Culture

Culture

FIRSTS: London’s Rare Books Fair

Books in Bloom

This May, Firsts London returns to the Saatchi Gallery with a burst of colour, curiosity, and craftsmanship. The theme? Books in Bloom – a celebration of all things botanical in the world of rare books.

From ancient herbals to avant-garde floral art books, over a hundred rare book dealers from around the globe will gather to showcase the intertwined histories of books and botany. It’s the literary companion to the Chelsea Flower Show, blooming just down the road – but with more vellum and fewer tulips.

Expect everything from medicinal manuscripts to pressed flower albums, poetic tributes to roses, and gorgeously illustrated plant encyclopaedias. Botanical books tell a story far richer than just plants on a page. They chart centuries of exploration, science, superstition, art – and obsession.

Once used to treat fevers and fend off spirits, early plant drawings became tools of classification, trade, and desire. By the Victorian age, they were full-blown objects of beauty, their detailed engravings and watercolours capturing the global explosion of flora newly ‘discovered’ and imported.

Justin Croft Antiquarian has brought an exquisite edition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal,…

Culture

Rolls-Royce Goes Wild

Britain's most famous luxury car marque brings woodland magic to London Craft Week

At this year’s London Craft Week (12–18 May 2025), Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is bringing a captivating artistic display that reimagines the British countryside in exquisite detail and craftsmanship. Created by artisans at the marque’s Goodwood headquarters, the triptych artwork draws on the flora and fauna of the British Isles, presenting a woodland scene across three […]

Culture

Stephen Cox: Myth

Mesmerising mythology at a major new sculpture exhibition in Norfolk

Mythological beasts stalk the grounds of Houghton Hall – in a good way. The stately home in Norfolk is presenting Stephen Cox: Myth, an absorbing new exhibition of the work of the British sculptor. Arranged across the park gardens and interiors, this is the most comprehensive retrospective ever of the Royal Academician’s sculpture. Covering more […]

Culture, Toys

The Right Watch

Breitling celebrates Aurora 7’s flight and recovery of Carpenter’s Cosmonaute.

Splashdown!

Aurora 7 was four hours, 32 minutes and 47 seconds into its flight, travelling at over 17,000 miles per hour, orbiting over Hawaii for the third time when the gyro warning light appeared on Scott Carpenter’s control panel, requiring the manual firing of the retro rockets for re-entry. The mission up to that point was considered a great success, but instrumentation error and a partially distracted astronaut led to the splashdown being considerably off-target, along with a waterlogged watch.

Sixty years ago today, on May 24th, 1962, after a trouble-free countdown, Carpenter (aboard Aurora 7) lifted off into space at 07.45 EST (12.45 UTC). His was the first scientific flight and he became the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. Inadvertently Carpenter identified the mysterious “fireflies” observed by John Glenn during Friendship 7 as particles of frozen liquid dislodged from the outside of the spacecraft when he bumped the wall of his capsule near the window.

Scott Carpenter’s Aurora 7 capsule on Mercury Atlas 7 lifts off from Pad 14, Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 24th, 1962. © NASA

Partly because Carpenter had been distracted watching the fireflies, he began his landing preparations late. As the timing mechanism on the spacecraft for the retro rockets had also malfunctioned, he had to align the spacecraft manually. Doing so, he fell behind in his checklist of other items, so that when the switch was made to the fly-by-wire control, the manual system remained engaged, and using both together for 10 minutes resulted in wasted fuel. Aurora 7 overshot the re-entry point and splashed down a considerable distance from the intended location.

Scott Carpenter is hoisted aboard a Navy helicopter which flew him to the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid © NASA

Knowing that the recovery vessels might take some time to get to him, and aware of the danger of Aurora 7 potentially sinking, Carpenter made his way out through the neck of the spacecraft. In doing so he inadvertently knocked and damaged the seal on his Breitling Cosmonaute. He inflated his life raft, climbed onto it and awaited rescue. After nearly an hour of searching, Carpenter was located in an area northeast of Puerto Rico; but it took three more for the rescue helicopter to reach him. While the astronaut had suffered no ill effects from the impact and the time at sea, it was to prove fatal to the damaged watch.

First Contact

Malcolm Scott Carpenter, a naval aviator, was selected as one of Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts, selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury and immortalised in Tom Wolfe’s book: The Right Stuff and Philip Kaufman’s movie of the same name. Their selection was the subject of a much publicised and rigorous search, and the finalists were announced at a press conference on April 9th, 1959.

On April 9th, 1959, NASA introduced its first astronaut class, the Mercury 7, front row, far right M. Scott Carpenter © NASA

Back in the middle of the 20th century, the astronauts who were part of the space programme were also required to undertake other tasks outside of flying the capsule. As it was not known what the pilot would require or need in terms of anything when flying in space, it was very much a case of necessity being the mother of invention, a voyage into the unknown.

Carpenter, along with the other six astronauts, oversaw the development of the Mercury spacecraft. Apart from being required to fly the capsule, each had an assigned speciality; Carpenter was given responsibility for instrumentation and the onboard navigational equipment. By way of other examples, Alan Shepard focused on the recovery of the astronauts upon landing and egress from the capsule, and John Glenn focused on optimizing the cockpit and the flight simulator.

Scott Carpenter is helped into his Aurora 7 spacecraft for the Mercury Atlas 7 mission on May 24th, 1962. © NASA

Scott Carpenter had encountered the Breitling Navitimer when flying with the RAAF (Royal Australian Airforce) in 1960. When tasked with instrumentation for the Mercury capsule, he worked in cooperation with Breitling to change the basic Navitimer used by the RAAF with a simplified tachymeter scale, a wider bezel and a 24-hour dial. The reasons were simple. When flying in space there was only a need to consider the total time taken and measured in hours, minutes and seconds. The wider bezel was to help move the tachymeter with the astronaut gloves on, and the reduced scale would help improve legibility and remove unnecessary information.

The Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was the first purpose-designed and Swiss-made chronograph in space, worn by the man who principally commissioned it. The watch became an essential piece of flight equipment for the astronauts, as when you are hurtling around the world at over 17,000 miles per hour, every second truly does count.

Philip Kaufman’sThe Right Stuff (1983) was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 4.

During Aurora 7’s flight, Carpenter and Mission Control were constantly checking the capsule clock against the watch and the time at Cape Canaveral, Florida; the transcript shows that the former was continually one to two seconds away from CAPCOM. More to point, when the astronaut delayed the firing of the retro rockets for re-entry, every second delayed was five miles added to the trajectory error. Carpenter was three seconds late. The problem was compounded, as the difference in trajectory would add considerably more miles to the splashdown point on Earth’s surface. Carpenter overshot his planned mark and ended up 250 miles from the intended location.

Lost in Space

Once the rescue helicopter landed on the USS Intrepid, Carpenter noticed that the watch no longer worked. It was sent back to Breitling for repair. On seeing the extent of the damage, Breitling simply sent a new one back as well as supplying the same Cosmonaute to some of the other Mercury Seven. John Glenn’s came up for sale at auction back in 2019 and was acquired by Gregory Breitling.

Scott Carpenter’s original Cosmonaute was simply placed in a watchmaker’s bench draw at the factory. Nothing more was to be done to restore it or to try and make it work. For all intents and purposes, it was lost to the world and was left to deteriorate and corrode. When the ownership of Breitling was transferred, it was retained by the Breitling family. Sixty years to the day since it first flew into space, Breitling unveiled Scott Carpenter’s untouched watch, alongside John Glenn’s original, and a new commemorative edition of the Cosmonaute.

Scott Carpenter’s original Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was worn during his Mercury-Atlas 7 mission in 1962.

Commemorative Edition

To celebrate the anniversary of Carpenter’s flight, and Breitling’s ascent as the first purpose-designed and Swiss-made chronograph in space, a new commemorative edition has been released. For the most part, the limited edition stays true to the original Cosmonaute design, while adding some elements to show that this is a watch that honours that first flight.

Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute 60th Anniversary Limited Edition 2022

The same all-black 24-hour dial and reduced form tachymeter are kept, but the watch is now slightly smaller (at 41mm diameter) with a platinum bezel that is fluted (rather than beaded). The commemorative edition also features a sapphire back that provides a window on the B02 movement with its special bridge engravings to mark the occasion: the words “Carpenter,” “Aurora 7,” and “3 orbits around the Earth,” along with the Mercury space capsule. The commemorative edition is limited to 362 numbered pieces that recognise the number of orbits made by Carpenter (3) and the year in which he flew (’62). The watch is available on a black alligator strap or a seven-row stainless-steel bracelet.

Caseback of the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute Limited Edition.

Epilogue

While Carpenter denied ever causing the fault, and the post-incident report confirmed that the instrument failure had nothing to do with the astronaut, the head of CAPCOM: Alexander Kraft, Jr. (who had been against Carpenter from the start) came to the conclusion that it was pilot error. Kraft swore that Carpenter would not fly in space again and in fact, in his biography published almost 40 years later, the chapter on the Aurora 7 mission was titled: “The Man Malfunctioned”. In a letter to The New York Times, Carpenter called the book “vindictive and skewed”, and offered a different assessment: “In space, things happen so fast that only the pilot knows what to do, and even ground control can’t help.”

With little prospect of reaching the space again, and perhaps as a result of his spending time on the ocean waiting to be picked up by the USS Intrepid, Carpenter changed his career to exploring the seas as an aquanaut. He took a leave of absence from NASA to join the U.S. Navy SEALAB project, although during training he suffered injuries that grounded him, making him unavailable for further spaceflights.

www.breitling.com

Words: Dr Andrew Hildreth

Watch: Mercury Aurora 7 – Scott Carpenter’s Famous Flight | NASA

Opening picture: Scott Carpenter inside Aurora 7 with the Breitling Cosmonaute on his left wrist © NASA

Culture, Toys

THE SHAPE OF TIME TO COME

by Dr Andrew Hildreth

“The historian’s special contribution is the discovery of the manifold shapes of time. The aim of the historian, regardless of his specialty in erudition, is to portray time. He is committed to the detection and description of the shape of time.” George Kubler, The Shape of Time, 1962.

“And when he has conquered all the depths of space, and all the mysteries of time, still he will be beginning … “H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 1933.

Science fiction never doubted that the wristwatch had a future. Even if the future was far more technologically advanced, with intergalactic space travel or killer androids, a watch was still a necessity. Such a belief was rational as even into the 1970s, when the quartz era was firmly under way, astronauts were still issued with a mechanical Omega Speedmaster. There was a trust in the known analogue technology despite the availability of arguably superior timekeeping movements, of which Bulova’s electronic “Tuning Fork” and the Beta 21 (Omega Marine Chronometer) come to mind.

Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, October 1951, with cover illustration by Richard Arbib.

There is no constant to time. The question of what the watch of the future would look like now, given that “now” and the “future” are constantly changing terms, equally evolves over time. What laid ahead in 1950 looked very different to what does today, and the influence of science fiction on design has metamorphosed accordingly.

Horology’s first foray into the science fiction world of tomorrow was with industrial designer Richard Arbib. The 1950s were a brave new Earth for what the celestial future could be. Magazines were dedicated to the subject of what space exploration would hold; spaceship captains that starred in their own comics were as numerous as regular airline pilots. Given the collective amount of cosmic villainy being perpetrated beyond Earth, it was surprising there was any form of civilisation – let alone watchmakers – left on it at all.

Richard Arbib could claim credits both as a science fiction artist and as a designer. A regular cover illustrator for Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, he was also commissioned by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) to create a unique futuristic car for the Hudson Motor Car Company. Arbib called the main design theme “V-line” styling where the “V” form was used throughout the vehicle. More importantly, he designed the concept Astra-Gnome “Time and Space Car” which featured a celestial time-zone clock permitting actual flight-type navigation.

Hamilton Ventura previously owned by Elvis Presley, circa 1958.

In the mid-1950s the US watch manufacturer Hamilton hired Arbib to design futuristic watches for their new battery powered electric movement. The Ventura had an asymmetric “V” design that became iconic from the very start. Elvis famously swapped his diamond studded Omega for one. The watch looks as futuristic today as it did in 1957 when it first went on sale. Still in production, the Ventura was used as standard issue for the agents in the comedic science fiction movie Men in Black.

Hamilton was not alone in hiring outside designers to produce a new futuristic look to their watches. Even the paragon of Swiss watchmaking, Patek Philippe, hired a young Gilbert Albert in the same decade to produce modern timepieces in keeping with the age. With names like “Flying Saucer”, “Asymétrie”, and “Futuriste”, the watches were similar in form to the new aesthetics being produced by Arbib in the U.S. Although it is not known if Albert was influenced by science fiction, in 1958 Patek released the ref. 3412, which was remarkably similar to the Hamilton Ventura.

The beginning of the 20th century had been the last time watch case design had changed, thanks to the Art Deco movement and revolutionaries like Louis Cartier and the underground design “dilettantes” at the ateliers of Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. It was a peaceful coup that won the hearts and minds of a new consumer. A similar trend took place in the science orientated society of the 1950s. The dictatorship of the norm, where watches were round, rectangular or tonneau, was being shifted. A “V” was always an indication of time’s arrow into the future, and Arbib and Albert had shown the way forward to the horological world.

Hamilton Odyssey 2001, with an analogue display for the time and a digital readout for all other functions.

Hamilton returned to the avant-garde of science fiction when they were asked by Stanley Kubrick to develop a watch for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The result was a complex combination of a curved rectangular case with an analogue display for the time and a digital readout for all other factors. The functions went as far as what would now be called a smartwatch. However, what appeared in the film was too expensive to put into production, so Hamilton issued the “Odyssee 2001” based on the analogue part of the watch depicted in the movie. The design was still futuristic with its unusual wedge-shaped case and dial layout.

By the latter part of the 20th century, the science fiction watch was no longer an imaginative shape for a possible future, but rather a realised object that had to be part of tomorrow’s aesthetic as an addition to the wrist of elite troops dealing battling xenomorphic aliens on distant planets or killer android robots that had to stop the countdown on earth exterminating event.

Giorgetto Giugiaro designed the above Seiko for the 1986 blockbuster, Aliens. The watch was worn by main character Ripley.

Aliens, released in 1986, takes place in the year 2179, when humans have encountered rather aggressive extra-terrestrial lifeforms. The future watch in this instance was Giorgetto Giugiaro’s designed Seiko worn by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Bishop (Lance Henriksen). Giugiaro is more famous for his angular style of car design and was not influenced by what the science fiction future should look like. In keeping with his style, the two watches in question were reference 7A28-6000 and 7A28-7000, the latter being worn by Ripley. Made of aluminium and steel, ref. 7A28-7000 boasted an asymmetric offset case and a futuristic bracelet. The pushers to operate the chronograph function were contained in a rectangular protrusion on the right side.

In Terminator: The Rise of the Machines (released in 2003), Arnold Schwarzenegger helped design an oversized Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore that was discovered by the cyborg in the sun visor of a truck. Understandably, the killer robot has little use for a mechanical watch and sets it aside. With a diameter of 51mm, the three-part Royal Oak case had two chronograph pushers in the band with lock levers and a protected crown, so the countdown wouldn’t be interrupted once started.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore T3 designed for the movie Terminator 3 The Rise of the Machines

In the same way that the outline of the WWI Renault tank was Louis Cartier’s muse in reshaping the gentleman’s wristwatch, the imagined machines of a galaxy far far away provide ideas for contemporary designs. Both Martin Frei of Urwerk and Max Busser at MB&F acknowledge the influence that fictional spaceships have on their creativity.

You cannot help but look at the new Urwerk UR-100 from above and see the outline of Star Wars Millennium Falcon. For Martin Frei, who grew up with genre-changing science fiction movies like Star Wars, Alien, and Bladerunner, the films are a time machine that allows a view of the past and the future in the present moment. He went further and explained that “All Urwerk watches are inspired by science fiction. A science fiction film that looks into the future is related to time. But it is also the idea to imagine technology that interests me. If you create contemporary avant-garde watches, they will look as if they were from a history of the future. You have to look for new shapes and new concepts.”

If you look at the new Urwerk UR-100 from above it is difficult not to see the outline of Star Wars Millennium Falcon.

In designing Horological Machine No 6 (HM6), aka “Space Pirate”, Max Busser referenced the spaceship design from the anime version of Captain Future. Max acknowledges the effect the past has on his creative present. Also a veteran of the late 20th century cinematic big bang in science fiction, the memories from an impressionable childhood have left an indelible mark on his horological machines. HM6 started with “a certain amount of sketching and a large amount of imagination. It was the two spaceships with their two spheres connected by a central link that inspired our design with the tourbillon at the centre.”

On the left, MB&F HM6 in steel showing the dual Captain Future spaceship configuration (right).

Another futuristic watch is the DeBethune Dream Watch 5. While some people have noted the similarity of the design to some fictional spaceship forms, Denis Flageollet was quick to point out that he hadn’t been inspired by a particular movie or comic, but rather by the possibilities of time travel, which he refers to as “cosmic inspiration.”

DeBethune Dream Watch 5 with its futuristic styling.

The relationship between science fiction and watch design has changed. No one now believes that a mechanical watch will accompany Captain Dan Dare in his journeys to the stars and beyond. We realise that it will be a wrist-bound subservient satellite of some other device and will relay all manner of information, as well as the time. However, the allure of designing watches for space travel has lost none of its lustre. It is still a flight of fancy into the unknown. Konstantin Chaykin designed and produced the Mars Conqueror, which embodies the realisation that time will be different on a new planet and that there will be a new measure of the “day” (however defined) and the units of time within it. Mars measures time in SOLs that are approximately 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. The past of space exploration is embedded in the Mars Conqueror, with design ques from the Vostok rockets that once carried the hopes of the socialist space future into the stars. While we can dream, we can let our imagination run wild and enrichen the world of horological creativity.

My thanks to Martin Frei, Max Busser and Denis Flageollet for their help and advice in researching this article.

Opening picture: Stylised concept art for the Richard Arbib Astra-Gnome car, circa 1956.

Culture

Space Station Earth

Ilan Eshkeri at the Royal Albert Hall

A collaborator for everyone from Sir David Attenborough to Coldplay, the renowned and award-winning composer Ilan Eshkeri will release the new album Space Station Earth on May 13th via Sony Masterworks. The album will be accompanied by an immersive, out-of-this-earth tour created in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), which will debut at London’s Royal Albert Hall on May 15th.

The video for the first single of the album, “Aurora”, sets his beautifully touching and expansive music to dazzling footage of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights). In Ilan’s own words, “Seeing the aurora borealis is an epic experience and I wanted to express the scale and majesty of it in music. The astronauts have also shot mind-blowing footage of the aurora borealis, which we use in the concert, so until space tourism becomes an everyday occurrence, ‘Space Station Earth’ is the closest you’ll get.”

Watch the video for “Aurora” here:

Space Station Earth uses Ilan’s evocative blend of modern electronic and vintage acoustic instrumentation to convey through music the extraordinary emotional voyage that astronauts experience in space. The project began when astronaut Tim Peake contacted Ilan to say that he was a fan of his work. That initial connection eventually resulted in the artist being granted unprecedented access by the ESA, which provided him with an invaluable source of inspiration for the album.

About the experience, Ilan says, “I got to see rocket launches, a zero-gravity flight, and a chance to get lost in their video archive, as well as the opportunity to get advice from ESA scientists and astronauts. I started creating the music with synthesisers and then I started to add strings, brass and choir to deliver the awe-inspiring, epic scale that only an orchestra can. I never imagined I’d have the privilege of collaborating with astronauts to try to impart the experience of space travel through music, of looking out into the darkness of space and back upon our beautiful and fragile planet.”

Ilan Eshkeri’s diverse portfolio includes having created music for British astronaut Tim Peake’s Principia mission to the International Space Station.

The Space Station Earth live show is a music-led, multimedia experience that allows the audience to see through the eyes of astronauts and to contemplate our planet, the stars and the exploration of the universe. For this unique show, Ilan’s music will be complemented by images he shot at various ESA locations, as well as rare footage filmed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Tim Peake comments, “There aren’t many words that can truly describe the beauty of seeing Earth from space and Space Station Earth attempts to do this by using music and video to capture the emotion of human spaceflight and exploration. Featuring previously unreleased footage from ESA astronauts and accompanied by a live orchestra, the show creates a unique experience, one that celebrates space and unites the audience, just as exploration unites humankind.”

Tim Peake during his 4-hour 43-minute spacewalk

These stunning images will be projected across three massive screens together with a stunning light show to create an incredible audience experience. Without dialogue or narration, audiences can expect to lose themselves in the wonderful combination of emotionally charged music and extraordinary visuals, and leave filled with awe and wonder.

The Royal Albert Hall event will open with a pre-show Q&A featuring Ilan Eshkeri and special guest Tim Peake. Subsequent shows will feature different special guest astronauts: Andreas Mogensen in Denmark and Sweden, and Matthias Maurer at all three shows in Germany.

Tickets for the show are available here

Space Station Earth tour dates:

May 15th UK, London, Royal Albert Hall with special guest Tim Peake
August 17th Denmark, Copenhagen, Royal Hall with special guest Andreas Mogensen
August 19th Sweden, Rättvik, Dalhalla with special guest Andreas Mogensen
October 7th Germany, Stuttgart, Porsche Arena with special guest Matthias Maurer
October 8th Germany, Düsseldorf, Mitsubishi Electric Halle with special guest Matthias Maurer
October 9th Germany, Bremen, OVB Arena with special guest Matthias Maurer

Follow Space Station Earth

Website |Instagram |Twitter |Facebook |YouTube

Follow Ilan Eshkeri:

Website |Instagram |Twitter |Facebook |YouTube

Culture

Beautiful Soil

Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability

Champagne Louis Roederer have long patronised the arts. The Louis Roederer Foundation was created in 2011 with the purpose of perpetuating the company’s sponsorship initiatives which followed on from their discovery of the photography collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2003.

Since being awarded the title of “Major Patron of Culture and Arts”, the Foundation has supported and nurtured up-and-coming artists in photography and cinema through their Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles, Rising Star Award at La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes and Revelation Prize at the Deauville American Film Festival, and patronising the French Academy in Rome, among others.

On the other hand, champagne Louis Roederer are passionately committed to sustainability. For more than 20 years, they have been engaged in “renaissance viticulture” using practices that respect the living environment to allow the nuances of the Champagne terroir to be fully expressed. Inspired by the permaculture model, these methods allow the ecosystem to self-regulate. These include organic farming, the use of biodynamic composts, leaving the land to lie fallow for long periods, maintaining hedgerows and low stone walls, growing fruit trees and installing beehives. Louis Roederer’s eco-friendly ethos is rooted in its history and yet looks to the future.

By creating the Photography Prize for Sustainability, Louis Roederer bring together the two causes closest to their heart. The intention is to support contemporary photographers with an interest in shining a light on sustainability and environmental issues.

The prize is awarded to the photographer whose work has most impressed the judges with its reflection of the prize’s them, which this year is “terroir”.

The prize nominators are nine internationally recognised figures in the art world, each of whom nominated three photographers. An independent panel of six judges, also comprising high profile individuals from the world of art, photography and media assessed the entries and selected a shortlist of six artists, from which they will choose a winner and two runners-up, after another round of judging. The shortlisted artists are:

Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah believes in the diversity of thought and expression. Her work is frequently awarded for exploring new territories through image-making, research and human connection.

King Penguin by Himself by Akosua Viktoria
Adu-Sanyah

www.akosuaviktoria.com

Elizabeth Bick is a photographer influenced by her training in classical and modern dance. She admits to be particularly interested in capturing facial expressions and nuances of movement.

Wild Strawberries, by Elizabeth Bick. www.erbick.com

Sian Davey launched her career in photography in 2014 after having practised as a psychotherapist for 15 years. Her work is an investigation of the psychological landscapes of both herself and those around her.

Untitled, by Sian Davey. www.siandavey.com

Chloe Dewe Mathews is a photographic artist based in St Leonards-on-Sea. After studying fine art at Camberwell College of Arts and the University of Oxford, she worked in the feature film industry before dedicating herself to photography.

Plastico (cherries), 2019. From the series For A Few Euros More by Chloe Dewe Mathews

www.chloedewemathews.com

Jasper Goodall made a career as an illustrator and trained as a counsellor before re-imagining his creative output in a new and very different form: exploring the landscape at night.

Twilight’s Path, Emergence (2020), by Jasper Goodall. www.jaspergoodall.com

Sahab Zaribaf is an Iranian born narrative photographer who employs the camera to create momentum, shed light on hidden aspects of a moment, and utilize the medium for constructing stories.

Inertia, by Sahab Zaribaf. www.sahabz.com

The three finalists will be announced on Wednesday 4th May and their work will be on exhibition for the public to view at The WhiteBox, Nobu Hotel Portman Square from 9th May – 29th May 2022. The winner and runner-up will be announced by Frédéric Rouzaud, CEO of Champagne Louis Roederer and President of the Louis Roederer Foundation on Wednesday 11th May.

www.mmdltd.com/about/photography-prize/

www.louis-roederer.com/en

Facebook @LouisRoedererOfficial

Instagram @LouisRoederer_

Twitter @LouisRoederer_

Opening picture by Jan Kroon (Pexels)

Culture

WALTER SICKERT

Distinctive, provocative, always unique

Organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with the Petit Palais, Paris, this is London’s biggest retrospective of Walter Sickert (1860-1942) in almost 30 years featuring over 150 of his works from over 70 public and private collections, from scenes of rowdy music halls to ground-breaking nudes and narrative subjects. A master of self-invention and theatricality, Sickert took a radically modern approach to painting, transforming how everyday life was captured on canvas. Sickert is probably one of Britain’s most distinctive, provocative and influential artists.

Highlights include ten of Sickert’s iconic self-portraits, from the start of his career to his final years. Visitors will see the variety of different personas adopted by Sickert – a legacy of his early life as an actor – and how his complex personality evolved on the canvas throughout his career. Sickert’s interest in the stage is also reflected in one of his favourite artistic subjects: the music hall, through more than 30 atmospheric paintings and drawings of halls in London and Paris, including The Old Bedford 1894-5, Gaité Montparnasse 1907 and Théâtre de Montmartre c.1906 and includes depictions of famous performers such as Minnie Cunningham and Little Dot Hetherington. His dramatic images of performers and audiences often captured together from unusual and spectacular angles, reflected the energy of working-class city nightlife. These subjects were deemed inappropriate by much of the British art world at the time, but they took inspiration from the café-concert subjects of celebrated French artists such as Edouard Manet and the ballet subjects of Edgar Degas, a close friend and key influence on Sickert after they met in Paris in the 1880s.

Walter Sickert, The Eldorado (c.1906) © The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

The exhibition is the first to explore the impact of American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler on Sickert’s when the latter was an assistant in Whistler’s studio. On display, visitors will find Whistler’s A Shop 1884-90 and Sickert’s A Shop in Dieppe 1886-8 as well as Whistler’s 1895 portrait of Sickert himself, to reveal how the young artist was inspired by his mentor’s atmospheric tonal style and urban subjects. The show examines how Sickert went on to create a series of works that experimented with how changing light transformed the facades of famous buildings in some of his favourite cities, including Dieppe and Venice.

Sickert went on to revolutionise the traditional genres of painting in ways that changed the course of British art. His nudes were admired in France but disapproved of in Britain, where they were considered immoral because of their unidealized bodies, contemporary settings and voyeuristic framings. They drew on the influence of artists such as Bonnard and Degas and paved the way for later painters like Lucian Freud. The Camden Town Murder series further transformed Sickert’s nude subjects into narrative paintings by juxtaposing two figures in a claustrophobic interior, while his other domestic scenes such as Ennui 1914 and Off to the Pub 1911 continued this exploration of conflicted emotions and complex modern relationships.

Walter Sickert’s The rue Notre-Dame des Champs, Paris the Entrance to Sargent’s Studio (1907). On loan from the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

In his final years, his work took on a new and ground-breaking form in larger, brighter paintings based on photographs and popular culture, including images of Amelia Earhart’s solo flight across the Atlantic and Peggy Ashcroft in a production of As You Like It. This pioneering approach to photography was an important precursor to Francis Bacon’s use of source material and to pop art’s transformation of images from the media, once again revealing Sickert’s role at the forefront of developments in British art.

Words: Lavinia Dickson-Robinson

www.tate.org.uk
Tate Britain. Millbank, London SW1P 4RG.
28th April – 18th September 2022

Opening picture: Walter Sickert, Brighton Pierrots, 1915. Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund and the Friends of the Tate Gallery in 1996.

Culture

RADIO BALLADS

Serpentine North Gallery, W Carriage Dr, London W2 2AR 31st March 2022 – 29th May 2022

Serpentine and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham are partnering to present Radio Ballads, an exhibition showcasing a ground-breaking project that has embedded artists within core social care services and community settings across the borough, in an effort to drive change in society through listening, understanding and developing empathy towards others.

Over the last three years, artists Helen Cammock (Turner Prize winner 2019), Rory Pilgrim (Prix de Rome 2020), Ilona Sagar (Stanley Picker Fellow 2021, Saastamoinen Foundation 2022) and Sonia Boyce (representing the UK at the Venice Biennale in 2022) have worked with social workers, carers, organisers and communities to produce four new films and bodies of research, facilitated through the council’s New Town Culture programme, which explores how artistic processes can reframe the work of social care and how embedding artists in local authority services can support systemic change.

The commissions are shown alongside paintings, drawings and contextual materials. Developed and sustained throughout a period of multiple global crises, amid the compounding issues of austerity, systemic racism, ableism and the pandemic, the projects shed light on innumerable ways in which those who do the work of care are often unsupported and devalued.

Radio Ballads builds on Serpentine’s ongoing critical investigation of the role of artists in politics and civic life. The show takes its name from a revolutionary series of eight radio plays that were broadcast on the BBC from 1957-64. Each Ballad presented lived experiences and stories of work and resistance in the UK at a time of rapid growth and change. The exhibition is an ode to this project, positioned as songs for the 21st century that amplify voices and largely unheard experiences of domestic abuse, mental health, terminal illness, isolation, austerity and end-of-life care.

Sonia Boyce’s Yes I Hear You, traces domestic abuse through interviews recorded in partnership with Barking and Dagenham’s Domestic Abuse commission.

With Flat Lines and Bass Notes: The Voice as a Site of Resistance. The Body as a Site of Resistance, Helen Cammock explores individual and collective power, asking viewers to consider where we sit within the social and political spaces we inhabit.

RAFTS is Rory Pilgrim’s way to dig deep into the connections between work, mental health, home and care in a time of crisis, particularly the climate crisis, which is inducing the displacement of masses of the population. The project explores ideas around interdependence and what keeps us afloat, taking inspiration from a raft as a preserver of life whilst also being the most fragile vehicle of survival at sea or upon open water.

Ilona Sagar opts for investigating the difficult, and until recently untold, the legacy of asbestos that is central to the history of work in the area. The Body Blow describes how those who suffer from asbestos exposure are stuck between layers of legal and bureaucratic paperwork.

By embedding art and culture in the core business of local authority services, New Town Culture proposes systemic change. The programme encompasses research, projects, exhibitions, publications, residencies, workshops, training and knowledge exchange to bring together creative and social practitioners in their work.

www.serpentinegalleries.org

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening picture: Ilona Sagar, The Body Blow, Production Still, 2021. Photo: Holly Smith.

Second picture: Sonia Boyce, Yes, I Hear You, Production Still, 2021. Photo: Matthew Ritson.

Laura Gosney, laurag@serpentinegalleries.org

Rose Dempsey rosed@serpentinegalleries.org, +44 (0)7876 593 758

Press images available at se rpentinegalleries.org/press

Rory Pilgrim, RAFTS, Production Still, 2021. Photo: Matthew Ritson.

Ilona Sagar, The Body Blow, Production Still, 2021. Photo: Holly Smith.

Barking Town Square

2 April 2022 – 17 April 2022

Culture

Catherine Dior

An indomitable spirit

Sister to one of the most famous names in the history of fashion, Catherine Dior was a tower of strength and courage. She joined the French Resistance, was captured and tortured by the Gestapo, suffered the indescribable in concentration camps and escaped a Death March, returning to Paris a changed woman, but never broken.

The inspiration behind the legendary fragrance Miss Dior, the story of Catherine is the story of many unsung female heroes who never received the recognition they deserved. Journalist and author Justine Picardie spent over a decade researching her life, which she has painstakingly pieced together in a delightful and unforgettable book that honours not only Catherine Dior, but also the many other courageous women who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice their lives to save their country. Born in 1917, Catherine was the youngest of five children. She lived with her family in Granville, on the coast of Normandy. One of her passions was gardening, and she was particularly fond of roses, a love she inherited from her mother and which she cultivated for her own pleasure and as an essential ingredient in the perfume that her brother would name after her and launch alongside his New Look collection in 1947, becoming an icon in itself. Catherine lived with Christian in Paris in the late 1930s, shared a farm with him during the war in the south of France before joining the Resistance.

Photograph of the Dior family. Catherine, Bernard, Jacqueline, Christian and Raymond. © Collection musée Christian Dior, Granville.

She served as honorary president of the museum that opened in 1997 in her childhood home at Granville (Les Rhumbs) from 1999 until her death in 2008, aged 90. The horrors of war would touch Catherine from an early age. One third of France’s male population between the ages of 18 and 27 died in the First World War. Her eldest brother Raymond, was the only member of his platoon to survive, but he suffered severe PTSD for the rest of his life, what the French called at the time crise de tristesse sombre (an attack of dark sorrow). Catherine was only 13 when her mother died, forever changing the dynamics of their family life. Around the same time, her father lost his fortune, so Maurice Dior, his children and their faithful maid Marth Lefebvre ended up moving to a small farmhouse, Les Naÿssès, in Provence in 1935. The house didn’t even have electricity. Catherine was unhappy there. So, a year later she moved with her brother Christian to the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. Christian and Catherine would remain the closest of the Dior siblings, sharing their mutual love for flowers, gardening, art and music.

It was a fellow resident of Hôtel de Bourgogne who introduced Christian to an up-and-coming couture designer, Robert Piguet, who bought some of Christian’s sketches and thus started his career as a freelance fashion designer. Catherine also started earning her own money, selling hats and gloves in a fashion shop. Eventually Christian was offered a full-time job at Piguet’s in 1938, which allowed brother and sister to rent an apartment of their own in Rue Royale. Not soon had they settled into their new found prosperity that war was declared on 3rd September 1939. Christian was called up for military service but luckily saw no action as he was sent to provide farm labour in rural central France whilst Catherine was forced to leave Paris and move back to Les Naÿssès with her father. Christian managed to join them in the summer of 1940 and soon they fell into an acceptable routine. They grew vegetables and sold them twice a week at the local market. However, as the Nazis were requisitioning colossal amounts of French produce, food shortages became more severe, even for the Dior family. In autumn 1941, Christian returned to Paris to look for paid work as a designer but Catherine remained in Callian, where soon after, she’d meet the man who’d change her life forever: a hero of the French Resistance called Hervé des Charbonneries.

Catherine Dior’s Ravensbrück deportation card, 1946. © Collection Christian Dior Parfums, Paris.

Catherine and Hervé met in a radio shop where he was manager. Catherine was looking for a radio to listen to the broadcast of Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French in London. It was love at first sight. However, it was not to be an easy relationship. Hervé was married with three children, he was amember of the Resistance as was his wife Lucie. Hervé was part of a network called F2, which had close contacts with Polish and British Intelligence services. Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Polish Intelligence had moved to Paris, where they got very close to the station chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Wilfred Dunderdale, a suave character who legend has it was the inspiration for James Bond, since Dunderdale was friends with Ian Fleming. By the end of 1941, Catherine was dividing her time between Callian and Cannes, where she rented an apartment to be closer to Hervé and the other members of F2, in charge of gathering information about German troops and warships. Records show that by the end of the conflict, F2 had around 2,500 agents, of whom 23 percent were women.

At least 900 of them were interned, deported or killed. A dossier in the military files of the Resistance shows that Catherine played a vital role in the operation of the Cannes office gathering information, compiling intelligence reports and even hiding incriminating materials from the Gestapo during a raid, before delivering them safely to another member of F2. She and her colleagues actually provided vital intelligence for the Allied invasion of France – D-Day – planned for early June 1944. In summer 1944 though, Catherine had to flee Provence so she returned to Paris, to Christian’s apartment. She was being hunted by the Gestapo so by sheltering her sister – and her comrades – Christian was risking his own life. In July that same summer, Catherine ran out of luck and was apprehended by the Gestapo, taken to the infamous 180, Rue de la Pompe in the elegant 16th arrondisement, where she and many other victims suffered terrible forms of torture. Several other women from F2 were arrested at the same time: Anne de Bauffremont, Yvonne de Turenne and Jeanne Van Roey.

She didn’t want to be pitied.
She was the captain of her own soul…
– Zahava Szász Stessel

Catherine and her colleagues were beaten, raped and almost killed, as a favourite form of torture by the leader of the Gestapo gang (Berger) was to submerge his victims in icy water for hours, take them to the verge of death and then bring them back. Despite suffering a series of violent assaults, she was not broken. Whichever answers she gave to her captors, she protected her colleagues in the Resistance, saving the lives of many, among them her friend Liliane Dietlin, her lover Hervé, his wife Lucie, and two of the F2 leaders, Gilbert Foury and Stan Lasocki. By the time the Gestapo got to their headquarters, they had all fled. No wonder that the records of the Resistance speak about Catherine’s “exemplary courage” when subjected to “particular odious” forms of torture.

Unfortunately, some of the torturers at Rue de la Pompe were French nationals. The most telling evidence comes from a member of the Resistance who had been interrogated there and scratched on the cellar wall with his nails: “We have been tortured by the French people.” There is very little information left from Catherine’s imprisonment in Fresnes, Paris, but we know that by the time she got there, it was filled with members of the French resistance and agents of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and that the conditions were subhuman. At the end of July, a large group of women were moved from Fresnes to Romainville in the outskirts of Paris before being deported to Germany. Catherine was among those women, as it was the American Virginia d’Albert-Lake, Agnès Humbert and several other female members of the Resistance. By that time, US troops had taken Avranches in Normandy and opened the way to Paris so prisoners at Romainville were hopeful that they may be liberated before being deported to Germany. Christian Dior in the meantime had discovered where his sister was held and was desperate to save her.

Catherine would become associated with the scent of Miss Dior, a parfum launched at the same time as the couture brand in 1946…

Unfortunately none of the above was to happen. On August 15th, the women at Romainville were asked to pack their things. It was time. They were put in buses filled to the rim to get to the train station in Paris, where cattle wagons waited for them, insanitary and with hardly any ventilation. Many fell unconscious, most remained strong. Several witnesses said that as trains pulled out of stations, a proud chorus of La Marseillaise could be heard continuously until it faded in the distance.

After travelling for a week, Catherine Dior arrived at Ravensbrück concentration camp, the only one intended exclusively for women. Every prisoner was assigned a number according to their date of arrival and alphabetical order. Catherine was number 57813. In total, 22 other women tortured at Rue de la Pompe ended up at Ravensbrück, among them Elisabeth de Rothschild, who had been arrested for refusing to sit next to the wife of the German ambassador at the Schiaparelli show, and who would die there. By the time Catherine arrived, there were already 40,000 prisoners interned. During the six years of existence of this camp, about 130,000 women went through its gates. Estimates tell us that between 30,000 and 90,000 lost their lives while in Ravensbrück. As a memorial site, it never received as much attention as Auschwitz but in 1959, a small area in the camp was opened as a memorial, and several sculptures there symbolise the suffering of the female prisoners. The conditions were inhuman. They were crammed into rat-infested accommodation with hardly any food, rags for clothes and forced to sew a triangle in them coloured according to their category: political prisoners, Jews, asocials… Himmler took a personal interest in Ravensbrück using the women for medical experiments.

Ravensbrück was considered a slave labour camp rather than an extermination one but the truth is that it was “extermination through labour”, as prisoners died by the hundreds of exhaustion, sickness and starvation. Maisie Renault, a survivor of the camp described in her memoir “…Many of our companions are suffering with purulent wounds… Dysentery begins to spread… Even more horrific was the sight of dead bodies lying in the filthy washroom.” Catherine’s godson, Nicolas Crespelle told Justine Picardie that her godmother spoke to him only once about her time at Ravensbrück. Catherine said to Nicolas that she would never fall to the ground to pick up food thrown by an SS guard because “if you did that, your life was over…” That is one of the many things this incredibly strong woman did to not lose her self-respect.

In October 1944, Catherine and another 250 women were taken to another camp, Abteroda. There they worked as slave labour for BMW, building military engines. The conditions were even worse than at Ravensbrück, sleeping on cold cement floors, with nothing but watery soup and dry bread to eat if they were lucky. Still, many of these women,including Catherine, had the courage to sabotage as often as possible the jet components they were being forced to build. As the Allies intensified their bombing campaign against Germany, the Frenchwomen were transferred to another camp near Leipzig, Markkleeberg.

Hervé des Charbonneries and Catherine Dior at their flower stall at Les Halles, 5 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, circa 1957. © DR/Collection, Christian Dior Parfums, Paris.

Catherine arrived there in the last week of February 1945. A survivor of the camp, Zahava Szász Stessel, who had worked there since the age of 14 said of Catherine, “She didn’t want to be pitied. She was the captain of her own soul…” Catherine had one single fierce desire: to return to her family home in Provence. So when in April 1945 the Allied forces were approaching Leipzig and the hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners were forced to move towards what was left of Nazi-controlled Germany, Catherine was put into one of these “Death Marches” – so called because one in three prisoners died in them – and managed to escape from it, together with other women who had also been held at Markkleeberg. It was the 21st of April, 1945. In the meantime, Christian had continued to work as a designer in Paris for Lucien Long, and kept desperately looking for his sister. He even employed a clairvoyant. Catherine Dior arrived in Paris at the end of May 1945; her brother met her at the station. Such was her state of emaciation that he did not recognise her at first. Catherine received some of the most prestigious national decorations from several countries: the Croix de Guerre, Croix du Combattant Volontaire de la Résistance, the Polish Cross of Valour, and the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom.

Reunited with Hervé, the couple moved into Christian’s apartment at Rue Royale and sold flowers grown in Provence to florists in Paris, rising at four in the morning to go to the flower market in Les Halles. Her stoicism and determination to rebuild her life were extraordinary. She was also fundamental to the identification of Berger and the other monsters who had tortured her and many of her colleagues at the trial of “Rue de la Pompe Gestapo” at which she testified in 1952.

Catherine was recognised a true heroine who exemplified the best and bravest spirit of French resistance during the war. However, she didn’t enjoy being in the limelight so although she worked with her brother and even modelled for his earliest designs, she was not his muse. Her innate modesty and the scars of war probably prevented her from seeking attention. However, Catherine would become associated with the scent of Miss Dior, a parfum launched at the same time as the couture brand in 1946.

Legend has it that Christian was wondering what name to give to his parfum when Catherine walked in and Mizza Bricard (exclaimed, “Tiens! Voilà Miss Dior…

Legend has it that Christian was wondering what name to give to his parfum when Catherine walked in and Mizza Bricard (head of millinery at Dior and muse to Christian) exclaimed, “Tiens! Voilà Miss Dior!” This is how Catherine became the godmother of one of the most famous and delicate fragrances in the world, Miss Dior. Catherine spent the rest of her life with her beloved Hervé until his death, tending to the garden at Les Naÿsses together with the fields of jasmine and roses that would provide key ingredients for the production of Miss Dior. She never boasted about her achievements or her prowess, nor the medals she had been awarded for her courage, including the Légion d’Honneur that she received in 1994. She died in her beloved Callian on the 17th of June 2008, aged 90. In September 2019, Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director at Christian Dior, dedicated the Spring-Summer 2020 Ready-to-Wear runway collection to Catherine Dior, inspired by her passion for flowers. A fitting homage to a woman who carried her strength inside, a woman quietly beautiful, like a rose in a summer garden.

Miss Dior, A Story of Courage and Couture
is the work of journalist and author Justine Picardie.
Published by Faber. Hardback, £25

Buy now here: Amazon, Waterstones , WHSmith.

Words: Julia Pasarón

Culture, Lifestyle

Talulah Riley

A woman to watch

Talulah Riley jumped to fame after playing Mary Bennet in the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice, opposite Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland, Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. In 2010 she married Elon Musk and moved to the USA. Now divorced and back in the UK, she speaks about her latest TV show, Pistol, where she plays Vivienne Westwood, her book The Quickening, and female empowerment.

Talulah grew up in Hertfordshire, in a family that had nothing to do with the world of film and entertainment. In fact, acting was a weekend hobby, not something she thought she could make a career of. However, by the time her A level exams came close, she panicked and simply wanted to avoid them. “I attended a very academic school, Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls, and I was feeling under a lot of pressure,” she explains. “I was going to be the first person in my family to go to university.” The anxiety she was feeling led her to tell her parents she wanted to drop out of school and become an actress.

I am trying to be as
self-sufficient and
sustainable as possible…

– Talulah Riley

Dress by Dsquared2. Earrings by Tiffany & Co.
Shoes by Dee Ocleppo.

Understanding where the hesitation came from, her parents offered her an alternative. “They were happy for me to have a go at acting but they encouraged me to stay in school and take my A level exams out of discipline,” Talulah shares. “To help me with the apprehension I was feeling they said I didn’t have to open the results, and so they ended up in a frame, unopened, at my father’s office.” The day after she finished her exams, she went straight onto a film set (Pride & Prejudice) and started working. While acting in London, she started a degree in Natural Sciences at the Open University, although she couldn’t finish as she moved to America with Elon Musk and the Open University didn’t allow her to continue internationally. At present she is studying again with them, this time Maths and Physics. “I feel very strongly about the Open University. It saddens and upsets me in equal measure that they have lost support.”

Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Malcolm McLaren and Talulah Riley as Vivienne Westwood in Pistol. CR: Miya Mizuno/FX.

Talulah is referring to the rollercoaster that the institution has gone through in the last decade with regards to their funding and as a consequence, the closure of seven of their regional centres. “I see the Open University as important to our society as is the NHS.” After her appearance in Pride & Prejudice, other films quickly followed, among them the St Trinian’s series (2007, 2009), Inception (2010) and TV shows like Nearly Famous (2007) and Dr Who (2008). In 2008 though she started dating Elon Musk and got married two years later. She moved to America and with five stepchildren (from Musk’s first marriage to writer Justine Musk) under five years of age, she took the decision to put her career mostly on hold. “I came back for the second St. Trinian’s movie but apart from that, I stopped working almost completely to focus on Elon and the kids.”

To read the full interview order our spring issue, HERE.

Opening Picture: Photograph by Leo Cackett. Concept & Styling by Sascha Lilic. Hair & Make up by Hamilton Stansfield.
Talent: Talulah Riley. Dress by L’Agence. Necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels

Culture

THE LONG WALK

And exploration of destructive human desires

In all my days of watching film, I heavily doubt I’ve seen a piece as complicated, hard to follow, but at the same time as gripping and attention capturing as The Long Walk.

Written by Christopher Larsen and directed by Mattie Do, the two fusion their skill to bring us a motion picture filled with sorrow, haunting realities, supernatural occurrence, and occult practise. Mattie Do is Laos’s first female film director, critically acclaimed for her previous film, Dearest Sister.

The Long Walk is set in Laos, in a humble village where an old man old man (played masterfully by Laotian actor Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy) discovers that he can travel back in time and speak with the dead. In the first scene, we find him walking through the forest as he speaks to a mute woman, of course getting no response at all. Yet we can sense that he is completely comfortable with his companion, as he continues to converse. When the same man goes to make a sale to a local tradesman, payment is made with a new age virtual barcode which appears on his wrist, giving the feel that despite us being in a rural village, we are in the midst of a futuristic dystopia.

The old man goes back to his own past to convince his younger self to forestall his mother’s terminal suffering.

In a separate scene later in in the movie, we learn of a small boy of this same village helping his poor parents work the fields in order to make ends meet, at the same time trying to learn life. He has a very close, loving relationship with his mother, not so much the same with his angry alcoholic dad, and the young man is dealt a harsh reality of life when mother turns chronically ill.

Enraptured by his new ability to travel back in time to influence the course of his mother’s passage into the next life, Chanthalungsy’s character is oblivious to the consequences of his interventions.

WATCH THE TRAILER:

In the absolute weirdest way, the film develops and I promise that you’ll be completely astonished by how the story of the older man and the small boy amalgamate, not to mention the mute lady he walks with at the start.

From the beginning all the way through to the end, the film is painfully harsh and sorrowful, especially on our young friend, no older than six years of age I’m guessing. But Christopher Larsen and Mattie Do do a wonderful job to keep us riveted to the storyline, right till the very end.

What impresses me the most is that none of the main characters are named throughout the film, a very skilful strategy by the creators. Without knowing anyone’s name, we still manage to drum up much passion for all of them as they endure their plights, allowing us, the viewers, to relate to them on a deeper level.

Chanthalungsy’s character had his first encounter with a ghost as a child.

As well as ghostly presences, death, torture, false imprisonment, and futuristic new world order payment methods, we also witness timeline shifts aplenty, as well as merging of the past and future.

A true enigma of a film, The Long Walk requires a bit of patience as it gets pretty complex at times, but Do infuses it with so much poignancy and humanity that to me, makes it really worth watching.

Words: Papa-Sono Abebrese

The Long Walk is available on Digital Download Here

Culture

Books in Bloom

Britain's most famous luxury car marque brings woodland magic to London Craft Week

Mesmerising mythology at a major new sculpture exhibition in Norfolk

Breitling celebrates Aurora 7’s flight and recovery of Carpenter’s Cosmonaute.

by Dr Andrew Hildreth

Ilan Eshkeri at the Royal Albert Hall

Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability

Champagne Louis Roederer have long patronised the arts. The Louis Roederer Foundation was created in 2011 with the purpose of perpetuating the company’s sponsorship initiatives which followed on from their discovery of the photography collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2003.

Wild Strawberries, by Elizabeth Bick. www.erbick.com

Untitled, by Sian Davey. www.siandavey.com

Twilight’s Path, Emergence (2020), by Jasper Goodall. www.jaspergoodall.com

Inertia, by Sahab Zaribaf. www.sahabz.com

Opening picture by Jan Kroon (Pexels)

Distinctive, provocative, always unique

Serpentine North Gallery, W Carriage Dr, London W2 2AR 31st March 2022 – 29th May 2022

An indomitable spirit

Hervé des Charbonneries and Catherine Dior at their flower stall at Les Halles, 5 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, circa 1957. © DR/Collection, Christian Dior Parfums, Paris.

Miss Dior, A Story of Courage and Coutureis the work of journalist and author Justine Picardie.Published by Faber. Hardback, £25

Buy now here: Amazon, Waterstones , WHSmith.

Words: Julia Pasarón

A woman to watch

Dress by Dsquared2. Earrings by Tiffany & Co.Shoes by Dee Ocleppo.

Opening Picture: Photograph by Leo Cackett. Concept & Styling by Sascha Lilic. Hair & Make up by Hamilton Stansfield.Talent: Talulah Riley. Dress by L’Agence. Necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels

And exploration of destructive human desires

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Miss Dior, A Story of Courage and Couture
is the work of journalist and author Justine Picardie.
Published by Faber. Hardback, £25

Dress by Dsquared2. Earrings by Tiffany & Co.
Shoes by Dee Ocleppo.

Opening Picture: Photograph by Leo Cackett. Concept & Styling by Sascha Lilic. Hair & Make up by Hamilton Stansfield.
Talent: Talulah Riley. Dress by L’Agence. Necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels