Interview with Sakshi Ruia, founder of Padm, a platform featuring contemporary artists using diverse and innovative sculptural materials.
This platforms helps you understand the relevance of sculpture in society today
Kelly Behun Reimagines London Department Store into Dreamy Contemporary Apartment
The Whiteley, once the home of London’s first department store, has undergone a remarkable transformation into a 1.1-million-square-foot residential and hospitality destination. Just recently, The Whiteley unveiled its first completed residence, a stunning three-bedroom apartment, curated by renowned New York City-based designer, Kelly Behun.
Behun’s design philosophy beautifully blends old-world charm with contemporary vibrancy, drawing inspiration from both the building’s rich history and its surroundings. The color palette, featuring rich golds, verdant greens, dusky roses, and lavenders, takes cues from Hyde Park’s proximity, creating a warm, modern environment.
The Whiteley’s transformation is led by development managers Finchatton, in collaboration with investment partners MARK and C C Land. This unveiling marks a milestone in the £1 billion regeneration project, set to be completed in 2024.
The apartment’s design philosophy emphasizes tactile and inviting atmospheres, with natural fabrics and organic shapes, creating a harmonious living space. Notable pieces include an offset sunburst pattern rug by fashion designer Mary Katrantzou for The Rug Company, and hand-sculpted torchiere style sconces by artist Chris Wolston, that enhance the tall ceiling heights.
Marcus Meijer, Founder and CEO of MARK, expressed the significance of The Whiteley, stating, “The Whiteley is iconic. The sheer size, grandeur, and history of the building is what makes it unique, and we had to ensure we appointed a designer who celebrated that.” Behun, featured in the AD 100 list of top interior designers, was a natural choice to bring the loft-style open plan apartment to life.
The 3,193-square-foot residence boasts high ceilings exceeding 14 feet and heritage windows that flood the space with natural light. Design details, like the fluted millwork columns and herringbone floors, pay homage to the building’s original architecture, preserving its history while imbuing a fresh, contemporary feel.
Behun’s commitment to craftsmanship and individuality is evident throughout the apartment. Bespoke and handmade furniture pieces, such as a custom walnut dining table by Belgian artist Benoit Viaene, add a distinctive touch. The guest bedroom features a wallpaper designed by Behun for Calico Wallpaper, creating a dreamy forest landscape.
“As a diehard New Yorker, if I think about the one other city in the world where I could see myself living, it’s always London,” says Kelly Behun. “The volume of the space, the abundance of natural light, and the fact that this apartment sits behind the original façade – there’s no other building I’d want to debut in London for.”
Each of the three spacious bedrooms has its own enviable design style.
The Whiteley exterior
Designer Kelly Behun
The first residents of The Whiteley are expected to move in starting the first quarter of 2024, with the rest of the project aiming for completion later in the year. The Kelly Behun-designed apartment is currently on the market for £12.5 million, inviting discerning buyers to experience the perfect blend of history, luxury, and contemporary living.
Photography by Paul Raeside.
Winning portraits ‘capture tapestry of life’
Photographs from across the West Midlands feature among the 100 winning images in this year’s Portrait of Britain.
They include pictures of Tasmina Haq, part of Muslim Girls Fence, a grassroots initiative in Birmingham, the portrait of a man grieving for his son and students who had recently moved to the area from Nigeria.
The winners in the nation’s biggest photography exhibition were selected from a call asking for images that “celebrate the many faces of modern Britain”, and “capturing the tapestry of life”, organisers said.
An image showing Wolverhampton boys Isaac and Nima had been captured after a football match, said photographer Ciara Hillyer.
“I had gone to support a friend of mine, who has dwarfism, play football, and he introduced me to his friends,’ she said.
“There is nothing contrived about the photo, it was a real honest moment between Isaac and Nima,” she added.
As soon as I took it, I felt a wave of excitement because I knew it was a great image.
“The composition, the facial expressions, juxtaposition; everything aligned perfectly in that second. And the boys absolutely love it!”
An assisted self-portrait of Mauvette Reynolds in Birmingham was shot with the help of Anthony Luvera, who often works collaboratively with homeless people on long-term projects.
Another subject from the city, Mark, was captured by Paul Wenham-Clarke.
He had lost his son in a motorbike accident and had found it hard to grieve, the photographer explained.
The 100 winning photographs will go on display on digital advertising screens located in high streets, shopping centres and transport hubs across the country.
The images capture “the quirky, the mundane, the here and now of the extraordinary everyday in which we live,” said Mick Moore, chief executive of the British Journal of Photography, which runs the competition.
“It is in each other that we see ourselves and form our sense of place,” he added.
Civil rights photographer’s dream to come true
Much of how South Carolina has seen its civil rights history has been through the lens of photographer Cecil Williams. From sit-ins to prayer protests to portraits of African Americans integrating universities and rising to federal judges, Williams has snapped it.
After years of work, Williams’ millions of photographs are being digitized and categorized, and his chief dream of a civil rights museum marking how Black Americans fought segregation and discrimination in the state is about to move out of his old house and into a much bigger and more prominent building in Orangeburg.
“Images can be very powerful storytelling,” said Williams, who turned 85 in November. “And the struggle to get the rights we were due under the U.S. Constitution is a very powerful story.”
While Williams’ story and those in his images will be remembered, preservationists and historians worry plenty that African American history is being lost as those who lived during the civil rights era die and their letters, photographs and other mementos of the struggle are tossed out.
A display of civil rights memorabilia and photography by Cecil Williams in his home, which now doubles as South Carolina’s only civil rights museum. All of it will move to a building three times the size of his home within the year to create a proper and permanent exhibition.
“We talk about superheroes like Superman or the Black Panther. But I wish young people would realize there are superheroes in their neighborhoods who fought injustice every day,” Williams said.
Williams got his first camera when he was 9. A few years later he took one picture of civil rights attorney and later Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall getting off a train to work on a segregation case – just one frame because it was dark and flashbulbs were $1 each.
The photo got a lot of attention. Soon, Jet magazine had Williams taking pictures. He kept going for decades, capturing images of the Charleston hospital workers strike, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond’s last campaign and the Confederate flag being removed from atop the Statehouse dome.
In 2019, Williams, his wife and a friend realized there was no museum focused on civil rights in South Carolina, unlike every other Southern state.
So, Williams converted his old house and darkroom in a residential neighborhood in Orangeburg into the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum. He created the exhibitions and partitioned off the rooms himself. It had 25,000 visitors with little marketing.
His photographs are everywhere, but that’s not all. There is a bowling pin and shotgun shells from the All-Star Bowling Lanes where demonstrations to desegregate in 1968 ended with police firing on protestors, killing three of them in what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre.
Close to his heart is the section about Briggs v. Elliott, the South Carolina case that provided the foundation for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn legal segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.
Williams displays the Bible of the Rev. Joseph DeLaine, one of the plaintiffs in Briggs v. Elliott who organized Black parents to fight their local school district over its grossly unequal schools. There also is DeLaine’s long gun, which he used to protect himself and his family when racists came to attack them one night.
The negatives containing the history Williams chronicled have been scanned in by Claflin University. Students are working to catalog them with dates and the people in the photographs. But historians worry that’s not the case everywhere as the generation that fought for civil rights dies.
People like historian Brent Leggs aren’t only interested in preserving the houses where civil rights meetings took place and the malt shops where Black people sat at whites-only counters. They want letters, posters, recordings of speeches and sermons, furniture and anything else that tells the story of what happened, what it looked like and how it sounded.
“I just believe there is a deep civic well in the Black community. As generations change and change moves through these families, we lose an understanding of the importance of that type of history,” said Leggs, the executive director for the African American Cultural Action Heritage Fund.
He urges saving the material and having historians look it over.
In the next year or so, Williams hopes to move his museum into a downtown Orangeburg building that’s three times larger than his home, and install a full-time staff.
It’s part of a $23 million federal grant to revitalize Railroad Corner in Orangeburg as a gateway to the city that is nearly three-quarters African American with two neighboring historically Black universities. And it’s the culmination of years of trying to get support from anyone who will listen.
“We’re running out of time. I’m running out of time. I have tried for four or five decades to make an impact, to make our history known,” Williams said.
He noted that almost all the money for the work is coming from federal or local sources.
“South Carolina has long wanted to hide this history,” said Williams, who thinks South Carolina leaders wanted to keep quiet the racism occurring throughout the state.
He made sure his museum showed that hidden history, including that of Sarah Mae Flemming, an Black woman kicked off a Columbia bus seven months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala.
“Sometimes I put myself into situations where I’m photographing things that became a part of history. But there were other times that it just seems to be my destiny that I arrived at a situation,” Williams said.
At the pinnacle of his career, Williams and his pictures were unwelcome in whites-only South Carolina newsrooms. In Columbia, he was kept from the state’s largest newspaper but allowed in the nearby offices of The Associated Press, which transmitted some of his photos to the world.
The Wallet 3.0 Is Discommon’s Take on Quiet Luxury in Your Pocket
What’s refined and slim-lined, with a better design than ever? That would be Discommon’s The Wallet 3.0. The third generation of the cult-favorite luxury accessory features improved card pockets – two that fit three cards each – for easy insertion and removal, as well as a “flip lip” for ease of use. Look closer and you’ll notice the compact, thermoformed stitch-less form that gives an effortlessly sleek, elevated look to a daily necessity.
We love the unexpected pop of color in the wallet’s interior that says “don’t take me so serious.” Three new vibrant color pairings are available to choose from: Black and Oslo, Gray and Ruby, and Tan and Mango. The exterior is crafted using top grain nappa leather, while the interior is soft micro suede. Which is your favorite combo?
Design Milk’s Senior Editor, Gregory Han, shares his hands-on experience with The Wallet 3.0:
I abandoned a traditional wallet/billfold for a minimalist design years ago, but recently my minimalist sleeve-style wallet finally gave up the ghost after many years of use, giving me the opportunity to try out Discommon’s The Wallet 3.0.
Unlike my previous wallet – essentially a leather stitched sleeve that could hold 3 cards comfortably, 4 cards with some effort – The Wallet 3.0’s thermoformed nappa leather opens like a traditional billfold. It has a tiny flip lip that reminds of a tiny laptop. The two-side clamshell design is much easier to access than my previous wallet, easily holding up to 6 cards, yet isn’t any thicker than my previous single, slide-in design.
What I appreciate most is this wallet’s ease of accessibility. I used to struggle pulling out a specific single card because my minimalist wallet’s tight stitched design was optimally suited to hold 3 cards at once, and adding any more meant I’d have to use a precise pinch ‘n pull technique that usually would result in pulling all the cards out to get to the one I wanted. Now, I can pull out a single card without requiring the assistance of tweezers.
The Wallet 3.0 is also shockingly light… so much so I thought it was made of molded cardboard when I first handled it. I even sniffed it to make sure I wasn’t just inspecting a piece of the packaging. But, The Wallet 3.0 later proved its weight in gold (or molded leather) when I accidentally left it in a pocket and it went through an entire wash cycle, and came out looking just as new and structured as it did prior to its dip. Consider me a convert of this 3.0 version of a wallet.
To learn more about The Wallet 3.0, visit discommongoods.com.
Dazed Club Spotlight: 2023 in Photos
We wanted to know what 2023 looked like for Dazed Club members, so we put out an open call inviting them to share “photos, sketches or toiles”. The inpouring of submissions gave myriad glimpses into the year just gone. From sitting in an empty room of a new city to returning to loved, familiar spaces, making new friends and celebrating birthdays with old friends; from elated accomplishments to quiet moments of reflection and reckoning with redirection, the wide range of pictures we received – capturing the big and smaller moments – offered such a multiplicity of perspectives.
For a closer look, visit the gallery above which features contributions from Dazed Clubbers Carlotta Savioli, Gaia de Crecy, Gracie Brackstone, Jack Farrar, Rakee Chen, Lilianne Mutwarasibo, Ana Reyes Cid and Phoebe Grewal.
Join Dazed Club and be part of our world! You get exclusive access to events, parties, festivals and our editors, as well as a free subscription to Dazed for a year. Join for £5/month today.
A Boulder photographer been taking his camera to the railroads for eight years now. Here’s what he has to show for it
Take 5: The NASA Worm, the Atlas of AI, Yinka Ilori’s Pop-Up Shop + More
It’s a bummer realizing by the time this post publishes designer Yinka Ilori’s pop-up shop in Shoreditch, East London will have shuttered its kaleidoscopic framed doors with the start of the new year. Stocked with homeware and lifestyle products of his own making, Ilori conceived the pop-up as an ode to small independent businesses and their placemaking within communities the world over – a message delivered with a joyful vibrancy colored by the legacy of West African design. I can only hope this pop-up is first of many.
It’s hard to erase the memories associated with the too-soon experimental wearables known as Google Glass from a few years back. The limited capabilities paired with dork-grade styling left a mark akin to the imprint of ill-fitting eyeglasses across my bridge. That’s why I came with very low expectations – if not also a mild level of disdain – for these new Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Let me say, these smart glasses are the antithesis of the Google Glass experience. They look good, keep things simple and thus operate with ease, and capture video and stills with surprising clarity. Although I still worry about issues of use in public spaces and privacy, and probably would benefit upgrading to some larger sized Wayfarers – I came to really enjoy being able to record video and snap photos while hiking without reaching for my phone. And once Multimodal AI graduates from beta to a more polished feature, the promise of wearables going mainstream seems closer to becoming the reality we’ve been promised for years.
As many interests in my life, I came to Kate Crawford’s book circuitously. It began with a viewing of the film After Yang (one I highly recommend for both its narrative and sublime art direction; it’s directed by the same filmmaker behind the architecture-orbiting, Columbus). The film delves into the themes of identity, intelligence, memory, and what exactly makes us human with a quiet introspection often absent when exploring the social ramifications of artificial intelligence. The film was based on a collection of 13 short stories by Alexander Weinstein titled Children of the New World, which I read immediately after being enamored by the film. That in turn eventually delivered me to the Atlas of AI. As someone who believes every great piece of fiction has its foundation in fact, Crawford’s investigation into the history and ramifications of artificial intelligence shines as a lighthouse across a turbulent sea of hyperbole. I haven’t finished the book yet, but that’s partially because I keep going back to reread pages invigorated by its insights.
David Rager, creative art director at NASA, is both a neighbor and friend, which made it very exciting to see and hear him speak amongst other notable figures, including Pentagram designer, Michael Bierut, and NASA’s entertainment and branding liaison, Bert Ulrich, about the history of one of the most iconic logotypes with its creator, Richard Danne. There are few logos I would want to adorn myself with these days, but that curvilinear 4-letter combination still does it for me as a symbol of science, curiosity, and typographic elegance – an enduring emblem of humanity’s potential.
Have you heard? Those silver shiny platters of 1s and 0s known as compact discs are making a comeback. Out of curiosity, and spurred by the ample availability of affordable used CDs locally, I recently added a CD transport from British hi-fi specialist Cambridge Audio. Paired with their Evo 75 all-in-one system alongside matching speakers I purchased during the heart of pandemic, it felt both exhilarating and a little weird placing a disc into the transport’s tray and pressing play again after so many years of the medium’s absence. The muscle memory may have atrophied, but the pleasures of sitting down and listening to music with presence and purpose felt revelatory only a few minutes in. It also helps that the EVO CD pairs perfectly – sonically and aesthetically – to Cambridge Audio’s other EVO components, right down to the changeable side panels. I still stream music, but listening to CDs is something akin to the ritual of preparing coffee yourself: slower, requiring your presence, and ultimately resulting in a more gratifying experience.
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6 exquisite images from Close-up Photographer of the Year
A juvenile moray eel
Fu Liang/cupoty.com
In the deep waters surrounding the island of Romblon in the Philippines, a tiny, translucent moray eel larva twirls its body into the shape of a heart. Photographer Liang Fu captured the ethereal photo during a night dive, 28 metres below the water’s surface. The photo is among the winners of the latest Close-up Photographer of the Year competition.
“I was extremely fortunate to capture this moment with my camera,” said Fu in a statement. “The eel remained at that depth for less than 10 seconds before swimming down and disappearing into the darkness.”
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A slime mould with a crown of ice
Barry Webb| cupoty.com
In another winning image, an opulent ice crown sits atop a miniature slime mould (Didymium squamulosum) growing on the floor of Hodgemoor Wood in Buckinghamshire, UK. Barry Webb’s shot took the top prize in the fungi and slime moulds category of the competition.
A Eurasian nuthatch flies among the trees
Csaba Daróczi | cupoty.com
Looking up towards the skies, a Eurasian nuthatch (Sitta europaea) is in flight among the sprawling trees in a Hungarian woodland. These small, short-tailed birds can be found throughout Europe and can be identified by their long blue bill, black eye-stripe and blueish-grey upper body. To take the shot, photographer Csaba Daróczi placed his GoPro camera inside a hollow tree stump and placed a sunflower nearby to entice wildlife.
A robber fly catches a leafhopper
Peter Grob | cupoty.com
This robber fly – named after their exceptional predatory skills – is about to tuck into an unlucky leafhopper in Peter Grob’s vibrant photograph. Grob, who works in airport security, stumbled upon the cutthroat scene while on a visit to Penang Island in Malaysia.
Fairy shrimp eggs
René Krekels/cupoty.com
The dazzling, multicolour eggs of a female fairy shrimp can be seen in this close-up snap taken by biologist René Krekels in Germany. The marine creatures can be found in seasonal wetlands and extremely salty lakes around the globe, from the world’s hottest desert to the chilly climes of Antarctica. Once hatched, fairy shrimp will take 18 days to mature and live for just a few months.
A cross-section of a beach grass leaf
Gerhard Vlcek/cupoty.com
Gerhard Vlcek captured this fluorescent cross-section of beach grass (Ammophila arenaria) through a microscope. The bright orange-red tubes are the vascular bundles, which transport food and water through the grass, and enclose the green tissue. For this shot, Vlcek sliced a 30 micrometre thick cross-section of a blade of grass and meticulously stained the sample with dyes using a tiny brush.
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GTA 5 Online Poodle location: Wildlife Photography Challenge guide
GTA 5 Online’s Wildlife Photography Challenge tasks players with taking pictures of three creatures per day. The Poodle is among those, and it can be found in one of Los Santos’ districts. Taking pictures of animals and birds in this event rewards some money and RP, along with the brand new Zoophilist outfit and the Declasse Park Ranger.
However, the locations of animals and birds will not be marked on the map, which makes finding them a little difficult. Those requiring assistance can take help from this article as it reveals the location of the Poodle in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online.
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GTA 5 Online guide: Wildlife Photography Challenge Poodle location
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Begin the Wildlife Photography Challenge by visiting the LS Tourist Board in Chiliad Mountain State Wilderness. Upon doing so, you will be given a list of three creatures to photograph, each rewarding $20,000 and 500 RP.
If the Poodle is one of the animals in your list, go to Rockford Hills to find it. The following image depicts the Poodle’s location in the Wildlife Photography Challenge:
You may have to look around a little to find it in this area. Oddly enough, GTA 5 Online’s Pug can also be found in Rockford Hills. Upon spotting the required animal, use your in-game smartphone to a picture of it.
Then, send it to the LS Tourist Board by pressing the prompted button to receive the aforementioned rewards. You can unlock The Zoophilist outfit by taking pictures of all three creatures in your first Wildlife Photography Challenge list.
Notably, taking a picture of one animal in this event unlocks the new Declasse Park Ranger on Warstock Cache and Carry, which has a base price of $2,980,000. Further, taking pictures of 10 animals in the Wildlife Photography Challenge unlocks its $2,235,000 Trade Price.
That said, the Wildlife Photography Challenge is only available in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online’s PS5 and Xbox Series X/S version.
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Besides animals like the Poodle, birds such as the GTA Online’s Chicken Hawk, are also a part of this new event. However, you will have to search the skies in order to take pictures of them. Those looking for the Chicken Hawk can find it in Blaine County’s Grand Senora Desert.
Interestingly, the Crow’s location in GTA 5 Online is also in Grand Senora Desert. So, if the two birds are in your Wildlife Photography Challenge list, finding and taking a picture of them shouldn’t be tedious.
Poll : Do you have enough money to afford the Park Ranger?
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Edited by Abu Amjad Khan
