Sunday 6th June, midday till 7pm, FREE. Regents Park.
Mayari’s trash to treasure workshop will be held in the big tent of LCRN (London Community Recycling Network) and start at 12:30, 14:30 and 16:30. Come with an empty beverage carton (the one with the square bottom) and go with a beautiful Change Wallet and an upcycled Upcycling Awareness Ribbon! It’s all free of charge.
The Gratitude Journal by Mayari will be part of KALEID’s June exhibition “White Heat” form June 2nd till June 27th. If you have the chance, go and check it out!
Unit 2, 23-25 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London. E2 7DH
Wednesday to Saturday 12-7pm
Late night Thursdays and informal Sundays
T H I N K I N G O U T L O U D
The good thing about my passion: working on my designs like the Recycled Magic Wallets - is, that I can both do my work, listening to podcasts or - my favorite - watching TED talks at the same time. I love crafting, learning and dreaming of how the world could be better simultaneously - it gives me a flow: Time passes and I don’t even realise it.
D R E A M I N G
I start dreaming. Dreaming of how one day all my skills I am practicing, and my knowledge I am collecting now, will all come together, will make sense and will help many other people.
M Y V I S I O N
I do have a dream. I have a vision. It involves design of course, but that’s a vague term. Everything can be - and in our world is - desigend. Mostly not as good - I mean ethical and ecological - as it should be, I think.
My vision involves making desirable products while saving on raw materials. Dematerializing the world by adding true - I mean honest/authentic - meaning to objects, producing real - I mean tangible/useful - value, which of course has its prize. Social entrepreneurism, travelling the world, education. Showing and explaining poor people the industrialized societies - including the bad sides of it. Empowerment, listening, observing, leading, connecting via new media, exchanges of experiences… all that circulates in my head.
Making money due to labour and materia - rather than due to a story that was made up. (I believe remarkable things inherently have a good i.e. authentic story behind - no need to invent a story to blow up the product or service, like Moleskine did I read in brand eins magazine’s issue about marketing.) If brand stories - than the true story told in a poetic way. The ones listening with their hearts - like le petit prince does - will understand. But no lies. Never lies. That’s my motto.
M Y D R E A M
I have a dream that poor people will have a chance to produce adorable, trustworthy stuff for demanding wealthy people. I have a dream that the rich would be willing to pay a fair price for it. I have a dream that people stop taking and taking and taking from the earth - never giving anything back. I have a dream that there will be more equality on earth. More diversity. I’m a dreamer.
M Y A C T I O N S
Now you know my dream - and probably it is one of the biggest dreams one can have. It’s good to dream big dreams. But dreaming is not enough to me. I keep trying to take baby steps in the right direction. Towards my dream. I watch TED, I make my wallets, I’m trying to find a meaningful job in London within a great team, meeting nice, influential and aspirational people to collaborate with. I keep trying to articulate my vision putting bits and pieces of me out to the public via all my online social media channels. One day, all these acts will sum up and draw a clear picture, I hope. I keep working and the direction I’m heading is forward and upwards knowing that drawbacks are important parts of this way. I do so because we cannot not change the world.
O N E D A Y
One day, I would like to stand in front of a TED audience and share my experiences I will have made by then with the world. To inspire people just the same way as today’s speakers do inspire me now. In favour of our possible future. By telling the world my story - a stroy of a tinkerer and inventor, a social designer and entrepreneur, a nomadic crafts woman as agile and free (thinking) as a lunar moth.
M E
A creative who’s design principles are different and a bit crazy: who’s ideal workshop fits into a backback, who wants to go out and see the world - much more - to interact with disadvantaged people. To make friends with good people. To understand each other. To work together. For more equality. For more happiness. For more meaning. For more moments of flow. Optimistcly and productively.
I T ‘ S B E E N D O N E B E F O R E
Some change lifes with music. Others do it with photography. Others again with new media. With banking. With a good piece of art. With science/knowledge. With money, power and belief. I am trying to do it with what I do best: making things out of no/things. Things from waste. From useless to valuable. So far by myself. Just because I haven’t found like-minded and equally crazy people yet. Or maybe my communication wasn’t too good i.e clear and convincing. Or having almost no money makes me feel weak, inferior and less social - I know it’s silly and shouldn’t be affecting me so much.
A N A N A L O G Y
I sometimes like to see myself as a modern American Indian Woman. She used to make use of all things she could find that the environment offered her. For example she made use of all parts of a bison. She didn’t need electricity to produce wonderful and/or useful things. Just her hands. Likewise am I trying to design and create my little things - just in a very, very different environment. The “old Indian way” of doing things surely restricts me. It gives me negative feedback as modern people at times don’t like my old-fashioned way of manually fixing things together. Sometimes, I tend to give in and try out suggested ways using power tools - other times, I am proud of my principles and try to stick to it.
H I G H - V E R S U S L O W - T E C H
People wonder. Why not using our modern technology? Electricity? Why denying our progress? I am not. In fact, I love my iPhone and my MacBook. My life without these tools would rather be miserable, I think. However, I don’t need them - to be precise - I choose not to use them for producing most of my physical designs. Instead, I choose to use these modern tools to connect to people, to learn, to entertain myself, to communicate - not to make my characteristic crafts/products.
I often believe it would be easier to mix high-tech and low-tech to make new things. However, in a complex world, the easiest way is not always the best i. e. most ethical and ecological way to go. It’s a bigger challenge to only stick to low-tech principles. So far, I have always taken the more challenging way. I stay with low-tech for my little things. I can be very stubborn.
W O R K I N G O N B I G T H I N G S
Am I happy? Yes. But not enough. I would love to team up with like-minded people. Because I sometimes feel lonely and I believe together we can make bigger changes. It’s good to start with the self. But Recycled Magic Wallet and other little prducts for Mayari, that’s how far I can go as a single person. I wish to do more. To enter the high-tech world maybe, still producing as ethically and ecologically as possible. Working with other specialists, exchanging ideas, creating big, yet good things. Impossible to do that all alone. Or maybe it is? But not to me. I love teamwork!
A N Y I D E A S ?
Do you know a place I - a designer and inventor who is deeply thinking about our social system and environmental impacts - would fit in? If yes - please let me know! Thanks so much!
Being such a curious girl, there were 3 quite different events/happenings in London I didn’t want to miss:
1. The second UK “carrotmob” in Covent Garden
Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases, rewarding companies who make environmentally friendly choices.
2. A “Who wants to be” game show at the Unicorn Theatre
Game show where the audience makes up all the questions and decides how to spend the box office takings.
3. The Swishing at V&A
The Art of Swishing involves getting your friends together to swap gorgeous clothes and party at the same time.
I met Jon, the organizer of the UK carrotmob a few months ago at a meetup somewhere in Hoxton. I remember that he was as much interested in changing the world… ok, ok, making the world more sustainable - step by step… as I am. Besides, I had to go to Covent Garden anyway so I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some sustainability news. I followed his invite to the second carrot mob in London.
Quite disappointingly, there were not so many other people showing up. It hasn’t got the popularity of San Francisco’s original Carrotmob - yet. I learnt that it’s not the idea that makes something popular but very much how it’s communicated and implemented. I also missed a bit the passion. Anyway, how can you make something viral? I think there is no “how to” for that matter leading to success - if there is, I’d be interested to know!
What was good to hear: Jon is now working in a company consulting on how to make business more sustainable (that’s why he had no time for better promoting this carrot mob). I don’t blame him. I can totally understand. My project, the Recycled Magic Wallets were also pretty much on hold while I was working full time. Anyway, I haven’t “officially” launched them - yet…
Then there was the who wants to be game show at the Unicorn Theatre. People gather and democratically decide what their “entrance fee” (this time about £1700) should be spent on. The last time, the money was spent on a part of UK’s woodlands. This time, to be honest, I haven’t found out where my money went yet because of early leaving.
But it was defintitively worth going as it was a very interesting experience. Some people are just not shy. How can you say: “Give the money to me so that I can go shopping - Because I like shopping.” You must be joking, right?! But then there were many other very creative and clever ideas like having a lottery and the winner will have a hotel room in a fancy hotel for a night or giving it to charity or recording a christmas carroll and even vote for a dictator!
One of the first votes was: Spending the money on: A) fun B) charity or C) both. To me, surprisingly, A) won. Personally, I belive you can have fun AND charity. I was kind of disappointed.
Anyway, I found out how difficult it is to get to a conclusion. People’s desires are so diverse! Clearly, doing good/being nice was a hot topic - but HOW to do/be so was a different question. I think, especially in this situation, you think before you speak. You just say what you want people to say/know about you. Which in a way is not bad.
But too bad I couldn’t stay till the end. I would have liked to chat with some of the crowd after the show. They people there all seemed to be very open-minded, young and interesting.
Different place, different crowd. This time, the Swishing event took place in the Sackler Centre of the V&A museum. I was surprised about how many women came to swap their clothes. There must be many nice clothes hanging in woman’s wardrobes that are not really in use anymore and better off at a new home.
This was my second swish and in my opinion, this time, there were too many woman on one spot. Choosing clothes I will wear for a long time, I need more time and especially more space to select my favourite pieces. Otherwise I would just grab something (because it’s free and good quality stuff) that I might not like too much and end up never wearing again. (Or am I too picky?) Besides: I’m new to London and still figuring out how to deal with rather competitive behaviour…
Nevertheless, I like the good idea behind this event very much. Next time, I’d rather join a swish among a smaller circle of friends. Passing things on (locally) is still better than recycling - not to speak of dumping. My mantra remains: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.
It all started at BFI Southbank watching arty videos about ecology:
RSA Arts & Ecology and Animate Projects are delighted to invite you to the breakfast launch of STOP.WATCH. New short films for the internet by artists exploring ecological emergencies.
I didn’t like all clips. Interestingly, my favourite one was only using typography. I like simplicity and poesie; What Melanie (see Emily’s blogpost), a poet was telling us in a chat afterwards inspired me:
“Most of all: You have to life your life.”
It’s easy to SAY so. It’s not easy to DO so - but worth trying. The problem: people are really good in copying things, live other people’s way of life. This is relatively easy - the way of least resistance. But not necessarily the way to gain the most for yourself.
I wanted to walk home. I had time. I like to walk; It’s how I discover things. I focused on the cool and good things - I’ll write: “C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF” because it’s things that make my eyes shine as little stars*.* - and I would now like to share these great discoveries with you.
Here is my way home. From Waterloo over Covent Garden, Holborn, Chancery Lane, Farringdon/Clerckenwell, towards Angel, Old Street and then home.
And this is the C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF I discovered:
I love MUJI. The Brand. Just C*.*L! What they promise. What they stand for. Really G*.*D! And I would like to build and play with this Dodo. Or even create things like these - designing for MUJI; what a dreamer I am!
Wow bizarr. Earlier that morning Emily was telling me about this recruitment agency. And a few hours later I walk by their office! Represent displaying furniture from recycled material by unchartedprojects how C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF is that?!
At Represent, we are dedicated to nurturing talent and promoting excellence in the design industry. We use our considerable experience and impeccable contacts to find the ideal permanent or freelance positions for the design and account management community.
I took a note. Now, that my contract at Futerra ends on the 7th and the position I am working at has been canceled. Sad. But… I strongly believe everything happens for a reason!
Just on the opposite of Represent there’s the notorious Central St. Martins college of art and design. Even my iPhone went creative taking a picture of the students at the entrance. (This sliced-up photo happened by coincidence - I kidd you not!) Doesn’t it look great - compared to how it really looked like? What I found out: I would be too normal looking/styled for this school.
Anyway, I’m not feeling like going back to school right now. Yes, you are relatively free to create C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF in this “protected” environment; but somehow it’s surreal (as in detached from our system/economy). I had my time where I could play, travel and find out more about myself and the world. I’m far away from understanding both but what I know for sure (for now) is that I want to compete within our tough economy. That’s what challenges me now.
I went on and passed Lesley Craze Gallery. Seriously: their jewellery is just A-MA-ZING, really C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF! I have never seen such great craftsmanship in a very innovative way: new material combination and inspiring, simple and natural shapes. If in future I will be able to afford luxury good items like these, I will definitively pick something from this gallery. I will be happy to promote independent artists by showing off their genious and genuine work.
Family Tree on Exmouth Market is positioned much less exclusive and luxurious (it’s still sells hand crafted goods but not high end jewellery) all ethical and C*.*L & G*.*D STUFF from individual designers. Find passion and individuality in the products they sell for a reasonable price keeping a good conscience - at least I hope. Otherwise: Don’t be shy to ask the lovely shop assistant.
And last for this blog entry there’s Unpackeged. I knew from Futerra that this unique shop exists but I didn’t plan to strumble uppon it on my way home. Of course, I had to buy C*.*L & G*.*D F*.*D there. Their concept: bring your own container and fill it with their food. Of course I wasn’t prepared. Lucky me they have plastic bags so that I could still bring my organic oats back home (next time I’ll remember to bring my own and will be rewarded with 50pence). Also: take your time. The sales assistants are really nice. It felt like buying stuff back in the 80ies in Bärau, the little town where I grew up - when Mom took us along on her tour from the bakery (where we got a free cookie), to the butcher (where the lady used to cut off a wheel of Lioner for us) and the cheese diary with it’s very unique smell and the men in white walking around in big, black rubber boots. Everytime we were greeted with: “Säli Fely”. Things have changed. Shopping is usually totally different now.