We know Alison Thompson’s interview in Issue 17 touched many of you. This Australia Day, her extraordinary spirit was recognised when she was awarded a MEDAL (OAM) OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA IN THE GENERAL DIVISION for “service to humanitarian aid, particularly the people of the Peraliya region of Sri Lanka following the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami.”

We’d exchanged a few emails with Alison lately, and knew she was planning on coming back to Australia (from New York) to receive the award (although we were sworn to secrecy), but nature had other plans. When the earthquake struck Haiti on 12 Jan, Alison being Alison shelved all her plans for an Australian summer holiday catching up with family to go straight there with Sean Penn, a couple of other friends. On 24 January, Alison wrote an email to her parents …

“Dante would describe it as hell here.  There is no food and wAter and hundreds dying daily. The aid is all bottlenecked and not reaching here . The other day i assisted with amputation ( holding them down) while they used a saw to cut a young boys leg off with no pain killers…” The full email can be read here.

Photograph by Juliet Coombes

Alison Thompson : Issue 17 : Introduction

Alison Thompson has been charged by twelve hippos, nine elephants and two rhinos. She has travelled to all the continents of the world, including the South Pole. She is an Australian who has been living and working in New York for more than 20 years. While she’s tried many things like being a mathematics teacher and an investment banker, it’s in film-making, and its ability to move people to take action, that her passion lies. Being spurred into action is something Alison knows about first hand. When the World Trade Centre was hit on 11 September 2001, she was one of the first there to volunteer. It gave her a taste for volunteering and she realised how easy it could be. So, in 2004, when the ‘Boxing Day’ tsunami hit, she jumped on a plane to Sri Lanka. The footage she took during that time formed the basis for ‘The Third Wave’, a film about volunteering which has captured the souls of viewers from Cannes to Sydney.

If Issue 21’s still fresh in your minds you might remember Kali Arulpragasam talking about her next Superfertile jewellery collection which she described as, “another quite ironic collection about current affairs; the economy and the recession. It’s about the truth, a sentence like ‘There’s 5o million people without healthcare in America’, but glamourised with stones so it looks like it’s overflowing with diamonds and things. It’s about welfare, and the economy, and unemployment, and repossession of houses, and how the value of houses is lower than the actual mortgage is, and how much the war’s cost; all that stuff.”

In an email to us this morning Kali elaborates; “It’s pretty tough to pull off Numbers and Statistics in the form of Pie charts and Bar charts in hand paved stones, without being boring … or nuts! It’s something that demands us to look at jewellery in a new light and opens up possibilities of what we can say with them. Maybe it’s the beginning of ‘Glitzy truth’ …”

The collection, called CRA$H, was launched at Paris Fashion Week, but doesn’t seem to be up on the Superfertile website yet, so here are a few more pics … They’re pretty fabulous.

[Photographs of The Armoury by Marino Thorlacius]

The unstoppable Sruli Recht (Dumbo feather Issue 13) has just opened a store called The Armoury amongst the retrofitted, once-rusting ships and abandoned private fisheries of Reykjavik’s Fishpacking District (in Iceland). The store will showcase Sruli’s incredible clothing, footwear and ‘non-products’ like the Umbuster and Whalet as well as “the illustrated topo-graphic narratives of Megan Herbert” (we put that in quote marks because we’re not sure exactly what it means either!).

Everything used in putting The Armoury together was reclaimed from the now abandoned construction sites around Reykjavík – from the dried and weather-worn shipping palettes to the long wood scaffolding, old metal frames, steps and wheeled bases. We think it looks amazing, but would expect nothing less from Mr Recht.

Sruli Recht : Issue 13 : Introduction

Photography by Omar Sverrison & Lina Hansson

Sruli Recht: is a fashion and costume designer who has most recently dipped his toes into footwear design. Schooled in Melbourne, recently inducted into the New York-based Keystone Design Union and currently domiciled in Iceland, he’s one talented, and ever-so-delightful gent. We have no doubt he’ll have a part to play in the next suit-&-tie.

David de Rothschild (Dumbo feather Issue Five) is about to embark on another amazing adventure, this time “to draw attention to the unbelievable mass of garbage (especially plastic) accumulating in our seas.” David and co are building a catamaran, the hull of which is made out of plastic bottles. It’ll be christened The Plastiki in homage to Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 seminal expedition on the Kon-Tiki. David and a handpicked crew of adventurers, scientists and creatives plan to set sail across the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney before the end of 2009. You’ll be able to follow the team’s fascinating journey as it unfolds via web cams, tweets, blogging etc here. [There's a great interview with David (and the pics above) in Coco Eco Magazine.]

David de Rothschild : Issue Five : Introduction

Where to start with David de Rothschild? With the organic farm he’s developing as an education centre, the children’s books he’s writing, the naturopathy, the fact that he traversed the Antarctic in record time last year, or that he’s planning on doing the same across the Arctic next year? There’s one consistent motivation to everything David does and that is to create change through education, and to educate by igniting people’s imaginations.

Stylist Emilie Smith and Anika Cook from Sneak Design both met in The Nest … and look at what’s hatched! A beautiful collaboration to create a lookbook for Sneak Designs’ latest collection.

We just received this lovely note from Emilie;

“Hey Kate & Thea
Thought you might be interested in seeing the fruits of my first Nest collaboration…
Thank you so much for creating an environment where people like Anika and I can meet!
Much love Em x”

Emily Pilloton (Issue 18), founder of Project H Design, is just about to publish her first book titled ‘Design Revolution; 100 Products that Empower People.’

In her interview with us, Emily said her goal was “to apply product design skills to solve global problems.” She believes we “need to go beyond ‘going green’ and to enlist a new generation of design activists … We need big hearts, bigger business sense, and the bravery to take action now.” Here here!

‘Design Revolution’ is a compendium and a call to action, featuring more than 100 contemporary design objects and systems that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary; safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls …. It makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways – for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore. She challenges designers to be changemakers instead of “stuff creators.”

Copies can be pre-ordered now from Amazon for US$27 + postage.

Emily Pilloton : Issue 18 : Introduction

Photography by Project H

Emily Pilloton is on a mission to make product design relevant, relevant to today’s world and the multitude of issues we face. Even before graduating with a degree in design she had already had a product commissioned for sale. It was a ‘Nest Chair’ made out of scraps of fabric. Quickly dubbed a ‘green’ designer she began to question the point of making anything, even if it was ‘eco-friendly’. Her questions gave form to Project H, the ‘Doctors without Borders’ of product design …

In Issue 17 we did an article about the art of letterpress printing. Had we known about the Melbourne Museum of Printing (MMOP) we would have mentioned it, but sadly we did not. At this fantastic place, you can go to see Michael Isaachsen’s collection of letterpress machinery. Not just a museum, it’s also a working print shop – you can spend an afternoon learning about typesetting and printing by actually doing it.
But, what’s even sadder than us not knowing about it until just recently, is that the MMOP is battling to stay open. This Sunday, there will be an exhibition/fundraiser to try and prevent it closing. Twenty-two artists and designers have made prints that you can buy, including ‘our very own’ John Warwicker (Dumbo feather, Issue 10), and other clever clogs like Studio Round, Pip & Co, and Fabio Ongarato. There’ll be live tunes and bookbinding and typesetting demonstrations.

John Warwicker : Issue Ten : Introduction

It might seem ridiculous for someone widely regarded as one of the world’s best designers to admit, “I don’t know what design is at all”, but John Warwicker understands that embracing the ‘not knowing’ can be your greatest strength. Whether you’re familiar with the work of Tomato (of which John was a founding member in 1991) or not, you’ll no doubt appreciate taking a walk inside his mind. There’s something deeply reassuring in hearing that even someone of John’s calibre, and who has the world’s most design-savvy corporations as clients, is as unsure of his abilities as the rest of us. He too struggles with the difficulties inherent in balancing the demands of a commercial career with nurturing one’s own creativity. John was creative director of Da Gama (1981-1984), head of Art and Video at A&M Records (1984-1987), creative director of Vivid I.D. (1987-1991) and was the first foreigner to be admitted into the Japanese Type Directors’ Club. He directs short films and commercials, designs album covers, treats type like oil on canvas, is about to have his first monograph published, and, after spending most of his career in London, has recently moved to Melbourne… for love… Df

BEATBOXING WITH MORGANICS | OPEN TO ALL AGES
HIP HOP SKILLS WORKSHOP 1 – 2PM | 28 March 2009
Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion which primarily involves the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and more. It may also involve singing, vocal imitation of turntablism, the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments.
The workshops are open to everyone with all levels of experience. Places are limited so it’s best to pre-book your place via Ticketmaster.

Morganics : Issue 18 : Introduction
For Morganics (also known as Morgan Lewis), Hip Hop is not just music, it’s poetry, it’s a tool for working with disadvantaged communities, it’s story-telling, it’s theatre. Hip hop is a passport to the world, into prisons, into remote outback Australia, and around the streets of New York … Df

Photography by Sarah Rhodes
Alice McCormick : Issue 18 : Introduction
Alice McCormick could be a character straight out of one of her rare books. It’s probably best if she just tells her story, but a little bit of background might help. She has just, with photographer Sarah Rhodes (who also took the photographs in this section), published a stunning, sumptuous book, ‘The Artist’s Lunch’, that delves into the lives and lunches of some of Australia’s most prominent artists. Alice writes freelance for a number of publications and her own fiction. But not only does she create books, she is a reknowned dealer in the rare, illustrated variety. She’s ‘the picture book girl.’