Stories

FROM ISSUE Nº 11 – THE chain

The Baltic Way

In August 1989, around a million people from the Baltic states expressed their desire for independence by joining hands to create ‘The Baltic Way’, a 690 km human chain from Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius.

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Of Male

In the evening lull that fairy tales were fantasised to fill, Bediako Blacksmith delivered the same message to his son every night. “Kwame,” he’d rumble softly, “You must be by the window. Even on the day I die. Even on the day you bury me.”

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FROM ISSUE Nº 10 – THE Bottle

A toast to Ten

To celebrate its tenth issue, MacGuffin invited ten creatives to come up with a label for a fictive bottle. Inspiration for the contents came from a host of sources, ranging from big-billed pelicans to Maori vowel sounds.

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The Fridges of
the Famous

An exclusive asset once kept from the public eye, the celebrity self now invites us to marvel at their homes, and the curated contents of their fridges.

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FROM ISSUE Nº 9 – THE rug

The Carpet and
the Territory

Both sacred ground and profane platform, the prayer rug suspends reality, transports worshippers symbolically elsewhere, and orders the confusion of life into a temporary perfection.

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The Rug is Back

Overheard conversations, afternoons of topless football, and awkward poses in life-drawing class leave a schoolboy riddled with anxiety about the furry growth extending across his neck, shoulders, ...

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FROM ISSUE Nº 8 – THE desk

Mining Above Ground

Ore Streams, a study of e-waste by Studio Formafantasma, includes a range of office furniture assembled from salvaged materials and components that expose the complex relationship between time, industrial production and the musealization of design.

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Drawers

A last resort for things you don’t know where else to put, a half-way house for bits and bobs destined for the dustbin, or a secure store for valuables: drawers are a window to the soul. Eight editors reveal what they have hidden away.

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FROM ISSUE Nº 7 – THE Trousers

LANGUAGE ON LEGS

If you find yourself in the supermarket wearing pyjamas or out on the town in a tuxedo jacket styled with jeans, chances are you’re communicating a fashionable ideal that combines effort and the lack of it: ‘normcore’.

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VAGINA PANTS

Late last year, fashion graduate Duran Lantink got a call on a Tuesday at three in the morning. It was a friend, video clip director Emma Westenberg, asking him to design a costume for Janelle Monáe’s PYNK video by Friday. ...

CAN’T TOUCH THIS

‘You move, and then the pants move,’ MC Hammer said of his shiny haremstyle trousers, which rose to fame in 1990 in his video clip U Can’t Touch This. An apt song title for Hammer’s billowy pants ...

FROM ISSUE Nº 6 – THE Ball

DELIRIOUS ARCHITECTS AND GLOBES

Inspired by the form of the earth, one shape has haunted architecture and its scientists, humanists and even utopians more than any other since time immemorial: the globe.

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FROM ISSUE Nº 5 – THE Cabinet

SOTTSASS AND
THE MAGIC OF MOBILI

Combining the violent colours of gas stations in America and the mysterious rituals of India, Ettore Sottsass created a cast of cabinet characters ready for the drama of life.

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A LIFE IN CUBES

After a lifetime spent exploring the application of the cube in architecture, art and design, William Graatsma acknowledges that his devotion to this universal form borders on the comical.

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