The Autumn/Winter and 10-year anniversary issue of Port – featuring musicians Brian Eno, Little Simz and AJ Tracey, actors Willem Dafoe and George MacKay, authors Elif Shafak and Wole Soyinka, artists Gavin Turk and Tacita Dean, chef Douglas McMaster, architect Sumayya Vally, designer George Sowden, milliner Stephen Jones, alongside writing from Shon Faye, Raymond Antrobus, Hatty Nestor and Sequoia Nagamatsu.
Seven exceptional talents front issue 29. Brian Eno talks to author Jeff VanderMeer about his long-standing environmental activism, while legendary actor Willem Dafoe reflects on his craft with writer Rick Moody. Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, in a specially commissioned essay for our Commentary, shares her thoughts on trees, pessimism, and the turbulent times we find ourselves in. For the first time, we present an exclusive artwork on our cover from acclaimed British artist Gavin Turk. Rapper AJ Tracey discusses staying humble and missing the electric pull of live performance, and rising star George MacKay delves into acting as an animal instinct. Little Simz, meanwhile, muses on the intimate and creative forces that shaped her new album, her most personal and accomplished to date.
For our anniversary, special guest editor Gavin Turk curates our art section, inviting writer and artist Jonathan Allen to discuss the history of cartomancy, as well as filmmaker Dan Edelstyn, artist Hilary Powell, and political economist Ann Pettifor, to contemplate building a new economy based on promises and trust. Writer and curator Francesca Gavin considers future applications of fungi, and Turk concludes the section by sharing a gallery of new artwork.
Elsewhere, the youngest architect ever commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion, Sumayya Vally, contemplates non-static forms of creating space, artist Tacita Dean details her debut design work for Wayne McGregor’s balletic interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and co-founder of the radical Memphis Group, designer George Sowden, talks with Deyan Sudjic about the importance of retaining human fallibility. And, as always, this season’s sartorial must haves are beautifully photographed.
In our Commentary – in addition to Elif Shafak – Shon Faye shares an extract from her vital new book The Transgender Issue, Raymond Antrobus provides a deeply compelling poem on police brutality, Hatty Nestor reflects on the twilight zones of sickness and health, and Sequoia Nagamatsu contributes an extract from his forthcoming novel How High We Go in the Dark.
Finally, in the Porter, we visit Douglas McMaster’s ingenious zero-waste restaurant Silo, literary titan Wole Soyinka talks about his first novel in almost 50 years, Stephen Jones examines the serendipitous ties between music and millinery, and Assemble co-founder Jane Hall explores feminist counter strategies for design.
