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Volume 05 — Issue 02

Neighbourhood Life + Global Style

Neighbourhood Smart move Life The writing on the wall Style The third man Music A shaded view Culture Stone cold + The photography special

The grey album

The editor’s letter

3

Publisher and editor-in-chief Nicholas Lewis Editorial assistant Sarah Schug Design facetofacedesign + pleaseletmedesign Writers Felicia AtkinsonSabine Clappaert Rose Kelleher Nicholas Lewis Philippe Pourhashemi Sarah Schug Sam Steverlynck Robbert van Jaarsveld Photographers/Illustrators Ulrike Biets Sarah Eechaut Veerle Frissen Pauline Miko Melika Ngombe Grégoire Pleynet Virassamy Intern Anne Catharina Richard
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I never thought I’d say this, but doing this magazine has become rather boring. The thing is, I’mnot the guy who goes out and does the interviews or who takes the photographs. I’m not the one who designs each and every page nor am I even the one who proof reads them. No, I’m the (boring) guy who sits behind his desk day-in day-out, planning, story-boarding and commissioning each story, shoot and feature for others to carry-out. Fact is, I can’t remember the last time I left this office andinterviewed someone face-to-face. So you can image my joy when time came for our yearly photography special. Finally, I’d be able to get into the thick of it again. Interviews, studio visits, round tables, portfolio views – the lot. Photography, you see, is my thing here at Word HQ, and I got more than my money’s worth over the last few weeks. And what an exciting last few weeks it has been,especially for Belgian photography. There was the time we asked the heavy weights of Belgian photography to select their pick of future home-grown talents. We had Dirk Braeckman selecting Max Pinckers, Stephan Vanfleteren picking Thomas Sweertvaegher and Gilbert Fastenaekens choosing Clément Montagne. And those are just some of the big names whose opinion we enlisted. Then there was the round-table wehosted at Contretype in Brussels, asking certain players of the local publishing game to discuss the evolution of the coffee table book, and the possibility of it becoming the new exhibition. We also paid tribute to the artisans without whom photography wouldn’t be possible, photographed the cameras of three different types of photographers, did a round-up of Belgian photo zines, zoomed in on fourphotography series that particularly tickle our fancy at the moment as well as asked a portrait photographer to aim the lens at herself for once. And those are just the stand out features. Turn to page 67 for our statistics page and the entire special itself. On top of that, and not to be forgotten, we have the grey album. Before anything, you wouldn’t imagine how relieved and pleased I am for it tofinally have gone to print. As many of you know, we had some problems bringing it out in February, as was planned, so decided to push it back a little. And that turned out to be one of the wisest decisions we’d taken in a while. Content-wise, it’s a banger. We tracked down seven of the country’s most notorious graffiti writers, spoke to four specialists catering to the grey economy, interviewedDior Homme creative director Kris Van Assche as well as profiled electronic music visionary Daniel Miller, founder of Mute records and The Grey Area. Not that boring after all… Nicholas Lewis

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