Oshun Magazine Freedom Graduation Issue 1 2017

OSHUN
ISSUE 1
FREEDOM

Welcome...
...to Oshun; “ a deity of the river and fresh water, luxury and pleasure, sexuality and
fertility, and beauty and love. She is connected to destiny and divination.”
A place to express and explore, an outlet for the outspoken. We aim to unite those with
a unique voice, a creative eye and unconventional outlook on life, to inspire others.
This first issue looks at Freedom. A broad subject, versatile in its meaning. As you’re
reading this I’ll be graduating and wandering into adult life. Liberated to make my own
decisions, this is freedom in its own right. A short article on Gordon Parks will explain
the photographer’s role as a advocate of equal rights for African Americans, whereas
Shalini Moodley challenges the iconic style of pin-up photography, famously
attributed with the American fifties era. We are drawing attention to poetry, fashion
and some fantastic photographic stories, which I hope you enjoy.
I’d like to thank all creatives who’ve made it possible to create this issue and I’d like to
cheers to many more...
Much love,
Arnetia van den Berg
F o u n d e r . E d i t o r

Fashion
Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion 6
Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons 8
Photography
Chloe by Genesis Cabrera 10
Mimi by Jamal Anthony 20
Post-Truth : A Mere Icon by Shalini Moodley 32
Gordon Parks - I Am You 42
Romone by Oliva Ezechukwu 44
Omara by Arnetia van den Berg 54
Maya by Olivia Ezechukwu 66
Samuel + Simone by Arnetia van den Berg 76
Poetry
Humanity’s Restoration by Sophie Ndak 19
Beauty Teacher by Aliyiah Richard 31
Grey Cloud by Kandace S. Campbell 86
Essay
Mummification under Exctasy by Scarlette Lwr 64

BALENCIAGA: SHAPING FASHION
by Arnetia van den Berg
To celebrate the fashion giant’s
centenary opening in
San Sebastian and the 80th
jubilee of the opening of his
fashion house in Paris, the
V&A is opening the first UK
exhibition presenting the work
of Cristóbal Balenciaga. The
Spanish designer introduced the
most revolutionary shapes in
fashion, such as the tunic, shift
dress and ‘baby doll’.
Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion
focuses on the most creative
period in ‘the master’ of haute
couture’s career and on current
designers challenging fashion in
a similar way. An archive filled
with sketches, fabric samples
and short films on the couturiers
work will uncover the vision
behind the brand.
The V&A’s exhibition curator
Cassie Davies-Stroddler said:
“Cristóbal Balenciaga was one
of the most influential fashion
designers of the 20th century.
Revered by his contemporaries,
including Coco Chancel and
Hubert de Givenchy, his exquisite
craftmanship, pioneering use of
fabric and innovative cutting set
the tone for the modernity of the
late 20th century fashion.”
Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion will
be on display from 27th May –
18th February 2018
Dovima with Sacha, cloche and suit by Balenciaga, Café des Deux Magots, Paris, 1955.
Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation

Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons
C’est Tres Magnifique
by Sarah Barnsey
With fashion being a creative expression of art, it
seems only right that the most iconic of paintings
would find themselves fronting the most iconic of
bags. The recent collaboration of Louis Vuitton and
Jeff Konns has given us the most fashionable of art
history lessons, moving high art to high street.
Quintessential French fashion house Louis Vuitton
has famously joined minds with leading artists for
past collections. We all remember the glossy
advertisements featuring Stephen Sprouse graffiti
bags and Takeshi’s Marakani 90’s multicolor
monogram pieces. Even Yayoi Kusama’s visually
captivating collaboration saw her obsession with
seriality produce red and white dotty patterns that
adorned Louis Vuitton’s most classic models. It
therefore seemed a timely partnership for LV and
American artist Jeff Koons, known for his artistic
adaptations of banal cultural objects. In particular
his large scale sculptures of metallic balloon
animals and a gold statue of Michael Jackson
holding a monkey. So began a fashionable marriage
of creative minds to produce bags that outreach the
single purpose of materialism but show us the
cultural thirst for a greater interjection of art
and design.
and the Neverfull, exuding faithful craftsmanship
and quality, a trademark of the Vuitton house.
One wonders what initiated the concept of this
‘Masters Collection’? With Museum attendance
unexplainably dropping throughout the world,
perhaps it was an attempt to identify art within a
more youthful crowd, a willing to resurface
enthusiasm for great art in the 21st century. Pop art
has covered merchandise for years and is a symbol of
popular culture but we must not forget the
simulating importance of classical art and the great
paintings, which shaped moments in
history- they simply cannot be forgotten. The Mona
Lisa may frown at night while hung on the walls of
the Louvre in Paris, because she is not being
admired as grandly as she once was. This blatant
yearn to make art unavoidable and the
reinforcement of its important on our lives will now
expose you to a Van Gogh being carried out of the
door in Starbucks. It seems that the art and fashion
worlds have joined forces with power and
flamboyance so that we never forget the importance
of majestic paintings.
The collection features the famous creations of Da
Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s Wheat Field,
The Tiger Hunt by Rubens, La Gimblette by
Fragonard and not forgetting Mars, Venus and
Cupid by Titian. Koons imitations of these
immeasurable paintings have been stretched over
canvas, bounded and trimmed with colourful patina
leather creating a textured artifact that can be
carried around our modern day cities. These
exuberant reproductions are emblazoned with the
name of the original artist spelt out in gold letters,
along with Louis Vuitton’s signature flower
symbols. The detailed hardware also features a tag in
the silhouette of one of Koons’ best-known artworks,
the inflatable Rabbit sculpture- his stamp to
distinguish his contemporary work from the historic
artists. The bags are available in the Speedy, Keepall

Chloe
Photography: Genesis Cabrera

Humanity’s restoration
by Sophie Ndak
I had a dream,
I saw nature as fine as the morning sun,
With violet hair and silk lips.
Breast so tender
Like a sprout.
I saw her wash her hands in a sea filled with milk and honey.
I saw perfection when I saw her.
But my dream became sour
As my eyes open to the dawning of the day,
Wishing I never woke up.
My body shuts off like the passing of the sun;
There was no hope of living.
My back aches of pain,
My eyes red shut as I cry profusely...
No roof over my head
To protect me from the harshness of the sun,
No cloths to cover me from the cold at night.
I had wishes
To be treated better,
To be happy as a human being,
To end this pain,
To be one with my soul,
To be treated equally
For humanity to be restored.
I dream of
Being a dog without a leash
Being a white dove flying into the sunshine

Mimi
Photography: Jamal Anthony Haddad
Styling: Hannah Ruane

Beauty Teacher
by Aliyiah Richards
Your brown skin reminds me of all the things I love.
Your brown skin reminds me of all the things I know.
Your brown skin is like looking into a mirror.
Your brown skin tells me how beautiful I am, truly.
I see your tall black coffee with medium soy milk & 3 heavy spoonfuls
of sugar -toned skin and think how unintentionally poetic your presence
speaks.
Your complexion fits you in all the best ways, as if someone specifically
chose to handcraft this suit to fit no other body.
If I could name the pigmentation that filled your body I would name
it you. Because when I see myself, I see you. I see you calling my
name just to explain that I am more.
And when we lay together, I spend most of the silence pretending I
am still asleep, when I am really trying to figure out where you began
and where I end.
The way I see it in my visionary eyes;
Is like mixing coco powder into a glass of milk. Enough coco powder to
make the milk a perfect hue of brown, that taste entirely like a perfect
glass of chocolate milk.
We blend together like your favorite tropical fruits and yogurt.
Refreshing. So naturally sweet.
I was meant to appreciate you. I was meant to see your beauty
before I saw the beauty within myself.
Your beauty is my teacher.
Ah, brown love.

Post-Truth
A Mere Icon
by Shalini Moodley
Shalini Moodley’s project seeks to redefine the stereotypes of women in
pin-up, while being underlined by a political standpoint. In doing so she
incorporates models of racial diversity, which have been noticeably absent from
the genre, similarly as they are now in the general modelling world and the media.
Each shot is strategically set up to channel the famous poses and expressions of
pin-up, seen illustrating women as the definition of seduction and fantasy. With that being
considered, these photos steer away from their
original use of objectification and instead utilise props to
satirise negative problems established by contemporary American culture today.

Colourism drives the narrative of mainstream media, an industry that routinely
whitewasshes its castings and highlights the staggering imbalance in diverse represententation. The
unintended but inevitable result of the institution of white supremacy that generates self-hatred.

GLOBAL WARMING
“A lot of it is a hoax, and I want to use hairspray.” - Donald Trump

“McDonalds announced it’s consiering a more humane
way of slaughtering its animals.
You know they fatten them up and then kill them.
You know the same thing they do to their customers,
isn’t it?”
- Comedian Jay Leno
American taxpayers pay roughly $12.8 million every
day to cover the costs of gun related deaths & injusries.

Same-sex marriage has now been legalised in all states (since 2015).
While there is widespread public support for making discrimination against LGBT
people illegal, only a minority of states have laws that specifically protect this community.

GORDON PARKS - I AM YOU.
SELECTED WORKS 1942 - 1978
by Arnetia van den Berg
Aged twenty-five, self-taught photographer
Gordon Parks (1912-2006) bought his first
‘weapon of choice’, referring to his camera.
Gordon Parks – I am You. Selected Works 1942
– 1978, displayed in the Fotografiemuseum
Amsterdam (Foam), presents the work of an
extraordinary raconteur, who photographed
famed boxer Muhammed Ali and leaders of the
Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King, Jr
and Malcom X. Parks used his photography to
explore themes such as poverty, marginalisation
and injustice and was a great advocate of equal
rights for African Americans. He was the first
African American photographer to the Life
Magazine team, the then most popular
photographic journalism magazine in the
world. Foam presents 120 works from the
collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation,
such as vintage prints, magazines, and film
fragments.
I Am You, by Gordon Parks is on display at
Foam from 16th June – 6th September 2017
Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956 © Photograph by Gordon Parks.
Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Untitled, Watts, California, 1967 © Photograph by Gordon Parks.
Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

Romone
Photography: Olivia Ezechukwu

Omara
Photography: Arnetia van den Berg

MUMMIFICATION
UNDER ECSTASY
by Scarlette Lwr
I met R. when I was working in an eastern
London bar, that kind of bars and clubs that
make the glory of that dreary metropolis. At
that time, we were a group of youngsters of all
ages, all nationalities, all languages… In short,
we were all from different cultural backgrounds.
Aside from the English language and our job,
nothing could apparently connect us in that
classifying society. Nothing but maybe our taste
for drugs, that common craze to assume life :
our common love for spiritual trips.
Instragram illustration: @sig.mognaz
“You are not in the universe, you are the
universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you
are not a person, but a focal point where the
universe is becoming conscious of itself. What
an amazing miracle” Eckhart Tolle
Around October, when nights get significantly
longer, we became kind of nocturnal creatures,
working at night, sleeping during the day. Yet,
early in the morning, after pouring too much
alcohol to the new rich financiers of the City, it
seemed natural for us to celebrate life… or o a
certain extent, to find a way to forget it.
During those days spent under ecstasy, confined
in our small and smoky rooms, we were, at last,
freed from political correctness.
Time goes by and paths diverge. One year
elapsed, a year during which I went back to
university. As another year passed, I decided
to leave this city that destroyed me, but also, in
an odd way, rebuilt me. A part of me had to be
engraved on my skin. I wanted to incorporate to
my body, for life, my new identity : Scarlette.
Meanwhile, R., initially illustrator, entered the
tattoo world, with an artistic style he calls “The
other side”.
Of course, he is the one I chose, as he saw
Scarlette and not my socio-political self, to draw
on my skin a depiction of this new person living
in my soul.
Basics culture
According to the feminist Judith Butler, the
cultural field we enrich throughout our life help
us build our identity. It grows our inner self, provided
that it is in keeping with the outside
world and reflects it. Our language pattern and body
structure set the basis of our identity. Signs and
symbols are then a reference, showing our belonging
to a certain culture. Clothes become a kind of
extension of our body, which introduces us in the
social world. Show me your clothes and I’ll tell you
who you are…
R., as for him, dresses in a basic way. I can’t
remember him wearing anything else than blue or
black jeans, t-shirts (often grey), and a pair of Doc
Martens. A kind of uniform of daily life.
K-HOLE is a group of five creative persons, coming
from different professional backgrounds, who precisely
reported this clothing style in 2014 as a social
trend : “Acting basic”. In the PDF entitled “YOUTH
MODE, A report on Freedom”, they define this trend,
in a marketing lingo, as a change of youngster’s social
habits. The search for freedom matches a feeling of
eternal youth. Ageless, we are not limited anymore to
social patterns. We become purely and simply
infinite.
Being infinite implies being identical to the others
among equals. By acting in a basic way, showing no
difference and accepting being “normal”, we can then
feel free in a society that tends to classify identities.
The concept of “Acting basic” has been taken up by
fashion industry under the name of “Normcore".
This trend, which was first social, became a symbol
through these external signs, but also a real
culture - as it has been followed by the Millennials
(also called Generation Y)- the culture of being
ageless and infinite.
When I make R. part of this concept, we can
consider him as an infinite being, one among many
others.The notion of infinite corresponds to an
idea of complete absence of limits. It’s impossible to
measure it. Being infinite provides us the right to
choose how we want to be seen, beyond the restrictions
of our social patterns. You are the
only one to decide who you want to be and when :
you are infinite.
Ecstasy, mon ami
One day, at about ten in the morning, after an
umpteenth work night, we were travelling under
ecstasy. In this room, curtains closed, we were
talking, quietly, listening to some electronic music.
We were in another atmosphere, while our mind
travelling. I guess R.’s was travelling further than
others’, because when I turned to him, I saw him
wrapping himself in toilet paper. One of us asked
him : “What are you doing ?” It may not sound
much, but he answered : “I want to be a mummy”.
The madness of drugs took over his mind, only his
unconscious self was talking. First we laughed, but
then we helped him : in less than five minutes, R. was
a mummy. One of us, a photographer, captured the
moment on his camera. R., because he was infinite,
decided he had become a mummy… He was now
stuck in a spatio-temporal framework.
“Love Thug” emerged in the North of England in
1988. It was the second “Summer of Love”, this
summer when the significant spiritual effects of
ecstasy were highlighted. In electronic music clubs
such as the Hacienda, you could breathe in the smell
of social revolution, through the love provided by
this drug. As Mark Moore said, “Many people had a
second birth”.
Nevertheless, even if ecstasy make you love, it
remains in its creation an artificial and chemical
process. As an amphetamine derivative, it brings
to the person a feeling of warmth and empathy. It
affects our perception as many parts of our brain are
touched. On the long term, it can lead to a
modification of our cerebral structure. Under the
influence of ecstasy, one part of our brain calls our
attention : the hypothalamus. Located on the front
part of the center of our brain, this area can speed up
emotional and
humor changes and product anxiety. In my opinion,
it is the nucleus producing what we call
spontaneously “madness”.
The hypothalamus has a direct access to both
nervous and endocrine systems, which we can
compare to the chakra areas : while connecting them,
it has an important part to play in the activation of
the pineal gland, also called third eye and
considered as the center of our soul. The hypothesis
would then be that, under the influence of ecstasy,
R. would have stimulated his pineal gland. It is not a
matter of madness due to an excess of ecstasy, but it’s
rather his third eye that opened, telling him his own
death… or maybe his immortality.
The aim of this essay is the encounter and the acceptance of our
inner self. It’s a theory based on the spiritual identity of a young
tattoo artist. A creative exchange between one who draws “the
other side” (the parallel world), and one who reads “the other
self ” (the hidden side).
This full length of this theory is available upon request.

Maya
Photography: Olivia Ezechukwu

Samuel + Simone
photography: Arnetia van den Berg

Grey Cloud
by Kandace S. Campbell
Let me help you understand
Walk with me, take my hand
Let me take you to place I reside
So you can see the other side
Quick side note; the black experience is great
But it comes with difficulty, struggles and hate
Now, in this land there’s a grey cloud
With rain, hurricanes, thunderstorms so loud
And anything I do, anything I say
Is always overshadowed by this cloud, so grey
This problematic landscape is made up of discrimination
That comes as part of living in this nation
We’re used to it, we rarely make a fuss
This grey cloud is a fact of life to us
Constantly lurking, as dark as the night
But amongst all this gloom is an area of light
Let me bring you there, let me show you around
This magical place where joy springs from the ground
It’s vibrant and beautiful with colour for miles
It’s got music, rhythm and amazing hairstyles
In this land of racism and crap
We cherish this little spot on the map
But here they come with a plough and a rake
Macklemore, the Kardashians and Justin Timberlake
They loot from our garden, take every possession
Then drape it on themselves and call it self-expression
All the things we have been criticized for
They parade them around like costumes to be worn
And before we can scream for them to stop it
They’re selling out culture and making a profit
Our hips, our lips, our clothes our hair
All on the cover of vogue and fashion fair.
OSHUN
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Spring/Summer
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