Visual rhythm 

Interview By Michelle Santiago

Fabienne Verdier is a student of both life and art. Her abstract paintings come alive with inspired meditations on the energy of life and the reality of nature. She has studied under the last masters of Taoist aesthetic philosophy in China and completed studies on the painters of the Flemish Renaissance and American modernists. The Paris-born painter, however, has also mastered her signature style that can relay her aesthetic sensitivity and desire to pull viewers into her state of meditation.

She creates her own brushes and tools and uses hard wooden canvases supporting her as she pushes and caries her ink-saturated tools to cast her mark. In 2014, Fabienne became the first visual artist in resident at The Julliard School and embarked on an artistic quest for the harmony between sound and vision.

Working side to side with the musicians, Fabienne worked to synchronize musical motion to the lines in her notebook. Upon returning to her studio in France, she created the works of Rhythms and Reflections, first exhibited at Waddington Custot in London, to further develop on her time spent at Julliard. 

How was it like when you first arrived at Julliard? Was it easy for you to join the world of music? How did the musicians first react to your presence?

It was very hard … It was difficult for them to accept a visual artist with the pants and braid, every day, you know. And at the very beginning they couldn’t understand what I was doing there. And I really wanted to create a kind of laboratory and invite them to play with me as a painter and as a musician and look at it, if it’s possible, to have a concomitance in the genesis of sound wave and the pictorial wave. And at the very beginning it was quite impossible because they are trained in Mozart, all the musical structure, and it was quite difficult for them to forget all that and to exchange a free spontaneous language.

How was filming the documentary a part of the experience itself?

So, the movie, it’s capturing the movement. I really like the idea to film all our experiments with my brush, my husband was under the table with the camera and I was at the top, and I paint the thing, and there was a real — we really created some archive of the real encounter between sound.

You’ve often talked about le trait, the power of the stroke, and how every stroke of the paintbrush has a life of its own.

 I dare not say that but it’s exactly that. In those series, a great mystery happened for me and le pouvoir du trait, as you said, the painting paints itself. The painting tells me itself what it wants to share with the people. It’s a crazy thing, you understand?

Of course. How does this idea relate to the way you captured your experiences at Julliard in your paintings?

I really hate the idea to fix the thing because I think that in our traditional thing to paint, we fix the thing and it’s heavy and it’s dead and life is out of the painting. So I really devote my life to create that incessant movement of matter without beginning, without end, and try to invite the viewer in that life energy in constant becoming.

Do you think there are other artists, past or present, that feel the same energy experience with their paintings that you do?

Not in that way. But there is a lot of great masters who did express that kind of strong energy there’s de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, she has an abstract view of sorts, dynamic and natural form.

But I love also the strong approach and dynamic line of van Gogh. My little house in the countryside is near Auvers-sur-Oise, you know, van Gogh worked and did a huge drawing and painting in those fields and territory. And when I look at the movement of the field, you know des changes de blés [the movement of the wheat] and he took that crazy dynamic of the reality and more and more I feel close to that, I understand his crazy vision. It’s not so crazy.

All images courtesy of Fabienne Verdier

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 hymn Of the sahara 

Written By Jenny Lockton
Photographed By Giulia Frigieri

Zigzagging our way through Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and down into the Drâa Valley, we drove until we could literally drive no further.

M’Hamid with about 7,500 residents is the last oasis — our final stop before we entered the barren dunes of the Sahara for this year’s Festival Taragalte, the seventh edition of the three-day music event.

Our journey started in Marrakech, a group of 17 strangers from six different countries, and over two days of traveling to this town, we became family.

Night settled before we made our way through the desert camp of Bivouac Le Petit Prince, finding our tents by torchlight with the canopy of stars above. It wasn’t until dawn that pure majesty washed over us with the surrounding tranquil silence.

Taragalte translates to “meeting place,” which is truly what happens here with many people on many levels from many places.

All life here revolves around Bivouac Le Petit Prince, which was started by a group of nomads 15 years ago about 4 and 1/2 miles from M’Hamid. This camp is the last point of contact before the vast expanse of the deep desert beyond.

The desert has no borders apart from those created by political geography and military conflict — it’s these toxic forces that have resulted in the exile of large numbers of nomadic Saharan tribes from their traditional homelands and trade routes.

But we are here to celebrate, and the festival stands as a symbol of life in the desert, a safe place where people can gather in the spirit of peace and tolerance, an opportunity for cultural exchange and shared understandings.

The festival is known as the Hymn of the Sahara with this year’s theme of “Oasis,” a literal theme of the greenery sustaining life in the desert but also a personification of utopian life built on harmony amongst diversity.

United by the universal language of music, groups from Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger and Senegal come to play. The heritage, culture and beauty of these lands are rich, and the festival plays an important role preserving the region’s traditions.

This festival is unlike any other I have experienced; there are no barriers here between the artists and the audience. We all hang out together, sleep in the same tented camps and eat meals together under the central canopy.

We must number 150 European visitors in an audience of 1,500, but we are all family, thoroughly modern nomads wherever we hail from. Jade from Texas, Adil and Mohamed from the village and myself from Scotland all sit with Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, singer and guitarist of Tinariwen, and converse in a mix of Arabic, French and English.

The following three days we spent in surrender to the vast and timeless desert. We learned from the organization Sahara Roots about protecting our fragile environment against creeping desertification through tree planting; Association Zaila illuminated their sustainable developments; and Cultural Caravan for Peace inspired us with their platform promoting social cohesion amongst the people of Sahel and Sahara through art and music.

Days in the dunes were a spectacle of costume and color with tribal musicians providing the soundtrack. At night, a deep indigo sky was the backdrop for bright stars.

We followed the flow of bodies to the main stage to be entranced by the music of Tinariwen, Imarhan, Oum and Aziz Sahmaoui. The driving rhythms and haunting vocals transported us to another realm, a magical other-worldly place.

Intoxicated by song and the dance, floating on waves of sound high above the dunes, we party long into the night, finally falling into our tents to drift into a sleep lulled by the whisper of voices and instruments that carried far on the cool desert air.

This truly authentic festival has no place for pretension or faux new-age attitudes. It’s a place to experience a profound expansiveness bestowed by the desert and to be humbled by the grace and kindness of the nomad peoples who share their home with great humor and open hearts. 

To leave is the hardest part, and for me, it is when I become intimately acquainted with the ‘desert blues’. 

Inshallah, we will return again next year.

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 Qais Essar 

Written By Michelle Santiago

For musical storytelling in Afghanistan, the rabab has been the central conduit. The lute instrument dates over 2,500 years, countlessly fashioned in Sufi poetry and classical compositions with its delicate and charming alure.

For Phoneix, Arizona based musician, Qais Essar, learning the rabab wasn’t just a calling, but a way for him to connect with his heritage and share its culture with ears not necessarily accustomed to the Far East.

Essar has performed all over the world, from Somalia to Canada, Brazil and Kenya in both classical music settings and casual festivals. Adding a visual nostalgia to his contemporary interpretation of the classical sound, is the latest video by César Orozco for the track Jaanan Zima.

Tell us about your latest music video for Jaanan Zima, once again you collaborate with César Orozco. What was the concept behind the video?

This was a piece inspired by a more traditional Afghan composition. So it’s a very old composition; it’s my own rendition of it. César and me had discussed about doing short films, more on the experimental side, to accompany these shorter tracks on the album.

So with this specific track, César had discussed wanting to incorporate the use of actual film photography. So he had this Super 8 camera, and it’s 8mm film, so you get that very nostalgic vibe.

You’re known for reinterpreting classical Afghan or Indian composition and bringing them to a more modern context. How does your music balance Eastern and Western culture?

You know, we’re more attached to our history. Even when our parents are just talking colloquially, like, as we’re growing up, they always refer to seven generations back. And so, the past is very much a part of who I am now.

Like you said, I like to take this music, or, you know, the art form, and present it in a way to someone who is not typically a fan or has not been exposed to a lot of Indian or Eastern classical music. So if I can package it in a way that makes it easily digestible for them, and then, ultimately, I could be just like a gateway. So if you like me, then my hope is you would go further back and see what inspires me and the real stuff. So, yeah, I’m hoping to just be a vessel for that.

Most of your music videos feature nature and the environment as almost their own character. What role does the Phoenix landscape play in this video?

Phoenix allowed us to focus on the juxtaposition where you have this very old composition reinterpreted, but shot in a way that’s still very nostalgic to that era. Somewhere that resembles very much Kabul at that time. But it’s Phoenix.

Would you say your music helps you connect with your Afghan heritage and your family’s homeland?

It definitely connects me to a time that I wish I was in. Maybe not a people, but especially a time. I grew up hearing stories, and it’s like I just have all these ghosts hanging around, you know. Ghosts of my parents’ Kabul, and so it doesn’t even feel like a place; it feels like a dream or like a fantasy.

Your music has a very ambient and tranquil quality to it that really lends itself to meditation. Would you say your music harnesses certain elements of spirituality?

I can very honestly say that a pinch of mysticism is something that I like to add to a lot of recipes, but then again, it comes from the history. A lot of it is also, even if it’s not me consciously picking specific themes or concepts, the mysticism comes from the instrument itself; it comes from the note itself; it comes from the specific combination of notes. When I’m composing it can be looked at in many different ways.

The rabab is taught through a very rich and old oral tradition of teaching. How did the way you learned to play it affect how you relate to music as a whole?

When you’re being taught orally, or when you’re being kind of taught, there is no crutch. I can’t rely on the fact that I can just read it later or I can just memorize it off of something. You’re absorbing it and you’re making it part of you. And that’s the real difference; it’s that it’s not something that you come back to and you revisit when you practice and then you put away when you close your course book.

There’s a very deep level of intimacy that you develop with the music and then the instrument because what you’re doing is you’re taking this music and you’re translating it into an instrument that, the rabab, is not very easy to play for a lot of, especially the nuances in Indian classical music. The rabab traditionally is not very well equipped for that.

You’ve used your music to support various charities and causes like Women for Afghan Women and International Alert. Are activism or philanthropy important to you as a musician?

I think I’ve always had this, like, you know, specific socio-political agenda that I wanted to move with music and it’s something that can move with the music —minority rights and representation.

Especially nowadays with the political climate, it’s super important for there to be an alternative to the narrative that’s being portrayed in the media. When you say, you know, “Afghan” or “Muslim” or “Pakistani” or “Syrian,” there’s only one, if not one, two images or words that come to mind.

I read a lot of comic books when I was younger and Peter Parker’s uncle said, “with great power, comes great responsibility.” When you’re onstage, be it 50 people or 10,000, when you command a stage, you have people’s attention for like 10 minutes or for an hour. So why not try to impart something good or something worthy?

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 Kakaw designs

Written By Michelle Santiago

Challenging the often paternalistic approach popular amongst designers inspired by Latin America, Mari Gray of Kakaw Designs has established a unique blend of cutting edge craftsmanship with fair-trade enterprise.

Born in Guatemala to artists parents, Mari has a profound appreciation for her native land’s rich textile tradition. It was only natural to fuse her lineage for her label when she started in 2013. Kakaw Designs reveres the hands of every leathersmith, embroiderer and dyer in all its handmade products.

Every item is a story told by a Guatemalan artisan from the weavers of Lake Atitlán to the embroiders in Sumpango. Mari up-cycles discarded textiles from blouses to wraps, each adorned with a colorful pattern, often unique to its village of origin, and incorporates it into her designs that range from footwear, bags and accessories.

Tell us about your journey from Guatemala and forming Kakaw Designs. 

Well, I was born in Guatemala, so this is me coming back to my birth country. We moved to Japan when I was a baby, and from there to California when I was 11. There were a lot of variables growing up, but Guatemala was always a constant in a way. So it definitely feels like home. It’s a beautiful country, rich in cultures and traditions. There are many different indigenous groups of peoples with 22 languages spoken in this tiny country today. The weaving tradition is especially dear to my heart, and I wanted to link today’s backstrap traditional weavers to new markets through high-quality design.

How does travel tie into Kakaw Designs?

The great thing about having your own handmade business is that you get to decide what to make. And since I travel quite a bit, many of the products we’ve developed were made with just that in mind. We’re all about making durable and practical products incorporating beauty, like our Quetzal Backpack — it’s a favorite for travelers, and I love receiving photos of the adventures people have gone on with their backpacks.

What are your personal values on sustainability and how you inject those into your designs bringing this authentic feeling to life?

This is something we’ve really thought hard about — we knew what we didn’t want to do, like portray the artisans as helpless people in poverty, or suggest in any way that they are in need of saving. Guess what, they don’t need foreigners to tell them what to do. The benefit that the communities receive through working with Kakaw is mutual. We hope to be the link between the amazing artisans and the global consumers who are interested in learning and supporting these traditions, who are hungry for that connection with Earth and humankind in this modern age.

How has your background helped you collaborate with local artisans and indigenous people to create a fashion brand?

My background is a big mess. I have never been good at choosing a linear path. When I was in college at UC Davis, I majored in international relations and Spanish, and spent time working at the Botanical Conservatory, at the med school clinic for Latino immigrants and UNICEF in Panama leading workshops with mothers in an indigenous reserve (just to name a few). I had so many interests, and at no point did I ever think that I would go into fashion.

But growing up with artists parents, the appreciation for the handmade world was instilled in me at a young age. Also, the love for Guatemala, and the interest in other cultures and travel in general. Mix all of this together with disillusioning experiences working with different NGOs in Latin America, and my grassroots, sustainable social enterprise was born.

Diversity, heritage and origin are the foundation of Kakaw Designs and remain intrinsically woven together. How do you blend tradition and innovation?

We’re honestly still trying to figure out the right balance. Each of the handmade processes are traditional in their practice — weaving, embroidery, leatherwork, and silverwork. But the mixing of the different traditions is part of the innovation — combining textile and silver, for example, to make our pendants. We want to make sure to remain respectful to the traditional arts, especially whenever cutting a textile piece is involved …. I need to be absolutely sure that the end product will still transmit the respect and integrity of the original textile piece. I hope that this is felt in our product designs.

Kakaw Designs specializes in curating a vibrant selection of ethically produced and handcrafted pieces — an obvious stand against mass production. Can you tell me about your ethical production and why it’s important to you?

I’ve always taken Kakaw Designs more as a grassroots development project than a brand. This means that because sustainability is a key component of development in rural communities, it’s very important to us too. And we mean this not only in the environmental sense but also in the developmental sense — we want the changes and improvements in the communities to be meaningful and long-term. We believe that supporting talented women artisans is the perfect way to do this organically because they know how to best invest and support their families and communities as a whole.

There’s a rising interest in artisan textiles, ethnic prints and small batches with soul. What do you see as the greatest element that’s influencing the movement for ethical buying and ecological awareness?

Unfortunately, it takes catastrophes to bring certain issues to the attention of the masses. And I think that’s what’s happening with the fashion industry. A lot of terrible practices have come to our attention, like fires at sweatshops in developing countries. People are becoming much more conscientious of where their money goes. Every dollar is a vote, and we’re starting to really take that to heart, supporting fair practices that we believe in.

Kakaw Designs is currently crowdfunding to support its enterprise that ends on November 20th.

Kakaw Designs x majestic disorder

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Under The Cuban Sun

Photography By Eric Morales

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  Soul Seed Gathering Competition

We’ve partnered with Soul Seed Gathering to give you and a friend the chance to jet off to one of our favorite places in the world, Guatemala, from January 31st to February 5th, 2017!

Event tickets, which include on-site accommodation, three soul-nourishing meals a day and all scheduled workshops, ceremonies, talks and classes are included (airfare and transit are not).

All you have to do is follow @majesticdisorder and @soulseedgathering on Instagram and tag at least three friends in one post before next Wednesday, October 26th.

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4. This Competition is open worldwide to entrants aged 18 years or over.

5. Employees of majestic disorder media Ltd (herein “Promoter”), its subsidiaries, affiliates or other parties, including but not limited to Soul Seed Gathering, who are in any way involved in the development, production, or distribution of this Competition, as well as the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings, children) and household members of each such above stated entities, are not eligible to participate in the Competition.

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  Lord ashbury at london fashion week

Video Produced + Written By Sean Stillmaker

The crowd was as thick as molasses at Somerset House, but expertly traversing through the eloquent ensembles was a tall, black, eyeglass rimmed New Yorker cradling his camera while his eyes hunted for the next shot at London Fashion Week.

The famed street style photographer from the Big Apple, Simbarashe of Lord Ashbury, descended upon London last week for one of his favorite events of the year. Fashion week is pretty much the equivalent of the “Olympics” for street style photographers, Simbarashe explained.

“I shoot during the year with the idea and expectation of leading up to fashion week. It’s sort of like putting in reps,” he said. “For me it’s basically what shooting every single day is. So when I come to fashion week, being surrounded by the best fashion photographers in the world, and everyone is hungry for the absolute best photo of the day, of the week … it’s really important I’m on top of my game.”

We know exactly how many reps Simbarashe puts in every single day. majestic disorder shadowed him around NYC back in July, and suffice it to say, his training is on Michael Phelps proportions.

So when this Featured Mind told us he was coming to London, we could barely contain our excitement of following him through the “Fashion Olympics.”

There’s plenty of glamour, stunning shows and fabulous parties to attend during fashion week, but for street style photographers, the allure is completely absent from the reality of the hardcore work ahead.

When Simbarashe describes fashion week as the Olympics, he’s nearly dead on. Photographers must assemble at shows sometimes as early as 6 a.m. and go throughout the entire day bouncing from each setup, sometimes across town, and do it with nothing more than an energy bar and coffee. Then when the work is done and some dinner is in the belly, the photographers begin editing their day’s roll into the early hours of the morning.

“Physically it’s very demanding because of the way I shoot. My back hurts when I get home and I’ll have to do a lot of stretching in the morning,” he described. “It’s mentally challenging just the notion of taking between 500-1,000 images a day, going home, going through the roll and finding you really only have five spectacular ones. Sure there are a lot of shots that turn out good, I’m just talking about the really exemplary ones that are so hard to find and every photographer is after that exact same shot.”

Simbarashe hit the bull’s-eye during London Fashion Week with his shots though. His blog achieved the best single day views back-to-back. He was even featured in the Guardian as one of the fashionable bloggers you should know.

When asked about setting this new website record and his reach to the upper press echelons, Simbarashe just kicks back with a modest smile saying, “that was pretty good.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why he was able to set this record was the fashion availability in London and London Fashion Week as a whole. The city’s inhabitants tend to be on the fashion conscious side of the wardrobe without the spectacle of high-end, but stylish enough to turn heads – creating a perfect blend for street style.

“London Fashion Week is pretty unique in the sense that the style you see, for the most part, are ensembles people will actually wear on the street. There’s a lot of pageantry that goes on at all the fashion weeks, but more so at London do you see a very rich collection of style that is attainable,” Simbarashe said.

And just like that, the next dashing person catches his eye. Simbarashe leaps into action stealthily approaching his prey. With a warm and inviting smile he asks to take a picture with his three-week old Sony A99. The picture is snapped in less than 30 seconds. He then hands the gracious person his card and blends back into the crowd back on the hunt for the next great picture.

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 the armor to survive everyday life

When fashion, sustainability and art therapy intersect

“In art therapy, we use art to explore and understand personal experiences. In my case, it was about disability, body image and the oppressive messages and experiences that had shaped my understandings of society and myself,” Sandie explained. “For me, making gloves, shoes and accessories for my own hands and feet is a way to reconnect with my body, memories and integrate my full sense of self.”

Each piece Sandie designs is solely based on “an individual’s medical experience, state of mind, and physical position.” Her vigorous artistic approach is a call to arms to reverse the way we see ethics, aesthetics and their affiliation to disability and the body.

“I think that the process is so deep, so painful, but it is fulfilled with layers of growth. It helps me to take action and imagine the impossible in the sense of, what can I do about it? What can I do about the society not wanting my kind of body, my disabled body,” said Sandie.

Art therapy has traditionally utilized creative avenues such as painting, sculpting and writing to aid in one’s healing and development. Recently though, many art therapists have pursued fashion design as another creative avenue that is equally beneficial and rewarding.

Savneet Talwar, an art therapist and chair of the School of the Art Institute Chicago art therapy program, has taken things a step further by not only injecting a fashion element into her practices but also a sustainable one often involving a DIY type of setting.

Starting her career as a psychotherapist Savneet describes her first life as an art therapist as one where she often felt frustrated dealing with poorer clients whose economic needs were out of her hands.

“Completing a PhD in American Studies opened up a lot of ideas for me in relationship to social and cultural practices. I started questioning cultural differences and asking myself can we give someone therapy without giving them any kind of economic stipend?” Savneet said.

In collaboration with the Hamdard Center, Savneet holistically weaves together her approach with immigrant women of Bosnian, South Asian and Middle Eastern descent who come from various social and economical backgrounds. Uniting these women who possess gender labeled practices that are no longer valued such as sewing, knitting and crocheting, Savneet provides a space where they can come reengage with these practices and mine memories by revisiting and investigating cultural trauma.

“For me therapy’s not always about sitting in and saying let’s have a treatment plan. What I think is happening is that there’s a lot of sharing happening on an informal level. People getting to know each other through the act of creating,” Savneet said. “The therapy happens out of the blue through the making of the garments. It’s a very easy place to get back to that time of childhood instead of someone in a traditional therapy setting asking you about your childhood.”

Although the therapeutic medium remains relatively obscure from the mainstream, those recognizing its merits are increasing. Erica Tanov, a Berkeley, California based fashion designer, saw the potential of art therapy and the power behind mixing it with fashion.

For her SS13 collection Erica collaborated with artists at Creative Growth Art Center, a non-profit in Oakland, California dedicated to supporting artists with disabilities, to bring their current and archival works to life.

“Working with their artwork and applying it to a completely different medium (clothing and housewares), giving the work new life and seeing in a different context, was so rewarding,” Erica explained. “I found Creative Growth to be such an inspiring and passionate place. I wanted to somehow be a part of what they do. Collaborating and working with the artists’ work was a way for me to be part of their creativity, energy and passion.”

Despite endeavors like this pursued by Sandie, Savneet and Erica, mixing fashion and art therapy still remains in its infancy.

“The field has a lag time. It’s been so busy trying to establish its legitimacy as a psychotherapy practice that the art part of things has gotten short chipped,” said Cathy Moon, an associate professor and director at SAIC’s art therapy program.

With a conundrum of exciting ideologies and various mediums being used, the camaraderie among the industry professionals and fashion’s expanding noble role is undeniable. Although no two art therapists approach the field the same, they’re all striving to draw attention to fashion’s taboo relationship with disability, sustainability, body acceptance and social justice.

“I’m so madly in love with this field. Each session is always different. I’m blown away daily by what I see. That’s the refreshing nature of art is that there is no rigidity,” Patricia concluded.

(Images courtesy of Sandie Yi and Erica Tanov)

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 the japanese banksy

AITO elaborated on how he developed his skill set with stencils and improving his free hand work. But his mastery of the art lies in his conceptual execution delivering a distinct message meditating on life.

“I’m trying to do street art with my opinion on the philosophy of life,” AITO said. “I don’t want to paint anything without a message.”

As AITO explained his constructed approach, appropriately hanging behind him on the wall was one of his most personally reflective works about failure.

The blossoming painting depicts a street artist using his spray can to tag “failure,” which progresses from fledgling fills simplicity to earnest colorful craftsmanship. The artist’s perseverance through failure over time transcended his skill set.

AITO’s perseverance came as an honorable right of passage within street art – getting caught by the police, he said.

“I think it was an important experience in my life. I had to give up to do street art in Japan. If I hadn’t been caught by police in Japan, maybe I wouldn’t have come to London,” he said. “I was doing rubbish street art in Japan until now. I needed to have been caught.”

His aspirations of excellence are depicted in “You Never Know Until You Try.” The painting’s subject is a man on a ledge holding balloons set amongst towering skyscrapers, resembling an interpreted Chicago skyline. It’s seemingly impossible to accomplish his dream of flying, but you don’t know until you try, AITO said.

The spray can and stencil work for the painting, currently on the wall at Cambridge Gardens and Ladbroke Grove took him approximately four hours to complete, he said. AITO’s visionary approach instantly struck Kelley and I on this arbitrary walk inspiring us to know more about this illustrious artist.

AITO’s courage to jump right into the deep end to sink or swim is a true testament to his determination and dedication. As his recent work “Beginning Of Rot” personifies, the minute you give up, “you’ll turn to rubbish.”

AITO credits much of his development and ability to get to his first exhibition by learning with the other artists at Graffik Gallery having been taken under the wing by Trust.iCon.

“It is so easy even when working with a great concept for an idea to be lost in translation,” Trust.iCon said. “But for AITO, it’s second nature and sometimes delivered with such subtlety that it will have you thinking about what he’s trying to say and then it hits you.”

Having sharpened his skills and attained his first exhibition, AITO is ready to close this chapter and begin the next journey back in Japan. AITO’s preparing for the move back home, as his visa is about to expire, and soon enough he anticipates to be living up to the standard of the “Japanese Banksy.” 

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 inside islington mill

Communities of Culture

“What makes the space particularly special is that it’s not just one discipline. It’s visual arts, music, fashion, graphics, textiles, ceramics; everything. People just are naturally willing to collaborate with each other.”

Shereen’s experience is one of the examples behind The Mill’s magical power. Straight out of university, she started as a short term assistant in 2011, but after completion, “I just wanted to stay here… I cannot leave,” she recalled with her eyes beaming with relective enthusisasim, which is still present today. So The Mill hired her on as the visual arts coordinator. In addition to her role, Shereen headquarters her company Video Jam at The Mill, which is a unique film and sound sourcing collaboration. 

Brewing with an irresistible dichotomy, The Mill is a mash up of every generation’s greatest cultural references. Upon entering you feel like you’re part of the Warhol Factory but also like you’ve just taken a seat in English professor John Keating’s class from Dead Poet’s Society.

As you walk through the halls you envision Robin Williams proclaiming, “we must constantly look at things in a different way,” to a room full of well suited up students. You metaphorically can hear the click of Warhol’s Polaroid camera as he readjusts his sliver wig alongside Edie Sedgwick. Images of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe during the Summer of ‘69 rush into your mind while a David Bowie soundtrack quietly plays.

Floor by floor, past the studios of renowned photographers and artists such as Rachel Goodyear, Andrew Brooks and Mark Edwards the overall energy remains contagious. It’s the kind that grants confidence to artists, residents and those passing through. In a world where we’re told to conform and strip ourselves of any identity this type of atmosphere is an invaluable asset, one that slows down the decline and decay of modern culture. Manchester could not do without it.

After graduating Saint Martins, Bill relocated back to Manchester to start up his design company. In search of a space, he discovered The Mill, which was conveniently located across the street from his flat at the time, had space for rent. 

“Developing The Mill was a response to what was in Manchester before. Back in the 90s when I first returned yes there were studio groups but they were very media specific, sculpture and painting studios,” he said.

As a look of nostalgia glazed over his face he paused momentarily and took a sip of tea before he continued.

“Coming from a design background I didn’t fit into those categories. And also practice was changing a lot. People weren’t as fixed in one specific media. Maybe those models were kind of a hangover from the 80s.”

Wanting to create a space where a very diverse group of artists could work together, Bill decided to buy the building and focus his creative energy on building a model where collaboration could break all barriers.

“During that period I was teaching, developing my design business and trying to convince people about this idea for The Mill. It was all a bit too much to be doing all at the same time. So something had to give. And I needed the money from the teaching so it was the design business and my own creative practice that suffered first. This happens a lot with people. The Mill is in place to make sure the creativity doesn’t always have to suffer.”

17 years later Bill has given life to an incubator of unparalleled originality, innovation and vision. The history of The Mill is one for the books.

From former Mill musical sensations the Ting Tings to current residents such as GNOD, DIY sound artist Callum Higgins, Michael Holland and Volkov Commanders the amount of talent within the confides of The Mill reaches unfathomable depths.

“I’m quite rebellious and I choose artwork to rebel within my own systems. I create my own authorities and rebel within them. The artwork is about that. The pictures can be anything. Whenever they become something I change direction. It’s infinite. Chasing the idea.” Neil Robbins told us in his self constructed studio where every single wall, stud, compartment and cupboard are vividly hand painted with his detailed and colorful artistic execution. 

The stories of each of these universally fascinating creative minds is only beginning. Each one is in place to remind us how remarkable the existence of an artistic community like the Islington Mill truly is.

Far from shy, most of The Mill’s inhabitants confidently agree that nearly every artistic space of Manchester’s hipster Northern Quarter relates back to The Mill.

“The Mill is so special. We’ll relate to a dirty club night in Manchester but we’ll also relate to Manchester Art Gallery, which is this very prestigious national gallery. It’s so many different mediums. You could be here partying at 6 am or you could come to attend a really high profile artist talk. That’s the magic of this place,” Shereen said.

From personal style to innovative endeavors, The Mill is a realm of its own filled with an infinite nature of self expression.

Coming to Islington Mill you enter as a traveler and exit as a storyteller. While the creative road may be long and unpredictable, it’s communities of culture like Islington Mill that keep the world alive.

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