Happy Bunny Times

A couple at the Glastonbury festival | Image © Creative Commons, Toady the Toad (2008)

Rain, mud, fabulous music, umbrellas, sold out tickets and your tent floating away in an unknown direction? Yes, you haven’t mistaken – we’re talking about the Glastonbury festival – the Christmas for melomaniacs! Pack your bags, because this year’s Glastonbury claims to be legendary – the headliners on the Pyramid Stage are Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and recently reformed Blur.

As you might have known, Glastonbury festival is the largest of its kind in the world. For instance, 177,500 people attended the Glastonbury Festival in 2007, creating a tent city with the same population as Norwich or Sunderland.

It certainly attracts adventure and good time seekers from around the world. One of the reasons is the line-up: Lily Allen, Jamie T, Lady Gaga, Regina Spektor, The Ting Tings, Franz Ferdinand, Peter Doherty and Pendulum just to name but a few.  See the official line-up here.

Not only you’re offered an enjoyable musical experience, there is also going to be a Pilton Palais Cinema Tent with a veritable treasure trove of films for our viewing pleasure this year.  They have even pushed the boundaries of current cinema technology to bring us 3D movies (courtesy of Dolby 3D). The 3D films to be showed are Bolt, Monsters Vs Aliens and Coralline with a fourth surprise title to be announced later on site.

However great the music, cinema and people are, this year’s Glastonbury is definitely going to be the healthiest ever! The Happy Bunny was thrilled to find out that STD experts are setting up a camp at the festival. Everyone aged between 15 and 24 are asked to visit a screening centre to curb the spread of Chlamydia, which has been increasing widely in the UK (and Happy Bunny is very concerned about the readers’ health). In between watching the films and shaking your ass to pop and rock stars, NHS Somerset hopes visitors will pick up and return a simple test kit. Anyone returning their test kit will receive a free glow-in-the-dark sperm key ring or glow-in-the-dark condom.

“The service is completely free, confidential and easy and so are the test results. Young people can choose how to receive their result (a discreet message by text or email, a letter or by phone). For those testing positive the treatment is simple and painless – just four antibiotic tablets taken at once,” Sara Dove, NHS Chlamydia screening service manager, said.

Health is not a big deal, if yours is good. Just make sure it is and keep hopping! And remember we’re talking about Glastonbury, so don’t forget your pink wellies!

For more information, see the official Glastonbury festival website.

Text: Austra Javalde

Himsagar Express by Nishant Shukla

The creative industries are constantly looking for new talents. The Photographer’s Gallery organizes its annual Graduate Photography Exhibition discovering UK’s brightest visual artists.

The second year in a row FreshFacedAndWildEyed09 will present the best of UK student photography by BA and MA students who have graduated in the past year.

A total of 23 photographers were selected by a panel of such experts – Joy Gregory, Magda Keany, Brett Rogers and Ossian Ward. Submissions were accepted from visual arts course graduates across the UK, whose graduation date fell between 1 May 08 and 31 May 09.

One of the selected photographers, Nishant Shukla, graduated Thames Valley University in 2008 and is currently in the middle of his master’s degree.

“I am delighted to have been selected for the show. It’s every photographer’s dream to be exhibited at such a prestigious gallery. I’m looking forward to seeing my work on the wall at The Photographers Gallery, get an opportunity to meet some people in the industry and hopefully some commissions would be a good result,” Nishant Shukla said.

His series of prints are portraits of travelers on the Himsagar Express – a three-day journey from the foothills of the Himalayas to Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India.

The Photographers’ Gallery is dedicated to exhibiting, educating and engaging people with photography. Events such as freshfacedandwildeyed09 reflect our dedication to recognising, nurturing and supporting photographic talent in the UK.

“The frontality of these images presents an honest exchange of views mediated by the camera. Nothing is hidden and there seems to be a mutual trust which dignifies the subject. There is in this work a studied avoidance of the sentimental or repressive gaze. Shukla modernises colonialist photography and invests it with a sympathetic and quiet restraint. The idea of a shared journey is what these pictures convey,” Peter Smith commented.

The exhibition runs 24 June – 5 July 2009.

For more information and a virtual gallery visit FreshFacedAndWildEyed09.

The Photographer’s Gallery
16 – 18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW

The list of all selected graduates:
Jonathan Baggaley, Benjamin Beker, Petros Chrisostomou, Eleanor Cleasby, Lucy Dawkins, Teresa Eng, Kathryn Faulkner, Leonora Hamill, Aileen Harvey, Hannah Hewett, Alexandra Hughes, Nae Bunthita Indhawong, Jessica Layton, Martina Lindqvist, Ellen Nolan, Tom Pope, Wendy Pye, Tomoko Sakanishi, Grace Schwindt, Nishant Shukla, Anthony Wallace, Michael Whelan and Dave Wyatt.

Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed 09 exhibition runs until 5th of July

If you are under 20 and enjoyed (or absolutely hated) Tormented movie and know a clever how to say it, enter the write-a-Tormented-review competition via their official blog.

Less than a week left! Deadline 31st of May!

(via Twitter @TormentedBlog)

Tormented in cinemas accross the UK now | Image from blog.tormentedthemovie.com

Hall of Mountains by George Morris

There’s less than a week left to see George Morris’s solo show at Schwartz Gallery.

‘The installation ‘Hall of Mountains’ was created specifically for the Schwartz Gallery space: the archetypal mountain as both form and concept, data coordinates and physical place, is collapsed, rationalized then reconstituted throughout the gallery space using a combination of 3D computer modelling, architectural print, sculpture, illumination and sound.’

Until 31st of May
Fri-Sun 12-5pm
Special late night opening: Thursday 7th May 6 – 9pm

Address:
White Post Quay
92 White Post Lane
London, E9 5EN

For more information visit Schwartz Gallery website.

Unseen Guy Bourdin at The Wapping Project | Image © Nicholas Harvey

While people of the Fashion Planet and Johnny Blueeyes’s groupies make their way from one party to another, the critics and artists seek inspiration in one of the greatest 20st century’s fashion photographer’s work. Exhibition at The Wapping Project: Unseen Guy Bourdin.

Nicolle Meyer poses in front of Guy Bourdin's photograph of her | Image © Nicholas Harvey

Guy Bourdin, born and raised in Paris, was an author of iconic pictures. The exhibition Unseen features 32 images collected from over three decades of his creative work. In many Nicolle Meyer – also known as his muse – can be recognised.

‘I had no idea I was being called muse,’ she claims and explains that title was achieved after Bourdin’s death in 1991, when the model compiled ‘A Message For You’ book. She worked with Guy for three ‘very intense’ years at the very peak of his career – untypical long period for him.

‘The legend goes he was very difficult person to work with,’ Meyer says and adds that ‘he was very particular, very sure of what he wanted to do’.

Nicolle reveals she and Bourdin had special chemistry between them. ‘Subconsciously when you work with someone who’s so talented it somehow influences the way you view things. He’s part of my life, my mystery,’ she says.

‘It was the past and now it has become the future as well. Images I did with him are now in contemporary culture and you see people who are influence by his work, who pick up on his elements. I feel like a part of larger picture. I feel like a part of the history,’ the model reveals.

‘The images are technically also astonishing, given that they were taken before the era of digital photography and retouching and were shot on 35mm transparencies,’ says Jules Wright, director of The Wapping Project.

Unseen Guy Bourdin exhibition can be viewed at The Wapping Project until 4th of July.

The Wapping Project
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
Wapping Wall
Lonodn
E1W 3ST

Special thanks to Camron PR!

Text: Marina Scukina

'Awaydays' is bitter, awkward and beautiful, it is a punch right in the stomach.

Someone shot nostalgia in the back,
Someone shot our innocence
(Bauhaus ¨Who killed Mr. Moonlight?¨)

Are you old enough to believe that being young is anywhere close to being easy? Pat Holden’s new movie Awaydays (2009) offers a powerful reminder about the fact that entering the adult life and clashing with its realities tends to be a traumatic experience and about the way this entrance determines us as grown-ups.

We see neatly combed Carty’s way through rites of passage he chooses in order to prove that he is able to be part of the tribe, is able to paint his face in our colors and attack the enemy. Awaydays is set in Liverpool during late 70’s and the tribe he so wants to belong to is a gang of football hooligans called The Pack. He gets his opportunity when Elvis, the ultimate style icon and soul of The Pack, approaches him. Carty is utterly happy, his first awayday changes his life – it is real, it is physical, it is clear which side to take. This thrill and simplicity is totally different from anything he has ever experienced. Life ends up being easy, there is a matrix to feel good and accepted, feel like on the top of the world. The only thing he can’t understand is why Elvis keeps talking about leaving this, why he craves escape, way out of the world where there is nothing below the surface of beer, football, sex, drugs and mates you go to fight together with.

Awaydays is heavy loaded with content not appropriate for children – there is alcohol and substance abuse, smoking, sex, violence, rock’n'roll, lack of moral grounds and right answers. Exactly, just like in reality. The reality that parents cannot grasp even if willing to and that is so crucial – or at least that is what we think – to our survival.

Also, Awaydays take a close-up of masculinity in already post-modern (and post punk) society, quest for fitting gender roles and expression of one’s sexuality.

Production team, headed by producer David A. Hughes and writer, author of the novel Awaydays (1998) on which the script is based, Kevin Sampson, have managed to perfectly recreate the air of late 70´s being scrupulous about every last detail, including maybe even too impeccable emulation of original Liverpool Look (wedge haircut, Fred Perry or Lacoste t-shirt, Lois jeans and bright clean Adidas) and mind-blowing soundtrack that will haunt you for days after seeing the movie. And no wonder, because it features tunes from The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, Ultravox!, Joy Division, The Rascals and other landmark bands that made Liverpool music scene after The Beatles alive and possible.

This movie brings up ambiental flashbacks, feeling of already seen rock’n'roll cult movies like Trainspotting (1996), Velvet Goldmine (1998), 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Control (2007). Awaydays is stylish till perfection and the soundtrack is a pleasure that goes even beyond that.

This is not a love song, this is not a feel good movie – Awaydays is bitter, awkward and beautiful, it is a punch right in the stomach. And after seeing it you wish to turn louder your Joy Division and ask for more.

Text: Luīze Ratniece

An American photographer has been honoured as the winner of L’Iris D’Or Award and become the 2009 Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year and receiving $25,000 (£17,000) cash prize.

© David Zimmerman, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009

Zimmerman received the award for landscape series ‘Desert’ revealing his home country’s southwest desert environment as a fragile ecosystem.

‘My documentation of these remarkable deserts throughout Arizona, New Mexico, California and Nevada continues in an effort to influence preservation through public awareness, opinion and action,’ the winner said.

‘Both image and meaning coincide in the imagery of photographer David Zimmerman. In his sensuous sharp focus, we become more aware of where we are as humans in the drifting sands of time,’ Bruce Davidson, member of Honorary Judging Committee, said.

Prince’s Rainforest Project (PRP) Award was also presented at the ceremony. Spanish photographer Daniel Beltrá received funding to support project documenting the rainforests of the world.

‘Photographic imagery can tell a compelling story about the truth of the situation and, the truth is, if we lose the fight against tropical deforestation, then we lose the fight against climate change,’ HRH The Prince of Wales said in his video message on the night.

Awards Gala ceremony was held in Cannes, France on 16 April.

The professional category 2009 winners:

Current Affairs – Wojciech Grzedzinski (Poland)
Sport – Julian Abram Wainwright (Canada)
Contemporary Issues – Giulio Di Sturco (Italy)
Arts and Entertainment – Amit Madheshiya (India)
Advertising – Dustin Humphrey (USA)
Fashion – Piotr Fajfer (Poland)
Music – Amiran White (UK)
Portraiture – Roderik Henderson (Netherlands)
Conceptual and Constructed – Tamany Baker (UK)
Natural History – Lisa Maree Williams (Australia)
Landscape – David Zimmerman (USA)
Architecture – Michael van den Bogaard (Germany)

The amateur category 2009 winners:

Architecture – David Watts (UK)
Conceptual & Constructed – Vladimir Melnik (Russia)
Fashion – Christo Stankulov (France)
Landscape – Giuseppe Parisi (Italy)
Music – Kushal Gangopadhyay (India)
Natural History – Vincent Foong (Singapore)
Portraiture – Claire Martin (Australian)
Sport – Lorenz Holder (Germany)

The 2009 Honorary Judging Committee:

Sue Steward, photography critic (UK)
Jurgen Schadeberg, photographer (Germany)
Adrian Evans, Director, Panos Pictures (UK)
Bruce Davidson, photographer (USA)
Mark George, photographic agent (UK)
Arnaud Adida, Founder Acte 2 Agence and Acte 2 Gallery (France)
Gered Mankowitz, photographer (UK)
Grazia Neri, Founder and President of Grazia Neri Photo Agency (Italy)
Zelda Cheatle, portfolio manager and curator (UK)
Mary-Ellen Mark, photographer (USA)
Sarah Moon, photographer (France)
Philippe Garner International Head of Photographs at Christie’s (UK)