Going in deep with five very different creatives skewing the status quo right now
Five very different creatives, bound together by a lust for change, a passion for making and all with a fresh way of looking at the things, have joined forces in order to offer up an artistic call to arms. Technology ‘evangelist’ Ben Southworth, spoken wordsmith George The Poet, legendary musician Neneh Cherry, motorcycle racer Chesca Miles and set designer Andi Watson all work at the top of their respective games and are based in-between Dazed and AllSaints’ East London studios.
We offered them a platform to reveal their vision and through five vividly different short films they’ve shared a behind the scenes snapshot of their processes, casting a light onto the way they see the world and their work within it. “The world is completely what you make it,” explains Southworth, a man doing his best to bring a bit of poetry into the world of geekdom. “We have this ability to hack the future. This ability to create a world that we want to see.” Each one of these Manifestos sees our pick of the creative crop doing just that, by subtly skewing the status quo and blazing their very own trail.
In Southworth’s short he explains the power of people within tech and how participation can make for a better today as well as tomorrow, while George The Poet does what he does best and delivers a three minute musing on the importance of children and of supporting and respecting urban youth. The third of these mini monochrome movies is headed up by former member of iconic punks The Slits, Neneh Cherry, also part of a musical legacy that includes her step-father jazz trumpeter Don Cherry and daughter Tyson McVey, frontwoman of Dazed favourites PANES. “Artistic energy and creativity is in everything,” she says. “It’s the life force. It’s not just ‘the arts’ – that’s bullshit.”
Chesca Miles is a case in point, a sometime model and also the UK’s first professional female Streetbike Freestyle stunt rider who compares riding to being in control of the elements. Finally Radiohead’s longtime stage and lighting collaborator Andi Watson discusses the importance of personal perception and the importance of thinking big – “Dreaming about the impossible is an amazing way of finding the possible,” he advises.