DAMN°88 – Sun, Sport & Intimacy

DAMN° is an independent publication with open-minded views on the interchangeable worlds of design, architecture and art. In making meaningful connections rather than dictating tastes, its approach to storytelling brings editorial content beyond hype or conventional academic debate. Unafraid to link the personal and the political, the economic and the emotional, the stylistic and the social, DAMN° is ultimately about discoveries that aim to provoke a reaction…whether it be a thought or a smile.

In this issue:

Our summer holiday issue – Sun, Sport & INTIMACY. Now is perhaps the only season where there is no shame in announcing loud and proud that we need to de-stress. It’s the time we most crave tangible and intimate moments in the sunshine.

‘summer as a time to do nothing and make no money.’ Peanut Butter, Eileen Myles, 1991

In this issue we look at the vigour and exhilaration of the Olympics – the ultimate summer stage for mastering the abilities of able-bodied and disabled athletes for global glory.

But while the world’s best athletes have unique and specific relationships with their bodies, the rest of us, at least to some extent, are also mastering its possibilities and pleasures as a way to delve deeper into ourselves.

So after the hunt for Gold, we slow down to consider what both mental and physical intimacy brings us. In culture, intimacy is both an inspiration and a tool – it brings a bodily lust for life that usurps all the political chaos to create beauty and hope; it toys with what really matters … what it even means to be human.

From the new hospital by Herzog & de Meuron that lets parents sleep with their children, to the transparent façades of Shigeru Ban, we look at how contemporary architects are softening their ideals for a more intimate effect.

We also dive into how the modernist aesthetic, with its emphasis on efficiency and functionality, crucially narrowed our embrace of masculinity. This was crystalised in an exhibition earlier this year by Formafantasma during Milan Design Week. The design-duo tapped into a worrying characteristic of the contemporary – the broadening gap between the public façade and the private reality, something manifested in their recent work through an acknowledgment of the gap between the rules of design and the domestic experience.

A twist on intimacy is revealed through a peek into the photography collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish, currently on show at the V&A in London. At this moment in time, the work can be enjoyed less as a celebration of sexual freedom and more as an affirmation of the gender conversation, and of giving space to marginalised voices.

Because when our most intimate public expressions are confined by physical and political forces — from female soccer players in burqas to disabled athletes competing for glory on the international sports-stage – the friction this engenders creates meaningful and exquisite results.

It also reminds all of us how essential it is to bravely put our most vulnerable side on the start line.