Container Love - The House of Love

TRA TERRA E CIELO

Photographer and director Maganga Mwagogo’s work needs no secret ingredients – it’s the colors, the lights, it’s the landscapes that make the Nairobi based photographer’s pictures truly stand out. Maganga’s latest collaboration with Zurich-based fashion brand Rafael Kouto is an exceptional, gorgeous series rooted in nature, the kind, the wild, the beautiful.

CELEBRATING CULTURE AND HERITAGE

Summer is almost over. But we can't help but introduce Hiya Kaya, the SS21 collection by designer Rich Mnisi – a contemporary, multi-disciplinary fashion brand based in South Africa. We're completely in love with these colors and patterns and would love to be in this pure joy of life all day long. What we also adore is Rich Mnisi's love for nature - the styles are sustainable, the production is transparent and local, and the engagement is socially responsible. World, this is how fashion works today.

ALL WANT TO BE SEEN, ALL WANT TO BE HEARD

We all want to be seen, we all want to be heard - South Africa’s creative industry is experiencing a renaissance with fashion designers playing a leading role in carrying the fire. We asked Cape Town-based designer Lukhanyo Mdingi about his attitude towards colors, how he’s constantly reinventing his African heritage and about his philosophy of love that is strong enough to unite not only a country, but a whole continent.

A NEW LIFE IN COLOR

The way color makes us feel - as part of our series showcasing our most inspirational African #lovebrands and the designers behind them, we sat down with the head of South Africa’s VIVIERS, Lezanne Viviers to talk about the clash between western preconceptions and true African identity, the reinvention of individualism and how far-from-ideal circumstances can fuel extraordinary creativity.

TRUSTING CURIOSITY

As the creator of some of the most haunting artworks that we’ve come across, Asger’s story is far from being usual. After featuring some of his photoshopped fever dreams on Container Love, we finally got the chance to sit down with the New York based photographer and media artist to talk about his career as a crime scene photographer, the frightening nature of normalization and how living in a world of woe can lead us to do great things.

I REMEMBER TOUCH

Summer melancholy never felt better - our favorite polish photographer, Leo Maki’s back with his neon colored magic that we love so dearly. Despite the vivid colors and Leo’s beautifully erotic approach, there is a certain heaviness in his art that makes his photography feel not only genuine, but true, too. We are honored and very excited to be able to feature Leo’s newest series that he created exclusively for Container Love. Enjoy!

YOUR BODY, MY TEMPLE

If you are a long time follower, you already know that Kostis Fokas has a special place within our Container Love family and our hearts, too. Reexploring the wonder that is the male body, the greek photographer takes a great deal of his inspiration from the aesthetics of 90’s fashion editorials, using sun-bitten colors and direct flash setups. Made available exclusively for Container Love, his latest series is a special selection of his new, never-seen-before photos and some of our personal favorites.

OUR TIME TOGETHER, OUR TIME APART

Every time when we look at Shane Reynold’s photos, there is some mystery to them. It’s like getting only a glimpse of something unknown, something desirable. We want to know more, we want to know a story, any story that could have possibly led to the creation of the picture. The New York based photographer’s new series is no exception: we are stuck in time, we are losing the grip on reality, we are lovesick for someone who may not even exist.

SLIPPING UNDER YOUR SKIN

The most wonderful thing about collages is that they are never a whole. They make us imagine the picture behind the picture, instead of revealing it. As one of our favorite German artists, Stefan Gunnesch has a unique vision: his works may be pleasing to the eye, yet they do carry the uneasiness of something unspoken. With his new series, he went even further, opening a door to a dangerous place entirely built out of memories.

MAKE ME, HAVE ME

One thing is for certain, we love art in all shapes and forms, especially when it’s so fresh, so brave and electric like the Pineapple magazine. We’ve been waiting for months for the new issue to come out and boy was it worth it. The PNPPL zine 06 features in total 14 artists, photographers from all around the globe, from Argentina to New Zealand. And yes, it’s not only gorgeous looking, but one thick book with 150 pages of the unquestionably naked truth.

OUR FIRST LAST TIME TOGETHER

Tales of a summer that has never happened, tales of a love that never fades away - the pandemic has left its marks on everyone’s life, but photographer Robert Tennent is one of the very few who was able to transform his lockdown-limbo into something extraordinary. His new photobook I'M GOING TO MISS YOU is oh so much more than a hardcover collection of pictures shot during the pandemic on 35mm film in New Zealand: it’s an ode to the rare moments when life feels light and easy.

NO TEARS FOR LOVERS

Facing genuine intimacy is always a different experience and going through renowned british photographer Stuart Sandford’s new photobook is no exception. THE BEST WAY TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IS IN BED is erotic, yet gentle, carefully composed yet absolutely natural. By demystifying nudity he creates a world in which emotions are running wild, making us feel free at last but also reminding us: we all are vulnerable to the elements of love.

A WAY TO REMEMBER

„In order to create imagery like this, I needed people to trust me” – while the world stood still during the pandemic, Rob Tennent spent months traveling around New Zealand, taking pictures for his simply gorgeous photobook, I’M GOING TO MISS YOU. In conversation with Container Love, the Auckland-based photographer told us about his take on remembrance, the shutter sound that made him fall in love with 120mm film and the strangest summer that will stay with us until the days that we die.

WHEN TWO BODIES COLLIDE

Celebrating the anomaly that is love – there were so many questions that we wanted to ask director & photographer Mees Peijnenburg ever since we first saw images from his hopefully never-ending series, Kiss Kiss. We are very happy that we’ve finally got a chance to sit together with Mees to discuss kissing strangers, love’s dynamics and the tenderness that lies within the natural brutality of a kiss.

SOME KIND OF MAGIC MOMENT

There are multiple reasons why Stuart Sandford has become one of our favorite contemporary british creators. A lot of things have happened since he first has been featured on Container Love and we couldn’t be happier coming back to him on the occasion of his new photo book, THE BEST WAY TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IS IN BED. We sat down with the multimedia artist to talk about sexuality, polaroids and the demystification of love.

#VISIBLELOVE POP-UP EXHIBITION

Container Love celebrates Pride Month in Berlin's H&M Mitte Garten. Pride Month is the one month of the year that symbolizes hope for an open, diverse world without hate and discrimination for many in the LGBTQ+ community. Instead of a classic gallery exhibition, the locations are surprising and invite visitors to engage with the art, the artists and the theme #VisibleLove.

INTERZUM POP-UP GALLERY

When it comes to sustainability, individualization and personalized interactions, we are definitely on board – that was our first thought when we were invited to Interzum 2019, the world's largest trade fair for furniture production and interior design.

EXHIBITION AT REEPERBAHN FESTIVAL

Container Love Art project at Reeperbahn festival 2017. Four days surrounded by wonderful artworks of powerful artists. Four days of love and diversity. And four days of fantastic singer-songwriter music, framed by artist talks, a book presentation, a movie demonstration and an amazing reading.

I PAINT BOYS

Wojciech Woś is a visual artist from Poland / based in Berlin, who shares with us not only his work, but also his personal diary – with the art of painting. Capturing emotions through portraits and telling stories of feelings and intimacy – that's Wojciech's work and aesthetic, and we love it.

CURATING MOMENTS OF DAILY LIFE

Santiago Mora is a Mexican visual artist and art director who defines his work as a curatorship of everyday life moments. He captures ephemeral energy, exploring the possibilities of the pictorial medium through the use of technologies such as digital images that he uses as a reference. His work reflects about contemporaneity, addressing issues such as communication, identity, consumerism, and sexuality.

LET ME BE YOUR CANVAS

We're in love with the paintings of Richard Stabbert. His artworks capture scenes full of togetherness, romance, longing and love. "As I begin a painting, it's as if I fall in love anew. Every brushstroke can shake me with despair or raise me in triumph. I look to the canvas like the face of a lover" We love.

EACH SHOOT HOLDS A MEMORY

Shane Reynolds is a photographer based in New York City. He began taking photos at 17, using his grandmas garage as a “studio”. After attending Ithaca College he spent the past few years living in New York and London. Shane now works primarily with film, which all of these pictures are on. And we are completely in love.

YOUNG AND RENEGADE

We're in love with the work of Zeno Spyropoulos, a Berlin-based photographer, who has just published his first photography book, YOUNG AND RENEGADE. "Showing raw moments of intimacy, and creative or sexual expression as they naturally occur, pictures that normalise a culture of sexual and bodily freedom, regardless of sexuality and background."

CODE BLUE

Leo Maki is a photographer and video maker based in Warsaw, Poland, with an eye for colorful light and beautiful portraits. Lucky Container, there's a series with its favorite color: CODE BLUE. The series is about a phrase used in hospitals in exceptional situations when the patient needs immediate attention and help - because his heart has stopped.

DON’T TELL ANYONE I WAS HERE

Ian M is a photographer currently based in Barcelona working in both film and digital photography. His exclusive series DON'T TELL ANYONE I WAS HERE explores the ideas of voyeurism and pleasure by exploring the border between loving to be observed and forgetting that someone is looking at us.

BOY COMFORT ZOOM

Yan Yufeng, born and raised in Chengdu, China, is an artist based in Milan and Shanghai. In his ongoing long-term project BOY COMFORT ZOOM, observing and exploring modern masculinity, he portraits boys and men from all over the world in places familiar to them - the models themselves pick the location for the shoot.

ALMOST NAKED

“I had just arrived in the States, I had culture shock. I was not brave enough to explore myself, so I explored myself through other people,” Shen Wei once said in an interview. The Shanghai-born, New York-based photographer created the series ALMOST NAKED by taking portraits of strangers in America. So let’s see if we are able to explore the photographer’s mind.

GENDER ROLES ARE DEAD

Anne-Sophie Guillet, Brussels based photographer, shows what it means to make gender roles fluid, or better: to make gender roles obsolete. In fashion editorials and photo series for magazines she claims that the age of stereotypes is over. It‘s all about what‘s in between.

SERES / BEINGS

Today we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community with Arden and their wonderful photo series, SERES / BEINGS. It's about the visibility and the beauty of each individual and the diversity that God has brought to this earth… or some other wacky alien.

CHOSEN FAMILY

Welcome to Daurismo – the world of Daura, a freelance film and instant film photographer. Their greatest passion is the conjugation of documentary and portrait photography to represent contrasting realities, the different paths of womanhood and the ever-expanding gender spectrum. CHOSEN FAMILY, Container Love’s main theme this autumn and title of this wonderful story.

SUMMER HOLIDAY

Asaf Einy is a photographer and video artist based in Tel-aviv. We invited him to celebrate our Summer of Love with us. Absolutely perfect for the times when not everyone has the chance to just get on the plane and fly to the beach.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

The Summer of Love continues with Kostis Fokas' latest feature on our website, CALIFORNIA DREAMING. The series was shot in California in 2019. Celebrate the sun, the colors and the California sky with us. And then let's all get naked and jump into that swimming pool together!

KISS ME I’M GOLDEN PT. 2

The Summer of Love continues with Pt. 2 of this lovely series by Annika Weertz. She joined the band Pacific Swell on their summer tour through the Basque Country, creating an authentic portrayal of a band. Jump on the tour bus with them and join the ride!

A BOOK CALLED ZWEI

The new monograph ZWEI by Berlin/L.A. based photographer Florian Hetz presents a cross-section of his work and his unmistakable visual world. In ZWEI he presents more than 200 photographs from both sides of the Atlantic facing each other and creating a dialogue between seemingly unrelated images and situations.

THE MUXES OF OAXACA

This project by Mexican photographer Nelson Morales is about the Muxe community of Oaxaca, which they are also a part of. Muxes are considered the third genre in Mexico and are quite accepted in society, however, it is not widely accepted that they have lovers publicly. In this series they enter the deepest desires and fantasies in the company of their friends and lovers.

HELLO SHERMAN

Christopher Sherman is a photographer and creative director living in Toronto and New York. We thank God that she created the Internet to bring Christopher's work to us. We have shown some of his analog works at the Container Love exhibition at the Reeperbahn festival 2017 in Hamburg.

LOVE OF THE MONTH

#AFRICANICONS

#LOVESICK

#PRINTEDLOVE

#TALKABOUTLOVE

#PASTEXHIBITIONS

#PAINTEDLOVE

#NARCISSISM

#SAFESPACE

#CHOSENFAMILY

#SUMMEROFLOVE

#FROMTHEARCHIVES