Featured Member - Cosima Bucarelli
www.horstundedeltraut.com
www.pelime.com/cosimabucarelli
Cosima Bucarelli’s passion for Art and Fashion stems from her childhood in Rome, where she grew up as the daughter of the highly acclaimed Angelo Buccarelli.
After completing a BTEC Foundation Degree in Art and Design at London Metropolitan University in 2008, Cosima moved to Berlin, where she currently resides and is due to graduate in Fashion and Design Management at the Akademie Mode und Design in 2011.
Alongside her studies, Cosima has gained extensive work experience in London, NYC, Rome and New Dehli and is the co-founder of # Horst und Edeltraut, a magazine on Fashion, Art and Culture with friend and partner Johanna Moers.
Q. Can you explain what triggered your interest in Photography?
A. My father always took an infinite number of photos. I feel like my entire childhood is locked away in the pages of the huge albums he created, so photography naturally became an extension of my memory. Soon after, when my parents divorced, he stopped shooting and I took over. That’s when photography also became an extension of my language.
Q. Are there any contemporary photographers you admire?
A. There are way too many! I am very inspired by David Lachapelle’s and Nick Knight’s images.
Q. How do you choose your subjects? How do you know the subjects you chose are the right one for your piece?
A. Let’s call it coincidence, let’s call it intuition or one followed by the other… I don’t really choose the subject, much more the subject chooses me. It’s usually an interesting face, a beautiful movement, the bodies extremities such as someone’s hands and funnily enough I love photographing dogs although I am famous for disliking them as pets.
Q. What are your inspirations?
A. My experiences are my inspiration. Art is my inspiration. As lame as it may sound, life is my inspiration.
Q. Is there a story behind your work?
A. Just a lot of egoism. It’s nothing more, nothing less than my view of the world.
Q. Can you talk about your professional experience in the fashion industry?
A. As a 21 year-old with hardly a degree I don’t really feel entitled to talk about professional experience. I have written about fashion, I have photographed fashion, I have styled fashion. Oh actually, of course I have professional experience, my magazine # Horst und Edeltraut…
Q. Can you talk about any collaboration with other artists, designers? Were the projects successful?
A. Sophie Holstein a very talented German artist and I collaborated on the cover of # Horst und Edeltraut’s second issue. With Manfredi Gioacchini, a young photographer from Rome, we often do projects together… I am always interested in collaborations and the learning process involved with them. When two heads work on one project the outcome is always more intriguing and multi-faceted.
Q. We are interested in # Horst und Edeltraut, how did it come about?
A. It has a very funny story actually. In my first semester at university, our class had to create a print magazine. That’s how # Horst und Edeltraut came to life. After it was launched a friend from university, Johanna Moers, and I decided to make something more out of it. The first thing was taking it online! Then we started shifting the magazine’s focus from fashion to art and culture, set a date for the release and put together the second print issue which was launched last October.
Q. Could you talk about challenges you faced? And now?
A. Not many people believed in us as print is dying and in Berlin there are more Blogs than readers. Add the fact that we had no experience, not much time and hardly any funds. It still is a bit of a gamble. Although things work better day by day, the challenges are never ending!
Q. Is there a favorite piece of your photography work you would like to talk about?
A. Noooooo. Well, I don’t think I have a favorite one.
Q. Any favorite design or piece of work in the fashion industry?
A. Peggy Guggenheim’s signature sunglasses and the 1960s model of Fiat Cinquecento, Charlotte Olympia shoes…
Ah, of course huge rings, possibly skulls by Delfina Delettrez and Azzedine Alaia dresses.
Q. Are you working on new projects currently?
A. I just started working on # Horst und Edeltraut’s next issue themed “Destruction”. When that is done, my dissertation is next.
Q. What are your professional ambitions and your projects for 2011?
A. 2011 is very far away! I will probably have to look for a REAL job whatever that means but of course my biggest ambition is to further develop # Horst und Edeltraut’s planned cross media concept.
Q. How do you hope Pelime can help with this?
A. Pelime has been a great way to connect to other creative people around the world.
It is already very useful to me when I look for people to feature in # Horst und Edetltraut.
