When Dries Van Noten bid adieu to the fashion world in 2024 with his acclaimed final collection, it seemed as though an era was coming to an end. In fact, however, this move only marked a new beginning: The Belgian designer founded the Fondazione Dries Van Noten, purchased a palazzo in Venice, and recently opened his first exhibition there, titled The Only True Protest Is Beauty. In this interview, he reflects on this new chapter in his life and his plans for the future. 

My father lived and worked in the basement. My mother was the mistress of the upstairs in our house in Buchbach in Upper Bavaria. As far back as I can remember, choosing a gift for my dad at Christmas or for his birthday always started with the question: "Does he already own the latest FC Bayern Munich fan outfit?"

A moment, a brief period of time, an instant. Protected from the event in a hair’s breadth vacuum: a state of weightlessness before impact, the tension before release, the realization before insight. These moments, as they manifest in the following photo series, both on an abstract and physical level, bear possibilities. Possibilities of wonder, of faltering, of silence. And possibilities of beauty.  

"When I was a child, I toyed with dirt. I killed the slugs, I bored with a bough in their spiracle.” For almost 15 years, the exceptional Austrian artist SOAP&SKIN has been singing about death and pain, about nature and healing. Her voice pierces into us and cuts off our air, only to let us breathe better afterwards. The lyrics to Spiracle read differently when you know that 30-year-old Anja Plaschg grew up on a pig-fattening farm in a Styrian village with 200 inhabitants. A conversation about sugar-cube witches, talking trees, and how impressive and depressing rural life can be.

Stefanie Reinsperger is one of the most popular actresses in the German-speaking world, thanks in no small part to her role as Inspector Rosa Herzog in the Dortmund episodes of German cult police procedural Tatort. She is proud of her tiny hometown near Vienna, a village with just under 3,000 inhabitants. She is funny, with a self-deprecating sense of humor and plenty of energy. Yet because she doesn't conform to the cliché image of a female star, she has repeatedly come under attack. That makes her pretty furious ("Ganz schön wütend"), the title of her recently published book. 

In Ischgl the ski tourists throw corona parties against a backdrop of ruined mountainscapes, the oceans are rising higher and higher, the virus is spreading unstoppably, everyone is isolated, and Greta is crying. In a world of overabundance, where out-of-control consumerism is destroying our environment and our health, wastefulness has gotten a bad reputation: Marie Kondō’s clean-up crew, minimalism, self-optimization, and a new sententiousness have declared war on profligacy. But don’t we humans need overindulgence to be happy, the camaraderie of celebration and ritual excess? We asked six remarkable personalities about the role of wastefulness in their lives. 

Cows can sense earthquakes, birds can signal approaching locust swarms. Every day, German behavioral biologist Martin Wikelski listens to around 25,000 animals - trying to understand what they are telling us. A glimpse into the mysterious world of animal communication. 

Glaciers are not only tremendously beautiful, but also tremendously alive. They melt, cause sea levels to rise and trigger natural disasters, and yet they are a crucial source of fresh water we hope to preserve. At the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg, the Italian-Swiss researcher and glaciologist Francesca Pellicciotti studies glaciers that – in contrast to global trends and a warming climate – appear to be stable or growing. A conversation about humility and the third pole.