#wepresent

[biglisbonnews]

Russel Tovey's 'Life is Excellent' Celebrates His Queer Artist Ancestors Russel Tovey, UK actor and producer, today released the trailer for his new project, Life is Excellent, a feature-length documentary chronicling the inimitable life of one of his heroes, David Robilliard — a radical queer poet and artist who died of AIDS at the young age of 36 in 1988. “As a 40-year-old queer man I feel the responsibility to make sure that [historical documents of existence] that matter to me and my kind, actually matter to everyone,” Tovey explains of this archival project. The documentary's subject, artist David Robbiliard, was igniting the queer art scene in London long before Tovey had even turned double digits, but as Tovey explores the fiery life of the man he never met, and "who [Robbiliard] drank with, worked with and shagged," Tovey uncovers the impact of characters you never get the chance to meet and the legacy of late 19th-century queer artists as trailblazers, cherished ancestors and ultimately, an unlucky generation whose stories were cut short by an unforgiving epidemic.Tovey embarks on this artistic mission in partnership with WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer, after the company’s successful year-long collaborations with artists Marina Abramović and Solange Knowles. Through this collaboration, Tovey and WePresent aim to bring attention to archival works while examining their resonance today.Tovey's guest curatorship with WePresent will include work on a total of three projects this summer, with Life Is Excellent being the first. Each project promises to share a culturally significant narrative from the LGBTQ+ community.Holly Fraser, editor-in-chief of WePresent, says: "[Tovey] shares WeTransfer’s belief that the power of creativity can truly change the world, and I hope that through this curatorship on WePresent and the projects that form it we can further the conversation around the importance of inclusivity and reflect on some of the great artists who have paved the way for this to continue in the industry.”Check out the Life is Excellent trailer below.Photos courtesy of WeTransfer https://www.papermag.com/russel-tovey-life-is-excellent-2659517371.html

[escolhidos-escritos]

Ai Weiwei - Manifesto

Não faça com os outros o que não gostaria que fizessem com você. O que exigimos dos outros e da sociedade deve corresponder e permanecer dentro dos limites do que exigimos de nós mesmos.

Interesse-se muito pela história e experiências passadas, mas também busque novos conhecimentos. Seja imaginativo e deseje coisas que ainda não aconteceram.

Use seu próprio jeito de ser, de forma existencialista, para estabelecer o padrão, determinar códigos morais e regras de comportamento.

Harmonize sua aparência externa com seus pensamentos mais íntimos. O que apresentamos ao mundo exterior deve ser congruente com a qualidade do nosso mundo interior. Vemos muita discordância entre o que uma pessoa parece ser e o que uma pessoa realmente é hoje em dia, mas a harmonia entre os dois é, na verdade, como um indivíduo se torna um indivíduo.

Faça as coisas da vida sem interferência e leve uma vida através de ritmos naturais. A mente humana e a natureza às vezes são forças contraditórias, mas deixe a natureza seguir seu curso. Por “natureza”, os chineses se referem às leis do universo.

Descubra o que "eu" significa e encontre sua própria identidade. Quem eu sou deve ser consistente com o que faço, como me comporto e como ajo. Persista, não importa o que as outras pessoas digam.

Não se apegue às posses mundanas e não tenha pena de si mesmo com base em sua condição de vida. As coisas materiais não serão capazes de lhe dar a verdadeira felicidade. A existência de alguém, sem a influência externa, deve ser completa por si só.

Seja modesto, de mente aberta e receptivo como um cânion ecoante. Quanto mais você sabe, mais você percebe o quanto você não sabe. Diante do vasto mistério do universo, nossas experiências individuais são insignificantes e não merecem menção.

Faça a coisa certa sem hesitação. Não deixe que as restrições e expectativas da sociedade o impeçam de buscar a verdade. A vida é importante, mas a vida sem sentido não vale a pena ser vivida.

Seja verdadeiro em palavras e resoluto em ações. Mantenha sua palavra; o que é dito deve ser feito. Com tudo o que fazemos, devemos persistir até que seja concluído.

Ai Weiwei foi chamado de “o artista mais importante em atividade hoje” (Financial Times) e “uma voz eloquente e impossível de silenciar pela liberdade” (New York Times). Suas esculturas e instalações foram vistas por milhões de pessoas ao redor do mundo. Seu ativismo político em torno dos direitos humanos, censura e corrupção o tornou, por muito tempo, um alvo das autoridades chinesas, culminando em meses de detenção secreta sem acusação formal em 2011. Em 2021, ele publicou suas memórias, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows (1000 Anos de Alegrias e Tristezas), que conta a história de sua vida, a vida de seu pai, o poeta Ai Qing, e da China ao longo dos últimos 100 anos. Ele nasceu em 1957.

--- Manifesto é uma série no WePresent que convida ativistas e criativos com algo a dizer para escreverem 10 regras para viver, com o objetivo de ajudar a espalhar sua mensagem. O Manifesto de Ai Weiwei foi originalmente publicado em 12 de abril de 2022.

[robgramostini]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Roberto Gramostini (@r_gramostini)

partial blooming - sept, ‘22

#35mm

[notchainedtotrauma]

Micaiah Carter, from Optimism (photo collaboration with WePresent)

[mariainesgul]

The fashion photographer — How to shoot for a living for WePresent x 1Granary

[felixdecombat]

Illustrations for WePresent

[chwyyy]

[dnamag]

Painter Zandile Tshabalala

[rrresearch]

Solange Knowles

b. 4 June 1986 — Houston, Texas

Notable Works:

In Past Pupils & Smiles (2019/2022)

When I Get Home (2019)

Album

Witness (2019)

Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube) (2018)

A Seat at the Table (2016)

Album

Further Reading:

Blackplanet Dossier | Solange

Wepresent | “When I Get Home”

Harper’s Bazaar | “Solange Knowles: Reflections on Stillness, Joy, and the Year That Changed Everything”

The Face | “Grace Wales Bonner in conversation with Solange”

See Also:

Saint Heron

Rothko Chapel

Carlotta Guerrero

Chinati Foundation

Grace Wales Bonner

[xlelife]

XLE.LIFE presents

XLE.LIVE: #Indofuturism? #Desifuturism?

Tuesday, May 30th, 2023 at 6pm IST (Indian Standard Time) on Zoom

What is Indofuturism or Desifuturism??

We’ve had Afrofuturism, Sinofuturism, and Gulf Futurism recently catch fire in the futurist conversation--one that encompasses culture, concepts and aesthetics, and things are only spreading from there. Post Western Futurisms, Ecofuturisms, Holistic Futurisms, Tropical Futurisms...Whether you love or hate these kinds of buzzwords, they do put something on the map.

Where is Indofuturism or Desifuturism in all this?

As an emerging set of terms, these words grapple with the subcontinent’s erupting potency on the world stage, in global flows of soft power and hard power alike, and its role in developing new possibilities.

XLE.LIFE invites a group of creative and cultural producers to take these terms into the arena with their own understandings, critiques and visions. The audience will be invited to submit questions.

Facilitated by Kai (Kari) Altmann and Naveen Shamsudhin for XLE.LIFE Language: English

Zoom Link Meeting ID: 662 0509 9121Passcode: 734332

Speakers:

Prateek Arora (Mumbai) AI and Fiction Creator, VP of Development at BangBang Media (Films), Indofuturist, Horror Fan and promoter of Indian Sci-Fi. Recently featured by India Art Fair, National Gallery of Modern Art, XLE.LIFE, Homegrown.in and WePresent. Based in Mumbai.

Naveen Shamsudhin (Zurich) PhD in Robotics, Systems Thinker, Multi-Cultural Community Builder, Hacker, Lecturer at ETH Zurich. Somatics Facilitator. From India, UAE and Switzerland. Based in Zurich. Co-founder and Curator of Kaleido, Humane Warriors, The Origin AG.

Kai Altmann aka Hitashya (Mumbai) Artist, Director, Musician, Performer and Holistic Futurist. Editor of XLE.LIFE. Curator of New World Playlist, R-U-In?S, Garden Club and more. Creator of too many memes, neologisms and microgenres. Has worked on films, music videos, live performances, mega installations, talks and social-cultural initiatives around the world, featured by places like Serpentine Gallery, The New Museum, ICA London, Goethe Institute, EFlux, Biennial of the Americas and many others. Based in Mumbai/Goa since Co-Vid times!

[biglisbonnews]

Russell Tovey's 'Life is Excellent' Celebrates His Queer Artist Ancestors Russell Tovey, UK actor and producer, today released the trailer for his new project, Life is Excellent, a feature-length documentary chronicling the inimitable life of one of his heroes, David Robilliard — a radical queer poet and artist who died of AIDS at the young age of 36 in 1988. “As a 40-year-old queer man I feel the responsibility to make sure that [historical documents of existence] that matter to me and my kind, actually matter to everyone,” Tovey explains of this archival project. The documentary's subject, artist David Robbiliard, was igniting the queer art scene in London long before Tovey had even turned double digits, but as Tovey explores the fiery life of the man he never met, and "who [Robbiliard] drank with, worked with and shagged," Tovey uncovers the impact of characters you never get the chance to meet and the legacy of late 19th-century queer artists as trailblazers, cherished ancestors and ultimately, an unlucky generation whose stories were cut short by an unforgiving epidemic.Tovey embarks on this artistic mission in partnership with WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer, after the company’s successful year-long collaborations with artists Marina Abramović and Solange Knowles. Through this collaboration, Tovey and WePresent aim to bring attention to archival works while examining their resonance today.Tovey's guest curatorship with WePresent will include work on a total of three projects this summer, with Life Is Excellent being the first. Each project promises to share a culturally significant narrative from the LGBTQ+ community.Holly Fraser, editor-in-chief of WePresent, says: "[Tovey] shares WeTransfer’s belief that the power of creativity can truly change the world, and I hope that through this curatorship on WePresent and the projects that form it we can further the conversation around the importance of inclusivity and reflect on some of the great artists who have paved the way for this to continue in the industry.”Check out the Life is Excellent trailer below.Photos courtesy of WeTransfer https://www.papermag.com/russell-tovey-life-is-excellent-2659517371.html

[enk1du]

Olivia Laing & Colombo

[judiyassin]

A3 Submission (representation)

Charinthorn Rachurutchata, The Will To Remember, 2020.

This image is part of a photojournalism project named “The Will To Remember” which documents the youth-led protests in Thailand between 2020 and 2022. The protests were demonstrating against Thailand’s current aggressive military dictatorship and demanding the reform of the Thai monarchy (World Press Photo, 2022a). The project juxtaposes these present day protests (top) with archival photographs of a 1976 massacre of students, protesting against the return of a dictator, at a university in Bangkok (bottom) (World Press Photo, 2022a). 

The chosen photograph depicts protesters raising the three finger salute, which became a symbol of the protest. The three finger salute is from the Hunger Games book series and is a representation “of resistance against the authoritarian regime,” (World Press Photo, 2022a).

The series presents itself with a very strong and unique visual language. The most apparent element that uniquely characterises these photographs is the fact that they are torn and glued together with golden joinery. The torn photographs are a representation that the system in Thailand is broken and needs mending. The act of tearing the images is a way of mirroring the brutality and aggression of the state and applies to both protests. Rachurutchata wrote that she tore “the images [to imitate] hate and violence,” (Rachurutchata, 2020). She then mends the photographs with golden lacquer in the style of Japanese Kintsugi which is used to fix broken pottery (World Press Photo, 2022a). The utilisation of this technique in the photographs is representative of a hopeful future for Thailand born out of these protests for reform. The golden joinery is also symbolic of the fact that these protests are a means to mend a broken system and create a beautiful future for the country. Rachurutchata stated that “because of the [kintsugi] technique, the pottery becomes stronger as you seal it,” which is illustrative of a “stronger and more beautiful [future] once we overcome the political crisis and also [symbolic of] an act of transforming hope through trauma,” (Rachurutchata, 2020; WePresent, 2022).

Another element that stands out in the photographs’ visual language is the white border around each of the images. This mimics the photographs of the 1976 massacre and gives them an archival character; as though they have been archived in Thailand’s history and are being viewed from a reformed future. This idea is reinforced by the title of the project and by Rachurutchata's intention to shed light on the “foggy memory [of the massacre], like a collective amnesia: the silence of the nation,” (WePresent, 2022). 

Charinthorn Rachurutchata created a strong visual language in her photojournalism series in order to represent resistance and hope for a reformed future in Thailand.

[deejayph1978]

APRÈS LES SORTIES DE SES PRÉCÉDENTS OPUS « BEATS FOR FAM(E) »(Via Boumequeur Music) « PRÉLUDE » ET «P-CONNECTIONZ» SUR LE LABEL WePresent  DEEJAY PH PRÉSENTE SON NOUVEL EP 3 TITRES INTITULÉ « BEATS FOR FUN » HOMMAGE PERSONNEL À LA HOUSE MUSIC, LE BIG BEAT ET LA NUYORICAN HOUSE MUSIC  AVEC LES MORCEAUX « WHERE YA LOVE AT ? », « GOTTA (STACKS ) »  ET  « CHECK IT ». PRÊT À FAIRE SORTIR L’ENERGIE POSITIVE SUR LES DANCEFLOORS ET AILLEURS, IL EST ÉGALEMENT ACCOMPAGNÉ SUR TOUS LES MORCEAUX PAR LABO KLANDESTINO À LA BASSE ET ALEX SANTINI À LA GUITARE SUR LE MORCEAU « WHERE YA LOVE AT ? »

GET READY TO DANCE !!!!

https://modulor.lnk.to/BeatsForFun

[wongwoanxiu]

Week 11 Summative Question 1

Reflecting on the class activity doing the manifesto, I found the exercise to be thought-provoking, especially while trying to link our personal and artistic beliefs with this module. My group’s manifesto is heavily inspired by Photographer Martin Parr’s ‘10 Rules for Emerging Photographers’ whereby it is highly personal expressed through the handwritten style, unlike other formalised manifestos. What we got from his manifesto is that it should be deeply rooted in our personal beliefs as well, and that it reflects who we are as a graphic designer.Like those corkboards people have at home to easily pin notes as reminders, we want our own manifestos to be ‘reminders’ for ourselves in this graphic design journey. We developed the manifesto by reviewing the lessons from each week, identifying concepts that best align with our own beliefs and selecting key ideas to represent each part of the manifesto. For my part, I wrote “If you only do what you can, you will never be more than what you are now.” To represent week 6’s lesson of critical self reflectivity, this quote helps me recognise that growth requires us to push beyond our current limitations and that staying within the comfort of what we “can” do might be holding back what we can do to expand my potential. I also find myself applying this to my studio work where I challenge myself to explore a new style or medium and push boundaries of my design practice.

If I were to revise my group’s manifesto, I would introduce a direct and concise manifesto by simplifying the language to make each point clearer and more actionable such as, “Each of our design should challenge and improve something in the world.’ rather than “We shape a better world through design.” If this was my personal manifesto, I would love to add in a personal element to emphasise a personal experience and importance of understanding my own approach such as “my instincts will guide the camera” to remind myself that sometimes it’s not just technical skills, it’s also about feeling the moment and responding to it. Like in my image project where I tend to embrace the unplanned by stepping away from the storyboard

I originally planned for the shoot, which helped me capture moments that felt more organic and genuine for me. 

In this module, today’s lesson felt significant because it allowed me to explore various manifestos from different artists so that we could come up with our own. These manifestos revealed how each artist’s unique values, perspectives and creative processes shape their work. For example, Daehyung Lee’s manifesto emphasises the importance of personal growth, critical reflection, and the evolution of an artist’s identity. However, Martin Parr has a more action driven and practical approach with the ‘no nonsense’ kind of manifesto. Though the differences, both of these resonated with me in different ways. The variety of manifestos helped me realise that every creative journey is unique. As artists, we should embrace these differences as our individual experiences and processes shape the art we create. It acts as a reminder not to conform a single standard and to trust my own voice and defne my creative identities in ways that feels authentic.

Additionally, the class on analysing artistic traditions in week 5 highlighted the importance of how our progress and understanding are often made possible through the knowledge of those who came before us. This reminds me of a quote by Isaac Newton; “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giant.” As we develop our own manifestos, we referred to many manifestos from other artists. This is a great example that our creative practices is built upon the legacy of past designers and artists. Similarly in our school module Craft, we were taught the technique ‘weaving’ whereby we delved into the origins of this craft and saw how it has evolved over time to right now.

WePresent | Martin Parr’s ten rules of photography for emerging photographers. (2024, August 20). https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/manifesto-martin-parr

Lee, D. (2023, November 16). WePresent | A Manifesto by Daehyung Lee. https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/manifesto-daehyung-lee

[mariainesgul]

Unboxing - spot for WePresent