Author Archives: Hen Zeffert
Henrietta is a writer based in Melbourne and London, and a doctoral student at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Design by the lucky country
‘The Other Hemisphere’ opened as part of Ventura Lambrate in Milan this week, featuring the work of 12 designers and design collaborations from Australia (and proudly supported by us). We cross to our London correspondent Henrietta Zeffert who locates the exhibition in the context of antipodean otherness, drawing upon her own personal experiences as an Australian expat in the UK.
READ MOREIn-Between: interview with Silvia Ullmayer
Our London correspondent Henrietta Zeffert visits the Hackney home of architects Silvia Ullmayer and Allan Sylvester. Ten years ago, newly graduated, poor, and needing a home they built ‘In-Between’, a collaborative, cohousing project. As living in London becomes increasingly unaffordable, Silvia summarises their prescient philosophy for designing and living as “simple, crude but extraordinary”.
READ MORESlow food spirit: Daniel Wilson
The slow food movement was born in 1989 to counter the developed world’s increasing disconnection with ‘good, clean and fair’ food. Almost fifteen years later, the movement continues to counterpoint what it calls ‘the universal folly of fast life’, while battling its own commercialisation. Henrietta Zeffert muses slow food philosophy with cook Daniel Wilson in London.
READ MORESonsa of Smith Street
Few businesses on Smith Street (in Melbourne’s inner city Collingwood) can boast thirty years of trading, and even fewer the status of a legend. As the neighbourhood trades in much of its grit and some of its charm, family-owned Sonsa Foods continues to prosper and provide for locals. Henrietta Zeffert visits before and after the shop’s relocation to find out what changes and what remains the same.
READ MOREPrivate vs. public: mega events, human rights and the London Olympics
The Olympics is all about gold and glory, right? Not for the citizens of the host cities of ‘mega events'; life gets tougher as the race for medals begins. Writer and academic Henrietta Zeffert reports from London, a city and citizenry whose East End has been redesigned, transformed and polished in time for the Games – but at what cost to its civil liberties and human rights?
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