WE'RE SUPPORTING

In her photo series Welcome To Paradise, Rivkah Young stages scenes to capture what we perceive by the term Paradise: ‘In order to declare this, humans create special places, at theme parks, shopping malls and urban residential complexes. Visions of something different — a tropical rain forest or African Savannah — are also created at the zoo or at water parks. The look of an urban place becomes a scenery-like projection of our visions’.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

As a child, I took piano exams in over-sized white rooms, on baby grand pianos that felt unfamiliar and echoed strangely as someone across the room observed me in silence. It felt clinical, intimidating and completely devoid of warmth. Last week, I started noticing upright pianos, some painted haphazardly, others respectfully untouched plonked in the most unlikely places throughout Sydney. There was one on the edge of the baby pool at the local swimming pool, with a young girl in a rainbow striped dress tapping out a happy but disjointed melody; another shaded under a tree at the park on the way home. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

Anytime you find Houndstooth and Hoody in the same sentence you know it will be a good day. Well, today has been a great day and New Dandyism, the lovechild of a conglomate of lusty designers — Sons by Obedient Sons, wood wood and Call of the Wild — is the reason. It’s a surprisingly coherent and articulate project for one cooked up in a kitchen filled with chefs. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Autumn Whitehurst creates beautiful vector works. Her bold use of colour allows her often cheekily themed line drawings to really leap out, creating a sense of visual serenity despite the occassionally dark subject matter.

WE'RE READING

This one-stop shop for all things eco-friendly is proof that protecting the environment is becoming a popular pastime. Almost every material category that comprises our society, from design to celebrity to transport, is looked at through a green lens. They’re ranked number twenty-two on Technorati’s list of 75,000,000 blogs, and even Daryl Hannah is singing their praises. Why? Its writers, they claim, ‘have the ability to take topics that most of us snoozed our way through in school, and make them the addictive juicy, green bits that they are’.

The Australian film collective behind the sci-fi spoof, The Time That Time Forgot, perfectly capture the look and feel of awkward, low-budget rip-offs from the ’70s — the psychedelic lighting, bad dubbing, and amazing hair. One almost wishes Italian Spiderman was for real. [more about Italian Spiderman]

WE'RE LISTENING TO

The new Antony and the Johnsons album, The Crying Light, is the band’s follow up to the Mercury prize winning I Am a Bird Now. The album is available for instant digital download — along with a bonus track, My Lord, My Love — if you pre-order it from the band’s website as of today. This gives you a chance to hear the album in full before the official release date on January 19th. We have their track, Another World [listen below], available for free download in the Music Downloads section in the third column of the Lost At E Minor site.