To commemorate the year that was, we invited an array of artists, writers, designers, and curators—from graphic designer Na Kim to filmmaker Tala Hadid, artist Adam Pendleton to the Black Futures project—to share a list of the most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects they encountered in 2015.
Hassan Rahim is an artist, art director, and publisher. He has worked with a variety of culture producers including Ghostly International, Jay-Z, Suited Magazine, THVM, Wet, Marilyn Manson, MMOTHS, and more. He is co-founder of publishing platform Shabazz Projects, and has shown his personal work in Amsterdam, Milan, Miami, and Los Angeles.
Surging Seas
“In 100 years, this is going to be beach front property!” This map from Climate Central illustrates how the ocean’s water will overflow in best and worst case global warming scenarios. Additionally new reports suggest the sea level rise has slowed the earth’s rotation by 1.7 milliseconds.
Björk Live at City Center, NY
Tickets were $$$ but we had to make it happen. First time seeing Björk live. I wasn’t even familiar with the new album, which initially concerned me but turns out it barely mattered, her great performance paired with the general soundscape felt like I knew every song. Arca was low-key the star of the show with his outfit though.
Floating Points, Elaenia
Album of the year, hands down. Floating Points has been on my radar for a long time, and I don’t think anyone expected a jazz album from him. Oh, and he’s studying for his PHD in “The Neuroscience of Pain.” You know, on the side.
© The Vinyl Factory, 2015 best LP vinyl record releases, Photography Michael Wilkin
Damaris Goddrie
2015 showed the rise of many great models of color in the fashion world. I keep up with the industry pretty closely, especially as my girlfriend (Jessica Willis) is a stylist. In particular we both were dead in love with Damaris on sight—she has such a classic look.
“The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence”
An eye opening piece on the exponential growth of human technology. Long read. My favorite vocabulary takeaway was the term “DPU,” or “Die Process Unit” — the amount of years a person would have to travel into the future to “literally die of shock” at how advanced and incomprehensible the world is to him.
Tesseract scene from Interstellar, 2014
Kanye West, “All Day” (Live At The 2015 Brit Awards)
The song wasn’t huge, but this was the most powerful TV performance in years. Clearly racially charged and totally unexpected. The looks on the crowd’s faces.
Martine Syms, Vertical Elevated Oblique
Walker readers may know her name very well by now, but if not, watch for it. Martine had an amazing debut solo show at Bridgette Donahue this year, the works of which were primarily inspired by a riff on a popular joke, “Everybody wanna be a black woman but nobody wanna be a black woman.”
The Lonely Death of George Bell
A riveting article by the New York Times, chronicling the process of investigating the life of a rather unknown hoarder who quietly passed away in his filthy Queens apartment. The journalist follows the city on their full journey, from tracking down his family/friends, to allocating his estate, and eventually burial. “Sometimes, along the way, a life’s secrets are revealed.”
West to East
On a personal note, 2015 will always be important to me as the year I moved to New York. My girlfriend Jessica and I left Los Angeles, clearly against the flow of most artist migration, to experience a new pace of life. So far, living in New York has given me perspective I couldn’t attain in California. But mostly, imagine growing up with movies like Home Alone but never having snow on Christmas!
Thomas Demand, Gangway, 2001
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