zondag 30 december 2012

C is for Coffee / Barista

Barista logo

The red is vibrant and fresh, the palm tree reminds us of better places, the name can only give you images of perfectly served coffee. Coffee bar Barista not only has a great logo, it has two great locations (Zuid and Zuivelbrug) and  what did you expect?  great coffee. Even soy milk for the lactose intolerant! Here's a coffee stop tip for the rainy winter days.
 



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: You started Barista Zuid in 2007. Was this a dream?



SABINE VAN DORPE (Owner Barista): No, everything started more or less by coincidence. We were looking for a new tenant for this building. Back then it already was a nice building on the outside, but inside it was full of false walls and false ceilings. So we specifically wanted a tenant who would have an eye for the esthetical aspect. But a lot of the candidates were interim agencies, which we wanted to avoid, so we decided to "clean up" things ourselves.


In the end we thought this location and building were very appropriate for a coffee bar, especially with the large windows. Nevertheless we didn’t know anything about coffee as a product and had to learn about it. We tried ten coffee brands in order to find the perfect fit for our concept and eventually we chose Viva Sara. I wanted to work with high quality products instead of serving Coke light and Martino sandwiches. This means we had to be very persistent in the beginning and from a commercial point of view that wasn't always easy.


ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Why this location?

SABINE VAN DORPE: The Zuid area could really use a boost. It looked quite different at that time: there were mostly interim agencies and there was only one luxury boutique. We wanted to offer a healthy pause, for example to people working here, so from the beginning we had the plan to combine a coffee bar with a bio-bakery, without emphasizing the biological aspect too much. 




ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Were you missing this kind of coffee bar in Ghent when you started in 2007?



SABINE VAN DORPE: Absolutely. Not that I'm such a coffee drinker but these are the kind of bars I enter when travelling abroad. We didn't have these in Ghent at all; we had Mokabon and that was more or less it. We really wanted a coffee bar for young and old, for both enjoying coffee inside and take away. Nothing like Starbucks however; it had to be high quality coffee for a wide range of people.


ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Have you become a difficult customer yourself when it comes to coffee drinking since having your own coffee bar? 

SABINE VAN DORPE: Yes, if the coffee is not what I expect it to be, I simply don’t drink it. In general I only order coffee if I’m confident it will be served like I want it to. Moreover I’m allergic to cow milk, that’s also the reason why we have soy milk on the menu. Anyhow, I think customers have become more demanding in general; nowadays they all have high standards.


ROSIE & THE RABBITS: There’s another Barista coffee bar at Zuivelbrug. Do you have a different clientele or approach there?


SABINE VAN DORPE: First of all, we opened it two years after the bar at Zuid. We also wanted a more spacious location. The clientele is a bit different since at Zuivelbrug we have a lot more tourists. Here at Zuid we mostly have people who work or live here.  





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Recently you bought a boat as well. Plans for the future?

SABINE VAN DORPE: It happened again by coincidence. My husband loves boats very much and made an offer on the internet. And in the end it was ours! So then we started thinking: what do we do with it? It’s an antique boat which in the Netherlands is already use from time to time to sail on the inland waterways.
So the current concept is that people can rent the boat, get a brunch basket and can come to Barista Zuivelbrug for a coffee when they get back. We also want to show our city from the water, in a quiet way, without having a guide yelling into a microphone. And we also sail beyond the tourist attractions.


ROSIE & THE RABBITS: While a lot of other coffee bars in Ghent serve cakes from Les Tartes de Françoise, we only see homemade cakes at Barista. How important is this to you?


SABINE VAN DORPE: It started as a hobby. I have loved this for as far as I can remember so it’s not a task either. Moreover there wasn’t any supplier for biological pastries and we wanted authentic, simple cakes. It started small, but at Barista Zuivelbrug we now have someone baking cakes on a fulltime basis. 





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Another thing that immediately got our attention is your very original logo. Where did the idea of having a palm tree come from?

SABINE VAN DORPE: Well, for every aspect of our business we wanted to work with qualitative partners. We already knew graphics Jan and Randoald and knew their style. When we asked them to work out a proposal, they made two drafts for us. We were very happy with these from the beginning. The link isn't obvious; instead of a coffee cup or bean, we have this palm tree since coffee grows in tropical countries. I think the logo is simple and recognizable. For our name we have been looking a very long time; we always thought "barista" was too obvious but at a certain moment we realized how clean and straightforward it was and often that's the best solution.


ROSIE & THE RABBITS: We see this very large photograph of Erwin Olaf on the wall. Do you change the items on the wall from time to time?

SABINE VAN DORPE: My husband and I like art very much. We were thinking about the concept for the bar and saw this photograph at an exposition in Turin. We kept thinking about it and eventually we bought it. It has just been hung back on the wall since it had lost its colour due to the sun shining in, so we had it restored. 

The toilet doors in the bar for example have been decorated by a young artist who lived above the bar. And in the other bar at Zuivelbrug we have a very large work of art consisting of a lot of small drawings. It didn’t fit our house anymore  but for the bar it’s perfect.


www.mybarista.be 

www.facebook.com/pages/BARISTA-coffeecake 




Erwin Olaf, The Kitchen

woensdag 19 december 2012

* FLASH * / Back II Front






Interviews don't always have to be long and neither do introductions. This rabbit wisdom initiates a new series of *FLASH* interviews on our site. The first one is about Back II Front, a beautiful photo expo showing the work of Cutting Edge's concert photographers versus on the road snapshots from the musicians themselves. We had three questions for Thomas Verfaille, creative brain behind the expo and one of the photographers.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Although the Zebrastraat is a bit outside the historical centre of Ghent, we think it's absolutely worth it. Can you tell us why people should go and have a look?
THOMAS VERFAILLE (Photographer, Cutting Edge): We show almost a hundred recent concert photographs, taken by fifteen different photographers and which have been published on www.cuttingedge.be. To make the concept even more attractive, interesting and accessible, we asked musicians to send us some pictures they made themselves. Pictures taken from the stage, backstage, during the soundcheck, rehearsals, on tour, in the studio, etc., it just had to be linked to their life as a musician. This way, we received pictures from bands and artists such as Triggerfinger, The Bony King of Nowhere, Sioen, Lady Linn & Her Magnificent Seven, Fixkes, Mintzkov and Isolde Lasoen.

The result is a very nice contrast between these snapshots and our own "first three songs - no flash" photographs taken from the frontstage.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Is the expo meant for a specific audience?

THOMAS VERFAILLE: I think the expo will especially be appreciated by the music lovers, but everyone is very welcome to come and have a look! You might discover things from another perspective by taking a closer look at certain photographs or just get some nice memories of a concert you attended yourself.

On top of that we have a very wide range of artists shown, from world-famous to not so well-known, from metal to jazz. You can see Madonna, Kasabian, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Jef Neve and Kelis, as well as Arsenal, Florence & The Machine, Channel Zero, Milc Inc and Jamie Cullum. There's definitely something for everyone.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: About concert photography then: everything has to go really fast. Is that a challenge or a stress factor? How different is concert photography from other photography directions?

THOMAS VERFAILLE: Well, every single time it's a challenge to turn back home with interesting images. Even if the principle is always the same (artist on stage), the conditions differ significantly. The best case scenario is that you get permission to take photographs during the first three songs, but in some cases it's a lot more restricted and you get only one minute. A couple of years ago for example Beyoncé performed at Sportpaleis and we got thirty seconds to take pictures, from a distance of fifty meters. Nowadays there's not even a separate front stage anymore and photographers need to take their pictures from the audience. Or worse: at the back of the room using a heavy tele lens.



All this doesn't make it an easy job, but it's very satisfying if you succeed in making that one killer-photograph.






woensdag 12 december 2012

SNOR: magazine on a mission


SNOR logo

A couple of weeks ago it was still Movember, when beards and mustaches were growing on most of the male chins an under most of the male noses. The mustache we are writing about today however is not temporary but one that is here to stay. Bert De Jonghe and Bruno Roels, both photographers, launched their own online photo magazine SNOR in May 2011 and will present their fifth edition on Friday 14 December. The incredible Belgian talent, women, friendship and how to buy art are just some of the topics in this interview. Enjoy!




ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Let's start from the beginning: how did you end up with the name "SNOR"?

BERT DE JONGHE (SNOR): At first we thought of a very ordinary Flemish familyname such as Vandenberghe, a name for a bakery or something, but the disadvantage was that it wouldn't  have been been pronounceable in English or any other language.

BRUNO ROELS (SNOR): Our name had to be both readable and commercial.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How did things begin? When did you decide you were actually going to do it?

BRUNO ROELS: We got the idea when I sent in a picture to an Australian photo magazine. I was so happy with that, partially because I hadn't graduated yet and didn't have any network. I thought: "if we could give this feeling to others, why not?"
Moreover there wasn't any online photo magazine in Belgium yet and it's exactly the online aspect that made it so easy to set things up: it allows you to go from nothing to something in a week. And the fact that it's for free contributed even more to our "why not?" feeling.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are there other advantages of managing things through the web? 

BRUNO ROELS: The fun thing is that you can track and follow everything: you can perfectly see who your followers are and who is connecting to what you do. In the beginning it was just about putting a decent edition together. Now we also look into some possibilities for the future.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does it have anything to do with the digital revolution which completely changed photography as well?

BRUNO ROELS: Photography is very popular right now. Eight years ago a photograph of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was sold for an enormous amount of money. Eversince photograpghy is taken more seriously. Photo museums are more attractive and popular. Photography has an important role in our culture where no one is reading anything anymore. It's a very fast medium.

BERT DE JONGHE: That might be the dangerous side as well: that it’s only seen as a fast, perhaps even superficial medium and no one takes time for it anymore.

BRUNO ROELS: By the way, it might seem contradictory to this digital evolution but photo books are a very good investment these days.

BERT DE JONGHE: Not the classical photo books which are heavy, large and expensive, but books with an original approach. People don’t wait till "best ofs" anymore and smaller books come out.

BRUNO ROELS: And  in a very democratic way: either they have a very fair price, it’s a limited edition, they sign it or add a print to it. A lot of things are moving nowadays and that’s far more important than the fact that Instagram is destroying real photography.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does that mean that if SNOR was a paper magazine, it would generate more pressure? Would you ever even consider going for a paper version?

BRUNO ROELS: We get this question quite often... We would have to ask money for it of course. We currently have a semi-costless operation: no sponsors, no funding. This means we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone or any institution. If there would be a paper version of SNOR, things would for sure be different. Which doesn’t mean there is no pressure now: we cannot afford to lose our credibility and neither can the photographers appearing in SNOR.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you focus on Belgian talent or can international photographers send in their work as well?

BERT DE JONGHE: We focus on Belgian and Dutch photographers. Not because of nationalistic reasons but because there is so much talent here. The audience can be international, but not the photographers.

BRUNO ROELS: In the beginning people asked themselves whether we would be able to highlight four photographers in each edition. But we soon realized that this wouldn't be a problem. Every year new young photographers graduate for example and, as Bert said, there is a lot of talent in our country anyhow.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Did you launch your magazine because you were missing something on the market? From which idea or ambition did you start?

BERT DE JONGHE: One of the reasons is that the Internet and Ikea are full of bad pictures. Everyone with a digital camera just puts it all on the web, but I would never hang these photographs in my living room. It’s partly some kind of “education” ; we don’t necessarily want people to follow our ideas or opinions, but we do want to be clear on these kind of things.

A second reason is that we want to give photographers an audience and a network. There wasn't any step between graduating and the newspaper or the gallery. Perhaps we're trying to fill in that gap. And the essence of art is that it’s created to be shown to and seen by others. With SNOR we want to push the artists out there.

BRUNO ROELS: Some are lucky and already have some kind of a network, but you don't hear anything about some others and that's often not fair. Top galleries in Belgium don't focus on Belgian work anymore; other galleries would like to promote it but don't know the portfolios. 

BERT DE JONGHE: The selling part just popped into our minds half a year ago. In the end it's not only about showing your work, it's also about selling it.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: In Ghent we have some initiatives in this direction: Happy House for example welcomes people in their living room and shows and sells art there.

BRUNO ROELS: That's a great idea but it often stays within the same social circle. Unfortunately it’s often nothing more than throwing a rock into a pond: the ripple effect is just not that big. The photographers appearing in SNOR can reach six thousand people.

To come back on what Bert was saying about educating people: instead of an Audrey Hepburn on canvas for 49 euro you can buy an amazing picture from a photography student, but for some reason people don’t do that. Or they don’t even know it’s an option. We’re not that far yet, but perhaps SNOR might evolve from its current curator role to some kind of education and sensitisation of what is possible. We might for example give guidelines on the price or tell people what they can do with 400 euro. 

Another attitude that should be changed is that people buy something, put it on the wall and  leave it there for the next fifteen years.

BERT DE JONGHE: Yes! My collection is large enough to change all the pictures in my house every year.

BRUNO ROELS: I don't have walls enough at home.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: About photography itself now. How different is it compared to other art forms?

BERT DE JONGHE: It's less well accepted since everything is reproducible. The attention is a lot smaller. It’s often not seen as an equivalent art form. Only now the attention is starting to increase, but if we would express this evolution in money, we would never reach the level of paintings for example.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How do you select the pictures which will appear in SNOR?

BRUNO ROELS: First of all, we ask the potographers to send in a series. It should tell something. And making a series implies effort, vision and ambition. We look if their fire is burning and if we have the impression they will achieve things in the future.

BERT DE JONGHE: Drive is very important. For the rest it's very much intuition-based. Of course we have seen a lot of series and after a while you start recognising the good ones. Other criterias are: would we want to have this hanging on our wall? Is the story interesting?

BRUNO ROELS: If there would be a book of it, would we buy it? Is it copied from someone else? Is it very much copied?

BERT DE JONGHE: We don't distinguish digital from analogue photography. There is one genre  however we are having difficulties with and that’s conceptual photography.

BRUNO ROELS: That’s a grey zone between photography and art. It has to be really good then. Would I hang it in my living room? No. Can I appreciate it? Yes.

What is nice is that, in a strange way, we see that people appearing in SNOR pop up at other places afterwards as well.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: That might be a confirmation of you having done a good job.

BRUNO ROELS: On one hand it’s good for us, on the other hand it’s good for the photographers since they prove they’re not standing still. We wanted SNOR to be some kind of quality label so we could say that something is SNOR proof.

BERT DE JONGHE: Without wanting to sound arrogant. 

BRUNO ROELS: Well, in the beginning it was arrogant since we hadn’t proved anything yet.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: You’re both photographers. Why photographs?

BERT DE JONGHE: It’s a very accessible medium. The learning process is perhaps shorter and you can see an evolution quite fast.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Since SNOR is not a commercial project, can we assume your motives are truly altruistic then? 

BRUNO ROELS: It’s definitely the most altruistic thing I’ve done in my life.

BERT DE JONGHE: It's 100 % altruistic. 

BRUNO ROELS: I don’t believe in 100% altruistic motives.

BERT DE JONGHE: But we do create SNOR for the photographers, don't we?

BRUNO ROELS: That’s true. 

BERT DE JONGHE:  The only non-altruistic motive is… 

BRUNO ROELS: The women! 

BERT DE JONGHE: … that we are creating something that is there. It’s our inheritance for the next generation.



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you get appreciation for your work and energy?

BRUNO ROELS: Too little I guess. We put a lot of time in it and people don’t always realise that. But in general the photographers are grateful.

BERT DE JONGHE: Even honoured.

BRUNO ROELS: One of the nice things about SNOR is that we got to know a lot of artists which we wouldn’t have noticed if SNOR hadn’t existed.

BERT DE JONGHE: This being said, we also get friendship from it.

BRUNO ROELS: That’s right. You can write down we are friends too.



www.snor.it

www.facebook.com/pages/SNOR


SNOR magazine covers






dinsdag 4 december 2012

Boterhammen en boeken: an office for coboys and cogirls

It was a regular sofa scene during a regular summer night when some time ago we got the long expected Aha-Erlebnis. We grapped a regular post-it and wrote down with a regular pen: "shared office for people working at home". We were thrilled, so thrilled, that we immediately told our friends about it. But they didn't see what we saw... Their interrogation came down to this: "so where will you get the money then and who will pay for this brilliant idea?". OK, we must admit that the financial side of the story has never been our strength. So we went "hmm" and "yyyes..." and burned the post-it. Well, not burned, but we threw it away anyhow. Nevertheless creative agency Avenue L can now say "in your face!" to the nonbelievers. With Bar Buro and boterhammen en boeken they combine both the coworking and pop-up trend and prove that a lot of coworkers are looking for a common office. Surrounded by the SMAK museum setting and comfortably seated on the wooden chairs of Slovenian artist Tobias Putrih, they get in their most productive mood. Time for questions!



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are sandwiches and books a perfect combination? What do you expect from this?

FREDO DE SMET: When starting up Bar Buro, we had no clue whether it would work or not. But apparently quite a lot of people in Ghent, such as freelancers, were looking for coworking opportunities. So we wanted to extend it with a new format and location.
Crucial for a coworking spot is that you can eat something along the way and it shouldn't always be spaghetti. So there you have the sandwiches part.

Books are just something I'm interested in. I have very little time for them left at home and we have a lot of coworkers working in the creative sector here, so it's fun to have this fantastic art book collection from SMAK at our disposal. For those who want, they're also for sale.







ROSIE & THE RABBITS: After nine months of Bar Buro, do you know how long you'll be coworking at SMAK?



FREDO DE SMET (Avenue L): There's no official end date and we've still got plans here. However chances are rather big we will move again soon, but the funny thing is that the coworking community moves along with us. The faces are sometimes identical: people who were coming to Bar Buro on Monday, are here again on Monday. They seem to continue coworking as if nothing has changed. They don't need a lot, are happy with what we offer, enjoy the background music and the atmosphere. Sandwiches fit into that simple and straightforward concept.





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you have any idea why the pop-up phenomenon is so popular?



FREDO DE SMET: (silent, then hesitating) Hmmm no... Well, yes, but I don't want to kill it. Do we really have to do this? I need to write a trends report for 2013 and pop-up is one of them. But I'm in favour of just letting it be without trying to explain it.





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are there any plans to have a fixed coworking location in Ghent now things are going so well?

FREDO DE SMET: Well, it's not about what you do but how you do it. It should have enough schwung to surprise people. Bar buro for example was at a rather small location and we only had four tables. When I noticed people were starting to sit on the same chair every time, I moved the tables. It's about sense of humor as well. We have been at that location for nine months but constantly changed the context, the music, etc.



I would like to have a fixed top location in Ghent, yes, but for now I'm very happy with this. Thank you SMAK.




 

ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are you looking for pop-up possibilities yourselves or do people invite you?

FREDO DE SMET: Both. Bar Buro for example was on external request, but one of our conditions was to have the second floor included in it as well.





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Avenue L is the organisation behind these coworking initiatives. Why did you choose Ghent as your setting? Do you have plans in other cities as well?

FREDO DE SMET: We are not doing anything unique which wouldn't work in other cities. So we have plans to try it.  



ROSIE & THE RABBITS: In what sense is Avenue L different from other creative agencies?

FREDO DE SMET: I think the future lies in the combination of digital and analogue presence in the city. Avenue L tries to combine these.





ROSIE & THE RABBITS: So why should people come to you then?

FREDO DE SMET: We have a very strong network, in a positive way I mean. Starting from the idea "to share is to care". Networking is seen too often as a verb connected to doing business but there's more behind it. We really try to link people to eachother, in an authentic way. I think we succeed in that thanks to our experience and by constantly confronting things with reality.





 
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you work here at SMAK yourself?

FREDO DE SMET: I'm here all the time. I cannot expect people to be here if I'm not here myself.