The Heliotrope Foundation was started by artist Caledonia Curry, also known as Swoon, to help communities respond and heal after natural disasters and other urgent social crises. "We believe that the creative process can and should be a part of how we heal, rebuild and move forward after natural disasters, economic devastation, and moments of social crisis." Click here to make a tax deductible donation. Photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Dr. Frankenstein holds the hammer. He has the metal moon of a nail’s head protruding from his nostril, which he taps in a little deeper. The flat head rests one inch out from the entry to his cavity, the metal flaring the soft nostril tissue wide. With the hammer’s forked prongs, he hooks and slowly pulls out the nail. It glistens. Only the audience members right up front can see the sheen snot coating the nail, but the rest are practiced in the art of imagination. Click here to read more.
Click here to read an interview with Candy Ken. Photographs by Flo Kohl
Learn more about the python hunters and read an exclusive interview with Dylan Johnston here.
Dylan Johnston has documented the Florida Python Challenge, one of the Florida Wildlife Commission’s more successful attempts to eradicate the invasive and evasive snake, for the past three years. In 2013, he began the project after mention from a friend in Sarasota, only a few hours from the river of grass, and has worked on the project since, immersing himself in the unforgiving environment that is the Everglades. Johnston, from Ft. Pierce, has worked on plenty of projects and assignments in his home-state, detailing the life of working in junkyards to rigging ballyhoos while trolling for pelagic species in the Gulf-stream just off Southern Florida’s east coast. Click here to read more.
The noise in my head is so loud some nights, only bashing my brains in or a power drill would suffice. Then this Meat Robot called Max would finally know peace. The delusional hemorrhoids of loneliness are consistently painful and at times paralyzing. I’m around clients all day at work; I pass families and doggies as I stroll through Brentwood; I have a great relationship with my therapist who I see four times a week. But at the end of the day, I always go home alone. And there’s no good way to get home. Any route I take, each step is cemented with sadness, as if I’m walking a long plank to my apartment… trying to avoid dog shit on the sidewalk. Click here to read more.
Click here to read the interview.
Dear Friends, I’m sure you are also following with horror the rightwards drift and anti-EU sentiment brewing across Europe. The Dutch referendum should be the final wake-up call, alerting people to the real risk of the UK’s EU referendum resulting in a victory for Leave. The official ‘Remain’ campaign feels lame and is lacking in passion. It also lacks an active drive to get voters registered – and with the deadline already falling two weeks before the referendum, this should be an urgent priority. I want to get involved and actively campaign. In particular, I want to work towards maximizing turnout among younger voters by focusing on the first, crucial step: voter registration – the deadline for which is June 7! So anyone who hasn’t registered before this date has no chance of having a say, no matter how strongly they feel about the issue. So the really crucial date is June 7. Everyone’s grannies registered their vote long ago, but students no longer get automatically registered by their unis. This is because of a new law brought in by the Conservatives that makes it possible for them to disenfranchise up to 800,000 students, who as a group tend to move around a lot more and so drop off the voter register easily. I feel that we have reached a critical moment that could prove to be a turning point for Europe as we know and enjoy it – one that might result in a cascade of problematic consequences and political fall-out. Firstly, the weakening of the EU is a goal being actively pursued by strongmen like Vladimir Putin and European parties on the far-right that are funded by Russia (a little known fact). Furthermore, Brexit would provoke calls for referendums in many other countries and could effectively spell the end of the EU. It’s a flawed and problematic institution, but on the whole it stands for a democratic worldview, human rights and favors cooperation over confrontation. It could prove to be a one-in-a-generation moment. Can you imagine the years of renegotiations for undoing treaties, and all the negativity that would surround that. In the past weeks myself and assistants at my London and Berlin studios and Between Bridges worked on these texts and designs. Please feel free to share these posters, they work as print your own PDFs, or on social media, or in any other way you can think of. I consider them open-source, you can take my name tag off if more appropriate. Let’s hope for the best - but hope may not be enough. Click here to download Tillman's campaign posters.
photograph by Adam Lehrer
Click here to watch Adam Green's new film Aladdin, starring the likes of Natasha Lyonne, Francisco Clemente, Devendra Banhart, Zoe Cravitz and more. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Susan Grace reviews Harold Jaffe's new book of fiction and docufiction. Click here to read the review.
Coinciding with the release of Lail Arad's second record, the Society Club Soho has published Lail Arad's first book: The Onion – Lyrics From The Album. The lyrics book features exclusive text from Lail and photographs by Flo Kohl. Also available is a magic bookmark, with which to download the music. Arad's newest album comes our Friday, April 15th. See Autre's premiere of the music video for the track "Lay Down." photographs by Flo Kohl
