Village Raw - ISSUE 9
Village Raw is a magazine that explores cultural stories from Crouch End, East Finchley, Highgate, Muswell Hill and the surrounding areas. The magazine is created by the community, for the community. If you like this issue you can support the project through a subscription or donation. See the links below. The ninth issue of Village Raw magazine includes: DOUBLE TAKE - Noma Bar - the illusionary storyteller. SOUNDS FROM THE CITY, SOUNDS FROM THE SEA - Singer-songwriter Austel on her musical journey. MR TOMMY HILL KNOWS - A new project from the artist previously known as WILLIAM. THE COLLODION WAY - John Hoare and his 19th century collodion photographic portraits. WITH. NOT FOR. - Wave Cafe – pushing boundaries and changing attitudes. BRIGHT ORANGE TILES - Revisiting Hornsey Town Hall to see how the restoration is progressing. WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY - Planting trees for the future. PLANT POWER - The healing power of plants with Handmade Apothecary. A GREAT WASTE OF TIME - Creating a compost lasagne. THE NORTH LONDON CHEESE HUNT - Meeting the local cheesemongers and producers. AND MORE…
Village Raw is a magazine that explores cultural stories from Crouch End, East Finchley, Highgate, Muswell Hill and the surrounding areas. The magazine is created by the community, for the community. If you like this issue you can support the project through a subscription or donation. See the links below. The ninth issue of Village Raw magazine includes:
DOUBLE TAKE - Noma Bar - the illusionary storyteller.
SOUNDS FROM THE CITY, SOUNDS FROM THE SEA - Singer-songwriter Austel on her musical journey.
MR TOMMY HILL KNOWS - A new project from the artist previously known as WILLIAM.
THE COLLODION WAY - John Hoare and his 19th century collodion photographic portraits.
WITH. NOT FOR. - Wave Cafe – pushing boundaries and changing attitudes.
BRIGHT ORANGE TILES - Revisiting Hornsey Town Hall to see how the restoration is progressing.
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY - Planting trees for the future.
PLANT POWER - The healing power of plants with Handmade Apothecary.
A GREAT WASTE OF TIME - Creating a compost lasagne.
THE NORTH LONDON CHEESE HUNT - Meeting the local cheesemongers and producers.
AND MORE…
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ART & CULTURE<br />
Opening image: Pointed Sense at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Oposite page: Mr Spock, cover for Esquire, 2009.<br />
This page: Image from a sketchbook and Noma at home.<br />
PHOTO BY DAN BRIDGE (TOP RIGHT).<br />
woodland which borders his house in north London. Retreating<br />
into it emulates in a way an uprooting from the familiar and helps<br />
to usher the artist into an expansive mindset. “I wouldn’t be able<br />
to live in an isolated wood,” Noma says, “but this environment<br />
feeds me. I feel I need to go in the wood for the ideas to flow.”<br />
Noma spends more than half of his working time there - brainstorming.<br />
The wood for him is a live-in studio. “Something opens<br />
up in the wood,” he says. It’s his inspiration.<br />
“You don’t see nature in my work,” says Noma, who spent his<br />
childhood in forests. His father worked for the Jewish National<br />
Fund planting trees, and Noma was in contact with the natural<br />
environment from a young age. However, his relationship with the<br />
forest is conflicted. He felt he needed to escape from that hardworking<br />
life to a city, yet he finds inspiration inside the woodland.<br />
Displacing himself from the comforting haze of the mundane, his<br />
mind awakens to the extraordinary which lies within the commonplace.<br />
He needs a distance. “Part of what I do is criticising and<br />
looking at things from the side, with objective eyes, and if you<br />
are too involved it starts to get tricky – there is something about<br />
distance that works.”<br />
He places a lot of weight in the process of creating which,<br />
he says, “is more important than the result. Most of the time, I<br />
am looking for ideas and solutions to a problem. The execution is<br />
faster than the process.” His process starts with him sketching<br />
in black and white, with pen and pencil. Colour is secondary. It is<br />
rather a tool to help the viewer understand the meaning of the<br />
image. “I don’t like colour so much – the main thing is the message.”<br />
He has tried lots of colours but often goes back to red: “It<br />
is part of my history,” he says. “You can’t manipulate red - there is<br />
something about red that feels right in many places.”<br />
Noma’s work evolves step by step. He keeps discovering new<br />
things. He has done numerous illustrations and 90% of his output<br />
used to be editorial, which he loves because it is current and<br />
effective. He has also worked with sculpture which he sees as<br />
comparable to his 2D work in that it is based on a narrative. Then<br />
he discovered animation which recently took over. His illustrations<br />
have appeared in major publications, including the New York<br />
Times, Empire, Wired, The Guardian, Amnesty International and<br />
Time Out - and he has taken numerous commissions from advertising<br />
and private clients. Working with production company Dutch<br />
09
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