Shafiek Khan

Surfer & founder of Palama Metsi surfing school – South Africa

When Cathy Boom went to South Africa a few months ago she met Shafiek Khan by chance but then ended up in a long conversation in which he shared the story of his life. This story is an impressive one, so impressive that we couldn’t resist but ask him to be our friend and teach even more people how to enjoy life and do good at the same time. Why? Because Shafiek Khan is one of these few lucky people: he is a passionate surfer, and in 2008 he founded the Palama Metsi surfing school to help underprivileged children in South Africa. Here he offers free surfing and ocean safety lessons but also puts the kids back into schools.

Today, in 2014, there are three schools up and running (in Muizenberg/Cape Town, Elandsbaai and Coffee Bay/Transkei). Hundreds of kids have already benefited from the schools, getting them off the streets, working for their future, academically as well as receiving outstanding results in national surfing contests. We are very glad to welcome Shafiek Khan as our friend!

What is the most important sense to you?
They are all incredibly important but if I had to chose one, then definitely my eyes. They are my greatest learning tool. There is just so much to learn through reflection.

What is your vision for your personal work?
My vision would be totally different from what the kids envision for themselves. So it’s totally in their hands. But if I had a choice it would be to give those who need it and want it a better education. Education is freedom and a great way to get rid of poverty.

In which way do free surfing and ocean safety lessons help the youth to improve their lives in general?
Wow, so many… they become responsible, it adds dignity to their lives, a sense of belonging. It humbles them, when not in control. It brings with it a sweet patience, the swell coming and wind blowing, realising that it’s not always what we want. Discipline, team building, ocean awareness i.e. knowledge of the tides the wind, currents, fish dangers etc. We live with what nature provides and have fun, no matter what.

Surfing means travelling, always in search of the best waves and sports. Which location was the best you ever discovered?
Ha, ha, ha, you got me! I don’t like choosing which lady rides the best. I think locally Kalk Bay, as that took me to hospital after I had such a deep barrel. Then Elands, what a gem. Abroad definitely G-Land in East Java, because it scared me so much, but with it came an immense amount of knowledge and a silent humbleness. Also Jeffreys Bay, Victoria Bay, Namibia…. But the best waves are the ones you can share with your friends and loved ones. Yeah, even if it’s just 2ft.

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
The birth of all my kids, my wife’s smile, my pilgrimage, but most of all it’s when you help the needy. It’s in their eyes… Yeah, that rocks and moves my heart.

What would you like to see more often?
Change… within us as humans.

Blind people and those who can see surely experience the world in different ways. How would you describe the world to someone who suffers from an irreversible loss of sight in one sentence? 
I wouldn’t do that, as it would only add a sickness of not belonging to their hearts. But if I had to: it feels like those who care for you and see only love.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?
Normally I don’t like saying what I do secretly for others unless I am asked. I gave honey to an 86-year-old man who cycles over 20km ever day, just for work so that he can take care of his sick wife. What a MAN! Today, getting wetsuits organised for my project so that the kids can stay longer in the water and some boards.

What is your tactic for making the world a better place (besides running your surfing school)?
Bringing back trade and getting rid of our monetary system based on interest on debts and credits. Yeah, good luck with that, mate…. Teaching those less fortunate than ourselves so that they can make a difference and give pure modesty back to our women, the born leaders of all generations. YOU GIRLS ROCK!

Who is your personal hero?
Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him.

Look who is wearing our logo T-shirt: our friend and owner & director of Soze Gallery, Toowee Kao.

Toowee Kao is a gallerist and private art dealer who represents two of our ambassadors at her Los Angeles-based Soze Gallery: Jaybo Monk and Augustine Kofie. But also for all the other young contemporary artists who are entrusted in her care Toowee Kao is an essential supporter since she is not only a natural talent when it comes to art business but also aims to make being an artist a little less hard in every way and offers an artist residency in downtown Los Angeles for Sozes Gallery’s international artists. In short: Toowee Kao has got her eyes on the future of art and never stops impressing us with her power; she supports young contemporary artists in their creative pursuit of success and happiness.

Read her interview with IWISHUSUN here.

Photo: Soze Gallery via Instagram.

A few days ago we presented our first creative partner project and our first short film, the result of a cooperation between Berlin-based composer and music producer Robot Koch and the photographer Sabrina Theissen. For “In a Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen for IWISHUSUN” our ambassadors got together to take a look at the topic of sight, which IWISHUSUN has dedicated its work to.

Here you can see Sabrina Theissen at work:

The result: a photographic tryptich which is shown below. The sky and the sun are the determining motifs, which, in a similarly minimalist way as the song by Robot Koch, are captured only indirectly by reflection, allowing the greatest possible space for the unexpected aspects of ones own interpretations in their complete reduction – a playing field for one’s own way of seeing and perspectives.

The process and the thoughts of the two IWISHUSUN ambassadors are documented in intense imagery in Editude Pictures’ short film, “In a Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen for IWISHUSUN”:

Wir freuen uns sehr, das erste kreative Partnerprojekt und unseren ersten Kurzfilm vorzustellen, der aus der Zusammenarbeit zweier Botschafter aus unserem immer größer werdenden Netzwerk entstanden ist: „In A Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen“.

Der Berliner Komponist sowie Musikproduzent Robot Koch und die Fotografin Sabrina Theissen haben sich zusammengetan, um das Thema des Sehens, dem sich IWISHUSUN verschrieben hat, von kreativer Seite aus zu betrachten. Dafür stellte Robot Koch seinen brandneuen Song „Jupiter“ zur Verfügung, von dessen Melodien sich Sabrina Theissen inspirieren ließ und mit dem obigen Triptychon fotografisch darauf antwortet. Der Himmel und die Sonne werden hier zum bestimmenden Motiv, das in ebenso minimalistischer Manier wie Robot Kochs Song durch Reflektionen nur indirekt eingefangen wird und in aller Reduktion dem Unvorhersehbaren, der eigenen Interpretation den größten Raum einräumt – ein Spielraum für das eigene Sehen und die eigenen Sichtweisen.

Diesen Prozess und die Gedanken der beiden IWISHUSUN-Botschafter dokumentiert der gleichnamige Kurzfilm „In A Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen für IWISHUSUN“ in intensiven Bildern:

Unser Dank gilt Robot Koch, Sabrina Theissen sowie Frederic Leitzke und Andreas Lamøth von Editude Pictures, die den kreativen Austausch filmisch eingefangen haben!

Die Interviews von Robot Koch, Sabrina Theissen und Editude Pictures mit IWISHUSUN können Sie hier nachlesen.

Did you know that our friend, film producer and co-founder of Editude Pictures, Frederic Leitzke, is also a DJ? As one half of the duo, Jazoburbs, or as efalive, he has been bringing beats to crowds since 2003. Now Freunde von Freunden, an international interview magazine that portraits people of diverse creative and cultural backgrounds in their homes or within their daily working environments but presents its own mixtapes on the corresponding blog, too, asked Frederic to select his favorite songs. The result is a mixtape which is definitely worth a listen, featuring Mount Kimbie, Schwarz Dont Crack, Super Flu, &ME among others.

Listen to Frederic’s Freunde von Freunden Mixtape #65 here:

Frederic Leitzke’s Mixtape #65 tracklist:

01. Schwarz Dont Crack – Charade (Adana Twins On A Lonely Night Remix) /Kitsune, 2013/
02. Hanne & Lore – My Oh My /Monaberry, 2013/
03. Ten Walls – Requiem /Life And Death, 2013/
04. Mario Aureo & Manuel Moreno – Arosis (Sebo Remix) /Ritter Butzke Studio, 2013/
05. Chasing Kurt – Lose Myself /Suol, 2013/
06. Kölsch ft. Troels Abrahamsen – All That Matters (andhim Remix) /Kompakt, 2013/
07. Mount Kimbie – Made To Stray (DJ Koze Remix) /Warp, 2013/
08. Super Flu ft. Monkey Safari – Me Roar /Monaberry, 2013/
09. Riva Starr ft. Rssll – Absence (Adam Port Remix) /Snatch! Records, 2013/
10. &ME – Shallow /Keinemusik, 2013/
11. Matt Karmil – Reverse Peephole /IRR, 2013/

Check out Frederic’s interview with IWISHUSUN here.

Moreover, Frederik Frede who co-founded the website Freunde von Freunden showed his colours for IWISHUSUN, too. Read his interview here.

Frederic Leitzke & Andreas Lamoth

filmmakers & co-founders of Editude Pictures – Berlin

Together they are strong! Frederic Leitzke and Andreas Lamoth co-founded their own film production company Editude Pictures in late 2010. What started as a more or less improvised coalition of five friends, slowly but surely evolved into a young promising company. While music and art are definitely prioritised, both of them have also corporately worked for brands like Coca Cola, Levis, Red Bull and Converse. Nevertheless what we love the most are their urban films which are filled with their passion for street art, illustration, urban culture and music. No surprise that they are best-known for these kind of interactions. Their documentation of Berlin’s creative scene, “In The Belly Of A Whale,” is their first film and at the same time a foundation for many video works that followed.

While their first documentation strung together various filmic portraits of Berlin’s art scene members and is still complemented by new episodes, Frederic and Andreas also worked for our friend and music producer Robot Koch in the past. To unlock the exciting potential which arises from our creative supporters we teamed up with Editude Pictures and two of our other dear ambassadors – beautiful project which we will showcase very soon. Stay tuned!

In the meantime welcome Editude Pictures as one of our supporters!

You are filmmakers and therefore sight must be a very important sense to you. What other sense couldn’t be missed in your life? Why?
Andy: It’s really hard to imagine a life without any of my senses, but besides my eyes I would miss my ears the most of all I guess. For me vision is strongly connected to hearing which you can see in almost all of our films: Sound and especially Music is so important to set the right tone for moving images and are unseperable in my eyes.
Fredi: That’s for sure. Besides that I would probably miss tasting the most, because my hobby cooking wouldn’t make much “sense” anymore I guess.

What is your vision for your personal work? 
Andy: I hope to be working more in the field of documentaries in the future. There are tons of lives and people out there who are worth being banned to film and who’s stories are worth beeing told.
Fredi: Documentaries are very important to us for sure. Since our first film “In The Belly Of A Whale” lots of good things happened and we got great feedback for our work. That’s definitely a vision. Always try to do stuff that makes people happy, that entertains people, that has a purpose, that somehow “remains” in that crazy fast moving digital world.

Your personal opinion: what makes a good film? 
Andy: Authenticity. Most of the big blockbuster movies simply have no heart and are only produced for making money. So I really prefer movies with smaller or even no budgets for which the filmakers had to make a big creative effort to get it done.
Fredi: The story. Always the story. In the past, the story was the most important thing in a movie. Movies were made because writers and directors had things to say. Today it’s more about pleasing the market, the industry, the crowd with crazy effects, pompous settings, big stars, telling the same stupid stories again and again, using every cliché available. Of course today still many nice movies are made, but really good and innovative screenplays are definitely more rare than in the last century.

What filmmakers have inspired you lately?
Andy: I love Wes Anderson and am really looking forward to his new movie in January. Besides that I am really into short documentaries about everyday life, which you can find very easily by independent and hobby filmers on Vimeo.
Fredi: Yeah, Wes Anderson for sure. The filmmaker who inspired me the most recently was Malik Bendjelloui, director of the masterpiece “Searching for Sugar Man”. A man with an – again – absolutely amazing story, without a big budget, with lots of struggles during the production but with a strong vision and impressive skills succeeds in the end, brings his vision to the screen and creates one of the most beautiful documentaries ever made.

What themes do you find yourself exploring over and over again?
Both: We have a really strong bond into Berlin’s art scene, so it’s almost natural that we are exploring themes like creativity, making a living from what you love and collaborations between different kinds of people in our films. Besides that we are planing a new documentary about the new age of making music – hopefully we will start filming in 2014, watch out!

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
Andy: That’s a tough one. I believe when you look close enough you can find beautiful things happening around you everyday, even (often mostly) in the most random and trivial situations.
Fredi: Impossible to answer.

Sunrise or sunset – what do you prefer?
Andy: Sunrise.
Fredi: Sunset.

As a seeing person it is hard, if not impossible, to imagine the world from the perspective of a blind person, and the same applies in reverse. How would you describe our world and surroundings to a blind person?
Both: We don’t think it’s fair trying to tell a blind person what the world looks like. We would rather try to find advantages which blind people have. For example we believe they have no problems with prejudice and are able to experience the world in very different but also exciting ways.

What would you like to see more often?
Andy: Justice.
Fredi: Humility.

What is your tactic for making the world a better place?
Andy: There is so much screwed up stuff happening around us that one person really can’t handle all types of it. So I guess you just have to concentrate on 2 or 3 things that matter most to you and try to make a change. Lately I am trying to boycott mass animal farming by not eating any meat no more; it’s really hard to see animals suffering because of massive exorbitance in our ways of living.
Fredi: Making the world a better place is a hard task. I rather focus on little things in my daily surroundings, that you really can influence and that make a small difference. Treat people nicely and with respect, be honest, be humble to the environment and in my daily life. Things like that.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?  
Andy: I am trying to support Unicef on a regular basis to help them fight the problem of stranded refugees all over the world.
Fredi: The last time? I guess that was some money I gave to the fantastic street musician on Warschauer Straße, that I pass every morning.

What we see: Bali

Our friend and Berlin-based co-founder of MADE, Nico Zeh takes a rest. His beautiful haven: Bali. His companions: his family and our IWISHUSUN logo T-shirt. We enjoy this glorious view and wish you a merry christmas, Nico!

Check out Nico’s interview here and learn more about his thoughts, amongst others about his vision for his personal work: “I try to stay true and honest to myself and my principles in everything that I do. Only through this, can the work – any kind of action – truly shine and represent your own personal development and growth towards your own truth.”

Also, you can order your own IWISHUSUN log T-shirt here and finance a pair of glasses for a school child in Bangladesh with every tee sold online.

Winter has come to Berlin which means it’s getting cold but our down jacket is a great companion. Our friend Peggy is perfectly prepared for the cold season with our ultralight down jacket and looks amazing!

Check out our down jackets that will keep you warm and at the same finance a cataract operation in Bangladesh with every jacket sold. Shop them here.

concert promoter & agent and CEO of MCT Agentur – Berlin

Scumeck Sabottka knows them all: as a concert promoter and agent who founded the online ticket sale tickets.de and is co-founder of MCT Agentur in Berlin, he has overseen the German tours of the likes of Arcade Fire, Atoms For Peace, Florence & The Machine, Pearl Jam, Kraftwerk, Lenny Kravitz, Marilyn Manson, Tom Waits, Moby, Radiohead, Rammstein, Robbie Williams and many more. Even though he has been involved in music professionally since the early 1980s (and a music lover for much longer) and back then worked with great musicians from all over the world – Einstürzende Neubauten and Ramones to name two of our favourites -, Sabottka has also proved himself a talented photographer as well as being truly big-hearted. While his eyes catch beautiful views of landscapes, human faces, cities and, of course, concerts to translate them into photographs, Scumeck Sabottka is very engaged in social activities too. In addition to showing social responsibility by supporting the organisations Amnesty International and Make Poverty History on his website, he also founded his own website: Remember Chernobyl, a platform that reminds us of the disaster of Chernobyl as well as the fight against its aftermath.

We are very happy to welcome this fascinating Berliner onto our list of friends and supporters. Immerse yourselves in his world and learn more about Scumeck Sabottka in our interview. A very warm welcome!

You are a concert promoter & agent and therefore hearing must be a very important sense to your work. What other sense couldn’t be missed in your life? Why?
All of them really – to see an artist or a band, to smell a venue and the fans, to hear the music — all of those senses are used when visiting a concert and these senses make the concert an experience.

Your work mainly focuses on the acoustical side of life. But how does your personal life sound like?
Music and sounds follow me throughout my entire live – I collect cars and motorbikes because of their look but also because of their sounds ….

Your personal evergreen?
Musicwise – Paul Desmond forever !

What is your sound for IWISHUSUN?
The sound of wind and waves, of trees and barking dogs…..

You are a creative person and have organised numerous tours of well-known bands and musicians. What is your vision for your personal work?
To archive the best in my field by offering fairness and understanding to the people I am dealing with; to learn from the vision of the artists I represent and to bounce back those visions in my head to make them a reality.

You oversee concerts but at the same time you show social responsibility not only by featuring several organisations such as Amnesty International and Make Poverty History but also by founding Remember Tschernobyl. Is this your tactic for making the world a better place?

I feel , that even by the smallest effort, we can make the world a better place and I try and push the envelope to everyone around me to share the love and experience I receive when being rewarded.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?
I wish not to brag about my social doings but like to say, that it is very rewarding to offer a helping hand; whether this is in our neighbourhood or in far away places, I enjoy learning of people who are in need.

Who is your personal hero?
The unnamed liquidators of Chernobyl.

Blind people and those who can see surely experience the world in different ways. How would you describe the world to someone who suffers from an irreversible loss of the ability to see in one sentence?
As the most beautiful music/sound they ever heard !

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
The architecture in Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer & Lúcio Costa – truly breathtaking.

What would you like to see more often?
The ocean.

Sunrise or sunset – what do you prefer?
Sunset for sure – especially on the beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Photo: Anton Corbijn.

Those sunny days seem to be gone forever but our friend Vanessa from INEEDMORERINGS brings back memories of summer. Take a break form winter and its grey skies and check out her gorgeous New York photos.

Do you like our IWISHUSUN logo T-shirts and want to show your colours, too?  The T-shirts are now available in our online store.

Check out Vanessa’s interview with IWISHUSUN here.