The Power of 100: Meet the designers who are transforming overlooked everyday items into new design collectables.
ONLINE EDITION: FOOD
Culinary Icon: Diana Kennedy: We travelled to Mexico to meet the "Mick Jagger of Mexican food” to discuss her passion and understanding of Mexican cuisine, her thoughts on sustainable eating and her love of a good porkpie.
Who Made All The Pies?: From South Africa via Disney World to the pie room in Holborn, Nokx Majozi brings a wealth of experience and culinary influences to her cooking.
From Hairdressing in Soho To Shearing Sheep In Kent: Zoë Colville, better known as The Chief Shepherdess, left her life as a London hairdresser to become a farmer in 2018, we caught up with her recently to find out how it’s going.
Grief & Comfort Food: For palliative care nurse and artist, Roshni Kavat the food we eat and our rituals around it tap into something deeper, something generational. Each meal and snack is a chance to connect with a part of ourselves and our heritage, she explains more in this personal essay.
RIPOSTE #13
Dive into the meetings and features of issue #13 as part of our members access.
To access issue #13 content online and support Riposte become a member here.
Meetings: Celine Semaan on what school won’t teach you about climate change.
Meetings: Nicole Mclaughlin on how she turns trash into treasure.
Meetings: Cassi Namoda on the power of saying no and embracing duality.
Meetings: Katherine Angel on why good sex is more than just consent.
FEATURES: Holding Space - From the rise and demise of therapy speak to the language surrounding the pandemic, the way we talk about care is shifting. Amelia Abraham asks what that means for the future of how we care for each other.
FEATURES: Doing The Work - Can your workplace ever really care about your welfare when the profit is always a priority, and how will things look in the future?
ONLINE ARCHIVE
Throughout March we’re revisiting the theme of Motherhood because as an ever-evolving concept, experience or state of being there are a multitude of angles and perspectives to explore.
In this online edition we speak to artist Lakwena Maciver about how motherhood has influenced her creativity, Angela Garbes talks about her new book, Essential Labour which looks at how the global economy is powered by under-valued domestic labour. There are photo essays exploring the mundane and magnitude of motherhood, Jordan Söderberg Mills writes about becoming a father when he feels more like a mother and five women spoke to us about their decisions to not have children. Read the full MOTHERHOOD issue here.
LOVE: I Forbid You To Forget Me
Photographer, Daniela Spector archived the everyday items that made up her mother’s life in an attempt to get to know her better after she died.
Mãra and Juris share the lessons they’ve learned over their fifty three years of marriage.
THE START: Writer and podcast host, Marjon Carlos shares wisdom on starting her own podcast and being everyone’s favourite auntie.
HOME: The comfort and claustrophobia of motherhood in a confined space.
HOME: When the chairs around a dining table are empty there’s always Dilaw na lugaw - or your favourite comfort food.
MOVEMENT: The joy and chaotic stillness of motherhood through the lens of Rose Marie Cromwell.
Mothering Our Mothers: Gem Fletcher reckons with the fact that one day, in the not so distant future, hers and her mother’s roles will inevitably switch.
Essential Labour: Why we need to look at mothering and care work as the most essential labour a person can do and why it’s ok to feel conflicted about doing it.
In February we explored the theme of LOVE.
We met Mãra and Juris who have been married for fifty three years as they share their wisdom and the lessons learned along the way. In an attempt to answer the eternal call of Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is”, there was a close look at the science behind what is going on biologically when we fall in and out of love. Staying on the physiological angle, one writer shared her complicated love story with eight frozen embryos and two trans couples shared their experiences of love as they both move through their own transitions.
Read all of the stories from our LOVE edition here.
Love can drive us crazy, it can excite, envelope, depress and ruin us – sometimes all in the same day. But what is that feeling, where do those emotions come from?
THE START: Abigail Bergstrom left her job as a literary agent to start her own company and write her first novel. Here she shares advice and wisdom on both.
England Your England, an exhibition and zine curated by Riposte that examines what English culture looks like in 2021. Read more here.
HOME: Meet ten women dedicated to creating homes that are safe, equal and free from violence.
Choosing Not To Have It All: We speak to five women about choosing not to have children.
In Waiting: A study of time suspended—waiting on the arrival of a new baby and a new identity.
Trans couple, Emilie and Nomi reflect on their blended family and the freedom their love brings.
THE START: For artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck her process of starting a new piece of work begins long before she sits down with her materials.
Read our series of interviews checking in with a range of women on how they’re doing this side of the pandemic.
HOME: Returning “home” when you haven’t lived there for years.
MOVEMENT: Take a journey in sound with Nabihah Iqbal from the comfort of your bedroom.
MOVEMENT: Dissect the myth of class mobility with professor Lisa McKenzie.
MOVEMENT: We meet three traveller families who are tired of being moved on.
RELEASE & RESET: A young woman’s journey to release herself from conflicting identities.
RELEASE & RESET: We look at why moving our bodies is about more than just aesthetics.
REAL TALK: CHILDBIRTH
Charlotte Jansen spoke to three different women about their experiences of childbirth to explore the multitude of ways they each brought their babies into the world. Read more >
THE MOTHERHOOD CONUNDRUM
It’s the unspoken expectation that all women at some point will become mothers. We grow up being subconsciously fed this narrative. We’re told it’s our biological reason for being and we’re led to believe it’s the most worthwhile thing we can do with our lives. But what if it’s not? Read more >
GENDER, ILLNESS & MOTHERHOOD
For multidisciplinary artist Panteha Abareshi, motherhood as never been on the cards. Diagnosed with sickle cell at aged two, the now 19-year-old was told during her early pre-teens that birthing children would never be an option for her. She was infertile. Read more >
THE SHIT SANDWICH
Leanne Cloudsdale writes a searingly personal account of being on the rollercoaster ride of infertility. Read her essay here.
LANDFILL AS MUSEUMS
How often do you think about where your trash ends up? Not the paper and plastic you honourably recycle — the stuff that you put in the “everything else” bin. The packaging and miscellaneous rubbish that you’re not sure what to do with; where does it all go? Find out >
USE YOUR INDIVIDUAL POWER TO PUNCH UP
It’s always made sense to me that before we can do the big things like hold our governments and large corporations accountable we must do the small things within our own lives because it motivates us and gives us hope. Read more
MOVEMENT: Meet the queer club kids who found community through movement.
MOVEMENT: We stretch and limber up with movement director Delphine Gaborit.
In partnership with Squarespace, we have asked four artists, Amaal Said, Christina Nwabugo, Iringó Demeter and Sirui Ma, to create a series of images representing what this newfound freedom means to them.
Each of the artists involved spoke to us about how their creative response to the idea of freedom and how they find it in their own lives. Take a closer look here.
RELEASE & RESET: How can we reset our thinking about borders?
PREPARING MY DAUGHTER FOR RAIN
The beautiful and heartbreaking poetry of Key Ballah. Read more >
BROWN GIRL IN THE RING
Charting parallels between childhood and motherhood by Lou Mensah. Read more >
In our popular imagination, there is a response to the climate crisis that asks individuals to adopt an attitude of austerity. Céline Semaan, founder of sustainable fashion summit Study Hall disagrees. Céline believes that we need to expand - expand our thinking and our ability to put innovative solutions into place. The latest iteration of Study Hall explores this theme and to accompany the event in New York we created a zine featuring further reading. Take a look through some of the content and expand your mind here.
RELEASE & RESET: Underplayed, a new film that takes a deep dive into gender inequality in the music industry.
RELEASE & RESET: The power of quiet reflection and prayer in a mad, noisy world.
WRITING & MOTHERHOOD
“In those strange, metamorphic months, writing became a means of escape. It was the only exit I could rely on when the seismic shift from a hedonistic, unencumbered young journalist living at my mum’s house to parent-with-a-mortgage became too much.” Novelist Charlotte Philby wrote about the escape that writing gave her in the early days of motherhood. Read her full piece here.
OBSERVATIONS & ORCHESTRATIONS
One photographer’s journey to motherhood via the Mongolian steppe. Read more >
REAL TALK: MIDWIVES
The profession of midwifery is fascinating: midwives meet women at the most extreme moment of their life, sharing a very vulnerable, intimate and life-altering moment with them—only to probably never hear of them again. We spoke to three midwives who between them have delivered thousands of babies—about their insights into giving birth and how it has shaped the way they view themselves and other women. Read more >
GAME CHANGERS
As we face an uncertain future due to the effects of climate change, where can we turn for solutions? Where are some of the innovative answers coming from? Dr Maytha Alhassen spoke to three innovators who are developing solutions by invoking a circular economy philosophy, harnessing Najavo ethno-agriculture and redesigning cities to prepare for rising sea levels. Read more >
FAIR PLAY
When brands look to scale their production and increase revenue the traditional model, built on a colonial mindset, is to look for cheap labour overseas to produce goods for a Western market. However, this exploitative set-up isn’t sustainable for anyone involved. Why empowering women and artisans is key to sustainability at scale. Read more >
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
In our hyper digitized and urban lives, nature can sometimes seem like a separate entity. We often forget we’re intrinsically linked to our environment—that we are part of nature. Jungwon Kim of the Rainforest Alliance wants to remind us of that connectivity. Read more >
ICONS ONLY
Graphic designer Anna Potter of Top Girl Studio chose Frida Kahlo as her all time icon. "Feminist, selfie queen, style icon and all round fierce female. To me Frida Kahlo will always be the definition of girl power. The Mexican painter became a female icon to many women worldwide for her personal self-portraits that explored her own traumatic experiences. In her own words: “I never painted dreams. I painted only my reality.” Click through to read more >
“Do I remember the smell of her hairspray, or is that just a false memory? Have I memorised the height of her beehive from photos, or is this a remembrance of something true and real?” Zing Tsjeng on the memory of her iconic grandmother Julie Wong. Read more >
“Her use of colour, text and the content she chose to explore has hugely inspired my work and my process as a photographer.” Shaniqwa Jarvis on how the work of Carrie Mae Weems influenced her own process. Read more>
Mriga Kapadiya & Amrit Kumar of NorBlack NorWhite talk about why Rekha is their everlasting icon, “Rekha is a legit NorBlack NorWhite style icon who has always kept things outrageous yet classic, performative yet fun and dramatic to the core.” Read more >
Wendy Joan Williams, also known as the self-proclaimed “Queen of all Media”, has never been one to mince words. Today, she may be better known for The Wendy Williams Show on television, but the Wendy Williams era of terrestrial radio will always reign supreme. Everyday at 3:30pm EST, the radio in my after-school carpool would be tuned to 107.5 WBLS to hear “the black, female Howard Stern.” Read more >
ICON: AGNÈS VARDA
Journalist Megan Carnegie shares her icon Agnès Varda, a film director who's work was central to the French New Wave film movement in the 1950s. Read more >
Stevie Nicks wrote beautiful, image-heavy songs that stick right in your gut. She has a way of making her personal crises into timeless rock ’n' roll songs that everyone feels; her heartache is just like your heartache. Read more>
PRINT ARCHIVE: FEATURES
FEATURE: THE WITCH IN ALL OF US
In our uncertain times an ancient, mystical force arising. Reflecting on the findings of Professor Diane Purkiss, we look at modern witchcraft. Read More >
Do a Google Image search for “bar graph” or “pie chart” and you won’t find Mona Chalabi’s work. Those Plain Jane data visualisations you’ve seen in textbooks or on the nightly news are not her style. Rather, she sees a person behind every data point and uses her vibrant, humorous illustrated work and at a time when we’re drowning in more data than we know what to do with, Chalabi’s wit and rigour feels more vital than ever. Read more >
Meet Bea Feitler, the iconic designer whose work would shape the look of the 60s and 70s and revolutionise the meaning of a magazine. Read more >
The idea of “self-care” is new to Naomi Shimada. But as things in politics continue to go from weird to weirder and dangerous policies become a reality she's discovered it’s important to stay vigilant and resist so to help Naomi shares her top self-care tips to help look after yourself and stay strong. Read more >
PRINT ARCHIVE: MEETINGS
From outspoken speeches to nude photoshoots, Ericka Hart is disrupting the world’s misinformed idea of what a breast cancer survivor looks like. Read more >
MEETINGS: PALOMA ELSESSER
Friends Paloma Elsesser and Phoebe Lovatt sat down together for our latest issue to talk about body image, self-love, addiction and the importance of challenging beauty norms. Read more >
Molly Goddard's creations are dresses to have fun in, they're for getting into trouble in and they're utterly beautiful. We met Molly to discuss how she approaches creating collections, where she looks for ideas and how she deals with running a business in a demanding industry. Read more >
Photographer Dana Lixenberg is a master of observation. She confidently embraces the messy truths of life. We met her in issue #8 to talk about the project that would still resonate with audiences decades later. Read more >