We are back in the new year and start it off with a name we have been closely following for years: Australian photographer Paul Barbera. At the end of last year, the talented imagemaker presented a new volume in his acclaimed Where They Create series — this time by exploring the theme of his series through geographical locales. Reinvigorated by his first visit to Japan in five years, Barbera made this country the focus point of the all new volume.  Published by Frame Publishers, Barbera, accompanied by Japanese writer Kanae Hasegawa, explores the workspaces of 32 leading creatives in Japan. With this considered curation of subjects and Paul's extraordinary eye for iconic details, the new book unveils the sometimes surreptitious nature of contemporary Japanese design culture.

The country is well known for its incredible food, beautiful landscapes, innovative technology and its attitude around perfectionism, that has been been setting a new worldwide bar of excellence from the moment it became known. Most importantly for Barbera in his personal journey is the sense of discovery, of both the creatives and their process, which he has been portraying for years know and is exemplified in his imagery, being able to portray more with composition than words could ever offer (especially considering the reserved Japanese culture) — resulting in quite possibly his most inspirational installment of his by now often copied, but still very relevant Where They Create project. [ Continue reading ]

We are honored to give a little preview of  a new Where They Create story by our friend Paul Barbera. It features the London office of creative agency Wieden+Kennedy, which shows a lot of character, but also the large size of one of the leading offices worldwide. The inspiring ongoing Where They Create series documents creative working spaces from all around the world through the lens of Paul. With Where They Create, the Australian photographer found a way to turn his inherent voyeurism into a form of anthropological research. Looking for absurd and hidden elements within the seemingly normal, Paul enters the studios of international creative people: artists, art directors, architects, designers, stylists  and captures all the details of their personal stories and artistic processes. His curiosity, naturalness and good eye for interiors, together with his ability to transmit emotions and warmth make his project unique and constantly inspiring. From the need many creatives have to transform their offices into intimate spaces, almost like home, keeping things close to be able to create their workspace will almost alway show a lot of personality. Others could work anywhere, travelling with the bare essentials as Paul does, but everybody, even if for a while, leaves personal traces, aspects that don’t pass unnoticed, laying there to be caught by Paul. [ Continue reading ]

Over the past 20 years our friend Paul Barbera photographed all the studios of people whose work he loves and whose space he likes. Over the past years he published the stories on his blog Where They Create and now, finaly, he’ll release his first book, published by… [ Continue reading ]

We love The Selby, we love to have a sneak peek in the lives and interiors of creatives, and we love good photography. All together it makes ‘Where They Create‘, a project by interior photographer Paul Barbera. Beautiful places, through the eyes of Paul,… [ Continue reading ]

Paul Barbera is a lifestyle and interior photographer with a reportage style spanning cultural anthropology to luxury living, who we've been following since the very beginning of Another Something & Co, when we stumbled upon his tremendous Where They Create project. Paul is one of those extraordinary photographers striving to capture the complex emotional honesty of his subjects by reverting to a minimalist approach. He shoots in natural light and avoids overly complicated technical arrangements which permit authenticity and a voyeuristic thrill to come to the fore. Born in Melbourne, Australia and currently residing in New York City (when not on the road or in the air), Barbera has a Bachelors of Fine Arts and now a days is commissioned throughout Asia, Europe and Australia for a broad scala of publications ranging from fashion to documentary. Next to his ongoing Where They Create series, Paul also started the Love-Lost project in which he captures beautiful woman from around the globe. As we've been inspired by Paul for all these years, we now ask him what has been inspirational in his life. [ Continue reading ]

Our friend Paul Barbara shot this lovely series of pictures at Acne HQ in Stockholm for his Where They Create series. No further introduction needed & more images here >… [ Continue reading ]

A few years back we’ve featured Koen Tossijn’s work on his Wardrobe project, a contemporary menswear brand bringing high quality basics. Koen was always charmed by simple things, things that don’t scream for attention but balance between presence and absence. The things he makes reflect the beauty of natural materials and deep knowledge of the best craftsmen in their field.
Recently he shifted into furniture design together with Studio the Future and Sugi Kojo in Ukiha, Japan, in a projected called ‘Together. A chair is made for sitting’ where he designed a chair and a table. [ Continue reading ]

Over the past years, Ashkan Honarvar has been one of the most shared artist here on Another Something. We’ve marveled at many of his projects, and have been following Ashkan for years. His latest project is another very exciting one; this time collaborating with Thomas Bradley, a garment designer working within the framework of costume for dance. The result is a series of 21 collages showcasing Thomas' 14 garments in the extraordinary Honarvar way. [ Continue reading ]

Milan van Dril's IN DE OOST will be one of our favorite publications of 2021. The project with behind the scenes photography was released as part of the extensive campaign for the polarizing Dutch war movie De Oost (The East). A first of its kind, in the tradition of the great American anti-war films, De Oost portrays the 1945 - 1949 Indonesian War of Independence through the eyes of a disillusioned Dutch soldier. A subject matter that hadn't made it to the Dutch cinemas yet, because it ended 350 years of Dutch colonial rule in South-East Asia in a rather shameful manner. IN DE OOST presents a selection of analogue imagery by one of our favorite young Dutch photographers, who has created a time capsule of the set that erupted in Indonesia during the first half of 2019. [ Continue reading ]

Before our little hiatus, we shared the incredible ITEN, one of the Distance book series, by Thibaut Grevet. It portrays one of the world’s most emblematic locations related to running and its culture. The first volume of this collection was devoted to the mythical village of Iten in Kenya. A new publication takes us all the way back, now through the lens of photographer Anne-Sophie Soudoplatoff, who shot the ‘Home of Champions’ for Asics. A beautiful series of abstract, poetic images. Capturing team spirit in vivid colours. [ Continue reading ]

Greek photographer Yiannis Hadjiaslanis shared his latest project ‘Ascension’ with us. Shot on two visits to Mt. Bromo, in 2017, and 2020. Hadjiaslanis work explores narratives of places, documenting locations in Greece, across the Mediterranean and the African continent, he engages with questions of historical memory, the present conditions and speculated futures of lived environments, and their significance for those who live, create, interact and evolve with them. Whit his latest project Hadjiaslanis explores the Indonesian Mount Bromo, an open and bare landscape covered with ash in million shades of grey. A ‘Sea of Sand’. [ Continue reading ]

Over the course of multiple years, both industrial designers Hank Beyer and Alex Sizemore, explored parts of the American Midwest researching eight material origins and their associated processes and history. Resulting in this highly aesthetic project called For the Rest of Us: A Journey into the Intangible Values of Regional Materials and Personal Computing. They’ve travelled extensively, interviewing dozens of people, collecting artefacts and taking pictures. From each material Beyer and Sizemore created a computer, providing a point of familiarity to an alternative reality. [ Continue reading ]

Last year we met with Tim Hooijmans from De Studio, a Dutch design studio focussing on ‘honest objects with more attention and consideration for the world around us.’  Designing products that have nothing to hide, completely stripped down, relentlessly honest, to the core of what that product should be. In a believe that things can be simple, undecorated, raw and even imperfect they created their first product, the Task Light. [ Continue reading ]

As big fans of Noma, we’re interested in everything connected to them. So when we found out about Empirical Spirits it didn’t took long before the first bottles arrived in Amsterdam.
Empirical Spirits is a flavor company founded in 2017 by Restaurant noma alumni Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen. [ Continue reading ]

As we’re slowly putting renewed energy back into Another Something, trying to reframe what ‘blogging’ and ‘curating’ means in 2019, it feels just right to start off with things that are close to our heart. Huck Magazine is definitely one of them. For their latest issue  they asked Flying Lotus as guest curator.  [ Continue reading ]

Satisfy, our favourite technical running brand, is back with the release of the Spring/Summer 2018 campaign RUN! PUNK RUN! They produced a short film as an ode to punk running. Shot and directed by Magdalena Wosinska, the film follows runner and biker Chase Stopnik through the dystopian outskirts of downtown Los Angeles from the empty concrete basin of industrial Vernon to the Mars-like foothills above the 210 Freeway. [ Continue reading ]

What is it, that attracts us so much in raw and unpolished images like these, that capture the world of young adults? Despite that the genre appears in numerous forms, transcending different continents and contrasting cultures, there is always a similar open-mindedness balanced with a certain fragility that comes with youthfulness to be observed. Whether it is to be found in the colorful images of Gilleam Trapenberg or Katja Kremenić, the 78’s captured by Gil Rigoulet, the kids along the 8,000 Miles on a Motorcycle by Robin de Puy or the dark Dystopian Sequences by Alexis Vasilikos. All of these representations are related through a similar energy, inspired by the lack of a strictly demanding moral imperative — they all caption life's randomness in full effect that hits one first as an adolescent…

We just discovered a worthy addition to this list of favorites in the genre, created by the young Kiev-based photographer Nazar Furyk’s, whose ongoing series capturing the hedonistic youth of Ukraine’s provinces is uncompromising raw and beautifully vibrant, sucking one directly into the palpable world he has captured in still frames. [ Continue reading ]

As one of the last features of this year we wanted to share this special project we did at NewWerktheater. Parallel to our collaboration of last month with Lennard Kok, the Fallen Bird, we’ve been busy in our other role at NewWerktheater and …,staat to work on another collaboration we’re extremely excited about; Jupe by Jackie x …,staat.

The idea behind NewWerktheater Editions is to explore disciplines beyond those that are generally our own. To create great things with great people. To see what we can get from the ground and where we could end up if we walk a road unknown. 'Aesthetic Memories' exemplifies precisely this. This body of works took us somewhere we never could have imagined beforehand. We were drawn to the mastery required for this ancient technique. First, we fell in love with the craft, then we met the person behind it and fell in love all over again. Meeting Jackie was one of those instant clicks. You know the type.

When we started discussing designs, deciding on form, translating our inspiration for color, we soon found ourselves entering the territory we set out to find – challenging tradition. Hand-embroidery is traditionally decorative, traditionally representational. But, what if we worked with abstractions? What if we clashed the intricacy of the handwork with geometric elements? [ Continue reading ]

Lisbon-based publisher Pierre von Kleist is one of the creative platforms that we have had a love affair with from the moment when we first discovered their incredible publications. They say love fades over time, but Pierre von Kleist has consistently published top notch projects during the few years that we've been following them, making it safe to say that we feel no different than years ago. Their latest publication, that has been released last week, is named 'Concrete Octopus' and takes off where renown Japanese photographer Osamu Kanemura´s 2002 acclaimed 'Spider's Strategy' left. For the first time, Pierre von Kleist teamed up with Tokyo-based publisher Osiris to create the beautiful new publication with new moody black and white work done between 2011 and 2013. As Kanemura's familiar dark film noir alike signature runs through every page of the book, it fits perfectly that  film critic Chris Fujiwara was given the chance to write the accompanying text included in the book.

It would be strange and misleading, though obviously not wholly inaccurate, to call these photographs “images of the Japan of the present time.” Though they might perhaps have much to say to the social historian, their documentary function is circumscribed by the interest in exploring a visual universe too disunited and incomplete to be recognizable as a cultural or historical form. In these images, the world presents itself with great purity and without provocation or seduction, as though poised in the interval before the repetition of an already forgotten catastrophe. We can't stop gazing at these new mysterious set of images, which underlines both the immaculate eye of Kanemura and the fact that next to being a publisher, Pierre von Kleist has transformed into a label of utmost quality, with everything they put out being deeply inspiring.  [ Continue reading ]

The Lange Leemstraat is one of Antwerp’s longer continuous streets. It starts on the edge of the city center and cuts straight through the Klein-Antwerpen area, which is popularly better known as (a significant part of) the Jewish neighborhood. The street slices the segment of the Belgian city between the Mechelsesteenweg, the Van Eycklei and the Belgiëlei, in two halfs — together forming a perfect triangle when seen on a map. Most of the tall but narrow houses in the street are at least four stories high and an overall multiethnic feel prevails next to the omnipresence of the orthodox Jewish community; when entering the street one is instantly struck by a metropolitan vibe. It feels like a miniature Brooklyn in the heart of Antwerp. For me, it forms one of the many (hidden) qualities of the city with a remarkable cultural diversity and unique urban structure that was only partly transformed for the modern age.

When continuing along the street from the center, somewhere halfway at the heart of Klein-Antwerpen, the impressive 'Résidence Isabelle' arises. The street is too narrow to actually see it before being in its proximity. All of a sudden it’s just there, forcing the street into an Y-crossing. The apartment building is the kind of beautiful architectural dissonance one finds throughout Antwerp. It doesn't match with its surrounding, but fits beautifully. In today’s digitally globalized world the concept (or illusion?) of visibility is more dominant and demanding then ever. In my eyes, an organically grown, bricolaged, environment like the Belgian harbor city still cultivates the opposite: a strong sensibility for the unknown and the mysterious through its partly chaotic, partly impractical, but always deeply intriguing urban DNA.

When somewhere last year, we discovered the work of a young Antwerp-based painter named Bendt Eyckermans, a very similar feeling of mystery hit. Who was behind these striking paintings, reminding of some of my favorite magic-realistic artists, yet with an incredible contemporary perspective and subject matter? After connecting through Instagram (bless the digital age too!), Bendt agreed to meet in his studio, which to my surprise is located right there in my favorite neighborhood of the city. [ Continue reading ]

Last Thursday, we were finally able to see the extraordinary 'POWERMASK' exhibition at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Curated by none other than Walter van Beirendonck, sided by art historian Alexandra van Dongen and anthropologist Sonja Wijs, it had been on our wish list from September 1st when it opened for the public. For 'POWERMASK', the museum with a focus on ethnology gave the legendary Antwerp fashion designer a free hand to present his own unique, multi-faceted vision of the phenomenon of masks. The result is a stunning colorful display, carrying the designer's unique signature all-over, combining ethnic masks and ethnological documents with modern Western fashion, art, photography and culture — featuring the work of impressive names like Christophe Coppens, Diane Arbus, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Brian Kenny, Martin Margiela and Walter's own Dirk Van Saene.

The exhibition is both a feast for the senses and proof how relevant van Beirendonck's vision remains to this very day. He might have found a more niche position as a fashion designer (and a more invisible role as Head of Fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp), the exhibition, although much smaller, feels like an echo of his iconic Antwerp exhibition 'Landed/Geland' from 2001, which at that time set a new standard for fashion exhibition in terms of presenting pieces within its societal context, but still succeeding to convince aesthetically and therewith speaking to spectators in more than one way. With 'POWERMASK' van Beirendonck underlines, now more than ever, that we need powerful artistic voices like his to remind us of the unique beauty of all cultures on this planet and how exchange between them is what makes life interesting.

When in Rotterdam before the 7th of January don't miss out on this incredible exhibition! [ Continue reading ]

There are few places left in Amsterdam’s most central areas that have enough character to weather the ever-growing storm of tourists and people that particularly cater to them. At times, especially in the summer, the city feels like an urban amusement park. With no end of this development in sight, the once authentic center is slowly turning into an empty shell of its former self. Fortunately, there are still some spots that offer some kind of cultural experience (let’s hope it stays that way!), with the Zeedijk being one of our favorites. Located in the small but dense Chinese quarter of the Dutch capital, the street is famous for its restaurants and supermarkets, but also for being the original gateway of heroine into the country in the late sixties — during the last few years it has also been embraced by a growing number of brands, in search of a real environment for their stores.

Among them are streetwear household names like Amsterdam’s own giant Patta, the Comme des Garçons BLACK store, and most recently Stüssy also opened its doors in the street. Next to, for instance, newcomers like Bonne Suits, who shares a space with SMIB and The New Originals. Although we appreciate these streetwear brands, for us the appeal of the street was taken to the next level by another recent addition, as in April our friend Koen Tossijn also found his way to the infamous Zeedijk and opened his first brick and mortar store ever for his brand TOSSIJN — introducing a well needed touch of understated luxury and a toned down color palette, next to all the logos and graphics at his neighbors. [ Continue reading ]

The original source for a minimalistic lifestyle, Kinfolk, recently announced their latest family member in their inspirational series of books; 'The Kinfolk Entrepreneur, Making Business Personal'. Kinfolk visited over 40 entrepreneurs who offer tips, advice and inspiration for anyone hoping to forge their own professional path, all bound together in a beautiful hardcover 368 pages heavy book. Featured are names like Akira Minagawa, Armando Cabral, Ben Gorham, Britt Moran & Emiliano Salci, Damir Doma, Francesca Bonato, Joseph Dirand, Kevin Ma, Maayan Zilberman, Mette & Rolf Hay, Nina Yashar, Pum Lefebure, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Woo Youngmi & Katie Chung and many more. [ Continue reading ]

There is a significant need for new personal stories in today's hype-driven, free-for-all fashion world. And despite a rather boring tradition in that realm, some of the names we find interesting and have the potential to do just that c0me from The Netherlands. Following the likes of Paul Helbers and Sebastiaan Pieter, who both are talented Dutch designers with young labels (based outside of The Netherlands), last month's Royal Academy of Antwerp graduate Rushemy Botter seems to be next in line to step up. His graduation collection (Autumn/Winter 2018) named 'Fish or Fight' formed Botter's debut during last week's Amsterdam Fashion Week, but we already seized the opportunity to briefly meet the rising star one day after his graduation show in Antwerp at the beginning of June. [ Continue reading ]