UNHATE DOVE for Tripoli

COLORS, the magazine “that talks about the rest of the world” will donate the UNHATE DOVE (an art installation made by Fabrica) to Tripoli, Libya tomorrow on Saturday 24 December 2011. This is their Independence Day, which the Libyan people are celebrating again for the first time in 42 years.



COLORS magazine gives the UNHATE DOVE to the city of Tripoli as a sign of peace and hope. The large, dove-shaped sculpture is covered in over 15,000 bullet cases picked up in the world’s “hot spots”. They were mounted on to the dove in the University of Tripoli.

Backstage at the University of Tripoli

Work in progress

The bullet cases were collected by COLORS from the hands of children, from operating rooms in war-zone hospitals, from the mothers of young men killed during revolutions, from the victims of persecution. From people who live in areas where armed conflicts seem to run on endlessly.

Argentina

Palestine

This “war waste” is also the theme of WITH LOVE, a COLORS special issue telling the stories of imprisoned lives that do not have the freedom to choose on which side to stay. There are love stories, too, of those who hold out in order to defend life.



WITH LOVE is available in four bilingual editions: English + Italian, French, Spanish or Arabic. This issue will also be available in digital form to facilitate even wider circulation.

For more information please visit Colors Love and the Unhate Foundation.

COLORS 82 - SHIT: a survival guide

Feces. Excrement. Stool. Poo. Caca. Its name changes but not most people’s reaction to it. Poo is something we ignore or treat with disdain. It repels us. It’s kept behind closed doors and never mentioned in polite company. But in its new issue, Shit. A survival guide, COLORS looks straight down the pan, exploring the truths behind the taboo, and the reasons why we should start to take shit seriously.



In Japan toilets have undergone a major growth in less than a century: thanks to heated toilet seats and a built in bidet the `Toto´ has become a popular product.
Japanese Toto

But, today some two-thirds of the world’s population have no toilet or latrine. They relieve themselves at the roadside or in fields, contaminating water sources and food. Over 90% of diarrhea is caused by the contamination of food, water, or fingers with shit, and although diarrhea is just a banal intestinal virus for those with a toilet, every year it kills more people than AIDS, malaria and TB combined.

Bolivian `squatters´

South African toilets

Feces is a weapon of mass destruction and a nightmare of biological pollution, but it is also a fuel and a fertiliser. It can heat, feed, cure. It’s the world’s most underrated resource, and it can save lives. In Butare prison in Rwanda, the inmates’ shit is treated and turned into biogas, which is then used to cook their meals.
Rwanda prisoners

The toilets in Christchurch, New Zealand, became unserviceable when an earthquake hit the city in 2011. But the inhabitants got around the problem with a bucket, a pit in the garden and a few sparks of creativity. The resulting `Do It Yourself´ toilets became a symbol of local pride. Take a look at what they created: Show us your longrop

DIY toilets + manual

This issue of COLORS was inspired by The Big Necessity (published in the UK by Portobello Books in 2008 and translated into Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic), a book by the British writer and journalist, Rose George, a former COLORS senior editor.

COLORS 82 - Shit is on sale from October 2011 in four bilingual editions (English + Italian, French, Spanish or Korean).

It is also purchasable online here.

COLORS81 in Shanghai

As you might have read on our blog earlier, COLORS81 published the issue `Transport´ in July 2011.

In this edition COLORS81 attempts to answer questions and gives a veritable “user manual” (and survival guide) about how we can all make our own alternative, sustainable means of transport with our own hands.

Inspired by the `Transport´ edition, the magazine “about the rest of the world” now presents the exhibition TRANSPORT: homemade vehicles from around the world.



COLORS81 showed us ingenious solutions which many populations in the “rest of the world”, grappling with poverty, war or local situations, have long adopted. The exhibition shows all these different kinds of transport, varying from electric robots to solar powered cars and homemade airplanes.





The exhibition is from 6 – 18 September 2011

Hong Miao Art Gallery
50 Shitan Lane
496 East Nanjing Road
Shanghai – China

Gallery Opening hours
10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

New issue COLORS81 - Transport

Oil powers 90% of transport, but this resource is running out very quickly. In a not-too-distant future we will no longer be able to fill the tanks of the 140 million cars driven in the United States today, nor shift from one port to another the 100 million freight containers loaded every year onto cargo ships, nor manage to keep in the air the 500,000 people who are presently flying somewhere around the world.

Shocking information we can´t ignore anymore, but what is the solution? COLORS81 is about creative people finding another way to move themselves and others. COLORS81 is not only a magazine about these people and their ideas but can be used as a veritable “user manual” (and survival guide) about how we can all make our own alternative, sustainable means of transport with our own hands.

Like Wu Yulu, a creative Chinese farmer who decided to build a customised vehicle to transport himself and his wife to market. Seated comfortably on his rickshaw, he lets Wu Lao 32 ferry him around.

Wu Lao 32 the robot

But Wu Yulu is not the only one with an ingenious idea, Chen Shengui decided to find his own solution to the transport problem in China, the leading solar panel manufacturing country in the world today. Chen invented the first prototype of a solar energy car. He hopes that, sooner or later, the government will give financial support to this project in a country where more than 500 million vehicles will be on the roads by 2020.


The solar energy car made by Chen Shengui

And like we in Holland know and use for many, many years: the bike. Can be used in many ways and does not need any fuel.

More than 600.000 bikes in Amsterdam


Bicycletaxi

COLORS81
Purchase online at:
http://www.staffonline.biz/colors/htm/page.php

or at the Apple Store.

www.colorsmagazine.com

Out now: COLORS 80

COLORS 80



The magazine "that talks about the rest of the world" blends words with pictures in a completely illustrated edition. The eightieth issue of COLORS celebrates the superheroes of our day: men and women, weak or strong, rich or poor, all united by a common wish: the good of people and of the world. "Real people" who do extraordinary things for others, and who, in different ways, contribute to improving society.

For this issue COLORS has met some real-life superheroes, who face the baddies of our everyday world with courage and self-sacrifice: the damaged caused by the collapse of economies and by rampant pollution, the destruction caused by wars, the poverty of ignorance and antrocities.

COLORS 80 is for sale at newsagents, bookshops and in the App Store in four bilingual editions (English, French, Spanish or Korean).

COLorsLECTOR 79

COLORS 79 is all about collecting. People like to surround themselves with objects, it’s part of our nature. Whether they are useful, decorative, beautiful, ugly, common or rare, we can’t help but leave clues everywhere as to our identity. Our objects reflect who we really are, and who we want to be, so says Peter Gabriel in the introduction to the book “COLORS Extra/Ordinary Objects” published by Taschen back in 2000.


Paolo has more than 500 ties, his room is full of them. This is just a small part.



Collecting stickers, memories and images from around the world.




COLORS 79 Collector is for sale at newsagents, bookshops and in the App Store from mid-December 2010 in four bilingual editions (English + Italian, French, Spanish or Korean).

Out now: COLORS 78

COLORS 78 is all about dance, dance in its many styles, symbolisms, languages and rituals, starting with the intimate and personal story of Cuban dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta. Acosta, originally from Havana, is now the Principal Guest Artist of the Royal Ballet in London, and one of the most influential figures in international dance today.



Next to the interview with Carlos Acosta other amazing stories will be told in COLORS 78. Like the story of Beckii Cruel, she is a big fan of Japanese comics and one day she decided to post a video of herself online, dancing in her bedroom to the theme songs from Japanese cartoons. She soon became a star in Japan, performing live in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans, and even publishing a DVD. COLORS went to visit the girl whose life has been changed by YouTube.



Read about the Hip Hop Grannies, a multiple award-winning group of elderly performers who are reaping all the benefits - both physical and mental – of the famous Afro-American dance style.



Buy COLORS 78 at newsagents, bookshops and in the iTunes App Store from October 2010 in three bilingual editions (English + Italian, French or Spanish).

COLORS 77: The sea

What would your eyes miss if they had never seen the bright orange sun as it sinks below the horizon? How would your children feel if they had never played and tumbled along the seashore? And if you'd never tasted the tang of salt on your skin?

COLORS 77 is about the sea and its relationship with human beings. Also in this magazine they used Augmented Reality, which expands the magazine experience by ‘plunging’ the reader into a world that mixes reality with that which is virtual.

Issue 77 is now available in book stores. It's issued in three languages: English/French, English/Spanish and English/Italian. You can also visit the website to read more about COLORS.

COLORS magazine will also be available on the iPad. Even the first issue, which is sold out years ago, is now available for those of you who are the lucky owners of an iPad.

Join 'It's My Time' !

For the new A/W 10/11 campaign, United Colours of Benetton calls up youngsters to join the online casting of 'It's My Time '. The winners will be starring as the campaignmodels.

Boundless, young, authentic and personal. The worldwideweb as THE meetingplace were the candidates will be selected. Using new technologies that extent reality, augmented reality, younsters can upload their own video's and photo's for free. By this way they can express themselves while showing their inspiration and talent. From the eight of february till the thirheenth of march, the worldwide casting will be judged by the internetsociety and a special jury selected by Benetton.



The Colors 76 magazine already experimented with augmented reality. By holding the magazine with the black square in front of your webcam when visiting www.colorsmagazine.com; it automatically projects a movie on the magazine.

New Colors Magazine uses "augmented reality"

The new Colors magazine 76, a creation of Fabrica which is Benettons communication center,is all about Teenagers. In Colombia, John decides he wants to live like his idol, the drug baron Pablo Escobar. A group of girls from Johannesburg’s poorest suburbs get ready for the year-end ball, spending everything they have to be queens for a night.

Every minute girls and boys across the globe discover their individuality and start off on the endless path of trying to find oneself. Colors has dedicated its 76th issue to this journey and its varied transformations.

It is also the first time "augmented reality" was used in printed media. When you hold the magazine with the black square in front of your webcam when you visit www.colorsmagazine.com; it automatically projects a movie on the magazine. This way you can meet the teenagers from the magazine on your screen. Try it by printing out this image...