Kenny Scharf reenacting his emoji-like paintings’ emotions with ‘Scardey’ (above his head) and ‘Tribali’ on his side

American artist Kenny Scharf’s work straddles a line between pop-art, street art and neo-expressionism. Through surreal imagery and humour, he challenges the elitist boundaries of fine art. Granted exclusive access to his new LA studio, LUX editor-at-large and artist Maryam Eisler spoke to Scharf about cosmic donuts, emojis and his friendship with Keith Haring.

Photography by Maryam Eisler

Maryam Eisler: You posted on your Instagram page that you found the black hole (referring to your image of a donut suspended in space) long before the black hole was photographed! Tell me about that.
Kenny Scharf: Well, I’ve been making cosmic donuts for quite some time now. I was always intrigued by this theory that the universe was shaped like a donut. I love the way donuts look….so it seemed so natural to do donuts in space! So when I saw the new blackhole image, I said ‘Uhhhh that looks like a donut!!’ I couldn’t help it.

Maryam Eisler: So I cannot help but ask you the question: where do we end up? In the donut’s hole or do we keep sparkling like its sprinkles?
Kenny Scharf: I don’t really know…maybe it’s even more sparkly in the hole!

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Maryam Eisler: Would it be fair to say that you invented the emoji?
Kenny Scharf: I guess I did. I’ve been doing it [referring to the round paintings] for 40 years before the actual internet came about.

Maryam Eisler: So copyright on the emoji?
Kenny Scharf: Yeah I need to get a penny every time someone uses those emojis. Actually I have my own emojis app. It costs two dollars!

Maryam Eisler: You’ve never been about definition, have you? And pretty much spanned across all mediums…
Kenny Scharf: I’m always wanting to break boundaries. If there’s a border, I’m going to go outside of it. You can’t keep me in. That’s against my…everything!

A view into the mezzanine of Kenny Scharf’s LA studio space

Maryam Eisler: Talk to me about New York in the 80s and the confluence of art, fashion, music, and the night clubs.
Kenny Scharf: When I moved to New York in the late 70s, there weren’t a lot of places artists could show their work or even make their work. There were so many young kids like myself who moved to New York with ambition. There were musicians and writers and people in fashion too. So nightclubs were a great venue to do your thing. Not only were nightclubs a place where you could make and show art, but they were also our livelihood. So we worked a couple nights a week and that was all you needed to pay your bills for the whole week, and you were then free to make your art. So New York became a place where you could move to, as a young artist without money, and find your way and meet other artists. It was this whole community that was just there. I feel very lucky that I arrived at that moment in time. But, I think the nostalgia for the 80s is more about the late 70s’. Because by ‘82, people started dying. I was just in my 20s and I was spending most of the latter part of the 80s going to hospitals and funerals and saying goodbye to friends and people. It was just beyond a nightmare.

Maryam Eisler: From Studio 54 to Club 57, tell me about it.
Kenny Scharf: Studio 54, I only went into once. Everyone knows it was a famous disco, a happening place. But my kind of group was more Punk-rock, New-Wave, downtown and very anti-uptown.

Read more: Artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar on the rise of interest in Iranian art

Maryam Eisler: East Village right?
Kenny Scharf: Yeah. At that time, Manhattan was very different with different parts to it. We hardly ever went north of 14th street, and the uptown people never ventured down to our neighbourhood. Club 57 was an amazing place and it did get its spotlight recently. There was a show at the MoMA that highlighted it. It was just this kind of moment. I don’t know if that kind of gathering place exists anymore, now that everything is online and internet-based. It almost harkened back to Berlin or Paris before the war and to these moments where artists got together and created with and for each other, always testing new ideas.

Kenny adding his final touch to an untitled painting depicting a flower arrangement

Maryam Eisler: A form of inner salon of some sort?
Kenny Scharf: Exactly. And the thing that was so good in retrospect, even though we were all dying to be famous and whatnot, was that we had each other to test out whatever we wanted to do. It was very inspiring. You were able to do whatever you wanted to do in the safety of this audience before you went out into the big world. A chance to incubate ideas.

Maryam Eisler: Would that idea of safety and sanctuary translate into your own Cosmic Taverns?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, that idea is definitely about safety and sanctuary. In fact, the very first one I did was around ‘82 and I was living in an old ramshackle townhouse in the middle of Times Square. Keith Haring was my roommate. It was on 6th Avenue and 42nd street. There was so much madness on the street surrounding us that I would create these environments inside, using artificial things – mostly plastic garbage and appliances and stuff which I would find on the street. And I would create this very chaotic artificial environment that actually acted as a refuge. Let’s call it artificial nature for urbanites!

Maryam Eisler: The idea carries on today. I see it here in your studio. It seems like you still work with found objects, recycled plastic and disused garbage ….
Kenny Scharf: I’m obsessed. I’ve been obsessed with garbage all my life. When I first moved to New York in the late 70s, the whole city was garbage. Nobody was picking it up. Everything I needed for my new life was there on the streets: I found my furniture, my clothes. This whole New Wave scene … we were all wearing 50s clothes because we all found them in the garbage! I feel like trash is such an indicator of the society that we live in. Not only does it show a lot about who we are, but I love the idea that these objects were actually used by somebody, and that they have this whole story and life that I don’t know about. And of course, there’s also recycling and the fact that we are drowning in our own garbage!

A view into the ground floor of Scharf’s studio

Maryam Eisler: From garbage to accessible artistic content, philosophically speaking?
Kenny Scharf: Yes. Philosophically, I’ve always been a proponent of accessibility. When I moved to New York in the late 70s, Conceptual and Minimal art were in fashion. I just didn’t like it. It felt too elitist and I don’t want to be elitist. I’m always staggering this fine line because I want to be in museums, that upper echelon of where art is shown, but I don’t like the idea of alienating anyone either. And I mean Joe Blow on the street who may have never read art history or gone into a single museum before! I would like to get those people interested in art and maybe inspire someone with an uplifting message. My language is the language of art so I don’t want to turn off the art-educated either!

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Maryam Eisler: Isn’t art, at the end of the day, about interaction and connection?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, and communication. I have a message. You have a show in a major museum and you are going to get a certain amount of people to go and see it. You do a mural in a high traffic spot on the street, and you’ll get the same number of people, if not more, seeing it every day. I also love the idea that art goes beyond boundaries. Most people think that art belongs on a wall in a gallery or a museum. I think it should be everywhere. I often like to think about ancient civilisations, the Greeks and the Egyptians, and how they infused art into their everyday objects the same way I do. I really believe that by doing this, you elevate your daily existence.

‘I’ve been obsessed with garbage all my life!’

Maryam Eisler: Your emojis are a form of hieroglyphic art, right? Image after image, you try to describe a state of mind, an emotion, a space, a place …. There’s an emotive aspect to your art.
Kenny Scharf: Yes. Communication, feelings, history… Art that I love is art that emotionally gets to me, and I want to convey the same thing to people. I want people to feel.

Maryam Eisler: I love your lack of concern about the monetary value of your art in a world dominated by the $ sign . You paint cars and give them away as long as they’re not resold for gain!
Kenny Scharf: Yes, I’ve done 250 cars. We take pictures. People have crossed the line only two or three times in the past. Not cool.

One of Scharf’s 250 painted cars, utilitarian artworks which he creates for free, with the promise that they are never to be sold for gain

Maryam Eisler: From Cosmic Taverns to Flintstone’s cavern. Where did it all start?
Kenny Scharf: The Jetsons and the Flintstones? Back in the early 80s, when I was trying to figure out how to get myself out there, I realised nobody in the gallery world was going to be interested in me if I just told them ‘Hey I make art! Come and see.’ My whole group was in the street and we met all these graffiti artists with incredible paintings on subway cars; they used the whole city as their canvas basically. Around the Times Square show in ‘81, a lot of downtown, Punk, New Wave art-types like myself, met with all the uptown Bronx graffiti artists, and there was this very interesting cultural mix moment. I had a studio at PS1 and I lived in the East Village so I used to ride my bike at two in the morning down from the 59th street bridge to the East Village and bomb the walls the whole way down. I thought that I wanted to do something that was very personal to me in many ways, the Flintstones! Not only because I grew up with them but because conceptually I love the idea of the Flintstones representing the past and the Jetsons representing the future. And everybody knows who they are. I wanted to do something that people already connected with but that was also part of me. And at one point, the past and the future collided and created mutants which were my own characters.

‘Conceptually I love the idea of the Flintstones representing the past and the Jetsons representing the future. And at one point, the past and the future collided and created mutants which were my own characters.’

Maryam Eisler: So I haven’t brought up Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat purposefully. Could you give me one word, one anecdote or a wonderful memory for each?
Kenny Scharf: I mean I have so many memories. I met Keith and Jean Michel in 1978, basically my second week of arrival from LA to New York. And we all had this instant connection. It’s like when you meet somebody and you don’t really know why you are so attracted to them and vice versa. I met Jean Michel and introduced him to Keith. The three of us were a little bit of a posse. I used to go around with Jean Michel and Keith and draw and paint on the street. One of my first memories was when I went to this apartment where Jean Michel was living; it was just about a block away from where I was living, and I saw these collages he had on the wall and I was just blown away. I swear I almost fell on the floor. It was one of those moments when you see something and there is so much energy coming off this piece of paper that it literally floored me. I’ll never forget that moment.

Maryam Eisler: Can you share your last memory with Jean Michel?
Kenny Scharf: Of course. With Jean Michel, our relationship was not easy. It started off very close and then he kind of turned on me. We had this very volatile relationship where I didn’t know which Jean Michel I was going to get on any particular day, and actually, it was the source of a lot of stress for me. I really cared for him a lot, and he could be really difficult. So in the late 80s, all that amazing explosion from the early 80s, had a little backlash where that kind of expression was not ‘the thing’ any longer and Jean Michel, as always, really took everything to heart and he was just really down. There was this moment where I remember connecting with him on the street, where he could look at me not as competition and an enemy anymore and realise that we were both on the same side of the line; he let down the guard. We had this special moment. I didn’t know he was about to die.

Maryam Eisler: I read the book The Widow Basquiat. It seems like he did that uncertain thing to everyone?
Kenny Scharf: He did it to the ones he cared about. He was always testing. He was really…very…disturbed. He really was.

Maryam Eisler: A sign of artistic genius, perhaps?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, I know.

Untitled 2019 by Kenny Scharf

Maryam Eisler: What was your last memory with [Andy] Warhol?
Kenny Scharf: Right before he went in for the gallbladder surgery, I remember having a similar thing as I did with Basquiat – not that we ever had any down times because Andy was always great to me. He was always very supportive. But I remember…I dunno maybe he wasn’t feeling well or something. I remember I was in a restaurant and there was an emotional connection where I really felt something strong with him. Then I went to Brazil a week later and actually Keith [Haring] was with me when we found out about his death.

Maryam Eisler: And lastly, with Keith?
Kenny Scharf: I was the last person to be with him. So I was sitting with him and he wasn’t able to talk anymore. There’s no way I cannot cry, talking about my last moments with him. He was very agitated and I just told him ‘I know you can hear me’; I also told him that he should just calm down and relax because I was with him. And as his body relaxed, I said ‘You know you’re going to live on forever.’ I was telling him everything I believed and felt….It was really hard…losing my best friend.

Maryam Eisler: For you personally, to perform the act of creation, do you have to be at an emotional high or low? Are you really that happy-faced person?
Kenny Scharf: Sometimes. All the emotions, I am. I am a happy person. I’m an optimist despite a million things that are freaking me out. My feeling is that if I’m not an optimist, then I will kill myself. So I force myself to be optimistic no matter how I may be feeling inside. I take the stance and I do it. Because I’m here and I want to make the best of it. Now, I have grandkids and I’m really freaked out about the world they’re inheriting, so I have no choice but to be an optimist for them.

Maryam Eisler: Speaking of the world, one word on Trump?
Kenny Scharf: Piece of shit. Or just shit. Everything about what he represents is the antithesis of everything that I believe in. I’ve always felt that way all the way back to the 80s. I actually met him ten years ago, and I was so freaked out by his lack of normal decent connection. He was just so creepy. The whole thing nauseated me so much. The day of the election I couldn’t stop crying. I cried for a week. It was devastating and here we are two years later, and I still cannot believe this has happened. His name and the word President do not go hand in hand.

Maryam Eisler: You are now back in LA , your ‘home’? You left the concrete for greener pastures and blue skies, with a much more laid back attitude and even more space? And, of course, your family.
Kenny Scharf: I love it here. I was bouncing back and forth between LA and New York but when my grandson was born I realised that I didn’t want to be away anymore. I am completely in love with my grandkids. Obsessed in fact. I never realised how great being a grandpa was actually going to be.

Kenny Scharf’s solo exhibition ‘blue blood’ runs from 2 May to 28 July 2019 at the David Totah gallery, New York City

Discover Kenny Scharf’s portfolio: kennyscharf.com

‘Love Ritual’, 2018/19. Oil on canvas. Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar.

This year’s edition of artmonte-carlo brings international galleries to the Côte d’Azur. We speak to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat resident and artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar about the fair and the rising interest in contemporary Iranian art

artmonte-carlo returns to the French Riviera for its fourth-edition with a select list of prominent international galleries, including Kamel Mennour, White Cube and Victoria Miro to name but a few. This will be artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar‘s first time participating in the fair at Dusseldorf-based gallery Setareh’s booth, alongside contemporary Iranian artist Reza Derakshani. The booth will also feature works by Gregor Gleiwitz, Hans Hartung, Imi Knoebel, Markus Lupertz amongst others.

Based in Dusseldorf with three locations, Setareh Gallery presents a global selection of contemporary and modern art. Established in 2013, the gallery is anchored in the Rhineland whilst operating internationally.

Known for his vibrant, abstract mixed-media paintings, which draw on ancient Persian motifs, patterns and landscapes, Behnam-Bakhtiar celebrates a complex cultural identity and not only invites new perspectives on the region, but also explores themes of a prosperous way of life, human evolution, the universal language, eternal feelings and Self, history, present and future. His work awakens a strong sense of experiencing positive emotions and transcendence, while accessing its audience’s psyche to bring about locked knowledge, intuition and human sensitivity.

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‘It is not a surprise that Iranian art holds its own league due to the vastness and richness of the Iranian culture and heritage,’ says Bakhtiar. ‘Even though the contemporary Iranian art scene has faced many challenges throughout the last few decades due to the political climate on Iran – unfortunately affecting its artists, gallerists and art institutions – Iranian artists due to the quality of their work and their profiles internationally have managed to perform in an outstanding manner, being represented by leading galleries internationally, holding important museum and gallery exhibitions.’

‘Mini Lovers’, 2017. Oil on canvas. Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar

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Behnam-Bakhtiar’s own work has been steadily gaining an international presence since his emergence on the art scene back in 2009. A recent sale Christie’s sale in Dubai, U.A.E, Dubai, U.A.E, saw his painting ‘Eternal Spring, 100 x 73 cm’ surpass its estimate of USD 6,000 to 8,000 to sell for USD 12,500, whilst ‘Hunting the Dawn, 199 x 224 cm’ by Reza Derakshani sold for USD 112,500, both nearly doubling their estimates.

‘Psychedelic Wholeness’, 2017/2018. Oil on canvas. Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar

‘Flower Garden’. Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar.

Bakhtiar will be unveiling a new collection of works at the fair and is looking forward to exhibiting in a country that he feels a deep connection to. ‘As a somewhat local artist living and working in the neighbouring Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat while having roots in the principality from a very young age, it is nice to be representing the arts of the region in a fair of this calibre,’ he says.

artmonte-carlo runs from 25 to 28 April 2019. For more information visit: artmontecarlo.ch

To view more artwork by Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar visit sassanbehnambakhtiar.com or follow the artist on Instagram @sassanbehnambakhtiar

Art by Grace Crabtree

Genetically modified organisms have courted controversy since they were first developed. Mark Lynas’ new book explores the surprising extent to which politics has trumped science in the GMO debate, says Shannon Osaka

When Mark Lynas slouched onto the stage at the 2013 Oxford Farming Conference, he looked decidedly uncomfortable. After all, the British environmentalist and science writer — known for his well-researched and detailed books on climate change — was about to face his peers in a format best resembling a confession. ‘My lords, ladies, and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops.’

Lynas wasn’t speaking metaphorically. In the late 1990s, dressed in a black hoodie and clutching a machete, Lynas took part in ‘direct actions’ against geoengineering, in which he and his fellow activists dodged police and landowners to destroy GM crops. Their call to action was a milieu of anti-corporate sentiment, anti-capitalism, and resistance to the modification of nature. In advance of one early action, Lynas wrote on a flyer: ‘Huge corporations…are using genetics to engineer a corporate takeover of our entire food supply. There is still time to stop them.’

From the beginning, the producers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs or GMs for short) – including such unsavoury companies as the US-based Monsanto – have been embroiled in a war of attrition against environmental activists. Those ideologically opposed to genetic modification spent the late 90s and early 2000s planning protests and spreading misinformation about the dangers of the new crops. They called GMOs ‘Frankenfoods’. They demonised the scientists and researchers who developed them.

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And they were overwhelmingly successful. In 2005, a Gallup poll found that a third of the US population believed that crops made with biotech posed ‘a serious health hazard to consumers’. By 2015, over half of the countries in the European Union, including Germany, France, and Italy, had enacted bans against the cultivation of GM crops. While GMOs are still grown today in the United States, their spread has been slowed or halted in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

To date, however, the deleterious effects of GMOs remain merely speculative. Ninety percent of scientists think that genetically modified foods are safe. The American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the Royal Society of London, and many other science organisations worldwide have stated that GMOs are safe or, at the very least, not any more dangerous than organisms developed through conventional breeding methods.

It was the realisation that his position was not only unsupported by, but in fact the antithesis of, the scientific consensus that led Lynas to his emotional confession before the Oxford Farming Conference. It also led him to write Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs (2018), a book that is at once memoir, polemic, and technology explainer; it is at times frustrating and at other times revelatory.

It is also timely. In an age that has been called ‘post-fact’ and ‘post-truth’, trust in science is on a decline amid a deluge of internet-spread misinformation, partisan politicking, and privately-funded denialism. A BBC documentary in 2010 declared that science was ‘under attack’ and the March for Science, founded last year in response to the inauguration of Donald Trump, attracted 100,000 participants in Washington, D.C. alone. On both sides of the Atlantic, doubt has spread on every scientific question from the veracity of anthropogenic climate change to the safety of vaccines.

Amid such conflict and uncertainty, Lynas’ recantation seems hopeful: a triumph of reason over emotion, of evidence over partisanship. But the real story is more complicated. As [Shawn] Otto explains in his lengthy and thorough The War on Science (2016), scientific reasons for supporting one position or another all too easily bleed into ideological ones – whether the issue is conservative opposition to climate change or liberal distrust of GMOs. Yes, Lynas changed his mind: but was he motivated by fact or ideology?

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The story of GMOs begins with a misnomer. All organisms that we eat are, in one way or another, ‘genetically modified’. We have crossbred similar species of plants and animals to select for particular, idealised characteristics. That’s why carrots are orange, large, and sweet rather than small, white, and woody. That’s also why we have domesticated dogs that range in size and shape from the dachshund to the Great Dane.

But it can’t be denied that GMOs have an extra ick factor. Genetically modified organisms, in the sense that we use the word today, contain genes that have been extracted from some other, often completely unrelated, organism. Donor DNA which codes for a particular useful protein is removed and implanted into the recipient, imbuing it with the superpowers of (in the case of food) pest or herbicide resistance. This type of genetic engineering is cool, but also frightening. As Lynas said in his conference speech, ‘This absolutely was about deep-seated fears of scientific powers being used secretly for unnatural ends … We employed a lot of imagery about scientists in their labs, cackling demonically as they tinkered with the very building blocks of life.’ There’s something about modifying the genome itself that smacks of technological overreach.

Art by Grace Crabtree

It doesn’t help that GMOs are a poster child for the corporatisation of farming. Monsanto, a multinational conglomerate formerly based in St. Louis, Missouri, was one of the first companies to produce and commodify genetically engineered seeds. (Monsanto no longer exists as an independent entity: in June 2018, it finalised its sale to German chemical giant Bayer). Lynas traces how Monsanto engineers stumbled upon a highly potent, surprisingly safe herbicide called glyphosate, which the corporate eventually dubbed ‘Roundup’. Combined with a soybean genetically modified to resist glyphosate – aka the ‘Roundup Ready’ soybean – Monsanto could sell farmers seeds and herbicide simultaneously, ensuring a steady stream of profit.

Although the company touted its ethical bona fides at every opportunity, its business practises looked suspect. GM crops had promised to help the environment by removing the need for toxic herbicides and pesticides – but Monsanto’s first big biotech release required an herbicide: one that was produced only by Monsanto. The company had also pledged to reduce poverty in developing countries with its new crops. But it aggressively patented its products to lock out competitors, and seemed to seek a kind of monopolistic control over the world food system

Lynas and his fellow activists exploited this narrative to the best of their ability. Companies like Monsanto, they argued, were ‘playing God with DNA, and using customers as guinea pigs’. In one press release from 1997, Lynas claimed that under the biotech company ‘the natural world is being redesigned for private profit’. In these communications, multiple forms of GMO opposition were intertwined and blurred. Were Lynas and his colleagues worried that ingesting GMOs would cause illness, disease, or death? Were they reacting to the commodification of agriculture, food, and nature – a long-standing environmentalist raison d’etre? Or was it a purely philosophical opposition against human technological hubris?

The answer matters. The recent twist in Anglo-American politics has created an illusion that all science denial emerges from the right. Denial of climate change has become a near-fundamentalist belief from pro-industry conservatives, while right-leaning religious groups and conspiracy theorists contradict evolution and (in some bizarre cases), the fact that the earth is round.

But, as Otto argues, distrust of science is equal opportunity. It affects thinkers on the left and the right, when science conflicts with dominant ideologies. The anti-vaccine craze, beginning in England with now-discredited physician Andrew Wakefield, began as a movement of well-educated liberals who inherited the holistic health fad of the 1970s. Other historical leftist anti-science positions have included fear of fluoride in tap water, or suspicion that mobile phones and microwaves can cause cancer.

One of the mysteries of GMO opposition, however, is how the same left-wing environmentalists who espouse a 97% scientific consensus on climate change ignore – or even criticise – the similar consensus on the safety of genetically engineered foods.

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Lynas was once one of them. Lacking a scientific background and propelled by green values, he wrote blithely in the 90s about the dangers of GM crops, with little empirical evidence beyond anecdotes shared among eco-advocacy groups. But over the next decade his focus changed. Inspired by what he saw as rampant rejection of global warming science (he once pied climate denier Bjørn Lomborg in the face during a book tour), Lynas started pouring over the research on climate change. He wrote two popular books explaining climate science: Six Degrees and High Tide.

In 2008, shortly after winning a science book prize for Six Degrees, he was asked by The Guardian to write an op-ed on GMOs. He was startled to find that he couldn’t locate any legitimate peer-reviewed sources to back up his usual claims that genetically modified crops could contaminate local environments, or that they led to the use of more hazardous chemicals in farming. ‘Facts are stubborn things,’ John Adams once wrote, and Lynas, overwhelmed, felt he was at a crossroads: all his environmentalist colleagues opposed GMOs. ‘I could betray my friends, or I could betray my conscience,’ he writes. ‘Which would it be?’

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In the end, Lynas prioritised his conscience. In the first half of Seeds of Science, he attempts to debunk every wrongheaded GMO belief he ever harboured, from claims that GM crops cause environmental devastation to the moral culpability of Monsanto. In some places, such as in his polemic against ‘fake news’ peddled by the environmental movement, his interventions are long overdue. In 2008, news outlets widely reported that thousands of Indian farmers had committed suicide because they couldn’t afford to pay Monsanto for genetically-engineered cotton seeds. The story was pushed by Vandana Shiva, a high-profile Indian activist who has called GMOs a form of ‘food totalitarianism’ and referred to the introduction of insect-resistant Bt cotton into the state of Maharashtra as a ‘genocide’.

But, as Lynas points out, all available evidence shows that suicides among Indian farmers are no higher than other countries in the developed or developing world – including Scotland and France. Journalists, including Lynas himself and New Yorker correspondent Michael Specter, travelled to Maharashtra and found no evidence of the massive suicide waves Shiva and anti-GMO campaigners pointed to. Lynas writes, ‘The Indian farmer suicide story is a myth, built … by those like Vandana Shiva with an ideological axe to grind and little concern about the true facts.’

In other places, however, Lynas seems blinded by his own enthusiasm. Eager as he is to debunk GMO fears, he conflates the connection between GMOs and health – a question that science can answer – with more philosophical oppositions. We can think GMOs are safe to eat, but still question whether humans should be modifying genomes in the first place. We can believe GM crops are safe for the environment, and still critique Monsanto’s patenting process and its monopolisation of the global food supply. When Lynas writes a chapter lionising the history of Monsanto, he sounds less like a rational man of science, and more like a man who has traded one ideology for another.

And while science itself may not be ideological, its interpretation, and the public’s belief in its findings, certainly is. Otto argues that the role of values and ideology in scientific trust has plagued communication (and democracy) for decades. The British philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon put it best when he wrote, in 1620: ‘…What a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research … [and] things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections colour and infect the understanding.’

While Lynas initially wanted to believe that his change of heart was based on cold, hard, scientific facts, modern psychology has proven the opposite. Science communication is often based on an ‘information deficit model’; if only the public were more informed, scientists argue, they would accept findings from anthropogenic climate change to the safety of GMOs.

But the truth is more complicated. For example, on the issue of climate change, studies have found that greater scientific literacy actually increases polarisation. According to a 2008 Pew Research Center Study, highly-educated conservatives in the US are less likely to believe in climate change than their less-educated counterparts. Otto attributes this to an educational model overly focused on critique, combined with never-before-seen political polarisation. He writes, grimly: ‘We are inculcating the attitude of scepticism without teaching the skills of evidence gathering and critical thinking needed to discern what is likely true.’

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The problem is that in the human mind, values run hotter than evidence. Essential knee-jerk moralisms (like opposition to sexual taboos) and partisan ideologies, whether pro-corporate or anti-establishment, take centre stage in the battle for our minds. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind (2012), argues that when faced by evidence contradicting a deeply-held belief, people ‘reason’, but not to find truth. Instead, they reason to support their emotional reactions. ‘If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch – a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion,’ Haidt writes. ‘They will almost always succeed.’

When it comes to the politics of science, a set of ideologies divide the public on controversies. Otto, with a chart that resembles a tuning fork, separates science sceptics into two broad camps. On one side, an odd couple of ‘old industry’ (oil, chemical, and agricultural companies) and ‘old religion’ have banded together to form right-wing anti-science. Otto calls it a ‘marriage of convenience’. ‘The fundamentalists needed access and legitimacy and the business interests needed passionate foot soldiers,’ he writes. Together, this right-wing group doubts the science of climate change, evolution, and reproductive health. On the other side, pro-environment liberals have joined with anti-corporate activists to question mainstream medicine, the safety of vaccines, and worry about the deleterious effects of GMOs.

This is certainly an oversimplification of a problem that is more granular than Otto lets on. Anti-science doesn’t split so neatly along partisan divides. (For example, while liberals tend to be the most active anti-GMO activists, many conservatives are suspicious of GM crops as well.) But his premise helps to unlock the puzzle of why climate change believers like Lynas are often also GMO sceptics. For an environmentalist, belief in science is not the tantamount value, but rather belief in preserving a particular vision of ‘nature’, one that is external to society but vulnerable to human influence. Within this worldview, anthropogenic climate change makes sense, but so do the dangers of genetic engineering. When value-centred beliefs clash with science – and with an increasingly entertainment-focused news media that, as Otto argues, is no longer a ‘marketplace of ideas’ but a ‘marketplace of emotion’ – consensus and evidence take a backseat to more heartfelt beliefs.

That’s a deeply troubling sign for a democratic society. Otto believes that science is essentially anti-authoritarian, that it relentlessly challenges received wisdom through a rigorous system of peer-review and hypothesis testing. What are we to do, then, when research shows that both the left and the right are unable to set ideology aside when facing scientific questions?

In the final few chapters of Seeds of Science, Lynas begins to understand the real reasons behind his change of heart. His polemic against anti-GMO activists gives way to a sincere exposition on the role of partisanship in science belief. His recantation came, he notes, on the heels of his acceptance into a community of scientists and science journalists, and thus into a new ideology (albeit one that placed science first). ‘Deep down,’ he writes, ‘I probably cared less about the actual truth than I did about my reputation for truth within my new scientific tribe … It wasn’t so much that I changed my mind, in other words. It was that I changed my tribe.’ It’s a dark takeaway from a book ostensibly written about the importance of facts and evidence.

Read more: A journey to the Kimberley with Geoffrey Kent

There are still reasons to oppose GMOs. One of Lynas’ friends, the Oxford-based environmental journalist George Monbiot, believes that the consensus that GMOs are safe changes little about the movement against them. ‘For me, it was all about corporate power, patenting, control, scale and dispossession,’ Monbiot told Lynas. In short, many of the villains countered by the environmental movement. Monbiot thus understands what Lynas initially ignored. Science can tell us about risks, benefits, and safety, but the decision about whether to genetically modify organisms (or, for example, whether to geo-engineer the climate to prevent catastrophic climate change), is a social and political one. It can only be made through use of all-too-human values and deliberation.

What is needed, then, is science as a platform, a foundation on which politics can be built. ‘Wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government,’ Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1789. At the end of his book, in a section optimistically titled ‘Winning the War’, Otto suggests science debates, a scientific code of ethics, journalistic standards for science coverage, and much more. He is a cheerleader for an evidence-based democratic society.

In the ‘post-truth’ era, where expertise is scoffed at and fact held in disdain, Otto’s scientific city on a hill seems a long way off. Humans that we are, we prefer narrative to evidence, linear stories to complex truths. We accept science when it aligns with our worldview; we doubt it if it does not. But, despite his flaws, Lynas represents the faint hope that under the right conditions we can change our minds. That, over time, the stubbornness of fact can – and might – outweigh the obstinance of ideology.

Shannon Osaka is a postgraduate student in geography at Worcester College, University of Oxford. She writes about technology, science, and climate change.

One of the panel discussions at the YPO Edge global leadership conference in Singapore in 2018, an annual event that brings together nearly 3,000 business leaders

The YPO may just be the most influential organisation in the world that most people haven’t heard of. An association of major business owners and chief executives spanning Asia, the US, Europe, Africa, South America, Australasia and the former Soviet Union, it is part high-end networking forum, part extended family. It is notoriously difficult to join, and those who are in say its discussion groups, events and networks have transformed their business and, sometimes, their personal lives. LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai hears some insights from YPO members in Asia

Joelle Goudsmit

Joelle Goudsmit, CEO of Dimension-all Group, Philippines

YPO member since June 2012

LUX: How did you first come across the YPO in the context of your business?
Joelle Goudsmit: I took over the family company when I was 24, because my mother passed away quite suddenly. I had a liberal arts degree that I enjoyed but it did not really prepare me for working in construction and scaffolding, the family business in the Philippines. A degree in economics and Japanese literature does not prepare you for negotiating with contractors.

I was talking to someone in Hong Kong, who asked whether I’ve ever heard of this group called YPO and said that I really should join. I was a bit suspicious, as she was a random
person in my yoga class, so I answered that I was a bit overwhelmed just then and that I didn’t have room for anything else. Then YPO came up in a business context with several other people across Asia. So, I joined when I was 30, when there was critical mass with lots of people who were around my age, and it was wonderful.

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Leading a company is really quite lonely. You don’t necessarily have peers at work, you have colleagues who work for you. That’s a very different dynamic. When you work in a family business, there can be complications because the work tends to come home and your family then becomes stakeholders first, not necessarily family.

Your YPO forum does not have a vested interest in your business, they just listen, they are peers, and tend to be willing to share. Looking across the organisation, the common denominator is that the people come in with a willingness and a desire to constantly learn throughout their lives. I personally think that it doesn’t matter how challenging work gets, there is a point at which one gets a little stupid doing the same thing over and over. It’s much better t go to a YPO event to unplug, get inspired, and get new energy in order to bring that drive and inspiration back to work, and to maybe look at problems in a different way.

LUX: When you joined, did being a member help your business in specific ways?
Joelle Goudsmit: Yes, I have a number of examples of where I received unbelievable business support. When I purchased my first company, I was trying to find out about the business as quickly as possible. I decided I’d be doing business development straight away, not to be the CEO, just to go out, meet with potential clients and see whether the business was truly viable.

YPO has chapters and networks. The networks deal with your current interests , whether they be business or personal/social. I joined the deal network, I was quite active with them, and they organised these sessions around the world where you went in and met with a group. You were open about what your company needed at this point and whoever was in the room would volunteer leads for you or they could suggest someone they know or a chapter mate or someone in your realm. I remember I was in Dubai at that point and was looking for potential strategic partners. I put my need out to the table and really wasn’t expecting anything. Someone at the table goes, “come speak to me at work tomorrow”. They became my first client I acquired on my own for the company, and it was a wonderful “Phew! This company is viable” moment. It gave me a lot of confidence and hope for that company. That came out of YPO and has repeated a lot of times ever since.

I recently had breakfast yesterday with someone I met through YPO. Previously, he had a work colleague he had sent to the Philippines who needed emergency medical care. He didn’t know what to do, so he had sent a message out to the network. We responded and we were able to make a phone call to someone who owned a hospital close to where the man was, and was able to get him the right care.

So, at breakfast recently, he mentioned he was going to Kazakhstan, and I mentioned I’d like to explore potential business opportunities in Kazakhstan. So, he is phoning people to make introductions. You never know where these will lead, but it saves you having to go into a country that is very foreign, where you don’t know anyone. It’s a huge deal.

Delegates at the YPO Edge conference in Singapore, 2018

Jennifer Liu

Jennifer Liu, Hong Kong-based owner of The Coffee Academics and founder of HABITŪ, Asia

YPO member since May 2017

LUX: Why did you join the YPO?
Jennifer Liu: When your entrepreneurial businesses reach a certain international scale, the YPO makes great sense, in terms of forming an alliance with other business friends and understanding the business environment.

I have not been a member for long, and I am getting active; for example, there is a very interesting event where YPO members in Hong Kong and the region visit the Greater Bay Area of China [the region connecting Hong Kong with mainland cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou]. YPO has a very selective process for its members. The calibre and the sophisticated mindsets of the people set it apart. I believe there are fewer than 100 members in Hong Kong. I went through three interviews.

LUX: What kind of questions were you asked?
Jennifer Liu: They want to know if you really are the person who makes all the important decisions in your company. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a top manager. And whether or not you can impact your company and the city or the world, one way or another both in the business world or the charities space.

Read more: Tips for a successful application to one of London’s most exclusive members’ clubs

LUX: You have been a member for less than two years ; how has it been?
Jennifer Liu: I love it. There are the very senior members who have seen it, done it, and they have all the words of wisdom. They have so much to share and for us, coming into this point in time where you’re no longer a young business person and you’re quite big, but you still have a lot to work on and to learn about, YPO has that resource of some of the best talents in town and also in the region or in the world, to openly and safely provide suggestions or networks. So, I think, in a way, when we come out and we say we are YPOers, it immediately means a certain standard, in terms of trust, respect and confidentiality. And in YPO, there is no specific hierarchy. Everyone is equal, and we all share . When it comes to confidentiality, it very clear what is level one, what is level two, and you feel very comfortable to share things you can’t even share with your family or your spouse or your co-workers.

LUX: In what way is it useful for your business?
Jennifer Liu: It’s very useful for me as person to have a safe environment to open up and to know people and to know what’s going on in Hong Kong or elsewhere in the world. It has a well-built system where we are not soliciting business between each other, but it’s a platform where we share useful and trusted information, both for business and personal matters.

Mathew Boylan

Matthew Boylan, President and CEO of Matador Systems, Singapore

YPO member since October 2010

LUX: How has YPO helped your business?
Matthew Boylan: YPO has done two incredible things . Number one, it is an amazing security blanket because for a company like mine the only way that we can survive is to be able to support clients in more than one location. Our clients need to work with one supplier for their entire IT support strategy whether that is in Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, Korea or Japan. That means we need to have operations in all of those countries, meaning we have to incorporate a legal entity in those countries, meaning we have to navigate the rules and regulations that apply to employing permanent staff in those countries.

Before I joined YPO, one of the experiences that we had when we wanted to set up an office and incorporate a legal entity in China, we started talking to corporate consultants in Singapore who provided that service. The frustrating thing was that we would receive a quote from one corporate consultant for US$30,000 to incorporate in Shanghai, we would receive another quote for US$300,000 for exactly the same service. You are going into a market that you don’t have much knowledge about or experience in, you have to put a certain amount of trust in third party suppliers, but it is very difficult if you have not been recommended to those third-party suppliers, you have to do your own diligence, your own research.

You completely bypass the entire process by being a YPO member. All you need to do is pick up the phone or send an email, in this case it was to a YPO member who is based in Shanghai, and ask, “Can you please provide me with a recommendation to a corporate consultant who you have done business with, who you can trust, who you know will be able to support our needs in Shanghai?”. You know straight away that you can trust whoever they recommend. No matter where you are doing business you know that through the YPO network you can receive trustworthy and credible recommendations to third parties you need to rely on.

Read more: Inside Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps

Number two – and this is so important in today’s business world – YPO allows you to conduct business at hyper speed.

I have been able to leverage off Matador’s expertise and infrastructure and resources to incubate and accelerate a lot of other different businesses. So, if you are looking for a manufacturing partner in a certain market, you’re looking for a distribution partner in a certain market, again you can leverage off the YPO network to actually source those.

One of my new businesses for 2018 was releasing a new product into the Japan market, we needed to source a manufacturer either in China or Vietnam, and through the YPO network I was able to source potential manufacturing partners within 24 to 48 hours. The two business partners who I am working with are based in Tokyo, who are not in the YPO, they have been struggling with this for twelve months with no progress, and they just said, “Matt, how did you do this?” I said it was through YPO and they were fascinated. Basically, within a 48-hour period I was able to source a manufacturer in Vietnam and also a manufacturer in China and in both cases, they were recommendations from YPO members in those respected countries. So, you can really work at speed, which is critical.

A speaker at the YPO Edge conference in Singapore, 2018

Noni Purnomo

Noni Purnamo, President Director of Blue Bird Group Holding, Indonesia

YPO member since November 2003

LUX: You were one of the first female YPO members in your region.
Noni Purnamo: Yes, I was first introduced to YPO about 15 years ago by a good friend who is a very successful businesswoman, Shinta Kamdani. When I joined there about only like three female members in Indonesia, including her and myself.

LUX: How has the YPO helped you?
Noni Purnamo: YPO has help me grow all sides of my life. I went through the ups and downs of various challenges. When I was in my mid thirties I was faced with this challenge of how do you balance being a mother and being a business person at the same time. It was the busiest time of my business life, when you have the most energy and so many things to do, you have so many things to handle and yet you have to handle young children because that’s normally what happens when you’re in your early thirties . So, during those times I was really relying on the YPO network, YPO experiences and YPO learnings. I have really relied on the forum [where up to ten members get together and talk confidentially], I have been in the same forum for the almost 15 years now, and they know more about me than I do myself! They have been through all the ups and downs of my life and the good thing about sharing this in a forum is because of the forum’s rules – it’s strictly confidential and there is no judgement, you can only share.

That structure really helped. At one point I faced what was almost a depression, and I went to the YPO Life, which is a five- day course for members in Mumbai, and doing it I learned a lot about myself. It saved me from that depression.

I then initiated the mother/daughter retreat in Indonesia. YPO is one of the organisations where you can get help in all aspects of your life. Some organisations are purely commercial, some organisation are purely networking, with this you can have a family, you can grow with it. That’s what I have gained from YPO.

Dimitri Goutenmacher

Dimitri Gouten, CEO Asia, Buccellati

YPO member since 2012

LUX: Why did you join the YPO?
Dimitri Gouten: In my previous company [the luxury goods conglomerate Richemont], we were doing an entrepreneurship award with a similar organisation. Some members went on to join the YPO and they recommended it. For many reasons. The first reason being the networking; with the YPO you are not seven degrees of important people, you are one or two degrees because you can really access entrepreneurs, bankers, investors, in a very quick manner. And then once you join, you have a lot of expertise available to you, and there are events where there are presentations on different subjects, so it’s like a university . You can be talking about the US economy one afternoon, then the singularity another afternoon, and AI. There are many subjects that are discussed at a high level and that are very interesting for all the members.

There are also events related to family, also events with children, because the whole point is about learning something – so you can learn something with your children, or you can learn something with your spouse, there are different kinds of events that are organised to promote business, family and personal life. That’s the holistic approach that it offers.

Read more: Rosewood’s flagship hotel opens in Hong Kong

It’s a later stage the YPO forum comes, which is when you have this group of people that we gather every month to talk about personal, business and family subjects which are shared in an environment that’s 100% confidential, where you have trust with the different people. And the idea is really for everyone to really express themselves, share their emotions, share their values, and you know, tell you stories, memories that happened to them in a similar case to what’s happening to you or friends of theirs.

The idea is never to judge you, never to give you advice, but to just give you some relevant information that they see could help you make your own decisions. So, it’s not about “Oh you should do this, you should do that”, it’s really an open forum, where everybody can share and everybody can take the most out of what they want. It’s never about “Oh, I have this problem, what are the solutions?”, it’s “I have this problem, I’m going to do a small presentation to my forum mates, my forum brothers, and we will see and they all share”.

One of them can be in a family business, one of them can be an architect, one of them can be in the printing business, or finance.

LUX: It sounds like the forum is something that doesn’t really exist elsewhere?
Dimitri Gouten: Yes, and it’s true that you don’t really find it outside this forum because it’s ruled by confidentiality and trust, and the other aspect is the quality of the people, because the people who are also recruited join the YPO because of certain criteria that are fixed by the YPO itself.

LUX: And you found it useful in terms of business and personal support?
Dimitri Gouten: Very useful. As well as the forum, you also have all the rest of the YPO network, that you can also contact for certain things. For example, I can ask if there is anybody who has experience in importing jewellery into China? You will find somebody, and then you will have some sharing of information if the person wants . That’s the whole idea of the organisation, that you share with others and you benefit from that.

For example, a few years ago, we went to Taiwan with a member of my forum and we met other, different companies that belong to YPO and studied their business models . So, you mix that with excellent food on the trip, and it’s a very interesting experience. We also went to Japan at one time where we saw a company making electric cars. In Asia the YPO is very powerful, you can quickly touch some entrepreneurs, and most of the time we share because we know what YPO is and we are willing to share.

LUX: Is there a mechanism by which contact happens?
Dimitri Gouten: Yes, there is a website where you have access to all the members worldwide. It doesn’t accept solicitation, so it means a member can’t call me and say, “Do you want to buy this?” But they can send me a message and say “I’m in this type of business and I’m in Hong Kong next week, could we meet for a drink?” And you trust them, you know that they are in the same organisation and they also follow the same standards.

For more information visit: ypo.org

Home Grown is the latest members’ club to open in London aimed at business professionals

This month, a new members’ club opened its doors in Marylebone, London. Sister to Home House, Home Grown is geared towards the business elite and deep-pocketed investors. We speak to the collection’s Managing Director Andrew Richardson about mixing business with pleasure

Andrew Richardson

1. There has been a recent rise in members’ clubs offering not just first-class facilities but also the chance to join a professional community, why do you think this is?

With the private members’ club sector becoming increasingly competitive, there is obviously an evolution of niche offerings, with potential members seeking specific benefits to them. Perhaps it could be compared to the restaurant sector where we all look for specialist cuisines, themes and menus over general offerings.

Over the years and despite the changes we have seen in London’s club scene, what has remained evident is the sense of belonging fundamentally linked to members’ club. As operators of these establishments it is our responsibility to curate an inclusive environment where relationships flourish organically; this is equally as important in the contemporary business club, with individuals increasingly mixing business with pleasure.

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2. London is home to a wide variety of clubs, what makes Home Grown different?

Home Grown is a hybrid, combining the luxuries of a members’ club whilst answering the needs of a high growth entrepreneur. Our objective has been to create a community of likeminded entrepreneurs, who are on a sometimes challenging journey. Our members’ events calendar has been specifically curated to support the entrepreneur’s journey, particularly at a high growth stage. Our affiliates and strategic partners support in areas such a legal, wealth and finance, tech, wellbeing, strategy and HR have been aligned to facilitate business growth.

3. What excites you the most about the project?

Just the sheer enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs that are joining Home Grown. The fact that members are unashamedly able to talk business, share ideas and mix with their potential investors. We have also been extremely well supported by our ‘Rock star’ entrepreneurs and those that have been through the entrepreneurial journey.

Spread across five Georgian townhouses, Home Grown features 35 boutique bedrooms, a brasserie-style restaurant, study café, several bars, business lounges and meeting rooms

4. Do you think it’s important for members’ clubs to be selective about who joins?

In this case, absolutely, as the real value-add is in the richness of the community and the unrivalled networking opportunities. We have identified and selected key criteria ensuring a membership mix of predominantly high growth entrepreneurs, whose businesses have an annualised growth of 20% or more in either turnover or employees together with investors and performance business leaders.

Read more: Geoffrey Kent takes us on a journey into The Kimberley

Interiors have been designed by Russell Sage Studio

5. What are your top tips for prospective applicants?

Home Grown has been designed as a platform for individuals who not only work to live, but live to work. Applicants should be open and specific about what they are looking to gain from their membership from the application stage, in order to obtain the most value from their membership.

If you are serious about accelerating or continuing the high growth of your organisation, this is the absolutely the community for you.

6. What’s next?

With regards to Home Grown, we are currently looking at possibilities to bring the concept to some of the larger cities in the UK.

As a brand, we continue to look forward for opportunities to expand, which could be within the private members’ club or boutique hotel sector. We will continue to celebrate our eclectic membership through our expansion and retain the pivotal elements in the DNA of the Home House Collection; fun, conviviality and eccentric British excellence.

For more information on Home Grown visit: homegrownclub.co.uk

The Horizontal Falls in Talbot Bay are regarded as one of the greatest wonders of the natural world. Image courtesy of Abercombie & Kent

Fresh from an expedition to the South Pole, Abercrombie & Kent Founder and LUX contributor Geoffrey Kent is planning his next trip to Australia’s last frontier: the Kimberley. Here, he shares his exclusive itinerary

At journey’s end, any passionate traveller knows the conflict of wanderlust: the more destinations you visit, the more you desire to see. Having completed another hugely successful and enjoyable expedition, to the South Pole at the very end of 2018, my thoughts are now turning to other exciting destinations for the intrepid.

In the far western corner of Australia lies a rugged and rarely seen frontier, enveloped by dramatic coastlines, gravity-defying waterfalls, ancient indigenous art and sheer wilderness.

It’s a vast and beautiful landscape of red dirt as ancient as the country’s Aboriginal history and as far away from the Australia trope as you can get. It’s the Australia we often read about but don’t often witness. It is, of course, the Kimberley.

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Revered as being one of Australia’s last frontiers, the Kimberley occupies almost 17 per cent of Western Australia, stretches for 421,000 kilometres and is as idiosyncratic as it is extreme. Home to sacred indigenous rock art, caves, and shelters as well as crashing waterfalls, rugged coastlines, unforgiving deserts, and limestone ranges, the isolation of this part of the planet only adds to its beauty.

Rock formations in the Purnululu National Park known as Bungle Bungles. Image by Ben Carless

But when it comes to exploring the Kimberley (an area larger than 75 percent of the world’s countries), it could be hard to know how best to go about visiting, especially if, like me, you crave adventure by day, luxury by night. The answer, of course, is boutique cruise ship or superyacht, backed up by helicopters and small fixed-wing planes. The feeling of climbing into a cosy bed with high-thread-count sheets after a day exploring a land off the beaten path – off any path, really, is indescribable.

Let’s begin a journey to the Kimberley:

Broome

A country township built on the mother-of-pearl industry, Broome had to quickly reinvent itself when the arrival of the now innocuous plastic button ended the world’s need for mother-of-pearl almost overnight. Luckily Broome is splendid, so when the town switched its focus from trade to tourism, business continued to boom. At its most popular during the dry season (April to October) Broome’s beauty really becomes apparent at sunset – particularly if you’re lucky enough to witness the Staircase to the Moon, Western Australia’s version of the Northern Lights. This natural phenomenon happens when the full moon rises at a low tide and casts its glow over Broome’s exposed mudflats. What’s left is a stunning optical illusion of golden steps rising out of the Indian Ocean. It’s best seen from Roebuck Bay, but you can catch it all along the coast.

Read more: Andermatt’s Mystical Mountains documentary series

Bungle Bungles

These stunning rock formations are found among the remoteness of the Purnululu National Park and have been sculpted by millions of years of erosion into the tiger-striped, beehive domes they are today. You must see them from above to appreciate the sheer scale of this fascinating and fragile rock massif, which stretches for more than 240 square kilometres.

The Lacepede Islands are home to green turtles and many bird species. Image courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent

Lacepede Islands

Set atop a coral reef, these four low-lying cay islands are an important nesting site for green turtles and several bird species including brown boobies, red-chested frigates, crested terns and speckled ruddy turnstones.

Horizontal Falls

Hop aboard a boat and take a trip to see Horizontal Falls. This phenomenon can be found in Talbot Bay. David Attenborough called these falls “one of the greatest natural wonders of the world” – the horizontally flowing waterfalls are created when massive tidal currents squeeze through two narrow gorges.

Swift Bay is the site of ancient rock paintings

Mitchell Falls

Take a helicopter ride across the rugged Mitchell Plateau and over the top of the sandstone-carved Mitchell Falls and its tumbling cataracts. Alight to explore the area on foot, perhaps enjoying a refreshing swim in the emerald-coloured, pristine freshwater pools formed by the falls.

Read more: Inside Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps

Swift Bay

Named after the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift. Located in the Bonaparte Archipelago and sacred to the Worrorra people, Swift Bay is the site of an incredible array of indigenous rock – the Wandjina (or Wanjina) style as well as the older Gwion-Gwion (or Bradshaw) style.

If I’ve ignited your curiosity and you can feel a visit to this historical and mythical part of the world becoming paramount, join the club, I’m fixated on the Kimberley. Meet you there?

Abercrombie & Kent will be hosting a Luxury Expedition Cruise to Kimberley in 2020. For more information visit: abercrombiekent.co.uk

Studio Piet Boon are the lead designers on Half Moon Bay Antigua, the new and exclusive Caribbean resort

Dutch designer Piet Boon’s eponymous studio envision every detail of a design from the exteriors to the interiors, lighting and upholstery. They’ve worked on major projects all over the world, most recently as the lead design team behind the major new Caribbean resort Half Moon Bay Antigua. Here we put Piet Boon in the 6 Questions hot seat.

Piet Boon

1. What’s your ideal working atmosphere to channel creativity?

The ideal working atmosphere for me? A balanced environment free from dissonance. I believe that creativity is a state of mind, so I like to get rid of distractions when I need to think. At our studio we need to be creative every day because our clients rely on us to deliver the best. It is therefore crucial that our workspace facilitates creativity. The interior is timeless and calm, but is also filled with art and beautiful objects to inspire and provoke creative thinking. The best ideas arise when our designers come together and think out loud. You get positive vibes, good discussions and a lot of energy. We then bounce off each other’s ideas and create the most amazing design solutions.

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2. Can you tell us about your vision for Half Moon Bay Antigua?

Our vision for Rosewood Half Moon Bay Antigua is to, together with landscaper VITA and architects OBMI, create an ultra-luxurious hospitality destination that blends in with its natural surroundings as if it came up from the ground and has always been there. This vision will also apply to the Rosewood branded residences surrounding the hotel: design imbued with a strong sense of place. At the same time, guests will experience comfort and understated luxury at every turn. At Half Moon Bay nature reads as a prominent feature. Just like the typical typology of the island, the rooftops at Rosewood Half Moon Bay are kept below the treetops, allowing the units to blend in from all angles. An inside/outside connection was also the key point for the design. Bespoke contrasts weave the natural surroundings throughout the interior and exterior of every room. We envision Half Moon Bay to be an unparalleled Caribbean retreat where both hotel guests and those who own a branded residence or one of the bay’s ten estate residences can relish in luxury, comfort and time.

Rendering of a residence at Rosewood Half Moon Bay Antigua

3. What’s been your most challenging project to date and why?

Every project has its own challenges and in different ways. That can vary from time constraints to building regulations, and from weather conditions to challenges specific to the location. Our first project in New York was a very large apartment on Fifth Avenue that we were commissioned to renovate completely…within a time-frame of three months. That was a bit of a challenge. We managed to deliver, and the result was great. That client has been with us ever since.

Read more: Rosewood’s flagship hotel opens in Hong Kong

4. Is it important to develop a signature style as a designer?

I would think so, definitely. How would you be able to differentiate otherwise? What would be the added value for clients to come to you? Even more important is being consistent when it comes to your signature. Staying true to your values and identity. We have been designing for over 35 years now, and although our designs have evolved, we still maintain the same signature. I think that that is also the reason why we are still able to do what we do; balance functionality, aesthetics and individuality. Clean lines, strong axis, subdued colors and rich natural materials have informed our work from the very beginning.

Bedroom interiors with a outdoor bathtub, designed by Studio Piet Boon

5. Do you have a favourite material to work with?

At Studio Piet Boon we like to work with rich natural materials. Not only because of the quality, look and feel, but also because they become even more beautiful over time. When we design something, we want it to last. Or at least last very long. Another material I like working with is concrete. Firstly, it is a strong and durable material, secondly, it’s honest and beautiful; sober and at times even breathtaking.

6. Are trends valuable in design or a hindrance?

That depends on how you go about them. You should use them in a way that you benefit from. It becomes a hindrance if you have to unnaturally adapt yourself for the sake of following a trend. I must say that we’ve never been trend followers. We observe the world around us and find inspiration in many things, and use this in our designs and creations.

View Studio Piet Boon’s full portfolio: pietboon.com

For more information on Half Moon Bay Antigua visit: halfmoonbayantigua.com

Kitty Harris

The new flagship Rosewood hotel in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s brand-new Rosewood Hotel is a triumph of taste and style, says Darius Sanai

Moving speeches, fabulous conversation, amazing design, O Toro from Japan, Hospices de Beaune Meursault from Burgundy, pata negra from Andalucia, and a feeling throughout that you are in a very swanky, perfectly curated version of a Soho House.

The hotel, the brainchild of Sonia Cheng, third generation scion of the family, was nearly a decade in the making and is one of the centrepieces of the Victoria Dockside development, Hong Kong’s answer to New York’s Hudson Yards, masterminded by her elder brother Adrian.

From left to right: Ms. Katherine Mei Hing, Dr. Hendry Cheng, Ms. Sonia Cheng and Dr. Adrian Cheng at the opening part of Rosewood Hong Kong

From left to right: Ms. Sonia Chen, Ms. Katherine Mei Hing and Ms. Pansy Ho attend the Rosewood Hong Kong opening party

Every detail is both exquisite and tasteful – the Rosewood Hong Kong is the polar opposite to those gold plated, taste free monoliths in the Gulf.  All around, you feel that you are surrounded not just by expensive things, but by extremely thoughtfully chosen ones.

Our favourite bit? The Manor Club, on the 40th floor. Shelves are lined with gorgeous art books, there was an extremely professional game of snooker going on in one room, and a door behind the bar opens up to the most stunning view of Hong Kong, and the Peak behind, of any hotel.

Worth visiting now, and even more so when the Victoria Dockside finishes in all its cultural glory later this year.

Book your stay: rosewoodhotels.com/en/hong-kong

‘1989 Wandeling’, Luc Tuymans. Photo credit Ben Blackwell. Courtesy David Zwirner New York

Venice is gearing up for the Biennale with a whole host of exhibitions opening up around the city. One of the most interesting is La Pelle by Luc Tuymans at Palazzo Grassi, François Pinault’s gallery on the edge of the Grand Canal. The exhibition is extraordinarily wide-ranging with more than 80 paintings on display from 1986 right up to Tuymans’ most recent works. The title, which translates as ‘skin’ in English, takes its name from the infamously controversial novel by the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, set in Naples at the tail end of the Second World War.

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War is a theme that permeates Tuymans’ work too, or more specifically the horrors of Nazism. The first artwork visitors come across is a giant floor mosaic of pine trees, based on a painting that the Belgian artist made outside a German labour camp at Schwarzheide. Vertical lines cut through the composition in representation of the way prisoners tore up their drawings to hide them from the guards. Overlooking the mosaic is a small portrait of Albert Speer, the chief architect of the Nazi party.

Installation shot from ‘La Pelle’ by Luc Tuymans,
Palazzo Grassi, Venice

Many of the artist’s works are based on secondary images, such as photographs taken from a television screen, YouTube or Netflix. Tuyman’s paintings favour bleached-out colours, giving the work a spectral quality as if the images are fading right there in front of your eyes. And the show is haunting in the sense that it will stay with you long after you’ve wandered back down the grand staircase and into the Venetian sun.

2015 ‘Isabel’, Luc Tuymans. Photo credit Studio Luc Tuymans.

‘La Pelle’ by Luc Tuymans runs until 6 January 2020 at Palazzo Grassi. For more information visit: palazzograssi.it/en/exhibitions/current/luc-tuymans-la-pelle/

The Swiss alpine village of Andermatt. Image by Laureen Missaire

The fairy-tale village of Andermatt is fast becoming one of Switzerland’s most desirable destinations with the recent opening of a new ski region as well as a scattering of luxury hotels and holiday homes. But what’s it like to live and work in the region? A new documentary series investigates

The Swiss village of Andermatt sits nestled amid the towering peaks and forested slopes of Switzerland’s Saint-Gotthard Massif, some of the world’s most dramatic  scenery. The recently launched twelve part YouTube documentary series, aptly named Mystic Mountains is an ode to the region’s beauty, nature’s captivating power and an investigation into living remotely.

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Filled with panoramic images of drifting clouds and snow-covered mountains, each episode runs for approximately ten minutes and features interviews with locals, guests, historians, artists, free-riders, farmers and business people. The final script was the result of discussion-led workshops with director Benoit Pensivy of 3W, during which mysticism became the overarching theme as way of describing the individuals’ experience of the Andermatt landscape.

Watch the first episode below:

Find the full series here: andermatt-swissalps.ch/en/andermatt/mystic-mountains/