All posts tagged: Ninja K

BSA Film Friday: 02.10.23

BSA Film Friday: 02.10.23

February 10, 2023 ,
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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. 1UP – ONE WEEK WITH 1UP – THE SHORT FILM

2. 5 MINUTES WITH: MADC in the Maldives

3. Liberation for Black Trans Women / CANS Can’t Stant / The New Yorker

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BSA Special Feature: 1UP – ONE WEEK WITH 1UP – THE SHORT FILM

Global brand 1UP continues to build their mountain of exploits and is smart enough to engage the premiere film director Selina Miles to tell the story. “I loved seeing so many people rushing into action all at once,” says veteran graffiti documentarian Martha Cooper as she relates the adrenalin rush of highly planned aerosol operations on the U-Bahn that she and Ninja K captured for this book/short film entitled “One Week With1UP”.

The risks are measured in the duration of rapid heart rates, multiplied by the long slow burn of anticipation and divided by the dull hours of strategizing, discussion, and planning. Cooper says she’s fascinated by the persistence of the graffiti practice over 50 years, and she should know because she’s shot the evolution of this youth-centered practice since she was a cub photographer for the New York Post in the 1970s. Miles captures the prevalent sensations of the cat-and-mouse adventurism running through this hormone-fueled grey cloud that floats somewhere between art, self-expression, pranksterism, and straight-up vandalism. By leaving the area grey, the viewer is pushed to draw their line about privilege, propriety, and its additive/subtractive relationship with the cityscape.

“It takes community and camaraderie, and skills and experience, and preplanning and all of that,” says Martha.

Big up to Spray Daily and Ilovegraffiti.de for sharing this.

5 MINUTES WITH: MADC in the Maldives

“Painting in these surroundings is unbelievable,” says graff writer MadC as she marvels at the natural beauty she is working in tandem with in the Maldives. “You are right there on the water, there are eagle rays right under you, fish everywhere, flying foxes coming…,” she explains. “I don’t think while I’m painting. It’s on an emotional level.”

Liberation for Black Trans Women / CANS Can’t Stant / The New Yorker

While there is greater support for trans people today, in the end its usually trans people and their closest allies who still do all the work of creating a safe, just world. In this film by Matt Nadel and Megan Plotkawe, we gain a greater understanding of the insidious nature of transphobia as we see a group of Black trans women fighting to repeal a law used to target queer locals.

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One Week With 1UP : Martha Cooper & Ninja K

One Week With 1UP : Martha Cooper & Ninja K

May 5, 2018

A serendipitous meeting somewhere in Berlin set this project in motion, and the results unveil an adrenaline fueled ride that always pushes, often exceeds the boundaries of physical safety and social acceptance while simultaneously thrilling graffiti fans and pissing off some public officials and property owners.

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

A new book that is releasing shortly captures the nature of the actions and adds to our conversations about art, vandalism, branding, public/personal space and its radical visual disruption. It’s a story made all the more remarkable during an increasing level of surveillance in a city that has basically embraced the bohemian and rebellious types who have transformed large parts of its cityscape, making Berlin a de facto capital of subculture, especially among the young.

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

Photojournalists have to follow the story wherever it goes in the hope of reporting the true nature of the culture, especially when it veers off the street and dives into subculture. After a somewhat chance encounter with the notorious 1UP crew in Berlin, veteran photojournalist and ethnographer Martha Cooper instinctively knew she had to better understand how the graffiti writing practice today has evolved since she first captured the New York train writers in 1970s and 80s.

Along with photographer Ninja K, Cooper again goes beyond most people’s comfort zone to get a story about this somewhat amorphous and incredibly anonymous graffiti crew that no one else has yet documented. With sharp eyes and pitch-perfect timing, the results of these two journalists reveal how the graffiti practice has continued to expand and beguile in the margins of the urban public sphere.

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

Martha Cooper & Ninja K. One Week With 1UP. (photo courtesy of the team)

With thanks to the team for sharing their exclusive images with BSA.

 

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