The World by Us

We were blown away by this:

(We suggest you watch first, then read below)

Fabulously effective advertising and yet another piece of art that brings us to tears. This film, created by Ogilvy South Africa and Topsy Foundation, is a brilliant portrayal of the power of antiretroviral drugs to reverse the effects of full-blown AIDS. Ogilvy describes the making of the video below:

“With Topsy’s help we located Selinah, a patient displaying the advanced stages of AIDS, who was brave enough to agree to be filmed. Topsy started her on treatment and she was filmed every day for a period of 90 days. No special techniques or tricks were used in the post production of this commercial – the transformation you see before you is absolutely real.”

“Selinah wants everyone to know she was brought back to life purely because of ARV’s and her will to live.”

We have seen firsthand the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS and hope this video helps to promote the wonderful work that organisations like Topsy Foundation are doing to combat this pandemic and give women like Selinah a second chance at life.

Not long ago, Pictory, an online magazine documenting life stories through reader-submitted photos, invited women and men from around the world to share stories and images of ‘strong and spirited women figuring out how to succeed in their own skin.’

A little taster for you:

“I met her on the dance floor of the student union bar when we were both just 19. I knew then that I had just met someone spectacular. We stayed close friends for ten years before we went out on our first date. Marriage followed soon after. These days, I’m inspired by the way she balances her career and motherhood. She manages to take wonderful care of our 9-month-old while running a successful business and pushing her jewelry line in new directions. She has shown me that if there is a possibility of doing something, it should be done.”

“I took this picture seven years ago while leaving corporate America to pursue my dream of becoming a professional photographer. Since then, I’ve been able to capture images of the most influential women in modern America, like Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton. People who feel stuck in their professional lives often ask me if they should follow the same path. But I can’t answer that for them. Everyone learns differently and has to find their own way. Me? I’ve got my heart set on the White House. To be the presidential photographer, of course.”

“My best friend Lili held this sign for me when I ran the NYC Marathon, my first. I’d had a tough year, but Lili had lived through a nearly impossible one. She gave birth to premature twins after a month of bed rest and other complications. While the babies were in intensive care and she was recovering, she learned her husband had been unfaithful throughout her pregnancy, the birth, and recovery period. The marriage imploded, but the babies grew strong, Lili adjusted, and found a way forward.

“You’re going to be an astronaut” is a quote from Brendan (our other best friend) who first said this to me the day after a highly unlikely success with a documentary film shoot: “Well, kid. I think you did it! I think you’re going to be an astronaut!” Really, it’s about surviving in the face of adversity, and arriving at an exceptional success because you refused to give up. And while maybe that applies to a first time marathon runner or a film shoot, it’s more applicable when I think of what Lili did that year and continues to do today.”

(Visit Pictory to enjoy the rest of this feature as well as other fabulous collaborative photo-diaries.)

Who inspires you?

What advice or experience have you drawn on to get you through the tough times & obstacles in your life?

French fashion designer Vanessa Bruno never fails to leave us enchanted by the dreamy short films she creates to showcase her latest collections. She describes the videos as ‘visual poems’ that ‘embody the spirit of Vanessa Bruno women.’

While Gucci, Rodarte, Miu Miu, and others have also turned to short film to capture the essence of their collections through moving lookbooks, we think Bruno’s films stand out from the others.

In collaboration with director Stephanie Di Gusto and muse Lou Doillon (daughter of Jane Birkin), she combines brilliant cinematography with beautiful sounds that manage to effectively transport us to the world of a Vanessa Bruno woman and evoke our emotions – Yes! We cried with Lou as Gonzales played that mesmerising piano (Le bel été) and felt the wind in our hair as she ran through the hills and into the clouds (Day for Night).

Aside from fulfilling their main purpose (we now covet a closet full of Vanessa Bruno pieces!), her films leave us anxiously awaiting the next season, purely for the experience of her whimsical world.

Day for Night:

Le bel été:

Miracle:

And for those of you who enjoyed the music as much as we did:

Day for Night: Efterklang – ‘Raincoats’ and The Books

Le bel été: YACHT – ‘So Post ‘Em All’, Gonzales – ‘Overnight’

Miracle: Four Tet (we think nearly everything this guy does is amazing) – ‘She Just Likes to Fight’, The Bewitched Hands on Top of Heads – ‘I’m in Slim’, and Loud-E – ‘Afrika, Afrika’

Earlier this year, a good friend of ours wrote a blog piece for Make Believe, a communications consultancy based in Sydney, Australia, which she co-founded.

We liked it so much, we felt we must share it with you.

Lily sheds important light on the value of ‘playing to our strengths’ and embracing the ‘feminine’ when it comes to women in leadership.

Heart Wanted! Valuing women in public life and a different kind of leadership.

by Lily McCombs

Women are the backbone of civil society. We’re the most active volunteers inside our churches, schools, cause-related organisations and local communities – whether online or offline. We donate. We volunteer.  We influence. We spread the word to our friends, family and networks. We show up, time and again.

Yet the organisations and causes we champion are still rather predominately led by men; and leadership itself, the art of mobilising people to achieve an aim, seems stubbornly conceived of as a ‘male’ strength.

Late last year, Make Believe’s Anna Rose wrote a great blog lamenting the lack of women leading the climate action movement. In it, she included tips for younger women looking to break into the boys’ networks at the top – including “value your own style of working, even if it gets criticised as too ‘feminine’”, “deal with conflict,” “learn how to mediate and negotiate,” and “self promote”.

It’s dangerous to generalise, but I believe many women get the message growing up that to be successful, especially in a leadership role, means behaving like men. Especially in politics, or other ‘tough’ fields  – lest you be seen as weak or simply a puppet of powerful men behind the scenes.

Some women see this and opt out all together; others try their best to walk the line of being ‘feminine but not too feminine’. And then you have the occasional leader like Margaret Thatcher. She had her critics, but no one ever accused her of being a puppet.

Our collective ideas of what leadership is were historically defined by men, for men. We’ve inherited an ‘alpha male’ archetype (or stereotype) that says to succeed, you’ve got to be assertive if not aggressive; demand that raise, pitch for that project, intimidate your enemies and out-do your competitors.

But try as we might (and many of our mothers did!) women aren’t generally as good at being men as men are, nor do we necessarily enjoy it or aspire to it. And we do everyone a favour when we stop seeing ourselves as deficient and learn to play to our strengths instead.

Because there’s another paradigm our world is ready for, one that we could call ‘yin leadership’. It might say, be a virtuous leader. Be a beautiful human being. And through the beauty of your character, inspire such admiration that you draw people to you, people who want to give you their very best. Being that kind of leader still takes a lot of work, but it’s a different kind of work – one that puts the inner work first. The truth of course is we need both the being and the doing – the yin and the yang, to flourish.

A more yin-friendly model of leadership also appeals to us non-alpha males because it says that true powercomes from knowing yourself authentically, and doesn’t have to be lonely or threatening at all.  That kind of self-awareness and self-acceptance liberates us from the other polar extreme of feminine leadership – where instead of trying to be more like Don Draper, we aim to win the popularity contest, and feel as though our security comes from having everyone’s approval all the time.

I was recently in a meeting with a group of mostly male communications professionals, who were lamenting that their organisation’s leader – a strong, intelligent, experienced and committed woman – wasn’t as keen as they’d like to build up her media profile.

“She has lots to say, she just doesn’t have the ego to want to be the one saying it,” they said, heads shaking.

I could immediately identify with her reluctance, and thought about all the impressive women I know who’ve had to be pushed to put themselves out there – sometimes by a strong, supportive male colleague or boss. And then I thought about all the men I’ve seen eagerly put their hands up whenever a big, bold opportunity came around  – not because they were necessarily any smarter, more qualified or more capable; but because they just seemed better at believing in themselves. I love these guys and have learned a lot from them.  I don’t begrudge anyone their richly-deserved success.  I’d just like to see more of it.

Usually when you hear people lamenting, ‘if only women ruled the world, things would be so much better,’ – what they’re actually saying is, ‘if only we supported people who had big hearts, not just big egos, into positions of power – the world would be a better place.’

We have plenty of smart, ambitious, driven people in positions of power and leadership.  The challenge for our world today is we reward cleverness and audacity much more than caring and wisdom. So whatever your gender – value your heart just as much, if not more, than your brains.  And when you see someone with a beautiful heart struggling to put their hand up or self-promote, give her or him your enthusiastic support. They may just help save the world.

Last year, on a visit to San Francisco, we serendipitously stumbled upon an exhibition of Ryan McGinley‘s photographs.

Admittedly, we had seen an advertisement for the exhibition and confused him with another artist we love – Niel Krug, whose work also features youthful nudity frolicking through wilderness. But we were pleasantly enamoured by the way McGinley’s photographs made us want to leave our cares (and clothes!) behind, prance through forests, cuddle wild animals, and surrender to the moment.

McGinley began his career in 1998 in New York City’s East Village photographing his friends and cross-country road trips. His newest series, Somewhere Place, is currently on display at the Gabriel Rolt Gallery in Amsterdam.

For those of us unable to get to Amsterdam for a look, fear not! Here is a selection of our favourites – old and new. We hope you enjoy the sense of liberation McGinley inspires:

High-profile cases of sexual assault often turn ugly, as we’re seeing with the serious accusations against the world’s top banker and leading French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF. But earlier this month, South-African born journalist Lara Logan went against that mold by showing courage and grace while opening up on US national TV about the sexual assault she endured during her reporting from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. She said:

“One thing that I’m extremely proud of, that I didn’t intend, is when my female colleagues stood up and said that I had broken the silence on what all of us have experienced, but never talk about. Women never complain about incidents of sexual violence, because you don’t want someone to say, ‘well women shouldn’t be out there.’”

Lara explained that before her life-threatening ordeal, she didn’t know the extent of Egypt’s serious sexual assault and harassment problem. Two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to harassing women in public. The epidemic has even been represented on film, specifically in the Egyptian movie 678, which follows the true stories of three women who are harassed every day. Following the release of the film, Egyptian women contacted the filmmaker, Mohamed Diab, to share their own experiences. And grassroot services like HarassMap.org let women report incidents of public sexual harassment via SMS, which are then mapped. So in a way, Lara Logan didn’t break the silence, but added her voice to a growing chorus making it easier for victims to speak up — in Egypt or anywhere. Watch her interview below.

Welcome to the first of our ‘My World in 5′ series where we’ll be chatting with residents of cities around the globe for a quick snapshot of their world via 5 short questions. Thanks to Anna for a lovely little insight into life in London:

My World in 5 – London

Anna Hamill, 27, Brand Strategist – Brandhouse

I don’t leave home without my: walking shoes. Heels are great for a night out, but London is a beautiful city to wander in and things are closer than you would imagine. I almost always wear flats or low heels, and also pack cushy insoles in case my feet do start to ache.

My last night out involved: a classic duo of dinner and drinks. My husband and I recently went to Nopi – a new restaurant launched by the same people that started Ottolenghi. It’s tapas dishes, but with Mediterranean and Indian spices. Pricey, but it was a treat for us. Londoners make a hobby out of drinking, so there are many great bars and pubs in the city. My personal favourite is Mark’s Bar, but for more reasonable drinks, check out the happy hours on Time Out and try to avoid Soho.

I make sure to take visiting guests: on a long walk along the south bank. We start at St Pauls, walk over the bridge to the Tate Modern to see one of the best modern art collections in the world. Then we wander along the river to Big Ben. Sometimes if we want a drink at the end, we’ll do it in reverse order and then head to another favourite pub – Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. It’s one of the oldest in London, the beer is reasonably priced, there are many little rooms to hide in, and Dickens supposedly used to write there in the cellar bar, which always has a great atmosphere.

At a recent dinner party, my friends and I spent the evening talking about: food. A few of us have really gotten into cooking, and so were discussing the best places to eat, our favourite meals to make, the best markets to visit and what we’d tried out recently. Cooking has become an outlet for us – sometimes when you’re working all day the best way to cope with stress is to make (and eat!) a good meal.

One word to describe my city: contrast. Old architecture stands next to new, tradition remains but with a modern twist, council blocks housing the poorest individuals are located in some of the cities best areas, nature bumps against urban landscapes, and the city itself houses people from all around the world. From the contrast comes a great mix of things to explore and discover, making it a really exciting place to live.

Wherever you are in the world, we trust you haven’t missed coverage of the historic event that has dominated the news this week leaving the royal wedding but a distant memory – the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones in the horrific events of 9/11 and sincerely hope that this event brings them a well-deserved sense of relief. Yet, while some of this blog’s contributors are American, we struggle to share the sentiments of those taking to the streets in celebration and jovial expressions of patriotism. Instead we remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr:

‎”Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

In that light, we are inspired by people like Phyllis Rodriguez. The mother of a young man who lost his life in the attack on the twin towers, Phyllis has developed an unlikely friendship with Aicha el-Wafi, the mother of a man who was convicted of playing a role in the 9/11 attacks. A remarkable example of peace, understanding and forgiveness. Hear them share their story:

Life’s simple pleasures.