Thank you, Stephan, for your artistic vision and for believing in me.
The images and interview are extraordinary and I am deeply grateful. And thanks to @marcelostertag for making it all possible.
Interview @cytemagazin - link to article in bio
photo and vision @stephanziehen
styling @lisaneubacher
dress @la_bande_berlin
scarf design @annakuenart
#newfaces #newmodel #editorialphotography #fashionphotography #cytemagazin #koreanmodel #spanishmodel
It’s been a year of Firsts, embracing the New, ending with new writings reflecting on the power of the arts and culture in these troubling times:
1/2 Photoshoot and interview in German cultural magazine, @cytemagazin by Editor @stephanziehen
3 Walking the runway with confidence @berlinfashionwe ek thanks to @marcelostertag
4 Winning commission with @ciaociao_design for the London Festival of Architecture
5 Opening a new Project Space in Venice with @jacek_arte and curating my first exhibition @fondazione_martaczok
6 New article for @artichoketrust on The Gallery without Walls: An Experiment in Cultural Democracy
7 Forthcoming article on the value of mass cultural gatherings for new handbook on Trauma-informed Placemaking, thanks to @caracourage
8 Essay for catalog for artist @hrair_sarkissian on Making the Disappeared Reappear, for his nomination for this year’s Deutscheborse Photography Foundation Prize, @thephotographersgallery
Happy New Year to All, with thanks for your support, invitations and creative collaboration
#intelligentmodelling #newmodelface #koreanmodel
A year ago I stepped into a virtual Vogue shoot in London, as a kind of visual joke. But people believed it.
It’s taken time for me to believe that society is interested in character rather than caricature in fashion. Natural beauty rather than surgical distortion. Diversity in age, race, gender and body type. Sustainable choices rather fast fashion. But it seems the time has come, and I’m stepping into it. Glad to see the UK taking the lead with the new direction of @britishvogue
The revolution will be televised.
#vogueuk #fashionrevolution #diversityinfashion #sustainablefashion #intelligentmodelling
On Determination✨✨
Yesterday I unpacked my clothes for the first time since November 2024.
Last year I’d been living in a 22sqm studio, sleeping on a fold out sofa, and since December surviving in a state of limbo, living out of a suitcase and moving from place to place, most recently sleeping on the floor of a friend’s spare art studio.
Over consecutive years of hardship my face, once open and naive, has been shaped and sculpted by the many varieties of suffering. I’d like to think this photo reflects something of the determination and hard-won vision left in its wake.
with thanks to photographer @philhewitt
casting @alice.tessereaux
lighting @charleshall_photo
hair @keitakanohair
studio @studiomondelondon
#portaitphotography #maturemodel #modelife #blackandwhitephotography
A different kind of mother and Mother‘s Day 🖤🤍
As much of the world celebrates the institution of motherhood today, I’m reminded of the countless mothers suffering under conditions of war or structures of poverty and violence, or who struggled but failed to have children at all.
Then there are those, like me, who gave the best part of their lives and selves in quietly heroic ways, only to be outcast if they dared to a life and identity beyond it.
Over the years, whenever I’ve shared my story of reinvention in the face of adversity alone at age 50, the overwhelming response has been: You need to write a book about your life. And so I’ve begun. Thanks for those of you who stand by me, however challenging I might be 🤍
photo @philhewitt
casting @alice.tessereaux
hair @keitakanohair
lighting @charleshall_photo
studio @studiomondelondon
#mothersdayspecial #writer #womeninspiringwomen #maturemodel
Dreaming of a home of my own at last. And awaking to a new kind of life and self ✨✨
It‘s been over a decade of itinerant placement and displacement, ending with a period of sleeping on the floor of a friend’s studio these past months. Getting painfully close now to what still feels like a dream.
Some books that are helping me in this last critical phase:
Rebecca Levy‘s The Cost of Living
Emmanuele Coccia‘s Metamorphoses
photos @rino.qiu
art direction @coraimavaldezr
✦ Place-writing Contributor Spotlight ✦
In her essay The Renaissance of Culture for Place-writing, Futurecity Associate Dr Anna Marazuela Kim @annamara.one traces her journey from Renaissance art and architectural history into contemporary urban research, exploring how culture, ethics and aesthetics can be mobilised as forces for human flourishing. Drawing on work across academia, policy and practice, she argues that thriving cities must nurture people not only economically, but emotionally, socially and imaginatively.
📖 Read the full article in Place-writing: The Associate Edit (p. 30) – link in bio.
Dr Anna Marazuela Kim is an advisor and thought leader at the intersection of the arts and urbanism with academic institutions, industry and NGOs internationally, advocating for the role of culture in civic agency and human thriving. Anna brings wide-ranging expertise to broader publics and practice, including roles at Foster + Partners, Thriving Cities Lab, Thomas Heatherwick Studio, the Architectural Association, the Nighttime Foundation and the Humane Urbanism Foundation (2026).
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Place-writing is a new publication series from Futurecity, spotlighting critical ideas, cultural perspectives, and placemaking stories from across our global Associates network.
@nighttimefoundation
Reflections on the the beauty and possibility of gritty industrial spaces.
Fifteen years ago I was commissioned to lead research on the value of beauty in the built environment to human thriving. One challenge was to explain how graffiti and urban grit might be captured by this term, as they would seem to be opposed to our usual ideas of beauty.
I’ve since come to understand more deeply how these spaces layered with signs of wear and imperfection speak to our human need for a certain kind of sensorial and material richness, and also free us from certain restrictions of ordered or decorative beauty.
And how the nightlife of these large industrial spaces open for us spaces of possibility to be other than our perfect selves: to lose ourselves in the vastness and break from the usual order of things. Perhaps even to find ourselves and real beauty in this liminal space of transformation.
#nighttimefoundation #nightlife #nightlifeisculture #clubculture #techno #berlinclubbing #kraftwerkmitte
Constantly moving into and across different disciplines and worlds is exhilarating. But it can be lonely.
People who identify with a certain specialism or career path will not understand your multiplicity. They will be skeptical of your expertise or even threatened when you step into their territory.
As someone who works across extremely diverse disciplines and worlds-not separately but forging unexpected, hybrid connections-it’s been wonderful to connect with a group of people doing the same. Our focus is not on the individual, but the multiple paths, networks and opportunities we can build together.
A few weeks ago the @aabookshop celebrated the launch of /people, which describes this condition in the context of the unique Interdisciplinary Studio on Spatial Performance and Design, led by authors and course leaders Theo Lorenz and Tanja Siems.
It’s a privilege to be joining the AAIS community as external examiner these next 4years. Looking forward to building our network of collective intelligence and creative practice across the world ✨✨
@aais_interprofessionals
#aais #transdisciplinary #architecturalassociation
