#hobo 17

[hobomagazine]

Hobo #17 | Cass Bird

I’ve always thought that ‘photographer’ was a very sexy profession for a woman, more so than for a man. As it turns out, Cass Bird’s photography is a modern and mischievous celebration of femininity. That’s a true statement, and one that sounds good, but I feel like the rise of Cass today is attributable to her personality, her ability to live in an intrepid way and so catch the exuberance of love and life so that her art, and the range of emotions contained inside, always appears to be an extension of moments lived.

Making the world a lot more like the way you imagine it, is at the root of what a certain ilk of artists do. But it’s not easy to pull off. Friendship looks like the central thread: Letting your guard down, our early years - blithe and happy, and the underlying ideal of resisting the strictures on everyday life.

[Photo by Daria Werbowy / Styling by Natasha Royt / Model Cass Bird]

[hobomagazine]

Hobo #17 | Benjamin Clementine

“Home”, according to Benjamin Clementine, “is just a concept.” A sense of unbelonging is central to the 26-year-old’s art. The youngest of seven siblings, born in Ghana but raised in the tough North London suburb of Edmonton by strict Christian parents, the softly-spoken and shy Clementine spent his teens keeping his head down to avoid trouble, while secretly teaching himself piano in his bedroom.

At the age of twenty, disillusioned with London life, he absconded to Paris without a euro to his name, sometimes sleeping rough, and busking on the Metro to survive, as well as washing dishes in the city’s hotels like his hero Orwell before him (a coincidence Clementine didn’t discover till later). The time spent singing other people’s songs - a bit of Leonard Cohen, some Bob Marley, a few French numbers by Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré (even though Benjamin doesn’t speak the language) - to commuters on Ligne 2, between Nation and Porte Dauphine, honed his performing skills and instilled the confidence to effectively stand naked in front of the world. After a couple of years travelling around France, he made the right contacts to allow him to put out two EPs, and has now released his debut album “At Least For Now” via Barclay, the legendary label of Brel himself.

[Interview by Simon Price / Photo by Shawn Dogimont / Styling by Mélina Brossard]

[hobomagazine]

Hobo #17 | Manon Leloup

[Photos by Shawn Dogimont / Styling by Kanako B. Koga / Model Manon Leloup]

[hobomagazine]

Hobo #17 | Ventotene & Capraia

[Photos by Bernard Plossu]