Happy New Year!

We wish you all the best for the New Year! We hope it will be a good one.

Magic Mountain

In the latest issue of Stella magazine you'll find an exquisite shoot by Katrine Rohrberg entitled 'My Little Pony'. The ladies over at Magic Mountain took care of the styling. Magic Mountain is a jewellery and fashion label founded just this year by long-time friends and collaborators, Sanne Frank and Anne Elman Clause. The label was borne out of the founders' mutual fascination with crystals, and as a reaction to the general focus on darkness in fashion and the media. Nice, huh.

 Sanne & Anne

All images from Magic Mountain.

Coucou QooQoo

Baby, it's miserable outside.

QooQoo, a Latvian fashion label characterised by bold patterns rich in neon colour, incorporates all manners of pop-inspired goodness into their garments. If criminal bears, tribal motifs, otherworldly galaxies and ethereal gardens are your thing - QooQoo has you covered.

For the latest collection QooQoo's founder, Alona Bauska, asked her twitter followers to send photographs of their beloved pet dogs. Fifty were selected and integrated into a single pattern. Here's the result!

Stella in ArtRebels pop-up shop!

Our friends over at ArtRebels have a Christmas pop-up shop featuring 35 exciting labels in fashion, art, design and music. There are plenty of fun in-store events – check out the flier below for details. Tomorrow it's Christmas cake decoration by the artist Karen Segall! If you haven’t picked up the latest edition of Stella magazine, head to Blågårdsgade 3 to secure yourself a copy.

Embroideries by Jazmín Berakha

Jazmín Berakha is a visual artist based in Buenos Aires. Her work spans a variety of mediums including plastic art, illustration, installation and graphic and costume design. Most remarkable, however, are her meticulously executed embroideries. Here are three of our favourites.

Happy weekend!

An interview with Sigrid Astrup

Words by Louise Rytter

It’s simply not possible to tick one box when viewing Sigrid Astrup (1979) work. Her repertoire is wide and includes film, music, fashion, ceramics, graphics and her newest occupation as mother. Sigrid Astrup is a ‘multi-inspiring-playful-working-artist-in-the-making’ and only just graduated from the Danish Design School in 2006. With an impressive cliental from MIKA to Danish DR TV, she has also been part of the art collective Hurrrraaa, founded the fair-trade fashion label MotherMother with Helena Lindberg. This year she launched the shop "Vanishing Point" that sells fair trade quilts, ceramics, jewellery, posters and art. 

Sigrid Astrup is known for her playful hands-on approach and strong narrative. She curiously explores all angles and fields of any given material, sound or medium. She transforms beats, illustrations and stitches into poetic, colourful and abstract visuals. Sigrid Astrup was born in Tromsø, Norway, and lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, with her partner artist Rune Brink and their baby Edit Hulda. 

I ma

How would you describe your work to someone who hasn’t seen it? 

As experiments, with the conventions and preconsidered ideas of communication platforms, techniques and materials I use. No matter what context I work in, I always try to do the opposite of what is expected or obvious, as to find new ways to unfold the visual world of what I work with.  

I experiment with materials and mixed medias. Also I’m very childish but my humour is ‘sick’, so I often make stuff that is a tab too odd for other people to truly understand. This really attracts some and makes others just confused. And I always try to create something new to develop my repertoire of knowledge.

How does your Norwegian background influence your work?

That sick humour I have is definitely straight from Norway. It is also typically Norwegian to be shy and underplayed, which makes me terrible at selling myself or networking. I just can’t talk my way into a job. Most of my friends wouldn’t believe that since I am also so cocky, but it’s true.

Music video for Feed The Horse

What do you overall wish to express through your art and how is it a reflection of society? 

I don’t have an overall goal that my work is aiming at, and I don’t think my work reflects society really. Sometimes I see myself as a poet when I look at the results of my work. I guess its eccentric and self flattering and all, but it is definitely part of everything I do.  I work with aesthetics and materials just like using words in a poem. Carefully putting things together, to create an abstract render of emotions and ideas.

You work in multiple fields (fashion, art, graphic design, music videos and ceramics). What keeps you interested in all these fields and what inspires you? 

Everything inspires me, especially my friends, and my man Rune Brink. The idea of learning something new, trying new techniques and materials just makes me roll over. I love materials, especially natural ones as stone, wood and clay. At the moment I’m saving up to buy myself the ultimate power tool, a stone cutter.

Illustration for mothermother

Your work always has a strong narrative and a hands-on approach. Can you explain your way of working? 

I go about things in different ways so that is difficult to answer. But most of the time I have this very clear idea of what I want to do before I start, and I rarely sketch it out, because that would ruin it’s impossible beauty in my head. Then I get the stuff I need, and start doing what I want to do with it. It is inspiring to have the materials at hand. This way I figure out what the materials are cable of in order to get as close to the original idea as possible. 

What has been your most challenging job?

No doubt being a mother... hahaha. I know it doesn’t classify as a job, but it is. It’s full time and totally demanding from when you wake up until you go to bed, even during your sleep. I always used to mock my good friend Marielouise about the big knot of hair she had in the back of her head. I thought she was too sloppy with her life in all. But she isn’t, she has 2 kids and is a single mother now. I regret this awfully now that I have Edit on my hands.

Intro made to "Min nesten normal familie", TV2

Combining handcrafted collages and digital media is quite a challenge. What role do digital and social media have for you? 

I love mixing analogue and digital techniques, which I don’t find difficult to do at all really. The tantalizing possibilities of software can make you caught up, and you sometimes forget to go out of it and bring in something real. Just looking at the pallet in any adobe program makes you eager to get at it, using all the different tools. I often find that it’s actually easier to put some life into things by bringing in something from the “real world”. And I don’t know about social media. I often find it to be an attempt at making the internet more alive than it really is. 

Cover design for Chimes&Bells

You worked with musicians such as Moi Caprice, Mika, Chimes and Bells and Of Montréal. Can you explain your interest in music vs. art and highlight some of the work you done for these bands? 

Working with musicians is a perfect opportunity to work abstract with form. Creating imagery to trigger the different moods, emotions and ideas, or just a flow that they have created. People I have worked with are exceptionally good at creating the emotions they intend to, and it’s been such a treat to get to know and work with them. Trying to compliment or make a visual world for something not visual, created by another artist with another vision, is also a totally sweat challenge. 

If I was to highlight something it could be the 1 hour visual set I made for “Of Montreal” in 2008. The idea was to make a constant 1 hour continuative piece of collage created under the camera, constantly developing and changing into something new. Nice to do something totally intuitive and without thinking, even though the visual result was so-so, - my version of “new millennium Dadaism” haha. 

Win two tickets to CPH:DOX | a film of your choice!

We have another two tickets from the lovely people at CPH:DOX to give away. The tickets are valid for all 75 kroner screenings. To be in the running take a look at the program and let us know which film you would most like to see. Please include a valid email address. Entries close at midnight tonight. A winner will be selected at random and announced shortly thereafter.

Good luck!

Update: congratulations Ditte!

Win two tickets to CPH:DOX | Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin!

The good folk at CPH:DOX have kindly provided us with two tickets to the sold-out screening of 'Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin' at Empire Bio tomorrow evening. The director, Theo Solnik, will be attending, as will Anna herself!

To be in the running all you have to do is "like" this post and leave a comment below, including a valid email address. Entries close at 19:00 tonight! A winner will be selected at random and announced shortly thereafter.

Further screenings:

Grand Teatret | Friday 11/11 | 17:00 | 75 kroner

Update: congratulations Malene!

CPH:DOX | The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Towards the end of the sixties and into the seventies, Swedish television journalists travelled to the United States to document the revolutionary Black Power Movement; to offer an outside perspective on the struggle for freedom, equality and civil rights endured by African Americans at the time. The footage aired briefly on Swedish National Television before being consigned to the network's basement archives. After 40 years of hibernation, it has re-emerged in a compelling depiction of empowerment. 

In The Black Power Mixtape 1967 – 1975, director, Göran Olsson, pieces together startling footage of revolutionary leaders including Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver and Angela Davis in a series of blazing, unguarded interviews. Fresh interviews with leading African American artists, activists, musicians and scholars are merged with the archival 16mm footage, and underscored with fitting contemporary beats by the likes of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Om’Mas Keith. By mirroring the mixtape format popular in the 70’s, Olsson creates a captivating cinematic and musical journey that appeals aesthetically across the generations.

The original footage was condemned by the United States media, namely TV Guide, who argued that it focussed solely on negative aspects of American society with total disregard for the positive. Olsson explains that within the United States the Black Power Movement had either been ignored by the media, or treated as a burgeoning terrorist movement. He emphasises that the film offers an outside perspective free of prejudice and loaded assumptions, not a definitive truth. As Angela Davis outlines, “it’s not about black and white - it’s about telling a story”. And what a story it tells.

Further screenings:

Grand Teatret | Saturday 12/11 | 14:20 | 75 kroner

Jessica Braz

Stella at Bienvenue Pop-Up shop!

Porcelain by Liebe, knitwear from Fnubbu and Soft Gallery, notebooks from
Rie Elise Larsen and the lovely owners, Mette and Rikke. 

You can now buy the latest issue of Stella magazine, The Pop Issue, at Bienvenue Pop-Up shop in Hellerup, just north of Copenhagen. Here you'll find a very cool selection of artwork, porcelain, notebooks and knitwear. It's definitely worth a visit. Plenty of fine Christmas gifts and treats for yourself!

CPH:DOX | Andrew Bird: Fever Year

Innumerable Santa hats, free beer streaming plentifully from the back of horse drawn carts, the occupants merrily united in song. Downtown Copenhagen is teeming with inebriated folk celebrating the launch of Tuborg’s annual Christmas brew. It is J-Day – the infamous date in Denmark’s calendar when one should be prepared to witness the unthinkable. And that we did. 

Buried in a cosy cinema below the revelry, fifteen or so strangers were greeted with birdsong. In her directorial debut, Xan Aranda captures the essence of Andrew Bird’s creative evolution, and that of the man himself. She chases the feverish virtuoso through the final months of a gruelling yearlong tour, all the while he chases the ghost. Bird steadfastly believes that the evolution of his music is imperative to its survival, likening the process to that in the animal kingdom. His rigorous fifteen-year touring career is a testament to this. 

Bird is satisfied on stage; here his music exists in a malleable state, free of the constraints inherent in the recording process. A lingering fear of repetition repeatedly thrusts him back onto the touring circuit where, he explains, his songs regain elasticity and his shows exist as shared moments privy to only those present. Clearly such a whirlwind lifestyle does have its drawbacks; true to the title Bird was afflicted with a perpetual fever for the duration of the tour. 165 shows later, and on crutches, Bird returns to the family farm to reclaim himself, to play for the sheer joy of playing, free of pressure, free of expectations.

In 'Andrew Bird: Fever Year', Aranda has eloquently pieced together a poetic masterpiece for the senses. Not only has she gifted Bird’s ever-faithful audience with insight, but more importantly, a shared memory. Bird, who owns all of the commercial rights, has no plans to show the documentary beyond the festival circuit.

And so we rejoin the festivities, whistling.

Further screenings:

Empire Bio | Thursday 10/11 | 22:30 | 75 kroner

Jessica Braz

CPH:DOX | Inside Lara Roxx

Quick cash and a thirst for life experience beckoned 21-year-old Lara Roxx from her hometown of Montreal to pursue a career as a porn star in Los Angeles. After just two months in the industry Lara was diagnosed with HIV, having contracted the virus from a co-worker on set. Her story quickly erupted into a media sensation but was soon forgotten once the attention faded.

In her first feature-length documentary, director, Mia Donovan, delicately records Lara's journey of self-destruction, self-discovery and self-affirmation over the course of five and a half years. A handheld camera trails Lara from a psychiatric ward in Montreal back to Los Angeles where she attempts to reconnect with the industry, and through the tumultuous chapters that follow.

Rather than focussing on all the gritty details that such a story entails, Donovan paints a tender psychological portrait of a young woman learning to live with an illness. As Lara poignantly suggests, "courage doesn't exist, just a lack of fear".

Further screenings:

Grand Teatret | Sunday 6/11 | 21:30 | 75 kroner

Dagmar Teatret | Friday 11/11 | 16.40 | 75 kroner

Jessica Braz

CPH:DOX - let the festivities begin!

Today marked the commencement of Scandinavia's largest documentary film festival, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. For the next ten days Copenhagen will be blessed with a selection of over 200 independent documentary films from across the globe, along with art exhibitions, concerts, debates and industry seminars.

It's only fitting that Stella will be there to report on the deluge, so expect film reviews aplenty in the coming days.

Grey skies and blustery winds make for perfect viewing weather. Get ye to a cinema!

Giveaway!

Hotel Pro Forma is an international performance collective based in Denmark. Steering away from the traditional theatrical structures of story, text and plot, Hotel Pro Forma creates visual and musical spaces by way of transdisciplinary collaboration. Artists from a range of backgrounds including architecture, visual arts, music, film, dance, fashion design, the natural sciences and digital media join forces to explore universal themes and develop them in new and stimulating contexts.

Hotel Pro Forma's latest venture, War Sum Up, was produced in collaboration with the Latvian National Opera. Inspiration for this production was drawn from Japanese culture and its expression of poetry, pop, precision and brutality to deliver a powerful impression on the nature of war.

Hotel Pro Forma have kindly provided us with two tickets to War Sum Up on Saturday 12th November at Det Kongelige Teater in Copenhagen. To be in the running all you have to do is "like" this post and leave a comment below, including a valid email address. Entries close at midnight on Wednesday 9th November. A winner will be selected at random and announced on Thursday 10th November.

Best of luck!

* Update: congratulations Ulrike!

Astrid Kruse Jensen

Keeping in line with the Halloween theme, let me introduce Danish photographer Astrid Kruse Jensen. In her haunting nightscapes she explores the paradox between reality and imaginary, the natural and the artificial. With long exposure times and clever exploitation of available light sources, subjects are illuminated in a hypernatural glow imperceptible to the naked eye.

You can see more of Astrid's work at Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen as part of the 'Myths of the Near Future' exhibition.

Let's play dress-ups

Some Halloween inspiration.

Image sources: one / two / three / four

Halloween countdown

Here's a number from Planningtorock's latest record, W, to put you in the mood.

In 2010 Planningtorock collaborated with the Swedish electropop due, The Knife, for the Tomorrow In a Year opera based on the life of Charles Darwin and his groundbreaking book 'On the Origin of Species'. The opera was comissioned by the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma.

Just a heads up for those unfamiliar with Janine Rostren's enigmatic brilliance!

Sunrise, sunset

Eric Cahan photographs sunrises and sunsets as part of his ongoing Sky Series. Magnificent, aren't they?

Found via I Do Art.

Ruth Crone Foster

Ruth Crone Foster is a Danish artist whose work spans a myriad of mediums including collage, illustration, installation and textiles.

See more paper madness as part of the Paper Cuts exhibition at Vess until October 20th. Hop to it!

Happy Sunday!

Joana Vasconcelos

Joana Vasconcelos explores the dichotomy between intimate experience and popular culture in her supersized, often confronting, sculptures and installations. Crochet, embroidery, tampons, children's toys, cooking pans and a whole lot of plastic are interwoven in a prolific collection of formidable beasts.

Read more in the current issue of Stella magazine.

Friday's weather

It's getting chilly outside. Click here for a little extra sunshine.

Miranda July: The Future

The Stella team is very much looking forward to the premiere of Miranda July's latest masterpiece, The Future, at Stockholm International Film Festival coming up in November. Head on over to Nowness for an amusing vignette on how to tackle life's distractions.

Food meets fashion

Take a peek at fashion fused with vegan sweeties over at lookbook cookbook.

Veganism at its finest!