa. I was going to study Music but I was told by a professor at the music department of the Durban University that I shouldn’t so I went to study film and TV at the Tech and I lived in Durban till I finished doing that then I moved to Johannesburg where I am now. WHERE WOULD YOU SAY YOUR INTEREST IN MUSIC COMES FROM? My interest in it is innate, I think that’s why everyone is interested in music, it’s primal or something I guess. My mom, Gill Redpath, loves music and she has great taste and my dad and me spent a lot of time together driving around listening to music and talking, he would get super excited if one of his favourite jams came on and the pair of them would dance around and play records, their love and energy for it was infectious. I always liked the sound of an acoustic guitar and trying to figure out what the words were saying, I liked the mystery and the magic of it. YOUR BROTHER, NATHAN REDPATH, IS WELL KNOWN ON THE LOCAL MUSIC PRODUCER. WOULD YOU SAY YOU ARE INFLUENCED BY HIM AND DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE A COLLABORATION IN THE FUTURE? Yes I was influenced by all my siblings and the different sounds and scenes they were into. Nath mostly though because he has the broadest (and most knowledgeable in that broadness) taste in music of any person I’ve ever met. He is getting into Radio now (King B Come Alive on Jozi Maboneng Radio) and DJ-ing a lot and always making music. We will do something together some day no doubt, it hasn’t happened yet because when I go to his house we just end up playing Fifa on the Xbox. YOUR NEW ALBUM ‘MAIDEN LIGHT’ IS AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR GUIDED FOLK ALBUM WITH WITH GUY BUTTERY AND CELLIST CLARE VANDELEUR. HOW DID THIS COLLABORATION COME ABOUT AND WHY DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH THESE PARTICULAR MUSICIANS? It’s funny I had a write up in the Mail & Guardian recently and even though it was a really well written piece and I was well chuffed with it there was no mention of Chris Letcher and here again he has been left out haha. Maiden Light was made over a period of about 3 years, my parts were recorded in 3 days, and the rest of that time was spent finding just the right people to give the songs weight sonically that I felt like the lyrics already had. I always felt Shipwrecks,

the EP I put out, was a strong finished project but what I was most proud of about the whole thing was who was involved and it’s the same with Maiden Light. The collaborations came about in different ways but I associate with these musicians because I consider them to be the best in the world at what they do, and it’s an amazing thing for me to be able to say that there is no one in the world I would have rather worked with on this project than who I did work with, Not just with the music but with the photography (Matt Kay) and design (Richard Hart) as well. Clare I met just by asking on Facebook if anyone knew of a cellist and me and her have been playing shows and working together on different projects a lot since we met; she is an incredibly talented person and she is unwaveringly patient. Guy is one of my best friends and he was a huge part of the album, he produced it with me, everybody thinks he is a genius at guitar but that’s only one part of his talent, he is on another level when it comes to understanding sound and he doesn’t let his technical understanding get in the way of the music. I would love to talk about all the people involved but I know this isn’t really the place for that. THE SONG “BALLAD OF A GOOD MAN” IS A SONG ABOUT YOUR FATHER. WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP LIKE WITH HIM? He was from a certain time from a certain generation… a gentleman, hard as nails, completely gentle-natured, morally unshakable, absolutely dependable but a great sense of fun and adventure. it was all those cowboy movies he grew up watching I suppose. I probably came across as a difficult person when I was young, I guess I was a difficult person but he was always on my side. I couldn’t find the words to write anything for him for a long time and that song started out as a song for my friend Gabrielle de Gersigny when her dad died. RECENT MEMORY RECALLS YOU AS A YOUNG KID DURBAN SPOTS ON YOUR SKATEBOARD. THIS IS IN STARK CONTRAST TO YOUR RESERVED AND SOMEWHAT SHY PERSONA TODAY. YOU ARE EVEN MAKING A POINT OF IT TO BE KNOWN AS JULIAN RATHER THAN J.P. WHY THIS CHANGE IN CHARACTER? That’s an interesting way to see it, I still feel like I am the same person, I don’t know, as an art form skateboarding requires a person to express a forcefulness you know, even the act of an ollie is physical and forceful, skating is like that, it’s a kind of vicious thing, I mean your fighting gravity. What I’m trying to say is that different vehicles of expression require you to tap into different sides of yourself and that energy is magnified in the viewer’s perspective like a skate video part is sometimes years of work all distilled down to a few minutes’ worth of these bursts of intense energy. The name change thing, that’s something else I just never liked that name, it’s not even my name it’s two letters, I just didn’t ever use that name till the first day of school and the teachers just need something that’s easy to remember.

The first Skate video I ever saw was “Welcome to Hell” and the earliest music I can remember is James Taylor, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. So maybe that sums it up haha. Like I said though it’s different forms of expression, you can’t compare them like that. Maybe I just need to get better at guitar though so I can shred… I do spend a lot of time watching Derek Trucks and Blake Mills guitar solos… haha. TALKING ABOUT BEING ON STAGE IT APPEARS YOU DON’T GIG A LOT, WITH ONLY A HANDFUL OF SHOWS PLAYED DURING 2013/14 AND YOUR ALBUM RELEASE EARLIER THIS YEAR. WOULD YOU RATHER NOT PLAY SHOWS AND JUST RECORD AND RELEASE MUSIC OR IS THERE A REASON FOR YOUR LIMITED LIVE PERFORMANCES? Well in my defence I don’t always feel like there are that many shows to play. I guess I was spending a lot of time focusing on my album but now that it’s done I’m super keen to play as many shows as I can. I’m actually about to go on a tour around the country to celebrate the release of Maiden Light - it’s called very imaginatively “The Maiden Light Tour’. I got funding through Concerts SA and the Samro foundation with this amazing initiative called the Music Mobility Fund. I’m really excited to have Clare Vandeleur joining me on the whole tour and at some shows I’m playing with Chris Letcher and Guy Buttery, we did it for the launch of the album in March in Johannesburg and it was really great. It’s a huge honour to play with Chris and Guy. ON YOUR SOUNDCLOUD PAGE YOUR MUSIC IS LABELLED AS FOLK AND GHOST FOLK. WHERE DO YOU PERSONALLY FEEL YOUR MUSIC FITS IN? Genre always just feels like a nonsense thing. I don’t think anyone really wants to be labelled so it’s just best to make up your own thing; I like the sound of Ghost Folk. I think genres are bad for music especially in this country, all the shows are always a rock show or hip hop show where it’s so genre specific and it’s just boring. I did a couple of shows with Prism Tats a few years ago and it was such a great mix of styles. I want to go to Kitcheners and see Givan Lottz, Moonchild, Saanie Fox, Guy Buttery and Okmalumkoolkat all on the same bill. People will love that and the artists would love it too.

Richard Turner (1942, Stellenbosch – 8 January 1978, Durban), known as Rick Turner, was a South African philosopher who was very probably assassinated by the apartheid state in 1978. Nelson Mandela described Turner “as a source of inspiration”. - Wikipedia I had vaguely heard about him but then I went to this Andries Botha exhibition in Durban called (Dis)Appearance(s) and there was a sketch of the window of Rick Turners house in Durban with a little text description at the bottom. He was sitting at his desk I think when he was shot through the window in front of his daughter. I just wrote the song while I was looking at the picture. That song meant a lot to me and I put it on the Shipwrecks EP but always planned to put it on the album too I wanted the opportunity to give more to it. I had never met Chris Letcher but I just took a chance and emailed him out of the blue and what he sent back was just perfect, it was exactly what I wanted. Everything on the song apart from the singing and guitar obviously, is Chris’s work. THE USE OF STRONG IMAGERY IS EVIDENT IN YOUR LYRICS. DO YOU DRAW THESE IMAGES AND INSPIRATION FROM ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR SUCH AS FAIRY TALES AND RELIGION? It’s generally form my own experience. I don’t know, maybe only being able to see clearly later on in life has made imagery mean a lot to me haha. We are all connected through the mystical powers of the great earth mother.

JULIAN REDPATH JULIAN REDPATH SHIPWRECKS - ep 2009 Bandcamp

JULIAN REDPATH MAIDEN LIGHT 2015 Bandcamp

TELL US ABOUT RICHARD TURNER AND THE SONG YOU SING ABOUT HIM?

INFLUentIAL ALBUMS Guy Buttery Fox Hill Lane 2010

Chris Letcher Spectroscope 2011

Prism Tats EXCESS 2014

Half 4 Howie

Letcher Music

Prism Tats

Neil Young After the Gold Rush 1970 Reprise

Paul Simon Graceland 1986 Warner Bros

YOUR MUSIC IS DELICATE AND SOFT WITH A VERY MYSTERIOUS AND EERIE UNDERTONE. AGAIN, JUXTAPOSED WITH YOUR PRIOR LIFE AS A SKATEBOARDE, HOW DID YOU ARRIVE AT AND SETTLE ON THIS SOUND? THE LAKE

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SUMMER & KAYRIN DEAD LEAVES AND THE DIRTY GROUND

Styling - KRISTI VLOK

PHOTOGRAPHY - ANE ‘ STRYDOM

MODELS - Summer @ Boss Models / Kayrin @ Fanjam Left coat - Babette Clothing / Right coat - Max Mara / Glasses - Dior / Boots - Stylist’s own Hat - Stylist’s own / Blouse - Babette Clothing / Jeans - Vintage Wrangler / Dress and hat - Second Time Around THE LAKE

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FLOUR POWER JOSH REDMAN INTERVIEW - BRETT & BOD

PORTRAIT - Sean Lorenz SURFING IMAGE - Zak Noyle

“it is really intimidating, but you just figure out how to work your way around the lineup and paddle circles around certain guys. I’ve got to know a lot of the locals there and chat to the guys in the water, but there’s no way they’re going to pull back on any waves for me” CHARGING AROUND THE WORLD FOR BIG WAVES IS THE STUFF OF FANTASY FOR MOST SURFERS FROM THIS COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY WITH OUR WEAK CURRENCY AT THE MOMENT. WE UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE QUITE THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SIDE TO YOU WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MORE INTERESTING WAYS YOU HAVE FOUND TO FUND YOUR SURF MISSIONS? (E.G. CUTTING AND SELLING CHRITSMAS TREES IN CALIFORNIA OR SIMILAR JOB DESCRIPTIONS) Ja it is the dream to be able to travel places like Hawaii every year and if you got to hustle a little bit along the way to keep it going I got no problem with that. My first job I did to keep it going was local and was working for a friend Jason in Cape Town over the winter season. He’s got a carpentry company and because I have no carpentry skills I would work as the driver/manual labour guy! Over in The States Frank Solomon and I have done all kinds of odd jobs on our travels, construction, packing bricks, painting, gardening, weed trimming, catering, Christmas tree salesman, even tried to get an airport shuttle service going in Hawaii the one year! Haha we did one run to the airport in a car someone gave us. Short lived taxi career! Sometimes the jobs are really kak, but mostly we have fun and we work when the waves are bad so its keeps us busy. TELL US ABOUT “GOSH!”, YOUR BAKING VENTURE THAT YOU HAVE WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S AUNT HOW DID IT COME ABOUT AND HOW IS THE BAKING BUSINESS GOING? (ELABORATE ON WHAT YOU ARE BAKING, WHERE YOU HAVE YOUR KITCHEN AND WHERE YOUR BROWNIES CAN BE GOT ETC.) Well Gaff was baking out of her home kitchen supplying a few home industry stores and coffee shops when Dom (my honey) suggested I help her out a bit and keep myself busy while at home. Things went well and we decided to make it permanent, calling ourselves Gosh! (Gaff+Josh) This was almost 3 years ago now and it’s grown into a nice little business for us. We supply brownies to a lot of outlets which include coffee shops, school tuckshops, restaurants, work canteens and a few Spar grocery stores. We have a few different products and still supply a couple of coffee shops with cakes, but our brownies are the best and they have really taken off so we have just kind of put our focus into getting them out there. We have worked really hard to get Gosh! to where it is now. We baked out of Gaff’s home kitchen for two and a half years pumping out of these two home ovens all day every day, just her and I, doing deliveries and all that in between. Now we are in our own new sick kitchen with capacity to grow. We also have a really nice lady working for us, have a good customer base and are really just in a happy place with our business right now!

be somewhere down the line, who knows what the future holds, but at the moment we’re happy with the way things are. This way, it allows us to be a bit more free. Bake, supply, done! YOU DID A CHEF’S COURSE A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO - WAS GETTING INVOLVED IN THE CULINARY INDUSTRY SOMETHING YOU WERE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN OR DID IT EVOLVE JUST FROM A PASSION FOR COOKING? It was something that I always said I wanted to do because I enjoyed it and it was the only thing besides surfing I could ever see myself doing! I didn’t see it coming as soon as it did though. After doing a year and a bit on the surfing tour (WQS), I wasn’t really doing well or enjoying it that much, so my ballies gave me the opportunity to do my chef’s diploma and I just went for it. I wasn’t too sure what I was going to do with it when I was done because I wasn’t ready to stop surfing and start working in a kitchen. I was 21 when I did the course in 2009 and it took me 4 years until I finally used my acquired skills when I joined forces with Gaff in 2013. WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THE BAKING SIDE OF THE CULINARY ARTS SPECIFICALLY? I love all parts of cooking and it was never the plan to have a baking business. Everything has just unfolded the way it has. I’m pretty sure God had a plan to put the unlikely pair of Gaff and I together though. We really just work well together. We both have our strengths and weaknesses and it’s a good balance. I actually enjoy going and doing promotions, when we introduce our brownies into new Spar stores. I chat to the customers about our product and have a bit of interaction haha. It’s funny but I do dig to chat to everyone and get this reaction from the grannies when they find out that I’m the one doing the baking. They try and quiz me about it sometimes to try and catch me out because they don’t think I made ’em. But then they get all stoked when they realise that I do. But the point is, Gaff doesn’t like promos, I do haha! The other great thing is that Gaff’s husband Paul is a surfer as well as her daughter Liv, who is actually in the South African Surfing team this year heading over to the States. So she understands the part that surfing plays in my life and when I need to go on a trip she picks up the slack in the kitchen. Even as far as letting me go to Hawaii for 6 weeks at a time! WHERE DID YOU FIND THE RECIPE?

WAVE SURFING ALWAYS WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD TAKE YOUR SURFING OR WAS THE CONTEST SCENE NOT REALLY DOING IT FOR YOU? Ja it was a bit of a combination of the two. Right from the start I was frothing on anything bigger that I could surf, but you need to dedicate yourself to chasing a swell in order to get bigger waves, especially living in Durban. Surfing junior contests when I was younger consumed most of the year, especially during winter, we were just back and forth doing comps, so the chance to surf bigger waves didn’t come around often. After I grew out of juniors I freed up a bit more and was able to chase a few swells to Cape Town which gave me a good taste and got me more amped. Once I did my stint on the WQS and didn’t do too well, I got over contests and started putting focus into bigger waves and that was really what I needed to refuel my passion for surfing. The ‘QS kinda burnt me out and I was in a bit of a slump after that. Bigger waves got me psyching again harder than ever! YOU RECENTLY SURFED JAWS, A BIG WAVE BREAK IN HAWAII THAT MOST MERE MORTALS CAN ONLY DREAM OF SURFING - TELL US ABOUT THAT EXPERIENCE AND DID IT LIVE UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS? ‘Jaws’ was a spot I had been wanting to surf for a while and what I had been imagining in my head couldn’t compare to the real thing. It was mind blowing and even though I didn’t get to surf it that big, it was still crazy. It’s such a scary beautiful place, I was so taken aback. Hawaii is amazing, to have such a perfect big wave, with warm crystal blue water and the tropical backdrop, there isn’t much more you can ask for. Now that I have an accurate picture in my head I’m dreaming even more about my next encounter with the place. WITH SURFING WAVES OF CONSEQUENCE ALWAYS COMES THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR EVEN DEATH, IS THIS SOMETHING THAT CROSSES YOUR MIND WHEN CHARGING BREAKS LIKE MAVERICKS OR PIPELINE THAT HAVE CLAIMED THE LIVES OF SOME OF THE BEST BIG WAVE SURFERS? Sometimes it does, but it’s not something I like to think about. I’m not scared of death, but I am scared of serious injury, so that is something I try to keep positive thoughts about and keep the ugly ones out of my head. It’s pointless being scared of death, if it’s going to happen it happens, and if it doesn’t you were being scared for nothing. I won’t lie though, when a 20ft wave is about to break in front of you, you quickly start praying “Save me from this and I’ll stop being naughty!” Haha!

ARE THERE ANY PLANS IN THE PIPELINE TO OPEN YOUR OWN OUTLET FOR YOUR WARES?

It was a family recipe that we have adjusted here and there to work best for us. The recipe is like the Coca-Cola recipe. Nobody except Gaff and I know it and we keep it very close to us. The only place that it is printed out is in our heads! Haha no it’s not that secret, but it’s a secret.

DO YOU FEEL THAT BIG WAVE RIDERS DON’T GET THE EXPOSURE THAT THEY DESERVE IN THE SURF SCENE OR SURF MEDIA AND THAT MOST OF THE FOCUS IS ON THE CONTEST SURFERS?

No, we don’t really want to be manning a store, dealing directly with the public and all that. May-

YOUR SURFING CAREER HAS ALSO TAKEN A SOMEWHAT NEW DIRECTION, WAS THE ROUTE OF BIG

There definitely isn’t enough money in the sport. For what the guys are putting on the line there is a very

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small percentage making a living out of it. There are the top guys that are making good money, but then the guys that are just outside of that trying to break through aren’t getting a cent. Now guys from South Africa are even more disadvantaged because our currency makes it hard to travel and chase swells beyond our border, which is what you need to do to get mileage on the international stage. The surfing market in South Africa is tiny if you compare it to the States or Europe or wherever and then you throw the currency factor into that equation... I’m super lucky to have had the support I have from my sponsors over the years, which has allowed me to make these opportunities happen and keep the dream alive! We are lucky to have the quality of waves we do here at home and to chuck in a Hawaii / Northern Hemisphere trip at the end of the year, I don’t care! I’m happy! I’VE READ THAT BIG WAVE RIDERS DO ALL SORTS OF TRAINING TO PREPARE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY TO TAKE ON THESE BEHEMOTHS, WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL APPROACH TO THIS? I had previously done next to nothing in terms of breath training besides smoking some ciggies on the jol back in the day! But I got over that and this year I have been doing some pool exercises to strengthen the lungs. Feeling a lot more confident now going into this year. I also train at a boxing gym that two of my good mates Lee and Trev own. I can’t say I’m a very good boxer but it’s amazing for fitness and I love training at Domination. It’s a way to train where you’re always doing different stuff and they keep it interesting. MOST PEOPLE FIND BAKING QUITE THERAPEUTIC, DO YOU FEEL IT HELPS IN ANY WAY TO PREPARE MENTALLY FOR SURFING BIG WAVES? Hahaha no not really, I get in the zone when I’m baking and get quite focused on what I’m doing, but there is a lot of surfing daydreaming that goes on too. If I know there are good waves and there’s no way I can get out of baking, my mind spins so hard. I actually feel physically sick in my stomach some times. It’s lucky that that doesn’t happen too much seeing that I am one of the co-founders. YOU WERE A BIT OF A BEARD CELEBRITY RECENTLY BEFORE YOU CROPPED IT, WHY DID YOU CROP IT AND ARE YOU PLANNING ON GROWING IT OUT TO EPIC PROPORTIONS AGAIN? I had planned to grow it for a certain length of time and had agreed with my chick that when I came back from Hawaii that year it would be gone, which is why I cut it then after 9 months of growth. Now she’s agreed to let me grow it just one last time! She’s taking it surprisingly well and being a good sport about it even though she doesn’t really dig it. She understands why I want to grow it again and is letting me run with it thankfully. The plan is to get back to Jaws next season with a Viking presence! I’m pretty sure I am of Viking decent. I don’t know if 45

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I can prove it, but after watching the series Vikings it all makes sense! Haha nah but while you’re young you have to do these things, why not. YOUR BROTHER DAN IS ALSO A GREAT SURFER, HOW DID GROWING UP WITH A BROTHER WHO SURFS INFLUENCE YOUR SURFING AND DOES HE EVER PADDLE OUT WITH YOU ON YOUR BIG WAVE MISSIONS? It was mental growing up. Always having someone to surf with at that level really helps your surfing. Especially between the ages of like 12 and 16 for me when I was kinda pushing into a bit heavier waves up and down our coast. Nothing huge but we have incredible powerful waves along the KZN coast and to see my brother charging always got me pushing myself. Whenever there was a deeper, heavier peak that most of the pack in the water didn’t want a part of, Dan would lead the way and I would follow. I have the best memories of our surf missions when we were lighties and know for sure that this period sparked my love for heavier waves. Besides Dan, there was a good crew of us that would push each other in Durban. Guys like Brandon Jackson, Jordy, Chad Du Toit, Matt Kruger and Wok Wright, we all used to surf together most days, and when it got big, soon as one committed to going out we were all in. We had such a sick childhood growing up on the Durban beachfront. Jackos ballie owned the coffee shop down at New Pier and every day we were there after school, every weekend all day and never mind holidays. We had such a solid crew that used to hang there in that era. You don’t need to leave a bunch of groms together at the beach for long before they start causing kak! Sheez it was fun. SURFING HAWAII FROM WHAT WE UNDERSTAND CAN BE AN INTIMIDATING EXPERIENCE, WAVES WISE AS WELL AS LOCALS WISE, WHAT’S IT LIKE AT THE BACKLINE AT PIPE PADDLING AROUND WITH SOME OF HAWAII’S HEAVY HITTING LOCALS WHO WOULD PROBABLY MUCH RATHER SEE YOU SURFING YOUR LOCAL WAVE AT NEW PIER.

as you know that and have a good attitude in the water, you shouldn’t have a problem. Staying at the Volcom house right in front of Pipe/Backdoor is unreal. The Volcom team is really like a family and I’ve made a lot of good friends there. The local guys all come hang there and they’re all legends when you get to know them, just don’t step on any toes in the water. YOU STAYED AT THE VOLCOM HOUSE IN HAWAII AND SURFED WITH GUYS LIKE OZZIE WRIGHT, NATHAN FLETCHER, DUSTY PAYNE AND MITCH COLBORN YOU MUST HAVE SOME INTERESTING STORIES? When Mitch and Dusty are in town its normally for the Volcom event at Pipe and they’re all focused for the event so the mood in the house is pretty mellow. They’re both legends though and it’s pretty sick watching them surf. Nathan on the other hand, I hang with quite a bit at the house because he lives there. He surfs so well and charges hard too so to hang and get to surf Pipe with him is pretty epic. Then you have John John Florence and Jamie O’Brien out there daily blowing minds. It’s everything you see in these surf movies happening right in front of you. It’s pretty amazing. YOU SURF A LOT WITH CAPE TOWN’S FRANK SOLOMON, ANOTHER BIG WAVE CHARGER - WHAT OTHER SOUTH AFRICANS HAVE INSPIRED YOUR SURFING ESPECIALLY ON THE BIG WAVE SCENE? Frank and I have spent a lot of time together over the last 5 years or so and he’s been doing really well lately, signing up with Hurley International in

the process. Makes me so stoked to see my good mates’ hard work paying off. He’s just followed his dream and is now getting paid to do it. There is a really good mix of big wave guys in South Africa to look up to and I’ve been fortunate to spend time in the Cape with legends like Andrew Marr, Mickey Duffus, Simon Louw, Jason Hayes, the Bertish brothers, Mike Shliebak and more. It’s such a tightknit crew and I really love just being in the water with all those guys. Those are the guys I look up to the most. It actually all started when John Whittle, who is from Durban, offered to let me tag along with him down to Cape Town when I was 14 for the Redbull Dungeons event. We drove down and hung for about 3 weeks with the whole event crew and got to paddle out to Dungeons for my first time. That was really where it started, even though I never got to surf Dungeons again till I was about 18, I knew I was going to go back. WHAT SURF MISSIONS HAVE YOU GOT PLANNED FOR THIS YEAR LOCALLY AND WILL YOU BE HEADING BACK OVERSEAS ANYTIME SOON? My year is always uncertain. When I’m at home I work and watch the charts and as soon as I see something happening along our coast I start making plans. The majority of my trips are to Cape Town for some bigger swells and other than that Durban’s coast keeps me pretty happy over winter. Then when our winter comes to an end I start planning my Hawaii/Northern Hemisphere season which is normally 1-2 months. That’s been my cycle for the last 4 years and we’ll just have to see how long I can make it last!

BAKING soda DR DRE THE CHRONIC 1992 DEATHROW

ICE T ORIGINAL GANGSTER 1991 Warner Brothers

NOTORIOUS BIG READY TO DIE 1994

SNOOP DOG THE DOGGFATHER 1996

TUPAC ALL EYEZ ON ME 1996

Bad Boy

DEATHROW

It is really intimidating, but you just figure out how to work your way around the lineup and paddle circles around certain guys. I’ve got to know a lot of the locals there and chat to the guys in the water, but there’s no way they’re going to pull back on any waves for me. It’s their local spot and they get priority, that’s just the bottom line and as long THE LAKE

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ABOVE THE FOLD ROSS SYMONS INTERVIEW - RICK DE LA RAY

PORTRAIT - OCKIE FOURIE

“The first time I folded anything was in 2002 when I was asked by my brother to fold a crane for a project he was busy with. Since then all I ever did was fold crane after crane. Why I did this all the time and why I stayed so interested in it is a mystery to me…” ARTIST JUST FIND THEIR OWN PREFERRED METHOD OF EXECUTING THEIR MODELS? The less steps and detail there is in a model, the less specific the paper type needs to be. It’s not really a preference but a technicality when choosing paper. Insects can have hundreds of details and small antennae which would generally require very thin, strong paper, when a bear or bull which is bulky would require a thicker more malleable type of paper. ON YOUR WEBSITE YOU MENTION THAT YOU ARE FOLDING PAPER FOR A LIVING NOW. WHAT WOULD BE A TYPICAL DAY IN YOUR LIFE AND HOW DO YOU MARKET YOURSELF AS AN ORIGAMI ARTIST?

FOLDING ORIGAMI REQUIRES A LOT OF FOCUS AND PATIENCE. DO YOU FEEL THESE TRAITS CAME FROM BEING A WEB DEVELOPER AND DO YOU FIND ANY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE TWO IN THE WAY OF APPROACHING CERTAIN CHALLENGES? If I am interested in something, regardless of what it is, I can sit and do it for hours on end. I am able to focus on something and block everything else out until I get it right or at least see myself getting better at it. Both web development and origami require a technical as well as a creative mind. But I’m sure there are hundreds of other activities that require the same abilities. I just happened to do these two during the same time in my life. But yes, there are definitely similarities in both of these types of fields when it comes to problem solving. There are a set of rules which you need to understand. You start out to achieve a goal (Build a website or fold a rabbit) and based on the rules you then use the tools available (Computer programs or a sheet of paper) to create what it is you’ve set out to create. DO YOU ALWAYS START WITH A SQUARE PIECE OF PAPER AND ARE THERE ANY BASIC OR SIGNATURE FOLDS THAT RUN THROUGHOUT ALL MODELS OF ORIGAMI? Generally you would start with a square but you can start with any shape provided it is a single flat, uncut sheet. There are a few folds or models called “bases” which can form the starting point of many models, but these bases are not used in all origami models. WHEN WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU RECALL BEING INTRODUCED TO THE ART FORM AND WHAT DO THINK KEPT YOU INTERESTED WITH THE MEDIUM? The first time I folded anything was in 2002 when I was asked by my brother to fold a crane for a project he was busy with. Since then all I ever did was fold crane after crane. Why I did this all the time and why I stayed so interested in it is a mystery to me… IS THERE A CERTAIN SIZE AND WEIGHT OF PAPER WHICH IS STANDARD TO THE MEDIUM OR DOES EACH

Being an artist is the same as running a business. I have to answer emails, fetch samples and goods from suppliers, do filing, drop off goods to send to clients etc. so I try and get all of that out of the way in the morning, but as emails come in, I answer them. If a task takes me less than 5 minutes to do, I will drop what I’m doing and do that to get it out of the way. I try and set aside time in the afternoons and evenings to do any folding or designing. I find those are the most creative times for me. Instagram has been the only form of marketing I’ve done and it’s happened by default. I started a 365 day project at the beginning of last year (2014) where I posted one new origami figure every day for a year, and it was that project and me connecting with so many people, that allowed me to market what I was doing and do it fulltime. I spend at least 5-10minutes every 3-4 hours on Instagram, every day. I don’t post more than twice a day and I try and respond to every comment that is made on my posts. DID YOU USE INSTAGRAM FROM THE BEGINNING TO EXHIBIT YOUR MODELS ONLINE AND WHEN WAS THE INITIAL SURGE IN FOLLOWERS ON INSTAGRAM? WHAT DO YOU FEEL LED TO THE NUMBER RISING SO DRASTICALLY ON THE PLATFORM? I already had an Instagram account, and I’d always wanted to do a 365 day project and document it. So Instagram was the logical option for me to document the project. The first big spike in followers was in August 2014 when I went from around 2500 to 10500 followers over a few weeks. And then at the end of September I was featured on Instagram’s blog which pushed me to over 40K followers. I was featured by Instagram and also put onto the Instagram suggested user list as a result of me being very active and also because my photography skills improved during the course of the project. We live in a time where new content is what we are constantly looking for, particularly online content. During this project I was providing a daily dose of something new and different and people knew that it was going to be there everyday, so they started following me.

Everything has transpired via Instagram. I keep putting my ideas out and when brands and people see that there is something different about what I do, they want to work with me. And this is true for anyone doing something unique and different. I also make a point of responding to everyone as fast as possible. In this day and age if you take too long to respond you’re gonna lose the potential work. RED BULL IS USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH EXTREME SPORTS, WHAT IS YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THEM AND DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR-SELF A SORT OF EXTREME ORIGAMI FOLDER? I was recently involved with Red Bull and their Paper Wings campaign, which was a paper jet throwing competition. I judged the Cape Town leg of these events. I will hopefully do some work with them in the future again. I think that what I’ve brought to many people’s attention is that something as simple as folding paper can be turned into a fulltime gig and that might be what is seen as extreme. Origami is sometimes seen as a children’s activity and that it’s limited in what’s achievable, so I think I’ve just helped many people see what can be done if you add a bit of time and creativity to something simple. THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF ORIGAMI TECHNIQUES. FROM ACTION, MODULAR, WET FOLDING AND PURELAND ORIGAMI – IT SEEMS THAT YOUR WORK INCORPORATES QUITE A FEW OF THESE DISCIPLINES? Although I’ve tried all these techniques out, the only one I really use often for my own models is wet folding. The rest of the techniques are generally used when starting out with origami. IN TERMS OF TOOLS, DO YOU USE ANY ‘BONE FOLDERS’ AND PAPERCLIPS WITH COMPLEX FOLDS WHILE YOU ARE WORKING AND DO YOU USE ANY FORM OF ‘KIRIGAMI’ (PAPER CUTTING) IN YOUR WORK? If the paper gets really thick I do use a bone folder. It helps get crisp folds yet it’s softer on the paper. It also helps with scoring, which is good for making a groove in the paper so it’s easier to fold. I have used paper clips and masking tape to keep the models in place if they get a bit complex. Tweezers are something I like using if I’m folding a model with a lot of detail. I don’t often use Kirigami unless it’s a paper-craft (box-like figures and shapes created using

scissors) project that I’m working with. The challenge with origami is to create shapes and forms without using cuts. I READ THAT SOME PURISTS BELIEVE THAT NO TOOLS SHOULD BE USED WHEN FOLDING AND PREFER TO DO IT IN THE AIR WITHOUT A FLAT SURFACE TO WORK ON? Haha! Yes, the purists do say that sometimes. Folding a model using all those techniques is an art on its own :) WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO TAKE ON THE 365 DAY CHALLENGE? HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO CHOOSE YOUR PARTICULAR CHARACTERS AND MODELS THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE EACH DAY? For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to do one thing every day for a whole year. I was really enjoying origami so I decided that I would do that for a year and track my progress using Instagram. It was difficult at the beginning to choose models but once I started doing a theme each week it became easier to find designs. All I had to do then was choose a theme each week and find 7 models in that theme instead of finding a figure each day. HOW MANY PAPER CUTS DID YOU GET AND WERE THERE MOMENTS WHERE YOU THOUGHT OF THROWING IN THE TOWEL? Not one single paper cut, that’s no lie! I decided from the beginning that I was going to complete the project so I never had the urge to call it quits. I had moments of “AAAAAAAAHHH DAMMIT!!!” but I never wanted to quit. HOW DO YOU STORE THE WORK AND IS THERE A LIFESPAN TO THE SCULPTURES IN TERMS OF IT LOSING ITS SHAPE AND CRISPNESS? I only store the figures I sell in a proper case or frame. The figures I fold for design purposes or just for fun, I often give away to friends or just keep them in a cupboard somewhere. If the correct paper and technique is used to create them, the paper sculptures can last for years. They would also need to be kept in an environment where not much light or damp can get to them.

FOLDED - TOP 5 Porter Robinson Worlds 2014 Astralwerks

Mat Zo Damage Control 2013 Astralwerks

Netsky 2 2012 Hospital

AraabMuzik

For Professional Use Only

2013 AraabMuzik

Moderat II 2013 MonkeyTown

YOU HAVE DONE QUITE A FEW PROJECTS FROM SHOP WINDOWS TO DIFFERENT BRANDS NOW LIKE RED BULL AND ADIDAS, TO NAME A FEW. HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED? THE LAKE

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WAX JUNKIE

IN Association WITH

JESSICA CROSS / PERSONAL COLLECTION WORDS - JESSICA CROSS

PHOTOGRAPHY - HAYDEN PHIPPS

“My memories of seeing an LP and my realization of the uniqueness of its sound are two different memories. The first time I can remember connecting with an LP was at an age I cannot recall. My mom used to work at a record store before I was born, so there was a pretty righteous soul/funk/ disco collection at our house.” all the way right. When I walked into this one particular house there on the wall were a series of old record covers. I felt positive energy moving up and down my body, some might call it a ‘tingle’. Finally, I had found the place. When I asked about ‘who what and why’, the woman told me “they belong to the house”, my new home. Throughout my life, records have provided a certain level of validation and guidance. They are a major influence in my decision-making. Wherever I roam, the first thing I do is find the local record store, whatever happens after that is meant to be.

rich is getting richer // so while we ain’t richer // could it be // we still thinkin’ like Niggas?? // Educate yourselves // make your worldview bigger // visualize wealth // and put yourselves in the picture. Need I say more?

freedom of being your true self…family... destiny... determination and willpower. All of this from one record! When I first discovered Death I was watching their documentary at an independent theatre in Oakland with one of my best homies and musical soul mate from childhood. We were partners in crime, hitting every mosh pit we could find before the age of 16. And here we were, learning about the newly discovered pioneers of punk - and damn the man! They were Black. Halfway through the film I was busy emailing my local record store and contemplating my next tattoo. Yes - I got both.

CATCH A FIRE

BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS 1973 This record ignited a fire in me. In many ways these men taught me how powerful music could be, within me and in the world. I don’t know if the world can be saved, but The Wailers enlightened me to the fact that the world can be changed. It starts with emancipation of self: mind body and soul. This record marked the beginning of my self-exploration; and it continues to provide guidance and wisdom as I move through the world.

JAMES BROWN

LIVE AT THE APOLLO 1963

KRS ONE

I GOT NEXT 1997 Anybody in here, right now, with tape decks, turn ‘em on and put ‘em on record. I’ll give you second. I want to add authenticity to your tape // so when it’s sold out in the streets, you all can know it was a really party.

CHOCOLATE MILK MILKY WAY 1979

This particular record represents how records themselves have had a huge impact on my journey. More so, Milky Way is a reminder of home. I was stranded in Washington DC, my first venture across America to live in a new city far from what I called home. DC was still gentrifying and crime lingered in the hoods I could afford. I had looked at many spots to live and most were cool, but nothing felt

These are poems written across the nation // everybody’s bad and everybody’s tough // but how many people are intelligent enough // to open up their eyes and see through the lies // discipline themselves yourself to stay alive // not many. // That’s why universe sent me today on this stage // with this to say // The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer // in the final hour // many heads will lose power // what does the rich vs poor really mean? // psychologically it means you gotta pick your team // when someone says the rich gets richer // visualize wealth and put yourselves in the picture // the rich get richer, cuz they work towards rich // the poor get poorer cuz their mind can’t switch from the ghetto // let go // it’s not a novelty // you can love your neighborhood without lovin’ poverty // follow me// every mother, father, son, daughter // There’s no reason to fear the new world order // We must order the whole new world to pay us, the new world order and the old state chaos // the big brother // watchin’ over you // is a lie you see // hip hop can build its own secret society! // But first // you and I got to unify // stop the negativity // and control our creativity // The

Be wild. Be free. Be yourself. Let loose. Find your soul. Scream. Leave it all on stage. Believe it or not, this man and his music gave me the key to unlock the performer. Rewind: 16 years old: Jamaica. I am about to go on stage - my nerves are pumping - why did I accept this challenge to sing sex machine live…fuck it. I threw the lyrics to the ground and swear on my life - that day, I became James Brown. I think there is a recording out there somewhere; I would pay to see it.

STEVIE WONDER INNERVISIONS 1973

Where to start…there could be no end…Stevie Wonder is a leading light in the musical revolution that is as real as my heartbeat. Aside from his endless contribution to music as a singer, songwriter and composer, in my book, Stevie Wonder as a human being embodies all that is possible using music as a catalyst for communication from one heart to another. One of my greatest inspirations So many memories come to mind…any Stevie record would do, but I chose this one because the cover art says so much about him. The illustration highlights his unique ability to envision while not being able to use his eyes to see. Just like the feeling I get when listening to his music, it touches a special place in me because it comes from a special place in him. In fact, it is a place that we both share, us, and the rest of humanity. One might ask, “How does he do it? Every time!?” with effortless ease..?

DEATH

SPIRITUAL / MENTAL / PHYSICAL 2011 This record tells so many stories. Thoughts of a punk phase that never really ended, the musical

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This cover reveals a secret; Stevie can see as clearly as anyone. Not only can he see, he sees from the most powerful place. In this record, he shares visions from his third eye; the truest eye; the eye that matters most. 51

ROBOTECH B&O Beoplay H6 - Natural leather

B&O BeoPlay Portable Bluetooth Speaker

The BeoPlay H6 over-ear headphones give you authentic sound that’s built on a clear midrange and a careful balance between bass and treble. This level of audio quality is delivered by 40 mm custom-designed drivers with neodymium magnets that are perfectly angled to get the best distance and sound direction into your ears. There’s also an internal bass port to ensure carefully balanced bass performance from this closed headphone design.

B&O’s BeoPlay A2 is a powerful and portable Bluetooth speaker with groundbreaking True360 omni-directional sound, up to 24 hours of battery life, and a rock-solid aluminum core built for mobility and guaranteeing acoustic stability. Featuring the Bang & Olufsen signature sound, which was designed to give you honest sound the way the artists intended it, the BeoPlay A2 speaker introduces a sound technology that ensures the music experience is impressive no matter where you are. Plus, a USB output enables you to charge your smartphone or iPhone, so the music and your mobile device can keep going.

To provide the ideal listening experience, B&O PLAY thoroughly studied the shape and curves of the human ear to determine the proper geometries that reduce sound leakage and reveal all the fine details in the music no matter what the volume.

Highlights

The primary structural components are made of anodized high-grade aluminum, so BeoPlay H6 is surprisingly light as well as robust and scratch-resistant. There’s even anodized aluminum on the adjustable slider arm and cover plate to finish the design with a final vibrant touch. Superb industrial design

focused space - THE BUREAU

• • • • • •

focused space BACKPACKS

True360 sound technology Bang & Olufsen signature sound Designed for portability Up to 24 hours of battery life Bluetooth connectivity with social sharing Charges your iPhone or smartphone

focused space - THE SUPPLY

Focused Space, The Fine Products of Efficiency, was created to elevate the travel experience and how we organize technology. The brand was founded by the creative vision of Bryan Grismer. Bryan’s journey helps to define the passion, humble beginnings and entrepreneurial spirit that west coast culture has become known for. From thrift stores to flea markets, band to brand garage creation , water to land board sports in attempts of individual and team expression. The Focused Space range incorporates some very personal inspiration for the Grismer family that traces back to a family farm in Hosmer, South Dakota. “The Jacob Grismer and Sons silo dates back to the early 1950’s and exists today as a symbol of our family roots,” says Grismer. This celebration of heritage and importance of family unit can be seen in products such as the Silo backpack. The upholstery grade material is recreation a rug that was part of their family and the shape was inspired by a feed bag on their wheat farm.

B&O BeoPlay S8

Anker 40W 5-Port Desktop Charger

Bang & Olufsen, purveyor of premium home entertainment kit, has announced a gorgeous new 2.1 speaker system called BeoPlay S8.

Not all charging ports are created equal. Standard ports only communicate effectively with particular devices, like Apple OR Android, often limiting their recharge rate. But with PowerIQ™ technology, each port intelligently identifies your device to speak its unique charging language. So plug in any brand or model and enjoy compatibility that doesn’t limit your charging speed.

The B&O BeoPlay S8 is clearly aimed at those that like minimalism but also want high quality sound. Primarily this made for music streaming with connectivity for Apple’s AirPort Express, Sonos Connect or anything else you can think of. But it is also possible to connect it to a Bang & Olufsen TV to enhance the audio with greater bass and full range speakers for more surrounding sound. The 8-inch class D subwoofer delivers a range of 20-150Hz with 280W of power for plenty of punchy bass. Complimenting that are the two satellite speakers which, despite being just 2.5-inches, offer full range sound and 140W from the class D amp found in the sub.

When all you need is a boost, the Anker® Astro Mini’s got you covered. Holds enough juice to get you back up and running without weighing you down (less than 3oz). Add more than a full charge - that’s up to 9 hours of talk time to an iPhone or more than 90 hours of audio playback to most other phones.

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print run REVIEWS - XAVIER NAGEL

SUPPLIED BY - BIBLIOPHELIA

Penny Siopis Time and Again Memory Against Forgetting

Kill Baxter

Papegaaislaai

(Quivertree)

(Umuzi)

“As a news photographer, Ranjith Kally’s life work offers a first-hand, on-theground perspective of a country in upheavel and a changing society.” Memory Against Forgetting - A Photographic Journey through South Africa’s History 1946 – 2010 (Quivertree) is coffe table book at R345 that chronicles Kally’s contribution to “the lives of current South Africans intent on honouring their past.”

On the cover of Kill Baxter (Umuzi) there’s a shout out by Lauren Beukes: “Charlie Human is a literary Yosemite Sam, packing ideas into his books like dynamite, with a wonderfully demented glee”. The connections between Beukes and Human stretches beyond sharing striking covers designed by Joey Hi-Fi – both authors work in the exciting “new” field of speculative fiction.

Papegaaislaai (Umuzi) by Theunis Engelbrecht is my favourite Afrikaans fiction at the moment. Rerig! This book is f&^%ing awesome! Sub-titled “n Rowwe Roman (a rough novel would be the direct translation) it features Malletjie and Rocky, two unemployed dope heads, who decide to do a bit of work as Private Investigators in the Cheaters vein.

Cup Final Day, 1970s show a scene from the only beauty competition that allowed people of all races to compete together in a country where every other contest continued to be segregated for years – three beauties perches on the bonnet of a car as its driven through a packed stadium flanked by cops in safari suits. David Goldblatt, iconic SA photographer calls Kally’s work “very warm, a breath of fresh air that, over a long period, has retained particular senses and values.”

Kill Baxter is the sequel to Apocalypse Now Now (one of the best titles for a local book in a long time!) and follows sixteen-year-old Baxter Zevcenko as he’s “packed off to Hexpoort, a magical training school that’s part reformatory, part military school. It’s just like Hogwarts – except with sex, drugs and much better internet access.” At R220 this twisted local fiction is funny ha-ha as well as funny peculiar.

When a famous Afrikaans singer disappears under mysterious circumstances, the case takes the dagga duo from Hillbrow to Brakpan and the Bushveld with k*k funny characters and serious situations. T

(PHAIDON)

With her early paintings, Penny Siopis established herself as one of the most talented and challenging visual artists in and beyond South Africa.” These words of editor Gerrit Olivier introduces Penny Siopis – Time and Again (WITS), published to coincide with a retrospective exhibition at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and WITS Art Museum in Johannesburg. Featuring contributions by Achille Mbembe, Njabulo Ndebele, Colin Richards, Sarah Nuttal and William Kentridge, amongst others, this elegant paperback is value for money at R580. “The vibrant imagery is testimony to Siopis’s ability to combine profound ideas with forms that have a visceral impact on the viewer.

South African Artists at Home (STRUIK)

An artist’s canvas reflects the face he chooses to show to the world, but the place in which that art is made is seldom revealed.” This tension between the private and public worlds is explored in South African Artists at Home (STRUIK) by veteran journalist Paul Duncan. Given unparalleled access into the homes and lives of contemporary SA artists like Sanell Aggenbach and Brett Murray, Beezy Bailey, Roger Ballen, Willie Bester, Conrad Botes, Barend de Wet and Sam Nhlengethwa amongst others, this illuminating coffee table book treads carefully between voyeurism and confession. As the author notes in the introduction “…and, anyway, people have a tendency to enjoy looking at the commonplace where the famous are concerned.” The price is R375.

he author was the leader of the band Die Naaimasjiene and their cd Die Saai Lewe was banned by the National Party regime in the 1980’s. At R180 this is the most fun I had with “die taal” since Die Antwoord’s last CD

recommended

Prufrock

(SELF PUBLISHED) On their website Prufrock calls themselves “South Africa’s premier magazine of mighty fine writing, publishing fiction, non-fiction and poetry in all of South Africa’s languages.” Inspired by The New Yorker the current issue is their seventh and at R55 you get a beautifully designed locally created literary magazine with the recipe for (and the real story behind) the cake that Marie Antoinette wanted the peasants to eat during la revolution! A recipe for “the corpse reviver no. 2”, photographs by Sarah Thomas, illustrations by Kirsten Whitfield and poetry by Stephen Symons, Lex Loizides, Karel Kopbeen, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese, Nombeko Eugenia Keke, Helen Sullivan and Musaenkosi Khanyile are some of the highlights in this collectable journal. 54

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Crossroads

(Isotrope Media ) Crossroads is a graphic history of Crossroads in Cape Town drawn by the Trantraal brothers. Part one to three of five part series has been published by Isotrope Media with four and five scheduled to appear this year. With text by Koni Benson it tells the story of Crossroads that “came into being as a result of displaced people standing their ground and demanding a place to live in the city. African women deemed illegal in Cape Town were at the heart of creating the physical and social infrastructure of Crossroads.” Each issue costs R95. Crossroads #1 starts by creating the context in South Africa before the creation of the community in 1975. Andre (pencil sketches, ink finishes and colours) and

Nathan Trantraal (pencil sketches and colours) lead the team with the help of Ashley Marais (pencil sketches and ink finishes) and Ronelda S. Kamfer (letters). Crossroads #2 looks at how the struggle of Crossroads “fed into international divestment campaigns, which had a detrimental effect on the economy and played an important role in reformers’ decision to negotiate a settlement with the voteless in Crossroads.” In Crossroads #3 the creation, success and impact Imfuduso (a play created by residents that toured the country) had is examined before negotiations with Piet Koornhof led to a decision that “large number of Crossroads residents would be moved to a new Crossroads that would be constructed next door.”

THE GROUNDFLOOR The ideal, hassle-free studio for small shoots, castings, fittings and show & tells.

www.thegroundfloor.co.za

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BASTARD BLUES

6 1

1 QUIKSILVER - mumford / 2 VANS - EXCERPT CHINO / 3 VANS - Vans Montera Reversible Bucket Hat / 4 VANS - BACKPACK / 5 NOT SEEN - UTILITY BAG 6 RVCA - SKY HOOK SLICKER JACKET / 7 YOUNG AND LAZY - LS white tee / 8 VON ZIPPER - EDISON / 9 ARMANI - SUNGLASSES / 10 THRASHER - BEANIE 11 VANS - DAVIS CAMPER / 12 SOL - SOL - WHITE T / 13 SOL - SOL - SLIM WORK CHINO / 14 VANS - AUNTHENTIC WHITE LEATHER 56

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RAINY DAY WOMAN

5 7

6 11

1 BILLABONG - Gypsy Rebel / 2 COUNTRY ROAD - FAUX FUR FRONT KNIT / 3 MISSibaba - explorer satchel / 4 topshop - FLARE DENIM / 5 TOM FORD - SUNGLASSES / 6 PERSOL - SUNGLASSES 7 VANS - COOLIDGE BELT / 8 WOOLWORTHS - ANKLE BOOT / 9 TRENERY - BRIGHTON ANKLE BOOT / 10 CRYSTAL BIRCH - CELESTIA HAT / 11 COUNTRY ROAD - TIE NECK PRINT DRESS 12 COTTON ON - DENIM SHIRT / 13 TRENERY - CABLE STITCH WOOL KNIT / 14 COUNTRY ROAD - LEATHER SKIRT / 15 RIVER ISLAND - FAUX FUR HAT / 16 STIEBEUEL - WALLET 58

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PLIMSOLL

VANS / SK8-HI SLIM - BLACK

VANS / ERA - GARGOYLE

CONS / AERO S

CONS / CTAS PRO

DC / council mid

VANS / ERA - CORONET BLUE

CONS / WEAPON 2.0

DC / haven

ADIDAS / ZX FLUX

BROTHER VELLIES / CHECKERS

BROTHER VELLIES / CROCODILE

BROTHER VELLIES / SHEBEEN

VANS / ERA - KHAKI / RED

CONS / BREAKPOINT

DC / rd jag

ADIDAS / STAN SMITH

BROTHER VELLIES / SPRINGBOK

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VANS / AUTHENTIC / FROST GRAY

CONS / BREAKPOINT

DC / council

ADIDAS / STAN SMITH

BROTHER VELLIES / RED SUADE

VANS / AUTHENTIC / OXBLOOD

CONS / BREAKPOINT

QUIKSILVER / amphibian

ADIDAS / STAN SMITH

BROTHER VELLIES / FLOWER

PHOTOGRAPHY - Sean Lorenz

www.thelake.co www.instagram.com / the_lake_magazine www.facebook.com/TheLakeMagazine

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The soothing far-off bustle is below as your front door closes with that reassuring click you’ve known your whole life. It’s quiet now. You feel high above the world yet never disconnected from it, in your own succinctly thought out space where design’s only purpose is to put you at the centre of your home. A place where aesthetics, practicality and intuition come together. Effortlessly. Seamlessly. The time is now to once more live in a thriving neighbourhood you can call your own. An urban environment defined by creativity and energy. You’re close to everything here. Because this is home. A life curated just for you. Defined by Blok.

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Here comes the neighbourhood Blok is a property development brand with a difference. Sure, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve heard this before but you see a Blok apartment is designed and curated by urban dwellers themselves and this understanding results in a product that delivers on every aspect of city living. From the delicately constructed flow to the generous size of each apartment. A perfectly framed view and the world to explore beyond the front door. Blok is more than a property brand; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an opportunity to rediscover urban living.

www.blok.co.za

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CONVERSE CONS CTAS PRO • RUBBER INFUSED CANVAS • LUNARLON SOCKLINER • CONS TRACTION RUBBER