The dark world of Neal Murren

Jenny Mortsell’s pencil obsession

We thought we’d check in with our favorite HB Jedi, Jenny Mortsell. Is pencil the only medium you feel comfortable working in? ‘It is what I use most now, but I also like doing printmaking, screen-printing and etchings’. Read more

Armed America portraits by Kyle Cassidy

The Armed America website compiles portraits of the owners of weapons in America. Photographer and writer Kyle Cassidy traveled more than 12,000 miles for more than two years taking pictures of armed Americans in their houses, all the while looking for the answer to the complex question: ‘Why do you own a gun?’ Cassidy’s work has become an item of incalculable value, not only because of its conceptual strength, but also because of the description of the way of living, feeling and thinking of many inhabitants of America. Read more

Rafal Milach’s Black Sea Of Concrete series

Of his series, Black Sea Of Concrete, Polish photographer, Rafal Milach says: ‘Eight photographers from Sputnik Photos collective were asked to cover contemporary Ukraine. Some got particular assignments, but I was free to choose the topic. As I knew I would be working in winter, I decided to go to the Black Sea. I wanted to have raw landscapes and real people. It was the only time of the year when I was able to avoid the tourist facade. The other reason why I picked the Black Sea coast was the fact that, for many years, it was a place where the entire Soviet Union went for summer holidays. Since the Orange Revolution in 2004, Ukraine has been an independent country, but still, very often, people are not able to detach it from its Soviet past. You can feel that strange mixture by the Black Sea coast’. Read more

Plumen

The tightly-wound compact fluorescent light bulbs we’ve welcomed into our homes have a little sister. Plumen is low-energy, yet she’s trendy, twisted and a designer’s dream. Not yet in production, you can see Plumen hanging alone in MOMA.

Sky Planter

Fancy a fern in the face? The Sky Planter will fulfill your greenest fantasies. It is designed to conserve water, save floor space and puzzle visitors. An internal reservoir system to feeds water directly to the roots, so no water evaporates or drips. And somehow the soil is ‘locked in’. Woo!

Jan Vormann

A brick of any other kind would look as sweet, believes artist Jan Vormann. She began filling crumbling walls with multi-coloured Lego bricks in Bocchignano, a little village close to Rome, and was then invited to continue her rainbow reparations in Tel Aviv and Yaffo. Beautiful appropriation or ugly sacrilege?