Table of contents for Issue 0 in Jam Today

Air travel for humans is akin to hibernation in animals. You, in your body, mind and spirit, condition yourself to adapt to every new surrounding you come to visit. When in flight, it’s like a subconscious internal play at work as our body tries to camouflage with the changing conditions. Contained in the massively speeding space capsules looking far beyond day & night in its open-air trajectory, at some level, one must feel the centrifugal pressure gurgling into their systems. As static as the scene looks outside, as chaotic, it gets on the inside. You’re frozen in time because there’s so little to see and process prompting you to rather just doze off. But delving in that delicate thread of nothingness, you’re bound to discover the profoundness of life. Being…

When we seize pictures on a camera or a smartphone, are we really capturing the moments by photos, or are we failing to do so? We click pictures to store our memories that might fade in the future, and we embrace those fond memories again. Of course, it’s good to capture those moments, but sometimes, shouldn’t some moment just call to the vision of eyes than the camera lens? The camera helps to apprehend our memories on a sheet of paper or in a phone gallery. However, we miss out on many feelings, emotions, the moment’s essence, a conversation, and a place while clicking those pictures; these pictures might not even help us relive those moments again. “If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have…

A FILM DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER WHO CAPTURES THE STILLNESS OF A MOVEMENT WITH HIS CAMERA LENS Jam Today: With your work, you capture the stillness of a movement; when did you first observe the idea of stillness? You know, because many tend to focus on the motions rather than stillness, especially in this fastmoving world. HRP: Movement is always there, also in stillness. What is beautiful about stillness is that it invites the viewer to take a moment of pause. Then, through a meditative contemplation of the world, we start to find movement, even where it seems that nothing is happening. To be able to contemplate the subtle movements of the universe is a way to go deeper into the origin of things, into the mysteries of the world. Large…

A CHEF WHO COMBINES HER PASSION FOR FOOD AND PAINTING THROUGH HER ART Jam Today: What are you trying to represent with your paintings? SL: I am most likely to be inspired by food or seasons and their interaction with the world around them. I take things that I observe around me and try to showcase them in an abstract form through my paintings. Jam Today: Professionally you are a chef, but you love creating paintings, so have you ever combined these two elements? And what are you trying to say through it? SL: Both food and art have been my creative outlets from a young age. I was able to be creative in my food and plating while studying at culinary school. Ever since then, I have continued to…

We live in a world filled with designers and great designs, and all the virtuosos have their own set of beliefs and values, one that defines their design philosophy. That stays untainted regardless of the demands of the commercial world, the critics or the patrons. Media pushes content that they think one wants to see. Most people don’t bother to find out what they genuinely like. Hence, the top charts, award ceremonies, and Michelin stars make it very easy for us to decide what we ‘should’ like or dislike, no matter how bad or great the design is. Anyone who falls in this category is considered significant, and everyone else, an amateur. But no two people can work the same or like the same things. So thousands of great designs,…

A PAINTER WHO DEFINES BEAUTY AND MEANING IN THE EMPTY SPACES OF A CANVAS Jam Today: How did you come to realise your medium and style of paintings? What influenced you? NB: It took a long time… years, to be honest. Then, I started to paint abstract works on big canvases, like swathes of colour. If I look back, I realise I was scared to leave an empty part on the canvas. I used to add coats and coats of paint. Lack of space in my studio, I have tried to work on paper and loved it. It helped me to find the balance between negative and positive spaces, and above all, to accept the empty space. I did dozens of drawings before being satisfied. Today, my favourite mediums are…

No matter what the art, we always experience an emotion or a feeling looking at it, we might feel happy, sad, angry, disgust or can even get shivers down our spine while looking at an art piece, but one thing it does not fail to do is, it does not make us feel numb. On the contrary, it evokes emotions in every one of us. The feelings we experience while creating or perceiving art is so natural and pure that we become one with it. As said by Saul Bellow, “To begin with, the artist had only himself; he descended within himself, and in the lonely regions to which he descended, he found ‘the terms of his appeal.’ He appealed to that part of our being which is a gift,…

“ONE WAY TO OPEN YOUR EYES TO UNNOTICED BEAUTY AND UNSEEN NATURE IS TO ASK YOURSELF, ‘WHAT IF I HAD NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE? WHAT IF I KNEW I WOULD NEVER SEE IT AGAIN?” Unseen nature, so many paths, so many sceneries, and so many sights; there’s beauty in each fleeting moment when we travel, yet we fail to notice it. We look at the views while passing by a bike, car, or even while walking but fail to see it, observe it, and sync into a place. Our eyes miss out on the beautiful visions while we let the unseen nature pass without a glimpse. As said by Rachel Carson for the unseen nature - For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we…

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW ONE COMES UP WITH A GENIUS IDEA? WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO FIND A LASTING SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM? There are many aspects involved in making a successful problem-solving product: the right audience, materials, techniques, longevity, cost, marketing and much more. Designers go through an intense education to master most of these skills. Some come with experience and learning, but a lot of it comes with observation. Observation is often an overseen quality in today’s outspoken world. Most of us want to feel heard, seen and understood today, and this self-absorbed society has found novel ways to express itself on social media. There is no limit to how much or what you can express there. It has become essential to express, mainly because it doesn’t…

Jam Today: When did you start making illustrations? How have you changed since then? EL: Well, I’ve always loved drawing, Art was my favourite subject at school, and we’d spend lunches hanging out in the art rooms. Then when it came time to choose Unis, it was a toss-up between Art and Drama. Drama won. During my undergrad, I kept drawing on the side just as a hobby. Then (with a lot of support from my uni housemates), I set up a little Etsy shop and here we are! It’s so funny to look back at work when I first started developing my illustrations. What I thought was decent back then, I look at now and think, ‘Boy, that wasn’t great’. But, even looking at work from a year ago,…