England-born, LA based British-Iranian artist Kour Pour – famous for his series of carpet paintings – delves into the rich history of Persian rugs, unshackling and readdressing cultural categorisations. And he makes something both historic and entirely new. From a youth spent climbing up piles of Persian rugs in his father’s shop, to Iran’s historical and current politics, to the voices of hip-hop music, Kour Pour chats to Isabella Fergusson about the many inspirations woven into his intercultural, intertemporal artworks

LUX: You were born in Exeter, England, but moved to LA. What effect does place – and did the move – have on your art?

Kour Pour: I very naturally respond to my surroundings in my work – images and materials I come across around the world make their way into the studio. I think it’s safe to say that Los Angeles and everything that I encounter here finds a way into my practice. My community here is incredibly diverse, and all the people that find their way into my life influence my practice. Exeter was beautiful, but it was quite homogenous. Moving from Devon to LA helped to open my world up.

LUX: You’ve exhibited all around the world; where do you feel that audiences most resonate with your works? Is it very different across these places?

KP: The nature of my practice is that it’s quite varied: I make paintings and sculptures and large-scale prints, and these can range from hyper-figurative to hyper-abstract. My experience has been that this allows everyone to have a different access point to my work, and that it promotes resonances across different cultures and geographies. I think of my different bodies of work as different languages, and therefore that allows me to have a conversation with as many people as possible.

Gathering In The Courtyard, 2022, Acrylic on canvas over panel

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LUX: Tell me about your father’s carpet shop – your earliest memories there, its inspirations for your work now.

KP: My father moved to Exeter by himself when he was 14 – a result of the Iranian Revolution in ’79. Eventually his older brother joined him, but the two of them were teenagers in a new country without a support system. So, they had a typical immigrant experience of arriving in a new place and just having to figure it out. My father eventually rented a storefront that had many different lives when I was growing up: a sunglass store, and ice cream shop. That one was my favorite. But when I was about 4 or 5, it was a carpet store. I remember being a child and climbing around all the rugs and feeling that they made a place seem like home. I also remember my father touching up old and faded carpets by hand using natural dyes. That was probably one of the first times I was exposed to painting, in any form.

Jade Tiger, 2021

LUX: You’ve said before that you wished museum collections wouldn’t be separated by geographic location or time period, which throws up the challenge of overly constrictive categorisation, particularly in the case of your work. But where would you place your art if it had to be geographically categorised – by its inspiration, or the location it was painted, or your descent? Perhaps it simply cannot comfortably be boxed up…

KP: I don’t want to categorise the work. One of the beautiful things about art is that you can find relationships across temporal and geographic boundaries. I want to allow my work that freedom.

LUX: I was speaking to an artist yesterday that said that a painter has to confront and get over the fact that what he does is – in absolute terms – utterly pointless. Do you agree? Have you had to to confront a sense of uselessness?

KP: Maybe an artist that has nothing to say in their work could feel that painting is pointless, but I absolutely disagree with that notion. Art is a healer. Whether for the artist or the viewer, the act of creating is therapeutic and experiencing someone else communicate through any medium is both thrilling and comforting. It’s an expression of being alive. There are so many things art can do. It raises awareness, it becomes a record of a time, it tells stories, and it imagines alternative ways of being. Art is endless in its possibilities.

A Voyage For Tea & Spices, 2023, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 84 x 60 inches

LUX: Should art’s political role be more respected – and is art, or should it be, inherently political?

KP: Art is made by people. Some individuals exist in worlds that are heavily politicized, and some don’t. Artists make work that is, directly or indirectly, a reflection of their reality, so you could argue that art is always social and political.

LUX: How do your Iranian roots play into your work?

KP: My Iranian identity has always been a big part of how I navigate my reality. It has influenced both how I’ve engaged with the world, and how the world has engaged with me. I’ve used Iranian imagery in my own practice, and that identity has also guided some projects that are not directly related to what I’m doing in the studio. In 2022, I opened an exhibition project space in my studio complex in Inglewood, called Guest House. The first show was of Iranian artists living in Los Angeles, born out of what I perceived as a lack of engagement with the Iranian community by the city’s art scene. Which is crazy, given how many Iranians there are in LA – the city has the largest population living outside of Iran.

Eternal Springtime (Nowruz), 2017 – 2021, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 96 x 144 inches

Two weeks after we opened the exhibition, the Woman, Life, Freedom protests broke out after Jina Mahsa Amini’s death in Tehran. Guest House immediately became a hub for the community. We would have people come visit the show and trade news about what was going on back home in Iran, we had film screenings, and we tried to respond in whatever way we could to what was going on. That sense of community, and the relationships that I made over the course of that first exhibition, have entered the studio and now help inform the totality of my studio practice.

LUX: Hip-hop and carpet painting seem an unlikely combination. What about the music inspires you, and is it hip-hop’s differences or similarities to your medium which feed your works?

KP: One of the things that initially drew me to hip hop was the idea of sampling: taking a sound from a song, transforming it, and adding it into another song. This matches up with the way that the carpets I’m interested in were made: images would travel along the Silk Road and there would be this incredible intermixing of cultures. A single rug that was assigned Persian origin would have images from as far west as Venice and as far east as China. I think that the language around sampling in hip hop is a perfect way to speak about these works.

See more: kourpour.com

Photo courtesy of Fresh Del Monte

Hans Sauter is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Fresh Del Monte. He speaks to Trudy Ross about the company’s sustainability journey and the importance of creating a culture of respect for the environment

LUX: Could you provide an overview of the company’s sustainability journey and a few key milestones you’ve achieved in recent years?
Hans Sauter: Let me mention that I’m not just Chief Sustainability Officer but also senior vice president for Research and Development. That’s not just out of coincidence. We approach sustainability from a scientific and data-based point of view, not a marketing or sales perspective. I have been with the company for 35 years; I started at the farms doing agricultural research and worked my way up to corporate. I know our global footprint in great detail and have accompanied this process of incorporating sustainability into our operations all along.

About 30 years ago, we started designing our farms to make the best use of the soil, carving out the areas which would be best adapted to our own crops and then leaving those other areas to re-forest and create opportunities for conservation. Starting all the way from water conservation to erosion control, pollination, etc, our operations have transformed themselves over time into combined systems where we see nature and large-scale agriculture co-existing. That’s very exciting.

Photo courtesy of Fresh Del Monte

A few milestones: in 1998, we got our first ISO 14001 certification around sustainability systems. In 2010, we set our first global sustainability goal to reduce our consumption of key resources, like water and fuel, by 10%. In 2015, we got our first carbon neutral certification at one of our operations, specifically the banana farms in Costa Rica. We escalated that last year, to estimate our carbon footprint going all the way from the farm to the consumer. We established programs where we promote those efforts, such as the Del Monte Zero pineapple, where we have sequestered enough carbon through our own on-site forests to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions all through the supply chain up until the consumer’s table.

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LUX: Do you think it is important to engage with the consumer and make them aware of sustainability initiatives, or are you more focused on the problem itself?
HS: We started this journey so long ago that we initially attacked the problems where they were occurring. On our farms, being in tropical and rural areas which are normally the most vulnerable areas and communities, we saw a great need for action. We engaged ourselves in projects to collaborate with our neighbours and see how we could improve conditions there.

We now understand that the consumer needs to hear about those efforts. In the last five years we have been more vocal about those efforts, because we have truly strong programs to talk about. It’s not making a lot of noise about little things; we’re talking about legitimate programs. We have carved close to 30% of our land just for conservation, and that’s what nations are trying to accomplish now – we’ve done it already.

Photo by Justine Alipate

LUX: Do you have faith that the rest of the food industry is going to continue to engage with sustainability and make this a key focus, or do you worry that there is an element of greenwashing and shouting about sustainability efforts when there aren’t concrete initiatives to back them up?
HS: There’s a little bit of both. There has definitely been some greenwashing and more talking than acting; but on the other hand, I don’t think anything can stop this train. The current events are making us brutally aware that we need to act. I’m convinced that the only thing that is needed is to get to the tipping point. If you have strong leaders that move the needle, the rest of the industry will follow. Just look at the electric motor industry – who would have said we would be moving at the pace we are moving at today? I’m definitely optimistic about the food industry.

LUX: How would you describe Fresh Del Monte’s approach to responsible sourcing, and does this impact your supplier chain further down the line?
HS: That’s probably the most difficult point at this stage. All of us are struggling with scope 3, which is essentially our suppliers. Rapid engagement of that part of our supply chain is crucial and not as easy to move. One of the advantages we have as a company is that we grow close to 45% of what we sell, so we are heavily invested in farming and understand what farmers are going through. That gives us an opportunity to talk to them on a one-to-one basis with a hands-on approach. We collaborate with them and we share experiences.

I think our example will help us leverage some moral authority when it comes to protecting the environment because we have done it, and we continue to do it and invest in it. Definitely scope 3 will continue to be a more difficult area, particularly because margins in the food industry are small. Here the retailers could be very effective in moving that needle because they are the intermediaries between the grower and the final consumer, making sure that they also are a part of this shared responsibility.

LUX: What is the biggest challenge facing the food industry and the agriculture industry?
HS: I would say the biggest challenge is time. The climate is changing so fast and most of us don’t realise that the clock is ticking. We could run out of time to implement large-scale solutions that make a difference.

Photo by Sven Wilhem

I see no shortage of solutions available, but there needs to be a lot of resources invested in research, specifically for many crops in tropical regions where regenerative agriculture practices have not been developed. We are very optimistic about regenerative agriculture in temperate regions, but the rest of the world has not had that privilege and we need to invest in those areas.

LUX: How much of this responsibility for climate change lies with big corporations like Del Monte, and how much do you think lies with the consumer?
HS: We are all in it together. Consumers make the difference with their purchasing decisions. That’s one of the reasons we decided to launch the Del Monte Zero. It’s a small, boutique program. We wanted to make a statement by allowing the consumer to choose a climate-responsible product, so that we are all made aware of what we are going through.

Each of us, in large companies and small companies as well, each of us has a huge responsibility at this point. We are working with our communities and we are looking at our impact on a watershed level, rather than just ‘my farm’. Because it doesn’t matter how much I protect the forest that runs through the river that runs through my own farm, if I don’t bring all the neighbours to protect that watershed, that river will eventually dry. We need to act as communities.

LUX: Waste reduction is a very important issue taking place in the food industry. Has Fresh Del Monte implemented any strategies to minimise waste reduction, and have you seen any outcomes?
HS: This is a very exciting area of opportunity. It can bring more business to the food industry. We initially started investing in waste reduction a long time ago, in our pineapple operations, using food which could not go to market to produce concentrate and juice. With that kind of systematic investment we have reduced waste at the farm level, and almost 95% of our product is used and not wasted. We are working on solutions to compost and to work with cattle-growers.

Food is too valuable to throw away. There should never be a reason to send food to landfill. What we are doing now is taking that one step further and looking at our crop residues, because that’s also a huge area of opportunity and we’re working aggressively to develop composting solutions and also other opportunities. It’s just investing in research and time.

Photo by Dan Gold

Read more: Unilever’s Rebecca Marmot on the Sustainable Everyday

LUX: What sustainability developments are you most excited about at Fresh Del Monte?
HS: I would say the most exciting thing which I have seen over the course of 35 years is the development of a culture of respect for the environment. No systems, no programs beat culture. If your team members have a culture of respect and admiration for the planet and your community, everything comes out of there and you have success with your systems and your programs.

We have seen engagement all the way from the farm workers, who have been sharing pictures of the biodiversity that they see while they are doing their field work. The excitement and the passion that we see is huge. When your own farm workers are excited and are taking pictures of biodiversity while they’re working, you have made an impact not only in your farm but also in the community. That multiplies by four every effort in education you have brought in.

LUX: How do you envision sustainable practices in the food industry in ten years?
HS: I envision it having huge contributions from new bio-science discoveries. There are companies which are working on deploying microbes that can fix nitrogen so that you don’t have to apply so much synthetic fertiliser. Synthetic nitrogen is one of the biggest challenges we have in agriculture as an emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. That will definitely make a big difference in the future.

Find out more: freshdelmonte.com

Hilary Weston, at home in Windsor

As co-founder of Windsor, a private residential community along Florida’s Treasure Coast, Hilary Weston is also Creative Director of The Gallery at Windsor. The serial philanthropist and scion of the retail family talks to LUX’s Candice Tucker about contemporary art, community, creatives – and why she pays no attention to the art market

LUX: What do you hope to achieve in art?
Hilary Weston: Art has been part of the fabric of Windsor since the community’s early days [Weston founded Windsor with her husband Galen, who died in 2021]. Over the years, The Gallery at Windsor has developed a reputation for staging exhibitions that present the very best of contemporary art. This latest exhibition by Sir Tony Cragg continues our desire to present the talents of some of the most important contemporary artists of our time.

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LUX: How is the art-collecting community growing in Windsor?
HW: The Gallery at Windsor is at the heart of Windsor’s Cultural Art Programme, which encourages all Windsor members to participate in the arts, whether it be contemporary art in the gallery, performing arts, film or literature. I hope the success of the gallery has contributed to the culture of collecting at Windsor. Many pieces from the gallery’s exhibition series have remained at Windsor in our members’ homes. We are just over a two-hour drive north of Miami – a global capital for contemporary art, and the energy of Miami can be felt in Windsor, especially around Art Basel Miami Beach.

The Gallery at Windsor was founded in 2002, as an independent art space

LUX: How did you create your art initiative?
HW: We staged our first exhibition in March 2002. It was a photography show called “The Beach”, curated by Bettina von Hase. It explored the relationship between beach and society through the eyes of a range of artists including Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Robert Capa, David Hockney and John Baldessari. Over the years we have shown Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Weber, Peter Doig, Alex Katz, Per Kirkeby and Christopher Le Brun. In 2011, the gallery began a three-year collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery to realise exhibitions by Beatriz Milhazes, Gert and Uwe Tobias and Jasper Johns. I was particularly proud of our three-year collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, from 2018 to 2020. We showed Grayson Perry, Sir Michael Craig-Martin and the wonderful Rose Wylie. The sight of Grayson in his fabulous outfits electrified the community. He brought his family and they stayed a week. Everyone had such fun getting to know them.

LUX: How involved is your family in Windsor?
HW: While I am the Creative Director of The Gallery at Windsor, it was my daughter Alannah who founded it in 2002. I admire her creativity hugely. When a growing family and business commitments began to take up more of her time, I took over the reins of the gallery. As Principal of Windsor, Alannah is leading the final phase of its development – a 47-acre swath of land adjacent to the country’s first protected wildlife preserve and the banks of the Indian River Lagoon. The North Village will include 40 residences, wellness amenities, a heightened attention to sustainability and an outdoor art programme.

Christopher Le Brun, Grayson Perry, Hilary Weston, Tim Marlow, Philippa Perry and Galen Weston, in front of Grayson Perry’s Comfort Blanket, at The Gallery at Windsor, 2018

LUX: Name five people you think are having the greatest impact on the art world right now.
HW: There are so many wonderful people creating art and leading the art world. Working with two world-renowned art institutions, the RA and Whitechapel Gallery, and art-world leaders such as Sir Christopher Le Brun and Iwona Blazwick has enabled us to welcome incredible artists, some in the earlier stages of their career, such as Ed Ruscha and Beatriz Milhazes, who went on to enjoy amazing success.

LUX: What effect do you think bringing major artists to Windsor has on the community?
HW: We believe culture is a crucial part of the spirit of a community, so it is natural that art and artists have been part of the ethos of Windsor. The gallery extends past our gates to the local Vero Beach community. We open for public docent-led tours two days a week. The tours are complementary and we accept donations for our charitable foundation that supports local arts education. We have strong ties with the area’s arts organisations and hold an ongoing roster of collaborative cultural events with them. We are proud and privileged to be able to introduce an artist of Sir Tony’s calibre to our membership and the community at large.

Part of Windsor’s fine arts programming has included collaborations with organisations such as the Whitechapel Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London

LUX: Which new artists do you admire now?
HW: There will always be brilliant artists at any age who are under-recognised and then something just happens. The gallery here is known for showing some of the art world’s greats, but we aim to celebrate artists at whatever point of their careers. In the past few years, I have become acquainted with a young Irish abstract painter named Jack Coulter. His layered works are inspired by music. I visited his exhibition at Sotheby’s this past fall and a piece inspired by an album by the Anglo-Irish punk band The Pogues caught my eye. I think Jack is someone to watch.

LUX: The art-market peak has been called many times over the past ten years. Will it peak?
HW: I don’t follow the art market too closely. Markets go up and go down. I believe art is important to our lives and the market will do what it does.

LUX: What differences have you noticed in the new generation of collectors?
HW: My feeling is they are open to a more diverse range of practices. There are some interesting things being done in digital and performance art. It’s an area we’d like to explore more.

Views from The Gallery at Windsor’s major 2023 exhibition, “Tony Cragg: Sculptures and Works on Paper”

LUX: What’s next for art at Windsor?
HW: As a new generation joins the community, my hope is that art continues to be an important part of life at Windsor. We have many members who found Windsor through its art programme. With our planned outdoor art island, it is exciting to wonder what is in store for the future here.

Read more: Sophie Neuendorf: The best art shows this season

LUX: Where will the next US art hot spot be?
HW: Toronto is not in the US, but it is one base of the Weston family, and I’m proud and impressed by its metropolitan and welcoming outlook. With the success of the Toronto International Film Festival and new art fairs, it is an art hot spot that should not be overlooked.

LUX: What would you change in the art world?
HW: Wouldn’t it be wonderful for the focus of discussions to return to art and artists, rather than market and prices?

Find out more: windsorflorida.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Sana Rezwan at Barwara Kothi, Jaipur

Sana Rezwan is a thoroughly modern entrepreneur and philanthropist, living and working in London, then New York, before recently moving back to her native India. Now she is upping the ante with ambitious plans to raise the profile of South Asian art around the world. Reaching for the sky is in her blood, she explains to LUX

LUX: Is there a new awareness of South Asian art?
Sana Rezwan: Yes, it is an exciting time. There have been many calls for the art world to be more inclusive in recent years, and there is now an openness to new voices. This wasn’t the case a few years ago. Museums and collectors are finally open to ideas from South Asian artists.

LUX: What is your focus as a collector?
SR: One focus is on South Asian female artists who have been overlooked by the market, or written off by institutions and galleries. Having spent the past year in India, I have met so many female artists whose work I feel needs global recognition. There is a chance now to open the barriers to let such artists come to light.

LUX: Which artists are interesting you today?
SR: I am passionate about the late Zarina. She used printmaking mediums, such as silkscreen and woodblock, and made print series around concepts such as displacement. I love Bharti Kher’s use of found objects to convey her position as an artist between milieus. I admire Rana Begum for her use of repetitive geometric patterns, inspired by minimalism and her memories of daily recitals of the Qur’an.

A private-collection visit for The Cultivist with Krishna Choudhary of Royal Gems and Arts, Jaipur

LUX: Can South Asia be seen as one region?
SR: We use the term broadly to designate a category, but there is a multiplicity of cultures, religions and traditions within South Asian art, which makes the art you encounter so exciting.

LUX: Why did you move back to India?
SR: I believe India is where I can best engage with and promote the work of South Asian artists to the world. In 2022, I set up Public Arts Trust of India (PATI) to commission art in global collaboration with galleries, institutions and museums, to be shown in public spaces in India.

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LUX: What role can philanthropy play?
SR: It can offer ways to extend the reach of the arts. Through philanthropy, we intend to build discourse around urban spaces and heritage structures as sites for engagement through art to inspire reflection and a sense of community. This extends to sustaining cultural conversations globally through supporting residencies, commissions and trans-disciplinary practices.

Artist Tanya Goel’s New Delhi studio

LUX: Is interest from global collectors rising?
SR: Yes, in India we are seeing a great number of international collectors visiting India each year, and the intent of my project is to keep them coming. We will also host encounters in London, Paris and New York to promote cultural exchange and generate awareness. Through my agency The Art Lab, I put together a programme for 14 members of global arts club The Cultivist for a trip to Jaipur and Delhi. We looked at craft, jewellery, design, we went to art fairs and made visits to studios and private collectors. It was very successful. About 75 per cent of collectors bought and started collecting through the trip. It inspired them to explore art from the region.

LUX: What are the challenges for philanthropists in India?
SR: One is to bridge a gap that is not currently served by the government in supporting art. They also have the challenge of building platforms to ngage the public in art, and of finding solutions for generating income for arts organisations to create meaningful jobs in the art world.

LUX: What have you learnt as a collector?
SR: I finally found my calling by moving back to India. My experiences in London and New York have made me well positioned to work as an ambassador for the Indian scene. My goal is to create appreciation for art, support for the local art market and invest in art education.

Yulia Dultsina at the residence of Akanksha and Tarang Arora of Amrapali, Jaipur

LUX: Which two living artists would you invite to dinner, and which two of the past?
SR: Shilpa Gupta and Ishita Chakraborty – to learn about their research and practice. From the past, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose work is spiritual and profound, and Zarina.

LUX: Your advice to unknown female artists?
SR: Keep creating. Plans are under way to generate platforms for your work to be seen and appreciated by the global art community.

Read more: Sam Dalrymple and Durjoy Rahman On Cultural Reconnections Post-Partition

LUX: Will South Asian cultures come to see being an artist as a respectable way of life?
SR: For centuries, South Asia has had a history of nurturing creative talent, craftsmanship and artistic sensibility. It is now our responsibility to show today’s artists’ work to the world and have them be considered seriously.

Find out more:
publicartstrustofindia.org
theartlab.studio

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

3Sun Gigafactory opened in 2011

Eliano Russo is Head of Enel Green Power’s 3Sun Gigafactory in Catania. Here he speaks to Samantha Welsh about the way the factory works, its benefits on the local community and the clean energy transition

Eliano Russo

LUX: What is a photovoltaic cell and how does it work?
Eliano Russo: Solar cells are the heart of solar power generation systems. A photovoltaic cell is a device that can convert the energy of solar radiation into electricity through the photovoltaic (PV) effect. This effect is possible since photovoltaic cells are usually made of semiconductor materials (the most diffused is silicon), which have weakly bonded electrons. When the light of the sun hits the PV cell, the electrons of the semiconductor receive energy from the light’s photons and are then able to move. The movement of these electrons through the metallic contacts of the cell produces an electric current. PV cells are assembled into photovoltaic panels that find applications in several fields.

LUX: What are the peculiarities and advantages of the technology 3Sun offers?
ER: 3Sun offers cutting-edge technologies in solar cell and PV module (or panel) manufacturing. Our solar cells are based on bifacial silicon heterojunction (HJT) technology, which offers several advantages over the most widespread technologies on the market. Moreover, our PV modules are manufactured in Europe with sustainable materials derived from a regulated supply chain.

3Sun Gigafactory combines research and innovation to produce new-generation photovoltaic modules that support the Enel Group in guaranteeing clean and renewable energy

Continuous innovation in pursuit of the highest level of cell efficiency is a fundamental value as we strive to maximise the effective transformation of the sunlight that hits our panels into energy. HJT technology is characterised by high performing photovoltaic modules with low degradation and in early 2020 our HJT cell achieved a world record efficiency level of 24.63%.

The double-sided structure of the solar cell allows solar radiation to be captured via direct light on the upper surface, as well as reflected or diffused light on the lower side. “Bifaciality” also guarantees extra power output even with cloudy conditions where the amount of diffused light is quite high. The solar cell is also very resilient to thermomechanical stresses thanks to the temperature during the manufacturing process that does not exceed 200°C, which also allows for thinner solar cells to be manufactured, , thus reducing the use of silicon and cutting costs.

LUX: What are the benefits for the solar supply chain and the European energy sector in general?
ER: For Europe, the photovoltaic sector represents one of the main enabling technologies to accelerate a sustainable and competitive energy transition. To reach its decarbonisation goals, in Europe we need to achieve 600 GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, which requires building and installing an additional 440 GW. On the other hand, in order to increase the continent’s energy independence and reduce risks related to external geopolitical factors, it is important not to become overly dependent on supplies from other geographies.

Italy’s HJT Photovoltaic Panel

Today, a large part of the photovoltaic industry supply chain is still concentrated in the Asian market, especially in China, where there is also less emphasis on environmental, energy and labor standards compared to those in Europe. Therefore, the creation of a European photovoltaic industry that can guarantee our energy security and independence while upholding those standards represents a strategic priority. In order to achieve this, we must invest to reshore the solar PV supply chain in Europe as we did in Catania, Sicily with the construction of what will be the largest solar gigafactory on the continent.

LUX: What is the potential impact for local communities?
ER: One of the most important positive impacts for the local community as a result of the factory’s expansion is the employment opportunities for Sicily, increasing local direct and indirect employment. In 2022, 50 university graduates were employed, while the selection process for an additional 100 is currently underway, as well as the selection for hiring 550 secondary school graduates. With the new hires, who will fill technical and operational positions in areas such as production, maintenance, auxiliary services, product quality and plant operation, 3Sun’s team, which already includes more than 200 people, will reach about 900 people in total. In addition, 3Sun will also generate a total of 1,000 indirect jobs, including current ones, by 2024. . These numbers mean a lot in terms of employment for a territory like Sicily, especially for young people. In some cases this means young people who have had the opportunity to return home after years of working abroad, excited to be able to contribute to the realization of a project as important as this one.

Bifacial solar panel production at the 3SUN Factory

LUX: How essential is political collaboration to clean energy transition?
ER: It simply cannot be done without it. Our current climate policies are the direct consequence of a political commitment that we took together as Europeans and, more widely, as countries committed under the Paris Agreement. The challenge of climate change is global, it affects everyone, and the response can only be global. A strong, collective, political commitment is needed to tackle a problem of this magnitude. But the political commitment must also be matched in the private sector along with the actions of each and every one of us as individuals.

LUX: What is the role for regional partnerships in tech innovation?
ER: We will be the largest European PV factory, basing our manufacturing on the most advanced technology processes, materials, and design. We carried out a robust research and development phase in collaboration with the most important research institutes and development companies in Italy, Europe and the US. In fact, 3Sun has triggered the most advanced research consortium in Europe with renowned partners such as CEA-INES in Chambery (France), Italian Institutes such as IIT, CNR, ENEA, as well as European and Italian universities. The strict collaboration with the research centers is also witnessed by the presence of very advanced research labs within the industrial complex of 3Sun and in the nearby Enel Innovation Hub and Lab, which hosts research institutions and start-ups. The concentration of research institutes and industries in a few kilometers also encourages important exchanges and generates a very fruitful environment for the development of innovative ideas not only in the PV field. Beyond research collaborations we also work with a wide range of subcontractors in the supply chain of strategic and innovative materials as well as of advanced industrial support and maintenance processes.

The first HJT cells were produced in February 2019 and mass production began in August 2019

LUX: Please share the aims of Project TANGO
ER: TANGO is the acronym for iTaliAN pv Giga factOry, the name of the project through which we are creating an industrial-scale production facility for the manufacturing of innovative, sustainable and high-performance PV modules at Enel Green Power’s 3Sun solar panel factory in Catania. In April 2022, under the framework of the European Commission’s (EC) first Innovation Fund call for large-scale projects, EGP and the EU signed a grant agreement that contributed to the development of TANGO, a facility that will have a production capacity of 3 GW per year by mid-2024. Of our total investment of around 600 million euros, the EC has contributed up to 118 million euros and around 70 million euros came from the Italian National Resilience and Recovery Plan.

LUX: How is the 3Sun Gigafactory in Catania innovating to leading the transition to green energy?
ER: Our production capacity of 3 GW, which we will reach in 2024, will make us the largest production facility in the photovoltaic industry in Europe. However, our contribution to the energy transition is not only quantitative but also qualitative. The values that guide us are innovation and sustainability, two pillars that enable us to create a high quality product made in Europe.

3Sun Gigafactory represents a model that could be used all over the globe

LUX: Can you accelerate performance to be sure of meeting targets?
ER: We won’t ever stop innovating. The architecture of the 3Sun HJT solar cell is highly compatible with the so-called Tandem structure in which a perovskite top cell is coupled with a silicon bottom cell, the top cell utilises the blue component of the solar spectrum and transmits the red component to the silicon solar cells. The 3Sun tandem structure, that we call “Tango Technology”, allows the solar cell to reach higher efficiencies, well above the theoretical limits of silicon solar cells. 3Sun is developing innovative technology with the aim of increasing solar cell efficiency, achieving more than 30%.

LUX: Longer term, how do you see 3Sun Gigafactory model developing?
ER: 3Sun Gigafactory represents a model that could be replicated elsewhere in Italy, Europe and other parts of the world. As outlined previously, in order to accelerate the energy transition and ensure energy independence and security in Europe, it is necessary to build a European ecosystem of highly efficient solar PV module manufacturing.

Find out more: enelgreenpower.com/3SUN-factory

The Whiteley Members Club

Neil Jacobs, CEO at Six Senses

Neil Jacobs is CEO of the iconic hotel and residencies group, Six Senses. Here, he speaks to Samantha Welsh about the brand’s wellness model

LUX: How far are your wellness beliefs rooted in your personal values and lived experience?
Neil Jacobs: It started after studying Hotel Management at the University of Westminster, French Civilization at La Sorbonne University and Italian culture and art in Florence, knowing I wanted to travel and use the languages I’d learnt; I figured the hotel business was a great way of incorporating it all.

My personal passion and love for wellness, sustainability, and travel then played a part in my next steps to joining Six Senses and, naturally, my aim has been to elevate the brand in terms of responsible design, green initiatives and wellness programming. By broadening the company’s global footprint, we’ve been able to create these wonderful spaces and opportunities for people to live and create their own experiences with these things, in a plethora of environments.

Having the opportunity to apply my skills and experience to this unique brand, whilst leading a group of dedicated and likeminded professionals on a daily basis, is a personal joy.

Six Senses Kaplankaya, Turkey

LUX: What is the approach to embedding sustainable values from ground up through every resort? How do you measure their impact?
NJ: Sustainability is embedded into the very fabric of every resort, something we can only achieve if it is the first thing we think about when we approach a new project.

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Our eco-conscious approach to real estate starts with thinking about how we preserve, celebrate and enhance the local and global environment, as well as the local community and cultural heritage of the location. Naturally, this means taking a bespoke approach to each resort. We make smart use of our land topography and use renewable building materials, and use local materials wherever possible to reduce our environmental impact.

The Forestias in Bangkok

We undertake rigorous analysis to ensure we can successfully and accurately measure the impact of each project and continue to learn for future projects. For example, in 2020, the renewable electricity that was generated across our resorts reached an amount powerful enough to power fifteen world cup football pitches.

To us, sustainability doesn’t just mean our buildings are sustainable, it’s also about encouraging residents and guests to live sustainably long term. Many of our resorts and residences now feature Earth Labs, where otherwise discarded materials are recycled and reused. Guests and residents can join workshops and sessions to learn how to reduce their own consumption and re-use materials, the aim of which is to instil long-lasting sustainable mindsets.

The Forestias is made up of 27 residences, set in a purpose-grown forest in Bangna, Bangkok

Over the coming years, as we learn more and more from our existing projects, sustainability will continue to show up more meaningfully through in-resort environmental impact reduction, including passive cooling of the properties, electric transport options for guests and the use of biodegradable cleaning products.

Across our resorts, we are already working hard towards being fully plastic free. Resorts have never used plastic bottles or miniature plastic amenities, and plastic straws were eliminated before 2016. For example, in 2018 alone, more than 5 million plastic items were eliminated, including over 1,200,000 coffee capsules, over 52,000 plastic bags, over 26,400 toothbrushes and over 460,000 bits of packaging.

LUX: How does your vision for the Residences’ portfolio translate into screening macro market opportunities and micro-locations, masterplanning site assembly, partnerships, local collaborations?
NJ: Because the approach to each project is so individual, we make decisions on a case-by-case basis as to whether we incorporate residences into new resorts, as buyer motivations can differ greatly to those that drive people to stay in resorts as guests.

The Penthouse pool at the Six Senses Residences, The Palm, Dubai

We aren’t afraid of delivering resorts in remote locations, but sometimes this isn’t the right fit for residences, and vice versa in other locations. Thanks to our teams and their knowledge and understanding of the local market and global appetite, we can make fully informed plans and decisions on what we build and where we build it.

It’s key that the project and location is innately right for us, and an important initial step is getting onto the land to make sure it is speaking to us, and we can feel the connection. We like to conduct meditations or rituals, and in the past have bought in a sacred geometer to analyse the energy of the land.

The Whiteley Six Senses Hotel is opening in London in 2023

Once we’ve made these decisions, we begin conversations with potential development partners. With such strong company values, we’re highly selective with who we choose to work with and always ensure our partners share our vision and values.

For example, we are working alongside Finchatton for the first UK Six Senses Residences at The Whiteley. This was a significant milestone for us; to expand into one of the world’s most iconic gateway cities, and we wanted to wait for the perfect opportunity and partner. Finchatton’s hallmark quality matches our own, and the opportunity to collaborate and transform a significant architectural landmark was too good to miss.

LUX: Where did your idea come from, to bring nature, wellness and healing to the global metropolis?
NJ: If you look at the history of people who come to our resorts, it would typically be for a short getaway – a couple of weeks maximum. They’d immerse themselves in the wellness programming, enjoying the facilities we have on offer, resetting in our beautiful and remote locations but then quickly return to their fast-paced lives back in their home cities.

We wanted to find a way to connect the dots, and create these retreat-like spaces, offering relaxation and reconnection, in a location that is much more accessible for everyone: the awareness that often the global elite, while they have the means, don’t always have the time. This is where the migration into urban locations began for us.

Each residence at The Forestias comes with a private pool, rejuvenating onsen and organic gardens where seasonal fruits and vegetables can be grown

When we are considering bringing a residential component to our urban locations, it is almost a no-brainer. Alongside our exotic, rural and alpine locations, we want to be in gateway cities, located in the prime neighbourhoods of the best urban communities in the world. The market for this type of home for the ultra-high-net-worth is very strong, which meant there was also a clear and compelling business decision to grow our portfolio here.

LUX: What is the membership model? How is it differentiated from other hospitality Groups’ super prime residences?
NJ: We offer a unique experience to our residence owners; combining the luxury and sought-after amenities of resort life, but with the privacy and personal touches of owning your own space. Owners benefit from exclusive resident savings, as well as VIP status recognised across all Six Senses hotels and resorts around the world.

At Six Senses, we pride ourselves on offering a best-in-class service, and our level of care and attention to detail is what sets us apart from other luxury developments. This unparalleled level of service is in part thanks to our hospitality roots, extended so that all of our owners can fully enjoy the privileges of a hotel or resort, with every aspect taken care of.

At the core of the Six Senses Residences The Palm, Dubai is Six Senses Place, providing residential owners unique space purely for mental and physical wellness

Owners have the option of placing their home into hotel rental portfolio, which opens up an additional income opportunity via renting their homes when they are not staying there. As properties are wholly managed by Six Senses, it’s a completely hassle-free process.

Read more: Coworth Park, Ascot, Review

Owners who place their home in our rental programme automatically take advantage of our furniture packages as standard – with each home inspired by, and designed in line with, the nature of its environment and local community. Dependant on the resort and stage of construction, there are also sometimes opportunities for owners to personalise design details, such as material choices.

LUX: What is next for U/HNWs who seek multi-based sustainable superluxury living? And do you have your personal capstone?
NJ: The Six Senses brand was born from the desire to help people reconnect with themselves, others and the world around them. One of our core goals, is to continue to create a global footprint and allow people to experience our brand in different environments.

The exterior of the Whiteley Six Senses

Looking ahead at 2023, we are expecting a continued increase in the philanthropic buyer across the branded residences sector. High-net-worth buyers are increasingly seeking a home that has been created in a socially and environmentally mindful way, rather than just investing in purely bricks and mortar.

We are already well placed to respond to this rising demand, thanks to our responsible approach towards all projects through our thorough and sustainable practices.

In terms of a personal favourite of mine, I couldn’t quite say. That being said, part of the richness of my job is the opportunity to interact with our hosts around the world and the buy-in to the brand that shows up in each location. So, my favourite tends to be the project I’m visiting at the time!

Find out more: sixsenses.com/residences

The conversation between Durjoy Rahman and Sam Dalrymple took place over Zoom. We have used artistic licence to create the photo montage above

In the third of our series of online dialogues, Sam Dalrymple, Activist and Co-Founder of Project Dastaan, speaks with philanthropist Durjoy Rahman about cultural reconnections post-partition, the importance of multi-cultural artists across borders, and the rapid shift in popularity away from the West and towards the East. With an introduction and moderation by Darius Sanai and created in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation.

Raghu Rai is a Magnum Photographer who chronicled the Independence war of Bangladesh in 1971 when the territory that was East Pakistan gained independence from what is now Pakistan. The Indian army ultimately came to the aid of Bangladesh after an enormous refugee crisis ensued. We present a selection of his works within this article

LUX: Sam, could you tell us firstly what sparked your interest in Partition and inspired you to create the ground-breaking ‘Project Dastaan’?

Sam Dalrymple: Project Dastaan began when my friends Sparsh, Ameenah and Saadia were at University chatting about the fact that everyone’s grandparents had migrated from somewhere in the Sub-Continent, and how bizarre it was that in the UK you could have the easiest conversations about this.

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When you are in India, it is difficult to chat to a Pakistani, when you’re in Pakistan it’s difficult to chat to a Bangladeshi as these walls have been built up in the Sub-Continent, so that it is actually in the former colonial power where it is easiest to talk.

There were conversations about how Sparsh’s grandfather had migrated from near Islamabad, in Pakistan, and here was Saadia who was from near there and could easily go and take pictures of his old house or temple which had been impossible for Sparsh’s family for 75 years. They had no pictures of it, no idea where they were from. The ease from a London standpoint to re-connect triggered the whole thing.

Ayodhya, india 1993

The partition that is the cause of this fragmentation in India was, simply put, the largest forced migration in human history. In the course of a year what had been British India, was divided into two territories, which is now three – India and Pakistan, which later became Pakistan and Bangladesh. This was 75 years ago and for most of that time, most of the migrated people have never been able to see their homes again.

So it began as an attempt to use virtual reality to re-connect Partition survivors across borders, so if you came from Lahore and had migrated to Delhi, we would go out and find your old Mosque, your old school, your old house and, if we can, find any friends who you knew before 1947.

Chawri Bazar, old Delhi, India, 1972

We additionally wanted to translate some of these stories that we were hearing, into animations with a cross-border, collaborative studio in Bangalore and Lahore, which was in itself an attempt at cross-border with team members scattered from Bengal to Punjab. Then, we finally made a film called ‘Child of Empire’, which just premiered at Sundance. It is a VR mini-movie, a 15-minute animated journey through the Partition based on Sparsh’s grandfather’s story and another man who did the opposite journey. It is about these two men 75 years later chatting to one another and the therapeutic discussion of their two journeys which mirror each other in so many ways but, obviously, have been polarised so much over time.

LUX: In the context of Partition, what does Partition and its consequences mean to you Durjoy?

Durjoy Rahman: I come from a generation where it was my parents who had seen the displacement, twice. They were born during this time and have seen the consequences and the aftermath of partitions first hand. I grew up hearing everything that happened in 1947, the riots and so on. So between me and my parents we have seen the largest displacement in the history of these civilisations that happened in this region. These experiences have influenced me to do activities surrounding Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation heavily.

Mother Teresa at her refuge of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, during prayer, India, 1979

LUX: Do people have a strong sense of national identity currently? Would you say that this is down to cultural or religious differences?

SD: It is many differences and culture definitely plays into it. I think the memories of both ’47 and ’71 play into how people remember their pasts, but it is also a generational factor. The national identities are harder for the younger generation who never knew the other side of the border, whereas for a lot of people who migrated at the time nationalism was firing up these independence movements.

Art definitely plays into how we create a nation, with national anthems and the flag which of course crystalise these ideas of nationhood. What we’re seeing now is the crystallising of losing the generation who knew undivided India as undivided.

Imambara, Lucknow, India, 1990

DR: Nationality has always been an important element in the subcontinent. We always talk about India and Pakistan, but I would also include Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan in this context. Everyone holds their own nationalistic value to identify themselves and where they are from. But culture and religion, these two determined factors were also a factor when the British divided the subcontinent with the Muslims in Pakistan and left India where it was. A lot of people said ‘well, religiously you are all the same’ but religion is not the only deciding factor. We were culturally different so that was also important.

We are Bengali as Sam just said – we were never Pakistani, maybe we were all Muslims, but we were culturally different. So culture is a very important factor in defining borders and nationality. How you possess your cultural identity, this is what I believe defines you, and no matter how younger generations perceive themselves as a global citizen with a global identity, the identity borders will remain in our lifetime.

Indira Gandhi at a Congress session, Delhi 1967

LUX: Sam, Project Dastaan is ultimately a unifying project taking people virtually across borders. How has it been received among the people you deal with?

SD: It has touched people because it was something they thought was impossible, to see their old homes. The key thing has been not trying to look at the big and complex questions of Partition – We’re trying to show conflict through the eyes of an 8-year-old child. The generation that is still alive were mostly 12 or younger 75 years ago. We’re trying to show it through the eyes of the generation who’s still around. One of the things they would want to see is their old playground, their old houses, and the things that everyone can relate to. I think addressing the conflict and the great divide through these memories and nostalgia can be very healing.

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (the Toy train), India, 1995

LUX: Durjoy, you wish to promote the art of people who may not have had a voice, without borders. How does that relate to the very definite borders in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India?

DR: Since DBF was established in 2018, our projects have been based on the concept of art without borders. We never considered ourselves a foundation that had originated from Bangladesh. We started working with creative personalities regardless of whether they were visual artists, musicians, literature backgrounds, performance artists and we did not consider which region they are from. We have always identified if their practice relates to the mandates that we are trying to highlight; displacement, disadvantage, ethnicity, some kind of challenge which probably obstructs their creative development. So, art without borders was our primary goal.

Woman pushing cart Delhi 1979

LUX: Sam, with Project Dastaan, what will make you feel like you have achieved your aim, what will you be doing in 5 years, 10 years?

SD: Who knows, is the answer! The big thing we’ve been working on is this particular year as it’s the 75th anniversary, and I think the aim has always been to raise awareness about what happened – the aim has always been to try and get people to record these stories, because they are disappearing rapidly. The foundation of our project has been oral history, and the contemporaneous generation is rapidly disappearing. I think we also have a particular aim within Britain, to get Britain aware of its role in the events.

LUX: Regarding artists and the film-making that you employ, was that something that you had conceived from the start that is not just a means of storytelling, but something that you want to focus on and encourage?

SD: With Project Dastaan, the aim has always been cross-border collaboration. For our animation teams, one of our animators had a family who fought in 71, another family was part of the trading diaspora across the Bay of Bengal. I think one of the interesting things is, and I’m not sure how deliberate it was, but the types of animators and the team we built around ourselves, seems to have brought in people whose stories kind of corroborate the stories we are telling.

Hand building highway – Hydrabad, India, 2004

LUX: Durjoy, with regard to the next generation that you’re supporting in terms of art and culture, do you feel that there’s a role for creative practitioners to break down these borders?

DR: I would say that I am not only very hopeful, but I am very optimistic. In this post-covid scenario, in this globalised atmosphere, I personally believe that we were in the right moment where we could take the entire South Asian art movement to the next level. Now the West has started looking at the East. Of course, our foundation and activities focus on promoting artists from South Asia, but we have seen a massive global increase in interest for South Asian artists. I also believe that these artists will take great advantage from the rising virtual scene within the context of the more active online and digital art scene within the past two years.

SD: I think what you said then is exactly right. One of the most interesting pieces that I’ve read recently was by Fatima Bhutto in her book ‘New Kings of the World’, which talks about the shift in the past 20 years. The biggest film industry is Bollywood, the biggest TV industry is Turkey now and the biggest music industry is now South Korea K-Pop. I think there is a lot of hope and a lot of growth in the artistic sphere here. I don’t think that will necessarily mean the borders themselves disappear; I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think there’s going to be more collaboration, more interesting art pieces and more embracing of technology for it.

Local commuters at Church Gate railway station. Mumbai, 1995

DR: Would you ever choose another region as your beaming point, other than India?

SD: I think the idea of virtual reconnections is something that you can use in an array of different countries, but we are so focused on areas affected by the Partition as that is where the personal connections of the team lie and a very specific area of interest where we can enact real memory connecting change. What’s unusual is that these countries are so close in so many ways, it’s just that trauma etc has left them severed from one another It’s a bizarre, specific situation that neither of them have ability for tourist visas, there’s no tourist visas for India and Pakistan, you can’t just visit, you have to have a reason and government approval.

Read more: Rana Begum and Durjoy Rahman on South Asian art’s global ascendancy

LUX: Possibly controversial, but I would love to hear from you both, what do you consider needs to happen for conceptions to really change around the Partition and affect the vast majority of the population?

DR: We have to perform what we believe and have to do what is good for the community, what is good for the region, despite what the supremacy wants to establish.

SD: I don’t think there is a simple solution, but I think that creating conversations and conflict resolution is always a noble aim. I think conflict resolution and actually talking about it is where to start, without bias and actually listening.

All images © Raghu Rai

Find out more: 

durjoybangladeshfoundation.org

projectdastaan.org

Kelly Russell Catella

For International Women’s Day we are spotlighting Kelly Russell Catella, Head of Sustainability and Communication at COIMA, a major Italian real estate fund manager. COIMA has total investments of 5.5 billion euros with a declared focus on large scale sustainable urban planning. Here, Catella speaks with Samantha Welsh about making cities vibrant, accessible and healthy for all and the importance of an environmentally conscious city for a community

LUX: How did you start your journey on driving better approaches to sustainability in city-making?
Kelly Russell Catella: COIMA has always been very focused on quality and sustainable development since it was founded nearly 50 years ago. My own professional journey in the industry first started coordinating the first Italian Urban Land Institute chapter in Italy until our family established in the Fondazione Riccardo Catella in 2005. The Foundation is a not-for-profit institution with the mission to improve the quality of urban life and promote the culture of sustainability in cities. Since then, I’ve also been responsible for leading sustainability at COIMA, which is a value we truly believe in and is integrated deeply in the process of our value creation for all stakeholders.

One of our most important projects is Porta Nuova in Milan, one of the largest urban regeneration projects to have taken shape in Europe. Last year it became the first urban neighbourhood in the world to achieve both the LEED and WELL certifications for Community. These are the leading global certifications related to sustainability, health and wellbeing of buildings and communities. Achieving this ‘world first’ was for us a real endorsement of our approach, which is about focusing on the long-term sustainability of the entire neighbourhood, not just specific buildings. We find it key to think about the place, the whole community, and how the transformation fits into the context of the needs of the wider city.

LUX: Why was pursuing LEED and WELL certification for Porta Nuova so important?
KRC: Creating more liveable, healthy communities and places where people are in contact with nature, culture and beauty is what really drives our daily effort. Achieving the LEED and WELL for Community ratings for Porta Nuova is a validation that we worked to deliver on our promise to create a genuinely sustainable community in a measurable way. It is also about constantly challenging ourselves to do more, to push the bar higher and set new benchmarks in the industry.

Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano (BAM), the public park in Porta Nuova

While certifications and ratings are important to measure and prove the positive impact of a project, it is vital that we do not fall into the trap of a superficial ‘box ticking’ approach to sustainability; they are not an end in themselves, they are part of a wider methodology to create a comparable standard. It comes down to all of us to show genuine leadership in the transition to the low carbon economy – passion and commitment to deliver positive social and environmental impact and transparency in reporting.

LUX: The Bosco Verticale towers in Porta Nuova have become a global icon and the face of the new more eco-friendly Milan. Do they provide a prototype of more sustainable development for other cities?
KRC: At the time the Bosco Verticale – literally vertical forest – was the first project to integrate trees on such an ambitious scale. There are 780 trees and 16,000 shrubs and plants across the two residential towers, which is equivalent to around 20,000 m2 of forest. In many ways the development gets better with age, as the trees grow and mature and the benefits to the residents multiply – from regulating the temperature of the building to enhancing mood and wellbeing. Our partner on the project, the visionary architect Stefano Boeri, is now taking the vertical forest concept to other cities, including Dubai and Eindhoven, creating a new generation of high-rise urban buildings completely covered by the leaves of trees and plants.

Bosco Verticale at Residenze Porta Nuova

It is now seen as a sustainable model for the future of tall buildings. Working with Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Stefano Boeri Architetti we are taking the concept further at Porta Nuova with Pirelli 39, a mixed-used project which includes the sustainable refurbishment of an existing building and the development of Torre Botanica. The buildings base is connected to the Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano (BAM) or “library of trees” – the public park and botanical garden that serves as a natural oasis and community engagement hub of Porta Nuova.

LUX: How has the public-private partnership with the Municipality of Milan been game-changer in terms of enabling a more sustainable approach?
KRC: Sustainable city making is not possible without strong partnerships. We are very fortunate to have had sensitive administrations for consecutive mandates in the Municipality of Milan that shares the vision to create a more sustainable, green city, designed around people, rather than cars. They shared our vision to make Porta Nuova a fully pedestrianised neighbourhood centred around the natural environment presented in BAM.

Through an innovative public-private partnership between the City and COIMA, the Fondazione Riccardo Catella has been responsible for the management, security, maintenance and cultural programme of the BAM since July 2019. This is the first ever public-private partnership agreement for the management of a public park in Italy and it would not have been possible without the strong long-term commitment and understanding by both parties.

LUX: What strategies for Porta Nuova have you found particularly effective at a human level to help foster a sense of community and a sustainable ecosystem?
KRC: Fundamentally, we believe in placing nature and humans at the centre of all our developments and that this approach leads to real value creation. It is important to listen to people to understand their vision for the urban space in their communities and ensure that our designs can improve their quality of life. For example, at BAM we produce a diverse programme of more than 250 cultural moments and activities each year for residents, workers, and visitors.

This has a big focus on wellbeing and has a range of activities dedicated to senior citizens. We had actually planned to suspend the outdoor program in the coldest months of January and February and resume in March. Instead the group that meets every week asked us to continue saying it was the best morning of their week because they got together, socialized, had coffee after, so of course we kept the programme running over those months.

I know it seems small but when you are managing at a neighbourhood level in the centre of a city, listening to your end user of the public space helps create a type of community which we feel will be resilient over time. This what we mean by focusing on the long-term sustainability of the entire neighbourhood, not just specific buildings. The park and the rich cultural programme work together to create a sense of community – and furthermore, with the Fondazione we would like to create a sustainable business model for this kind of public-private partnership that could be replicated in other parks in other cities across the globe.

LUX: In your approach to the development of the Olympic Village 2026 at Porta Romana, how important is sustainability including ensuring a enduring legacy?
KRC: We are working with Fondazione Milano Cortina and the Italian Government to set a very high standard regarding sustainability for the Olympic Village and we hope the legacy will become a template for a more sustainable approach to future Olympic Games (and global sporting event) development. It will also leave a positive legacy for Milan. After the Games, the village will be transformed into affordable student accommodation, with 1,700 beds, addressing a major shortage of modern student accommodation in Milan.

Plans for the 2026 Winter Olympic Village at Porta Romana

The student accommodation will sit within a wider urban neighbourhood including affordable housing, co-working facilities, community amenities, public spaces and parks and gardens. The Olympic Village Plaza will become a neighbourhood square, with shops, bars and restaurants at street level, and space for farmers’ markets and moments open to the community. If the Games are to be the success story that we all envision, environmental and social impact must be a driving force behind those plans.

LUX: How are you ensuring the Porta Romana project will be implemented to minimise environmental impact?
KRC: The Olympic Village itself actually only comprises only around 15% of the total investment in the regeneration of the former Porta Romana railway yard, so you can understand the scale of the project. Our vision for Porta Romana, together with the partners of the project Covivio and Prada Holding, is that the district will be grafted into the surrounding neighbourhoods, becoming a vibrant, green, sustainable and healthy place that is wholly part of the city, where work and leisure activities will be at the centre of life in the neighbourhood.

Plans for community gardening within the public park at Porta Romana

Working with the architects selected for the masterplan – Outcomist, Diller Scofido + Renfro, PLP Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associates and ARUP – and with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), winner of the Olympic Village tender, Porta Romana is designed to have near zero environmental impact. It will also include a wide central park and gardens designed by Elizabeth Diller, the landscape designer of the New York Highline, with a ‘suspended forest’, which could become a new major tourist attraction in Milan. Altogether around half the site will be gardens or greenspace. Through this approach we are working to ensure the project sets the bar even higher in terms of sustainable urban development

LUX: How important is technology in creating sustainable neighbourhoods and communities?
KRC: Technology has a big role to play in delivering a sustainable scheme, whether through gathering and measuring the sustainability performance of the buildings or increasing community engagement and participation in initiatives on a neighbourhood level. At Porta Nuova we are piloting a ‘smart’ neighbourhood project, with an infrastructure of sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) devices capable of acquiring information in real time about the behaviour of users and their needs and the quality and performance of the infrastructure in the district.

This works alongside the Porta Nuova Milano neighbourhood app, which allows users to interact with buildings and access an extended range of services within the residential, office, retail and public spaces. The aim is to facilitate people’s lives and at the same time build the sense of community and encourage more environmentally conscious behaviour. We are also supporting a tech accelerator programme on site at Porta Nuova, called HabiSmart, with start-ups focused on transforming real estate through technology. The startups are hosted in the COIMA HQ and they are able to test their prototypes within the Porta Nuova district. This enables them to get real-time feedback from the field, accelerating the process of development and scale-up.

LUX: Is there one sustainable project you think is low cost and particularly impactful that could be scaled globally?
KRC: The built environment accounts for around 40% of global emissions. If the industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world, behind China and the US. We are in an emergency and time is running out. We now have the technology to deliver zero carbon in operations during the life of the buildings, but we need to look much more closely at the reuse of existing buildings to reduce the currently unavoidable embodied carbon emissions generated through the construction process.

Pirelli 39, with La Torre Botanica and the Pirellino Tower

We need to change mindsets so that the first principle is to examine whether an existing building can be modernised and refurbished rather than demolished, as we are doing with the Pirelli 39 project that will see the existing 1960s Pirellino office tower refurbished to create a highly sustainable modern office building created out of the existing structure and standing next to La Torre Botanica.

Retrofit, reuse, repurposing, wherever possible, and integration of biodiversity in the urban projects is what we must all seek to do more. We need to stop viewing sustainability as an additional cost, but as integrated into the core of the business model that can mitigate risks and maintain returns long term while contributing to a healthier environment and a more cohesive social surrounding.

Find out more: www.coima.com

The Plaza Athénée’s effortlessly chic, light-filled La Galerie

In the first part of our luxury travel views column from the Autumn/Winter 2022 issue, LUX’s Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai checks in at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris

Many hoteliers I respect have told me that the highest priority, when creating a landmark new city hotel, is not the architecture or the name of the chef running the kitchen, but engaging and attracting the local community. A great city hotel should feel like a private club. This is partly so that the public spaces are filled when business travellers and tourists are thinner on the ground, but also because any discerning traveller wants to feel they are going where the insiders go. 

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This philosophy drove the success of Ian Schrager’s first boutique hotels in the 1980s, and continues thanks to the panache of today’s hoteliers. It has also driven the world’s great hotels since their inception: what were the original Ritz and Savoy, if not gathering places for the great and good? Urban tribes may have diversified and expanded now, giving a greater spread of aspiration, but the principles remain. Conversely, it is dispiriting to arrive at a new hotel in a new city to find that everyone else there seems to be as foreign and clueless as you are. 

One of the hotel’s peerless Eiffel Tower views

All of this brings me to the Plaza Athénée in Paris. You are welcomed into the marble-lined lobby and can take a peek at the outdoor atrium, one of many areas designed by interiors star Bruno Moinard. And you get a frisson that you have truly arrived in Paris because its Le Relais restaurant is the work, play and cutting place of the Parisian elite. If you want to form a new political grouping or gather key players together for a new deal, this is the place where your plan will likely be hatched, matched and dispatched. 

Having said all that, arriving in my suite, it wouldn’t have mattered if the hotel had only ever housed tourists. The living room of the suite, on the corner of avenue Montaigne, looks directly down the street, across the river, to the Eiffel Tower. Like the best views, it changes through the day, dusk and night to create a different illusion. By day, the tower is a glowering metallic structure. At night, illuminated and with lasers pointing from it as if it’s a gun turret in an old video arcade game, it feels otherworldly. 

The charming La Cour Jardin, designed by Bruno Moinard

The furnishing in the suite is determinedly classical. So much so that it has very much come back into fashion. You have a reception room big enough to hold a cocktail party for 30; there is a baby grand piano in the anteroom and bathrooms for guests of the hotel’s guests. 

Read more: Hotel of the Month: The Lygon Arms, the Cotswolds

My favourite moment? After dinner, a glass of Louis Roederer champagne at an outside table on La Terrasse Montaigne. For an evening, at least, I could have been a member of a Parisian “grande famille”, enjoying a nightcap at their local bar. Altogether a priceless experience at the Plaza. 

Find out more: dorchestercollection.com/en/paris/hotel-plaza-athenee

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2022/23 issue of LUX

Eric Fischl and his painting Sign of the Times. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

Internationally acclaimed American painter, Eric Fischl is not only creating some of the most iconic and of-the-moment works of art, but he is also developing and nurturing a cultural community in Sag Harbor. Here, Fischl speaks to LUX’s Chief Contributing Editor, Maryam Eisler, about the importance of community and its effect on his own oeuvre

Maryam Eisler: The support that you have given your immediate cultural community (Sag Harbor) is notable. How and why did you and April (Gornik) decide to take such active roles in the town’s cultural initiatives? Was it a Covid decision or did the idea burgeon before?
Eric Fischl: It started prior to Covid. My wife April and I were working with a group of people to buy the cinema back in 2014. We went through some very difficult negotiations, and then there was a fire that destroyed the cinema, which made it even more urgent to buy the building because it had lost its landmark status. We had to raise 8 million dollars. The big money, believe it or not, came from successful visual artists, musicians, filmmakers … signalling to me that this was a place where the artists had a say: “We want to have an impact in determining the quality of life and culture in this town.” Then The Church (visual arts centre) became available, and so we purchased that as well. Again, it was about trying to develop a centre of creativity for the community.

ME: Are you now able to see, feel and measure the impact of these initiatives on your immediate community?
EF: Yes. At The Church, we’ve been very conscientious of doing exhibitions which have both an international representation but a very local one too. We’ve certainly found that the local artists are not only grateful to be included in the larger conversation, but they are also stepping up their game to prove it. As far as the town is concerned, attendance at The Church is increasing, and people feel comfortable being there. In the summer, we have a kids camp, and the energy fits the profile of what a community centre should be all about. We’re very excited about that. We’re also in the process of fighting (and probably losing) a battle with big money developers who want to take over and determine the next life of Sag Harbor, without actually having any feel for the place.

Threading The Needle exhibition at The Church. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: What are your thoughts regarding the artists’ relationship with this town?
EF: This is the first time where I thought there’s a real chance where the artists can actually gentrify their own place; there’s a shared feeling that ‘this is the kind of life and the kind of community we want to be a part of and want to nourish’. Developers use artists to attract investors, prices are pushed out of range, and the artists have to then move out. In this case, my hope is, at the very least, to establish artist residency programs that retain artistic presence, whilst enabling creatives to take part of the town’s everyday life, bringing in fresh blood, energy and ideas.

ME: In your own practice, you seem to dig deep into the American psyche, sometimes with an added layer of nostalgia, but I now sense an additional connection with the current political climate.
EF: Well it’s funny because on the one hand, the paintings have become very narrow in their focus, and local. Right now, various scenes are derived from this Halloween parade that takes place here called the ‘Ragamuffin Parade’ which I’ve photographed for many years. I’ve put together these weird scenes of costumed people, and in some, you feel the advent of Covid; some protagonists are in costume, some in medical masks, ironically. One scene looks like they’re coming back from war, on crutches and canes, or they’re just tired or something…

The Parade Returns, 2022 by Eric Fischl

ME: You have said in the past that the point of painting is to try and find the hidden truth so are you trying to do exactly that, at this difficult moment in time and history?
EF: These difficulties have just been compounding, and for us, here in America, the madness of the Trump administration and the way that it divided the country into such irresolvable anger, is something that hasn’t left the scene, even since he was voted out of office – so, we Americans are dealing with a constant pressure.

ME: Is there a permanent sense of malaise?
EF: Yes. How do you and can you get back from where we are now? To which you add a pandemic, further isolating and terrifying us all. That fear and isolation combined with the political anger has just presented an extremely tough time for us all.

The Church, Sag Harbor. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: How do you reconcile your mission regarding your community work with your own art practice?
EF: I have to say that in our vision of implementing The Church, I didn’t quite realise how much positivity and hope people attach to the notion of community, its nurturing side, its playful side, its creative side. I’m personally not entirely capable of doing that within my own work; my work deals with more existential conditions, of missed connections and unsatisfied desires.

Studio wall. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: And you’re still working through this? It seems to be a continuous process.
EF: Yes. I don’t know whether the goal in life is to work through it so that you are freed from it, or whether you just go deeper and deeper into it, because there’s a profound truth to the nature of life that lies within the process. How do you come to terms with it? I think I should write a piece for our local newspaper. At first, I was thinking about art as an expression of love, a desire to connect, a willingness to explore areas of our being that we don’t necessarily get to openly share… to try and work through stuff that way. That in itself is an act of love. Then you have a belief in your community, a belief in your society, a belief in being human. But it’s a complicated thing, because some people can actually handle a direct exchange of love. I can’t. I think most artists can’t. We have to triangulate.

The studio floor. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: You’ve often said that you speak to a painting and that it speaks back to you. Do you paint with an end game in mind or is it an ever- evolving dialogue, until you know it’s ready for the world?
EF: You keep talking to the painting till it begins to talk back to you, and if it doesn’t talk back to you, then you haven’t found the point of the painting, and so you should just destroy it. But when it does talk back, you have to start listening to it, and it then tells you how to finish it.

Painting in front is titled Old Dog, behind is Ragamuffin Parade, both by Eric Fischl. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: Talk to me about the old dog and the girl in this painting.
EF: Well, I was riding my bicycle and I saw this old dog in the water. It seemed happy. I was transfixed by it. The painting is about a moment between the old dog and a young girl. You can’t quite tell what her age is as you see her from behind, dressed in a sort of fancy-ish outfit, not exactly a summertime thing, a just-got-out-for-a-walk kind of thing. They’re just talking to each other, and the space has become dynamic between them, so maybe on some simple level, the painting is about age and youth, who knows…

ME: I love the idea that photography plays a role in your painting, a starting point at least. I also find your embrace of technology in general fascinating when it comes to your art practice. Can you tell me more about that?
EF: Yes well, I certainly don’t consider myself a photographer. It’s just a tool. The reason photography works for me is because everything is in motion, everybody is slightly turning, slightly blinking, slightly opening their mouths, slightly shifting a shoulder… whatever it is, a photograph lives life instantaneously. And if you’re creating narratives, you need animation, a moment where something is begging to happen, and photography allows you to capture exactly that. It’s become a huge tool that I’m dependent on.

It’s a blue which is typical of his work. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

As for technology, it’s not that I go out and embrace technology; it sort of shows up and then there’s curiosity about it, and if I manage to connect it to my body of work in some way, I do. It took a while to get the feel of the hard surface of the iPad and drawing on it, but there came a point where it became a fun sketch tool. The same goes with the VR paintings I make with Tilt Brush. There’s this strangeness that is both curious and entertaining with this new technology that forces me to figure out a new language of painting “effects” that is not too dissimilar to my other work – just a little more exaggerated and strange.

Deep in thought…Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: I’m interested in space and place. Do you have a sense of dialogue with or responsibility towards the artistic legacy of this area? Do you feel that you are continuing a practice that is indigenous to this particular geography?
EF: Yes, I grew up on Long Island so there’s a familiarity. I’m definitely out here to experience the art, not to play around or eat ice cream! It turns out that there is quite a history of American art which is connected directly to this landscape- the abstract expressionists for example. A lot of it is directly connected to the quality of light, unique to this place. It has to do with the flatness and thinness of the land and having bodies of water on all sides, creating this kind of refraction, a full-spectrum light, different from most other places. But I don’t paint from life, so other than enjoying the light and being wowed by it, that is not why I’m here. That would be the safe answer. Let’s not forget that we are also only two hours away from the city. This is also where the money is, where our friends are … these would be the more honest reasons to cite for why I and most other artists are out here.

Sculptures greeting you as you approach Eric Fischl’s house/studio. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: A much lesser poetic explanation than I would have hoped for, perhaps!
EF: Exactly. Everyone wants it to be because of some kind of inspiring thing, but you know, this is also the first time I’ve referenced this particular location in my work. In the past, I was painting as if I lived elsewhere. A lot of people in fact thought that I lived in California.

ME: As you approach your property, the first thing you see, is this sculptural grouping of human figures amidst the tall grass, as if spying on you, magical and awe – inspiring.
EF: Well, thank you for feeling that way. I make sculptures from time to time; they’re not a particular focus of mine. I enjoy doing them when I need a break from painting or other things. The reason I connect to the sculptural form is because it comes from a different part of my body and brain, and that’s of interest to me. There are memories and knowledge that your hands have stored that you cannot access from your eyes. It’s the touch itself that triggers feelings; memory that creates experience.

Entrance of the studio with Eric Fischl’s sculpture. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

ME: So, is your own hand at play when it comes to sculptures, in the same way as it is with your paintings? It seems that your own physicality has presence in all your art forms- a rare practice these days.
EF: Yes. When I start any new work, I don’t know what I’m looking for so how can I possibly get other people to do it for me? There is also a great amount of pleasure and satisfaction in the act of making art, even when it is frustrating. The difference between painting and sculpture for me is that you mainly commit to whatever you’re sculpting way sooner in the process than you do with painting, because with sculpture you know that you’re making an armature, and so it gets hard to take that down or move it around. With a painting, on the other hand, you can paint over it, paint it out, or start all over again; so, you can spend more time in the discovery phase.

Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

The other aspect of my practice has been about trying to reassert the body back into painting and sculpture. If you take Rodin for example, he was someone that absolutely believed in the ability of the body to express itself, no matter how painful or how dramatic or how erotic and lustful an experience, and that this body was able to express all these feelings and states of mind. That began to go away with modernism. The next sculptor of great impact was Giacometti. His position was different from Rodin’s. With him, the body was no longer able to express itself, but be expressed upon. For him, the body was more or less frozen with the anxiety that is eating away at it. So, we went from being able to express pain, joy, eroticism and anxiety to not being able to express anything at all, rather opting to internalise it all whilst allowing it to destroy us.

Studio interior. Image courtesy of Maryam Eisler

And then the body disappears for a while and when it reappears, it comes back as reproduction, body casting, silk screens, one step removed from the animation of the actual body itself. It becomes something that takes on a literal quality because when you’re casting somebody, you’re dealing with the specificity and limitations of individuals; height, weight and shape. The imaginative and distorting part of emotional expression disappears. Artists today prefer the representation of our bodies to be dolls and mannequins – both surrogate forms. As for me, I’m trying to find ways of keeping the physicality of the body in the forefront of our experience of our lives. In doing so, it becomes about truth, about who we are. We’re all in this container, trying to figure out the interface between our interior world and the exterior world, through this thing called skin.

As an artist, I strive to get comfortable with my need to answer these existential questions with my inability to resolve them. I see my role as an artist to witness and to record, creatively and imaginatively, the experience of life’s journey.

Eric Fischl’s exhibition ‘Towards the End of an Astonishing Beauty: An Elegy to Sag Harbor, and Thus America’ opens at Skarstedt, New York, on September 14 2022

Andermatt. Image by Peter Wormstetter

In recent years, the tiny Swiss village of Andermatt has been establishing itself as one of the world’s most desirable and forward-thinking alpine resorts, but the region has been intriguing residents and visitors for centuries. A mini-documentary series explores Andermatt’s history through powerful and intimate personal stories

Over a period of seven months, film studio Peach & Cherry and cinematographer Martin Wabel documented the changing seasons of Andermatt, speaking to locals, guests, businesspeople, free-riders, farmers and artists. The result is Mystic Mountains, a series of twelve mini documentaries. Each episode lasts approximately ten minutes and is shaped around the personal narratives of interviewees, touching on themes of nature, community and belonging with staggeringly beautiful shots of the alpine landscapes.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

At a time when climate change is rapidly challenging the survival of ski resorts (by 2050, half of Switzerland’s 4,000 glaciers are forecast to have disappeared), these narratives serve as a poignant reminder of not just the region’s history, but also humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

To watch the series visit: andermatt-swissalps.ch

andBeyond game drive in the Serengeti

Joss Kent is a born adventurer. Son of LUX columnist and Abercrombie & Kent CEO Geoffrey Kent, Joss left behind the family legacy to run luxury travel company, andBeyond.

With safari camps all over Africa, and hotels and lodges in select locations across Asia and South America, andBeyond is renowned for its creative approach, commitment to sustainability and spontaneous guest surprises (think champagne breakfast served at sunrise under an ancient baobab tree in the African bush).

Digital Editor Millie Walton speaks to CEO Joss Kent about the excitement and challenges of creating luxury escapes in some of the wildest places on earth

Joss Kent

LUX: What makes andBeyond different from other luxury travel companies?
Joss Kent: What sets us apart is our 27 years of experience and the passionate people who make up the andBeyond team. I am fortunate enough to run a company that is full of talented people who care deeply about what they do. They are, I think, principally driven by the belief that they can make a difference in the world we live in. It is andBeyond’s sole purpose to strive to leave our world better than we found it through our impact model of care of land, wildlife, and people. Alongside this, we also offer extraordinary guest experiences in Africa, Asia and South America.

LUX: andBeyond works with architects to create unique safari camps that differ from the traditional camp image, such as the andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Delta Lodge. What’s the andBeyond design brief? Is there one?
Joss Kent: With a more aware breed of traveller looking towards responsible luxury travel, lodge design is rapidly evolving. As a result, we are focusing our energy and time on trying to make sure that we build sustainably but, at the same time, don’t lose the creative edge that differentiates our guests’ experience. Our large number of lodge refurbishments and new builds showcases the wide range of design that the company’s portfolio encompasses. At the same time, we make sure that sustainability is an entrenched part of the design process. We believe that less is often more and emphasise the field experience that our rangers, guides and hosts offer over opulent lodge design. I believe that the game lodge of the future has a light footprint and uses 100% renewable energy. It uses no plastic, has a zero-carbon offset, a sensitive ecological footprint and a sensitive design, with a strong sense of place.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

LUX: Lots of people assume that luxury and sustainability don’t mix, but andBeyond is proving otherwise. What are some of the sustainability challenges that you are currently facing?
Joss Kent: Because some of the areas where we operate are in less developed countries, certain services are not readily available. For example, in South Africa recycling is easy to do. We have helped to set up community businesses near our lodges that collect our recyclable waste, sort it and sell it on to bigger recycling companies. In countries such as Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya or Namibia, which are less developed or where our lodges are a lot more remote, this is not as easy to do. In these cases, where we cannot recycle, we try to reduce our waste as much as possible.

We encounter similar problems when trying to source more sustainable goods and materials, for example, glass bottles. In some cases there are not available locally and we would be forced to import them. We then need to follow best practice in environmental offsetting, making use of the best compromise available and using other means to offset the impact that we cannot avoid.

andBeyond Bateleur Camp in Kenya’s iconic Masai Mara National Reserve

LUX: What do you understand the term ‘transformational travel’ to mean, and have you seen a shift in terms of your guests’ demands or expectations in recent years?
Joss Kent: Travel has evolved from the adage of taking only photos and leaving only footprints. The world’s wild places need us to do better than that. Now it’s about taking memories and leaving a legacy. These days, we find that guests want to be far more actively involved. Whilst spotting the Big Five on safari is inevitably a key goal and reason for staying at an andBeyond lodge, our guests also want to engage with the local communities and actively participate in conservation initiatives where possible – to have a sense of purpose when travelling.

In addition, more and more often travellers are time-poor and, consequently, want to have immersive and authentic experiences in a short space of time. In response to this demand, we have created a set of Small Group Journeys that are designed to cater for specific interests. Examples include the East Africa Photographic Expeditions, the Snow Leopard Expedition in the far north of India and our Mobile Camping Expeditions in Botswana.

Read more: Magical Mountain Touring in Andermatt, Switzerland

We’re also seeing that our guests want to invest in themselves and their families by meeting different cultures and learning from them. We have guests who want to improve their overall health – journeys that include meditation and yoga-focused retreats, such as the ones we offer in India, are becoming increasingly popular. The latest addition to our lodge portfolio, andBeyond Vira Vira in Chile, has a farm-to-table food focus and everything from the kitchen is organic, local and in-season. We’re increasingly incorporating wellness into our African safari experience – andBeyond Bateleur Camp just reopened in Kenya’s Masai Mara with a dedicated spa and fitness centre that overlooks an unbroken Mara vista, while andBeyond Phinda Rock Lodge reopened last year with a new rooftop deck for sunrise yoga and meditation.

LUX: andBeyond is known for offering some of the best wildlife experiences in Africa, but of course, you can’t guarantee that you’ll spot any animals. How do you still ensure that your guests have a fulfilling and exciting experience?
Joss Kent: Whilst offering exceptional wildlife viewing is a significant part of what we do, we have seen an increased demand for participative experiences whereby guests are looking for more than just spotting the Big Five. At andBeyond we pride ourselves on delving deeper into offering experiences that engage with the communities too.

We have been breaking down the barriers and including guests in the activities that take place behind the scenes in terms of conservation and community. For example, we offer guests staying at our reserves in South Africa the opportunity to get involved in elephant collaring and rhino notching, both activities that are necessary in monitoring wildlife populations when faced with the growing threat of poaching and decreasing habitat.

At andBeyond Mnemba Island and andBeyond Vamizi Island, where turtle nests are identified and carefully protected, guests travelling at the right time of year can safely escort hatchlings to the sea. We have also just launched two new Small Group Journeys: the Oceans Without Borders Small Group Journey and the Phinda Impact Journey. The former takes place on andBeyond Vamizi Island and is hosted by Dr Tessa Hempson, one of the leading Marine Biologists in East Africa. Here, guests will delve into the fascinating field of marine conservation and gain first-hand knowledge of significant environmental issues affecting the world’s oceans. The latter takes place at andBeyond Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Whilst traditional game drives are integral to this safari experience, it also incorporates elements of our ranger training curriculum, as well as selected conservation activities.

An andBeyond boat safari in Botswana

Another differing experience is the insightful tours that we offer along with our community development partner, Africa Foundation. Our ethos of Care of the Land, Care of the Wildlife, Care of the People guides everything that we do and, through our work with Africa Foundation, we have been able to bring meaningful change to the communities around our lodges through education, providing clean water, healthcare, and small business development projects chosen by the communities. Whilst we have been arranging community visits and animal conservation activities with guests on more of a bespoke basis, we have also created philanthropic itineraries including Travel with Purpose in South Africa and Travel with Purpose in Kenya with the view to showcasing more than only seeing the Big Five when in Africa. Guests can choose to follow these itineraries as they stand or we can customise an itinerary to fit a guest’s specific interests. Through these experiences we ensure our guests are fulfilled and take away lasting memories and, in their own way, leave a legacy.

Read more: Founder of photo basel Sven Eisenhut on the art of photography

LUX: Many luxury hotels are embracing technology as a way of fulfilling guest experiences. How do you meet the demands of technologically hungry generation whilst still providing a sense of escape?
Joss Kent: We find that our guests want to disconnect from technology and reconnect with families and friends, sharing a meal and talking instead of everyone being distracted by their personal devices. We make this easier to do by trying to limit the connectivity options at our camps to our designed-by-nature lodge rooms, such as at andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. After all, why stare at a screen when you could be looking out on the best of the Okavango Delta?

LUX: Alongside the camps in Africa, andBeyond offers travel experiences in a handful of destinations across Asia and South America, such as the Maldives, Bhutan, Chile and Peru. Why those particular destinations?
Joss Kent: These days, travellers are looking towards lesser discovered destinations and this is where we choose to operate.

In terms of the countries that we operate in, our vision is necessarily a long term one, as meaningful conservation and community development work takes a long time to develop, implement and measure. It has taken andBeyond 27 years to achieve our vision in Africa and we are continually developing and refining our activities there.

Private plunge pool at the andBeyond Phinda Rock Lodge suite

In Asia and South America, it is our intent, over a medium to long period of time, to replicate what we have done and achieved in Africa. Over the past two years we have started by establishing solid operating platforms (people, offices, touring and ground handling capabilities) on these continents and in those countries that we have chosen for the expansion of the andBeyond vision and model. This is vital, as it means we can now start to engage with governments, NGOs and individuals in seeking out areas of meaningful conservation impact and doing detailed assessments of whether our model will practically work. We have been actively in that assessment stage for 12 months now. It is as a result of the assessment phase that we are now specifically focusing on Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Chile, Argentina and Peru (the Amazon) as the core countries in which we can actively expand our model and vision.

Very soon we hope to have news on some big ideas that we believe in time will become very meaningful conservation and community development projects. They span large geographic areas and are complex and will take time to come to fruition. In parallel, we are close to announcing our first lodge on the ground in Asia (Bhutan) and have just made an announcement regarding andBeyond Vira Vira in South America (Chile). These all form part of the important build-up of our presence and capabilities and are the forerunners of the impactful 3Cs model work that will follow.

Read more: Luxury perched in the Himalayan foothills of North East India

LUX: andBeyond runs a number of community projects. How do you decide where to focus the company’s philanthropic efforts?
Joss Kent: We work collaboratively with our community development partner, Africa Foundation, whose methodology is based on a collaborative, consultative approach. Africa Foundation listens to the needs identified by the communities themselves and guides them in the process of considering the appropriate projects to address these needs. It then works directly with a project committee, consisting of community members who have been proactive in engaging with local stakeholders. Each project is led by a local champion from the community. Africa Foundation focuses on four key development areas that support community empowerment: education, healthcare and clean water, small business development and environment and conservation. Whenever we are looking to build or acquire a new lodge, we ensure that our impact model can be put into practice in every way so that it benefits the land, wildlife and people. Therefore, there are community projects taking place at each of our owned and managed lodges.

LUX: What’s next for andBeyond? Any upcoming openings?
Joss Kent: We have a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline, including the continued revamp of our existing lodges, the rebuild of andBeyond Phinda Homestead in South Africa (due to open in September). The refurbishment of andBeyond Bateleur Camp in Kenya is almost completed and andBeyond Phinda Vlei Lodge in South Africa also recently reopened with a new look. We also have the brand new andBeyond Tengile River Lodge in the prestigious Sabi Sand Game Reserve opening in December.

Over the past three years we have also taken major steps forward in our long-term goal of exporting our impact model out of Africa and into South America. We believe that the expertise and knowledge we have gained in Africa can, in time, create a meaningful impact on this beautiful continent and we are thrilled to be managing our first lodge in South America. As of September, andBeyond Vira Vira in the Chilean Lake District will be added to our expanding portfolio of lodges. For Asia, watch this space! We have exciting developments in the pipeline for Bhutan.

andBeyond Serengeti Under Canvas guest tents

LUX: Do you have a favourite andBeyond camp, and why?
Joss Kent: While all the andBeyond lodges have their own distinct feel, I have to admit andBeyond Serengeti Under Canvas is a favourite of mine. It really does take you back to the time of the old mobile safaris. The camp has a very light footprint, and the experience is all about the guide, the habitat and the wildlife, which are only separate from you by a thin layer of canvas. It gives guests the chance to really unplug in a technical world. There is nothing that beats relaxing around a proper campfire, or the bush TV, as well call it. Here you can fall asleep to the sounds of the Great Migration, curled up against a hot water bottle, and wake up to the sunrise peeking through the canvas flaps of your tent. At the end of a great day out in the bush, preferably walking, you can relax under a piping hot bucket shower under an African night sky.

LUX: How do you relax?
Joss Kent: I love outdoor activities like mountain biking, trail running, kite surfing, polo and riding. I have also recently got into night-time meditation using the Headspace app.

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