Sommaire pour August 2019 de Womankind

It was a shock to walk past an old dream the other day, slumped against the footpath, dirty, scratched, and somewhat more diminutive than in my recollections. In my youth, this (now rusting) blue lump of metal was my symbol for grown-up success - it was the car that I’d drive to my dream job as a successful career woman. But always out of reach financially, this car remained a dream for years, before being long forgotten as other dreams parked in its view. Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was never fooled by shiny pieces of metal. If you could wish for one thing in your life, what would it be? For Kierkegaard, it wasn’t wealth, power, or even fame, since such pleasures fade over time, and ultimately disappoint, much like…

“Whoever prefers the material comforts of life over intellectual wealth is like the owner of a palace who moves into the servants’ quarters and leaves the sumptuous rooms empty.”–Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aphorisms Want to be rich and famous? Then don’t expect to be happy, argues psychologist Tim Kasser in his book The High Price of Materialism. If your aim in life is to be wealthy, famous, and good looking then you’re increasing your chances of being miserable. The psychologist argues that materialistic values are the stuff of unhappiness, low life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety. Materialistic people, he argues, are more likely to suffer physical ailments like headaches and sore throats, take substances like tobacco, alcohol and drugs, be self-conscious, limit their opportunities for authenticity, autonomy and freedom, sabotage feelings for…

Danish artist Trine Søndergaard admits to being introverted. Raised in country Denmark, the self-taught artist found photography to be the perfect medium. “I could go into the world with my camera - I had access, a purpose, and permission to enter. The medium of photography has been a way of ‘being in the world’ for me.” At a Danish museum, Søndergaard discovered by accident a collection of traditional Danish bonnets protected in a glass cabinet. “I had never seen them before and was instantly fascinated - the immense detail in the embroidery, so much detail in a small area. I was fascinated by how the silver and gold metal becomes soft and how it is transformed. It would be rich farmers’ wives who would wear bonnets like these as a…

When I was young, I could work for 48 hours straight, drinking gin at the same time, and I’d be perfectly fine the next day. But not today. Tonight, I am playing until five in the morning, but I’ll take a power nap during the day or I won’t get through the night! I make a lot of noise. That’s my job. I’ve been a DJ for the past 30 years. I’ve never had a proper job, except for when I was 18 and delivered books to bookstores for six months. At 58, I am the oldest DJ making a living out of it. The typical DJ is a male between around 18 and 30. When he’s 30 he’s ‘very, very old’ in this business. To DJ is to work…

In her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay asks her readers to imagine they’re in line at a cafeteria, or a buffet in a luxurious hotel, where instead of dishes of food, they are presented with dishes of thoughts. You get to choose any and all the thoughts you wish, and these thoughts will create your future experiences. “Now, if you choose thoughts that will create problems and pain, that’s rather foolish. It’s like choosing food that always makes you ill,” she writes. “We may do this once or twice, but as soon as we learn which foods upset our bodies, we stay away from them. It’s the same with thoughts.” Hay believes that we should clean up our mental thinking much like we’d set out to tidy…

You have a unique vision for women’s fashion - a look that is different to many other brands. Was this unique vision for how women can look, one of the reasons you pursued fashion as a career? With each new collection I try to continuously explore a world that defiantly celebrates femininity, that’s not afraid to be romantic and feminine, mixed with the minimalistic Scandinavian aesthetic I grew up with. A world in which women can find strength and power in romance with sculptural dresses, ball skirts, billowed sleeves, peplums, bows and ruffles. Being a female designer, designing for women, it’s about creating clothes that women feel comfortable and independent in. The brand is not about a VIP or an ‘it girl’; it is about all girls and all women supporting each other.…

Inspired by Modernism Danish design was inspired by modernism, a radical shift in the way society viewed life, art, politics, and life. Following the horrors of World War I, people sought to re-invent themselves and changes brought on by technology and the industrial revolution made this shift almost inevitable. From 1900 to 1930, modernism’s principles of practicality and usefulness infiltrated architecture, furniture, literature, and art. The Scandinavian revival Since the 1990s, Scandinavian design has experienced a resurgence corresponding to an ecological push for sustainable and practical designs that aren’t harsh on the planet. Architectural functionalism Copenhagen-born Arne Jacobsen’s Drop, Egg, and Swan chairs are typical examples of the ‘architectural functionalism’ of this era. Danish designers wanted ‘art’ to have a purpose, first and foremost. This design aesthetic stood in stark…

You design lamps, furniture, and jewellery. Objects are your universe. How can objects change our world? I have an ambivalent relationship with objects. On the one hand, I gather too many of them. On the other, I would like to get rid of stuff and I’m really trying to minimalise. So, it’s really a problematic issue for me. But in the scenario that there was a flood, or a crisis, I think about what I’d need to survive, and a lot of stuff is not important. In that scenario, you’d probably need a spoon to eat with, and a blanket to sleep with. These things will always be essential. Today we have invented a lot of objects we don’t need and are actually a bit silly. When I think about…

My journey into food growing was not one I could have predicted. I studied medicine and trained as a junior doctor specialising in psychiatry, which I practised for ten years. During this time, I also studied pastoral theology at a Jesuit College with a particular interest in ethics and the overlap between religion (in my case Christian) and psychiatry. I reached a point in my life where neither were serving me well; events in my personal life meant I had lost my sense of trust that my world was safe which meant working in psychiatry was nigh impossible, and I was no longer getting solace or comfort from my faith. So I felt I needed to take a break from both. To be clear I was not rejecting outright either…

Hip Hip Hurrah! Hip Hip Hurrah! is a film about an artist colony at Skagen located on a remote peninsula in Denmark at end of the 19th century. Norwegian-Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer, who painted the famous artwork called Hip Hip Hurrah! marries the beautiful Marie, only to fall victim to a debilitating illness. Inspired by the light, the sea, and the ease of living, the painters create their best works, before their idyllic life comes under threat. The Mystery of Hammershøi Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi is famous for his moody portraits and interiors, many of which were painted from his Copenhagen apartment where he lived with his wife, Ida. Writer Michael Palin, enamored with Hammershøi’s work, travels from Hayward Gallery in London, to Amsterdam and Copenhagen to learn more…

In his search for what makes for a rewarding life, psychology professor and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi encountered a rare breed of happy people. These happy people, who he calls ‘autotelic’, don’t need fame, fortune, or good luck to be happy. In fact, they don’t seem to need anything - even learning to enjoy states that others would find miserable. Csikszentmihalyi writes: “An autotelic person needs few material possessions and little entertainment, comfort, power or fame because so much of what he or she does is already rewarding… They are less dependent on the external rewards that keep others motivated to go on with a life composed of routines.” In his study on happiness and creativity, Csikszentmihalyi spent time with creative people who received few rewards for their work. He documented…

You can spend years in Copenhagen without ever realising there were once walls around it. You could change trains at Denmark’s busiest station, Nørreport, every day without knowing this was where the northern gate once stood, that right into the nineteenth century, Copenhageners were still locked in every night. You might pass Jarmers Tårn without recognising the stumpy ring of bricks as all that remains of the medieval towers. The tourists chasing Nordic cool still walk paths laid out centuries ago for people and goods (the city’s name means ‘market harbour’). The neon and shawarma may be new, but the streets lay much as they did when a curious, hunchbacked figure strode through them one hundred and seventy years ago. Søren Kierkegaard passes many philosophers by altogether. He got me…

When I was a little girl, there was this older girl who made pearl necklaces, and I wanted to be exactly like her. So, I started buying pearls and making necklaces at home. My grandma was fond of jewellery too; I remember she had a gorgeous jewellery box. For me, jewellery is like a memory that can last forever. Sometimes I wear my grandma’s necklace, and when I do, I always think of her. My surname is Russian… some of my ancestors fled Russia and came to Denmark. My great grandfather is actually Victor Cornelins, from Saint Croix in the Caribbean. As a small boy, in 1907, he was transported to Denmark to be exhibited as part of a colonial exhibition in Copenhagen. They displayed cultural items and natives from…

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work,” is a quote attributed to Stephen King, the prodigious writer of horror fiction. The thinking of an amateur, “I’ll wait until I am inspired,” is one reason why amateurs lack motivation. “I’m just not motivated at the moment,” is a useful way of avoiding activities, or putting them off until another day. Psychologists Piers Steel and Cornelius König developed an equation to better understand human behaviour and procrastination. In this formula, Motivation, or the desire for a particular outcome, is a function of Expectancy, the probability of success (you will have higher motivation for activities that are realistically achievable compared to pipe dreams), and Value, the reward, or satisfaction, from achieving the outcome.…

Danish fashion designer Stine Goya believes in the power of colour to change our moods, and possibly our self-concept and ambitions. The youngest of six children in a very traditional family, Goya, whose fashion pieces are notably bright and colourful - often selecting fabrics in various shades of clashing pastel - grew up in a small fishing village, Taarbaek, close to Copenhagen. At 16, she left school to live for a year in the South American country Honduras. She was a model in London, later a stylist, a fashion editor, and on return after seven years in London to her hometown Copenhagen, she set up her own fashion label, Stine Goya. For every collection, Goya collaborates with an artist on designing one print with concepts generated from pictures or ideas…

My hometown is Copenhagen, where I live in an apartment in the area of Nørrebro, which is filled with little shops, green start-ups, and cafés. It gives me lots of daily inspiration. I live with my 20-year-old son who is studying music, who will be moving out soon to live with a couple of his friends. I also have a daughter, who is 24. She lives in Berlin and is a contemporary dancer. I work as an interior stylist and photographer for magazines and brands. My heart beats for slow living in a sustainable way, so I try to influence my work in that direction whenever possible. I have a great love for botanical diversity. I have an office space close to my home, where I stock my props, and…

Dear Hera, My husband works as a financial manager at a large company and he works long hours during the week. We have three children, and I have reduced my hours to part time so that I can take them to school, sports, and be with them after school during the week. My partner has just started to play golf on Saturdays, which means that he leaves at 8 in the morning and isn’t back until 4 in the afternoon. Every Saturday I felt resentful. Is this unreasonable? I can imagine your husband works hard all week and feels he deserves to take some time off over the weekend. It makes perfect sense that he’d want to spend his Saturday on the golf course - out on the green with…

Day one: At the beginning of the school year I wrote on the wall above my kitchen table, “Put paintbrush to canvas, pen to paper, bow to string.” This was meant to be a reminder to spend time doing what replenishes me. I’m an elementary music teacher and, I’m not going to lie, these past few years have knocked me sideways. I’ve been teaching since 2004, and the job has become more emotionally demanding and time consuming. So, I started off this school year promising myself to focus on self-care through playing my cello, painting, and writing. My daily schedule looks like this: be at school by 8am, teach eight to nine classes, come home to my cello studio, and teach three to four lessons. Before my mum passed away,…

“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.”Jorge Luis Borges The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard By W.H. Auden The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard is one of the master thinkers of the modern age, a defining influence on existentialism and on twentieth-century theology, and this brilliantly tailored selection from his vast and varied writings - made by the great English poet W.H. Auden - is a perfect introduction to his work. Auden’s inspired and incisive response to a thinker who had done much to shape his own beliefs is a fundamental reading of an author whose spirit remains as radical as ever more than 150 years after he wrote. Hans Christian Andersen: Classic Fairy Tales By Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian was a prolific writer of plays, novels,…

It’s the one question that we’d all like to know the answer to, so we could just get on with it - the living part, that is. If we knew what the ‘good life’ entailed then we could shun the rest, and just concentrate on the important bits. But society has a tendency to derail us. We’re repeatedly told that the good life is about making loads of money, having a successful career, and buying as much as we can possibly shovel into our houses and garages. Some are convinced that they need to be famous and get their name up in lights for the good life to kick in. It’s worth remembering that the phase of flight for the Kunanyia stephaniae butterfly lasts a mere 14 days, long enough…

In the paper Reduction of Cortisol Levels and Participants’ Responses Following Art Making, authors Girija Kaimal, Kendra Ray and Juan Muniz measure the cortisol levels of 39 healthy adults ranging in ages from 18 to 59 years before and after 45 minutes of doing art. Participants were asked to create any kind of imagery using clay, collage, or markers, individually or in combination, and after 45 minutes a second saliva sample was taken and transported on ice to a certified lab at the university for analysis. The study found that cortisol levels - which is a stress hormone released by the adrenal glands when the human body comes under stress - was lower after making art for around 75 per cent of participants, and it didn’t seem to matter what kind of…

There are merits in living a contrarian life. Much like those contrarian investors you read about who buy shares when everyone else is piling out: they’re deliberately and systematically doing the opposite to what everyone else is doing. The crowds are buying, so they sell. And when everyone is running for the exits, they’re buying on the cheap. It’s a tough ride for contrarians, though. It’s much easier to push along with the crowd - buoyed by numbers, calmed by the certitude that you’re doing the right thing. You’ve got the numbers, right? Social media is a numbers game too, a worldwide stampede into the game of ‘likes’. Today, there are 3.48 billion social media users, up 9 per cent from the previous year, with most people spending at least…

How do you divide up your work day? For Violise Lunn, a fashion designer from Copenhagen, she divides her day between working on the ‘usable’ and the ‘useless’. Lunn designs and makes couture bridal and evening wear for women, using fabric sourced from travelling around the world. But her second love - the ‘useless’, gives her the freedom to create without any boundaries at all, a time where she plays and experiments with making dresses, shoes, flowers, chairs, bowls, and plates, which are all utterly impractical and pointless, because they’re made from paper. The lightness and fragility of paper gives Lunn a new medium to explore, but it also, more importantly, gives her a sense of play - working for pure creativity rather than for some more serious business-related goal.…

I have always had a passion for art - maybe because I’ve never been particularly creative. I’m not very good at drawing or painting. People who possess these skills, the ability to make a statement about the world through a performance or a sculpture, have always interested me. Some artists are quirky, others are boring. It’s hard to stereotype them, because each is different, just like the rest of us. But being an artist is not something you can switch on and off. Artists live their art. Art is the only way for them to be in the world, they would be miserable without it. Early in life I liked meeting artists. So I ended up on the institutional side - I worked as artistic director for Tate Liverpool, and…

If you were to record your inner voice during the day, it may be surprising to hear what it has to say. “Stupid! Why are you always stuffing things up!” This inner voice may spend time ruminating on what other people are doing or thinking; “Why are people always so selfish. Everyone is out for themselves. No one cares for me. I’m always being used.” If you were to record your inner voice every day for a week, you may begin to see a pattern - much like a broken record. “Everyone is always mean to me. I never get anything right. I just don’t have any luck. Things go well for other people but not for me.” This inner voice is the script, and it’s directing the movie of…

To do lists are popular tools for prioritising the day ahead, allowing us to focus on certain tasks that we think are important to get done in a day, or in a life. But rarely do we write out a ‘not to do’ list, listing those activities we don’t wish to do in a day, or year, or lifetime. It’s these activities and habits that often eat away at our best intentions - the midnight viewing of some dreadful soap opera when we’d be better off in bed, or the mindless scrolling on the internet eating into time that would otherwise be devoted to painting or studying. The ‘not to do’ list can be referenced to better assess our lifetime achievements as well - allowing us to celebrate the accomplishments…

What was your first encounter with orangutans? I first met orangutans when I was a teenager during a work placement at a zoo. I guess I did fall in love with them at that time, but in my wildest imagination I never thought I’d be working with them one day. I was just a normal 14-year-old girl living in Northern Jutland, Denmark. Orangutans were far away. But when I finally did meet them as a mature adult, I was very much taken with that ‘human way’ they look at you. They have eyes just like us; they have the white around the pupil, and the iris as well, and their faces say it all. If I look at a gorilla or a chimpanzee, I don’t feel the same thing. Orangutans…

Seeing pictures of beautiful landscapes in paintings and photographs is good for our brains and makes us happy. Using brain imagery, neuroscientists have shown that viewing beautiful imagery activates the reward and pleasure systems in our brains, making us feel good and less stressed. And ‘doing art’ is supposedly even better for us. Photographers this quarter embarked on capturing landscapes, including mountains, deserts, coastal scenes, and forests. Driving from Clarksdale, Mississippi, to New Orleans, photographer Kate Atkinson, who takes out first place for her photo It never snows in Mississippi, describes travelling through the most beautiful, snowy scenery as she photographs a row of blue-silver trees steeped in white. In second place in striking turquoise is the exquisite Rai ho Tasi, by Tanushree Rao, which was photographed in Akrema on Atauro…