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Wednesday 15 August 2012

DALSTON SÙPERNOVÆ - THE SHOW




PHOTOGRAPHY










CREDITS


DALSTON SÙPERNOVÆ
EXHIBITION

ALUN DAVIES
AND
DALSTON SUPERSTORE

Curator:
Saskia Wickins

Photographer:
Thomas Cooksey @Defacto  Inc

                   Stylist:                     
Kim Howells  @The Book Agency

Designer and art director:    
Alun Davies @Ella Dror Pr  

        Hair Stylist:          
Christos Kallaniotis @ Terrie Tanaka
using Babyliss PRO

            Make-Up:              
MU Yin Lee @Premier hair & makeup
using MAC cosmetics

Photographers Assistant:    
Kiran Mane    

          Stylist Assistant:           
Daisy Newman 

Design Assistants:       
Alex Clow, Tatiani Makrinova, Gia Mitchell, Chloe Wu, 
Victoria Siddle, Olivia Sanders, Annabel Dakin

             Model:                 
Toby @ Select
 
           Model:               
Jamie @ FM

           Film:               
Elva Rodriguez
 
  Performance:   
Owen Parry,
Alex Clow, Lucy Fizz,
Leo Martinez

Poetry performance:   
Sitron with Shy Charles

DJ's & MC
Precious Metal aka Piers Atkinson and Philip Dunn
And Thirsty Kirsty

            Essay:               
Eleanor Weber

Private View Photography:
Christa Holka 

Fashion Illustration:
Alun Davies (Poster Image)
Clare Mallison



PRIVATE VIEW


Sitron

MC / DJ Thirsty Kirsty

Piers Atkinson and Philip Dunn

Owen Parry

Sue Dray & Olivia Sannders


Alex Clow 


  Lucy Fizz

Anna Trevelyan

Superstore Mellange

Alex Clow

Eric Nilsson Gullstrand

Myself

Liz Fletcher and Princess Julia

  Lyall Hakaraia

Myself and Saskia Wickins



ESSAY 
 
Alun Davies Supernovae
by Eleanor Weber

When a star or stellar explodes its pieces are thrown outwards at up to 30,000 km/s, shining brighter than the sun, lighting up their galaxy, and potentially becoming new stars – new forms, new ideas, new ways of existence. These are called supernovae. Super because they are far more luminous than ordinary stars, nova because they are new.

Although I’ve never met anyone who can take as long to get ready to go out as Alun Davies, if something needs to happen he makes it happen; he never does anything in half measures. Nights are long and time is precious. Focus is his middle name (but, actually, it’s Alun). We’ve known each other for over five years, and in that time I have seen his care for the work he does in equal measures to his care for those close to him (often these overlap). Whether it is the decorations for 2009-10’s notorious New Years’ Eve party, costume pieces for Lady Gaga, sets for Vogue Italia, his own outfit for an event (any event!), his selection of films for a home movie session, a Dull Soulless Dance Music mix, or a full stage set for Peaches, Alun Davies executes things with a dedication and a perseverance that is nothing short of stellar.

For the first time in his career, Alun has brought together (with curator Saskia Wickins) the numerous facets of his practice to present them in one space, east London’s well-loved and well-trod Dalston Superstore. Although he is best known under the guise of ‘set designer’ or ‘art director’, for creating wonderful scenarios and props for fashion photographers, designers and stylists, there are other fragments to what Alun does that are less immediately classifiable or visible – but equally bright. Alun’s close relationship with and interest in performance art, music and film are cases in point. The Dalston Supernovæ exhibition and coinciding events reveal some of these other fragments, and serve as testament to an expansive practice that allows for potentially new ideas, forms, images to emerge by revealing the way seemingly disparate pursuits constantly inform each other.

For this reason, the exhibition naturally spans performance (including artist Owen Parry and poet Sitron Panopoulos), installation, film, photography, music, sculpture and large-scale mural (not to mention club culture) – each part in its own way reflecting light back on Alun’s explosive practice as a whole. For example, Alun’s trademark crystal-encrusted protective sportswear pieces appear not only on models in a photo-shoot (shot by Thomas Cooksey and styled by Kim Howells) and film (by Elva Rodriguez), but also in the performers’ costumes, installed around the bar itself in the form of futuristic techno-glam warriors, and of course on Alun himself – in a sense as an embodiment of the planes these spheres traverse.

It is not by chance that Dalston should be the location of this experiment, considering it has served as the hub of Alun’s creative activities for years. It is in this relatively small area and its environs that studio, work, party, love, life, home, school, friend, colleague, art, fashion, music, seem to collapse in a celebration of the supernovae occurring all around us constantly. These stellars aren’t just fading away but always exploding anew, reinventing, reconstructing themselves, trying things in different ways, and exploring the possible. They are not flashes in pans but rather long-term endeavours that evolve and take new forms as they move along, luminous as ever.



POEM
Super Nova's
by Sitron

You will never be one of them kid,     
you won’t fit in-
and though you long to belong
your path is different.

Your voice will not drop like theirs
your steps will not grow sturdy
for your thoughts cannot rest
on these misty streets
in these moist valleys,
under summer rain.

To father’s disappointment
you will not enter his world
where men with big hands
meet
for quite drinks
in afternoon pubs
and talk of nothing.

For you
a fleeting cosmos
lighted and ready,
foreign ports,
Parisian beds
and many friends
to press your heart against

For you
wall cities
to keep you safe,
Berlin winds
to soothe your thoughts
marble chests
to lay your head to rest.

For you
nuclear basements 
to waste  your youth,
lit doorways
your arc de triomphe.

Here
everything
falls into place
here
everything
falls apart
before it all
starts
again

Fear not
the endless autobahns
seemingly steering you away
fear not
the crystal mountains
that make you slip and sway
fear not
the fever
that drives out your dreams .



As all is accounted for

by the Gods

who only grow dark

when you stand fearful

and refuse to walk

the path you were assigned.



FASHION ILLUSTRATION

by Clare Mallison





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