YOKE Magazine

This magazine is packed with inspiration and wisdom. It's the perfect antidote to purifying our mediocrity. YOKE is full of wise words and cultural curiosity, because at its core, the ethos is to create a much-needed cultural shift, through the wellspring of creativity, unity and wisdom – which is everywhere! Each issue seriously aims to live joyfully, with an explosive mix, (of many delicious things), that invites you to delve deep. With the stories of difference, with tales of creative pursuits, and the ancient wisdoms, we go forth to celebrate beautiful ideas and real people.

YOKE MAGAZINE

From the Editor

A MOTHER'S LOVE • ‘Mother’ sees Israeli-American photographer Elinor Carucci attempting to express the enduring bond that she shares with her twin children, from her pregnancy to their growing independence at eight years old. Set against a quintessentially New York backdrop, she captures the strange intimacy of every hug, tear, prod and pull with haunting honesty.

SEEING BEAUTY WITHIN THE GROTESQUE

A LIFE LESS ORDINARY • We tend to think of community as something outside of ourselves, but according to this Buddhist nun we need to look within if we want to improve our relationships, our society and the word at large.

LIFE'S A DRAG • The larger-than-life inspiration behind Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Cindy Pastel was born Ritchie Finger in suburban Melbourne. Cindy looks back at the people and events that helped shape her extraordinary life and the sense of community that helped Sydney through the worst of the AIDS epidemic

MOTHER • An unflinching, touching portrait of a family's journey from pregnancy through early childhood.

HEAR THE CALL • They have built a globa spiritual community ouro their personal passion and calling; now they're using that community to help the people of Nepal rebuild.

MAKING THE SOUTH SIDE SING • Can a potter transform an urban landscape that's been scarred by generational unemployment and gang violence? If his name is Theaster Gates, the answer is “yes”. Gates is a Chicago ceramicist who became an urban planner and now makes large-scale public artworks. That's really large-scale public artworks. Inner-urban neighbourhoods are his canvas and he turns abandoned buildings into community hubs in which artists, locals, philanthropists, politicians and the art cognoscenti gather. In Chicago, his Dorchester Projects have been the catalyst for extraordinary urban renewal and this place, in his words, “where people never wanted to be”, has become an important destination for artists, planners and thinkers from all over the country and the world.

THE MEDICINE WOMAN AND THE SONGMAN • They might seem like an odd match up, the American founder of Forrest Yoga and the Italian, Argentine-born manager of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance group Descendance, but they are committed to uniting their individual philosophies to bring about a widespread healing.

BE.POIETIC.PUNKS. • What would your world look like if your rebel heart ran free?

THESE WALLS CAN TALK

CONNECTION AND CONSENSUS • How TED built one of the world's biggest brands using people power

UNITY • The two shall become two

THE STORIES THAT BIND US • ‘Mankind Is No Island’, was the first film shot on a smartphone to take out an award at amajor international film festival. Here, the filmmaker talks about the freeing power of technology and its potential to build and represent community.

COLOUR IN THE FAVELA • Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn don't work with tasteful neutrals. The pair are better known as the art collective Haas & Hahn and together they paint eye-poppingly bright murals in utterly unexpected locations: a multicoloured artwork that stretches over four blocks in North Philadelphia, a rainbow...