Nike supports IWISHUSUN! The sportswear brand used the occasion of this year’s Solemart – Germany’s biggest sneaker event where private buyers and sneaker fans are invited to buy selected pairs from numerous brands – to do good once again.

True to IWISHUSUN’s motto “It’s good for you and good for others”, Nike donated the entire profits of the sales to the charity label. The entire sum has been handed over to our partner ORBIS International: with this money the non-profit organisation will be able to finance 237 cataract operations in the Ispahani Islamia Eye Institute in Bangladesh which will be supported directly.

39 million people worldwide suffer from blindness. Thanks to support from Nike and all the buyers, there will be 237 less now!

Many thanks to Nike for their generous support!

Shafiek Khan

Surfer & founder of Palama Metsi surfing school – South Africa

When Cathy Boom went to South Africa a few months ago she met Shafiek Khan by chance but then ended up in a long conversation in which he shared the story of his life. This story is an impressive one, so impressive that we couldn’t resist but ask him to be our friend and teach even more people how to enjoy life and do good at the same time. Why? Because Shafiek Khan is one of these few lucky people: he is a passionate surfer, and in 2008 he founded the Palama Metsi surfing school to help underprivileged children in South Africa. Here he offers free surfing and ocean safety lessons but also puts the kids back into schools.

Today, in 2014, there are three schools up and running (in Muizenberg/Cape Town, Elandsbaai and Coffee Bay/Transkei). Hundreds of kids have already benefited from the schools, getting them off the streets, working for their future, academically as well as receiving outstanding results in national surfing contests. We are very glad to welcome Shafiek Khan as our friend!

What is the most important sense to you?
They are all incredibly important but if I had to chose one, then definitely my eyes. They are my greatest learning tool. There is just so much to learn through reflection.

What is your vision for your personal work?
My vision would be totally different from what the kids envision for themselves. So it’s totally in their hands. But if I had a choice it would be to give those who need it and want it a better education. Education is freedom and a great way to get rid of poverty.

In which way do free surfing and ocean safety lessons help the youth to improve their lives in general?
Wow, so many… they become responsible, it adds dignity to their lives, a sense of belonging. It humbles them, when not in control. It brings with it a sweet patience, the swell coming and wind blowing, realising that it’s not always what we want. Discipline, team building, ocean awareness i.e. knowledge of the tides the wind, currents, fish dangers etc. We live with what nature provides and have fun, no matter what.

Surfing means travelling, always in search of the best waves and sports. Which location was the best you ever discovered?
Ha, ha, ha, you got me! I don’t like choosing which lady rides the best. I think locally Kalk Bay, as that took me to hospital after I had such a deep barrel. Then Elands, what a gem. Abroad definitely G-Land in East Java, because it scared me so much, but with it came an immense amount of knowledge and a silent humbleness. Also Jeffreys Bay, Victoria Bay, Namibia…. But the best waves are the ones you can share with your friends and loved ones. Yeah, even if it’s just 2ft.

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
The birth of all my kids, my wife’s smile, my pilgrimage, but most of all it’s when you help the needy. It’s in their eyes… Yeah, that rocks and moves my heart.

What would you like to see more often?
Change… within us as humans.

Blind people and those who can see surely experience the world in different ways. How would you describe the world to someone who suffers from an irreversible loss of sight in one sentence? 
I wouldn’t do that, as it would only add a sickness of not belonging to their hearts. But if I had to: it feels like those who care for you and see only love.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?
Normally I don’t like saying what I do secretly for others unless I am asked. I gave honey to an 86-year-old man who cycles over 20km ever day, just for work so that he can take care of his sick wife. What a MAN! Today, getting wetsuits organised for my project so that the kids can stay longer in the water and some boards.

What is your tactic for making the world a better place (besides running your surfing school)?
Bringing back trade and getting rid of our monetary system based on interest on debts and credits. Yeah, good luck with that, mate…. Teaching those less fortunate than ourselves so that they can make a difference and give pure modesty back to our women, the born leaders of all generations. YOU GIRLS ROCK!

Who is your personal hero?
Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him.

For our German-speaking supporters: the blog eCODE, which focuses on eco and lovingly selected lifestyle products and fashion, featured IWISHUSUN. Above you find a selection of their favourite IWISHUSUN products and make sure you don’t miss to read their nice introduction to our concept. Thank you, Viola!

Men’s Health Germany featured our logo shirt in their current spring/summer issue. Thank you!

Get your own T-shirt here & thereby finance a pair of glasses for a school child in Bangladesh through the “National Childhood Blindness Project (NCBP)” with ORBIS International.

Jasmin Gerat

actress – Berlin

Jasmin Gerat started her career in 1994 when she won the “Girl and Boy” model contest and then moved on to TV, hosting programmes like Bravo TV as successor to Heike Makatsch and working for MTV Germany. Only a few years later she turned to acting, which has been her main focus and passion ever since. After switching between TV and cinema appearances as well as some selected theatre plays, 2014 has already been an exciting year since she landed one of the main roles in the thriller series “The Team”, an international cooperation led by the German public channel ZDF. We can’t wait to see the results!

In the meantime we are very happy to welcome Jasmin Gerat as our friend. She is one of those German actresses who tend to stick in your mind – not only because of her acting talent but also thanks to this unique feel-good energy that she exudes.

What is the most important sense to you? Why?
I am extremely grateful for the gift that I can use all my senses. But if I had to choose one it would be my sight.
I am a very visual person. I love to observe everything. And to connect to other souls through my eyes is one of the most powerful things to me.

As an actress and presenter you are at home in many places. What is your vision for your personal work?
To me it’s all about being truthful and authentic to myself and the people around me, as much as possible – no matter which profession I choose.

You were born and raised in Berlin and you are still loyal to the German capital. Which location in Berlin do you love to see everyday?
I love to go to the Grunewald as often as I can. And of course I am in love with the Tempelhofer Feld. The atmosphere created by the light there is stunning.

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
My daughter.

What would you like to see more often?
The sun and people smiling.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?
I just smiled at a stranger for no specific reason. She smiled back. I had butterflies in my belly. I guess we both made our day.

What is your tactic for making the world a better place?
Making conscious decisions every day and no matter how tough and challenging it can be sometimes: try to choose love!

Who is your personal hero?
Nature.

What is your picture for IWISHUSUN?

A bright neon pink shooting star with warm, golden glitter raining down on ALL of us.

Our logo shirt works for men and women – and also for children! Dear Ava Carstens and LOVED Magazine featured our shirt as part of their Kids Issue and we love the result.

Become a supporter too and finance a pair of glasses for a schoolchild in Bangladesh with every logo T-shirt sold online. Choose between our five coloured versions of the IWISHUSUN logo eternalized on the back of the T-shirts or our logo in white lettering on a circle on the front of the tee here.

photographer: Daniel Schröder
production: Ava Carstens
styling: Pascal Hildinger, Ava Carstens and the kids
grooming: Daniel Schröder
models: Milla Steinke, Lou da Costa Henriques
postproduction: Primate Postproduction

Introduced to you through our interview, from Saturday on our friend and Milan-based artist Marco “Pho” Grassi will show his latest works at Circle Culture Gallery Hamburg (read his interview with IWISHUSUN here). The solo show which is titled [Plù-ri-mo] will overview his most recent artistic research by displaying a selection of multiple materials (“Walls”), ceramics, works on paper  (“Monotypes”), as well as his new “Rayographies” – even though he variegates materials, concepts and techniques, at the second glance all seem to be connected with each other and keep a coherent aesthetic. No matter what media Grassi has chosen, the used material enters into a direct dialogue with its medium provided.

The “Walls” series which Grassi started in 2012 is composed of found objects and detritus from urban public spaces that he utilises as a subsurface for his strong and expressive abstract paintings. The artist also presents a new series of ceramics which were crafted in collaboration with the famous crocker Marco Tortarolo in 2013. As with ceramics, the “Monotypes” paper works – also part of the exhibition - emphasize the intrinsic need of the artist to commence a dialogue with different materials. Furthermore, Grassi introduces two selected “Rayographies” of his most recent project called “Le Grand Verre” that were produced in collaboration with the artist Matteo Bologna.

If you are in Hamburg, make sure you don’t miss the show! Check out a preview of his exhibited works here.

Jenne Grabowski

musician and designer – Berlin

“I like stories, and I am a storyteller in my particular way either when I am playing music or making design or art,” says Jenne Grabowski about himself. And be sure, you can’t slow him down: Jenne is a Berlin-based musician, a designer and the founder and art director of JB. Magazine, an indie magazine which celebrates the interplay of the arts, music and street culture. It’s all about movement, change and creative visions but never about giving yourself up to the fast pace of life today. His topics are well-chosen and include extensive interviews with a personal touch, loads of art, photos and selected works.

Whenever Jenne is not busy searching for interesting people and topics or working on a new design project, you can find him either on the skateboard or behind the mixing desk. He has been playing all around Germany, i.e. some of Berlin’s most well-know clubs like WMF, Panorama Bar, Bar 25, Café Moskau, Watergate or Cookies. Also, Jenne acted as the tour DJ of The Whitest Boy Alive on their “The Patience” tour through Germany. This circumstance gets us down to a beautiful liaison between three of our supporters: Jenne is friends with DENA and hand in glove with Marcin Oz and we are glad to have found supporters in all of them, true to the motto: “Support each other. Together we are strong!”

A very warm welcome!

What is more important to you, the sense of taste or sight? 
If I’d loose sight, I would still be able to taste all the yummy food. Or I could still see the sun shining while everything tastes neutral. Damn, both are important and I hope I can keep those senses forever.

You are a creative person. What is your vision for your personal work?
I want people to explore a little something that could be common or special, to find something of themselves. I like stories, and I am a storyteller in my particular way either when I am playing music or making design or art. Balancing humour and seriousness, relevance and vanity, extent and detail.

JB. Magazine covers the arts, music, and street culture. Is it your personal mouthpiece? Who do you want to reach and what is your intention?
Yes, you can call it my personal mouthpiece that is influenced by a bunch of people, animals, things and whatever involved, making it happen. JB. is about telling stories. The stories of others, my personal stories, those of my friends, of dreams and how we shape our reality. I want JB. to reach out to people that are awake and share a sense of awareness while I am not focussing too much on a particular culture. Of course, sharing certain kinds of interests makes me able to connect more easily with other people, and this is important to me. It fills this project with power. When I think of the magazine and the potential reader, I don’t know anything about the person flipping or reading or wandering through our editorial world. But if I reach out to people who are not necessarily using the same colors to paint that I would, but making them think about the colors or listen to a sound that hasn’t been audible in their lives before, then that would be one very important accomplishment.

To what extent does Berlin, your place of residence, exert influence on your work but also your personal way of life?
It surely does, but after such a long time living in Berlin, I cannot state the extent of it anymore. I have family in this town, so many friends, skate-spots, art, music or work, the countryside around where I am meeting foxes and squirrels and trying to hang with beavers… Everyone has a large share at it. Kreuzberg is my home, it’s the basis of my current chapter in life but I am always eager to wander out to explore new places and spaces, close and far away.

„We slow down when everything is going fast“ – this sentence is part of your mission statement and seems to reflect your main intention. What is your personal advice for coming down?
We love what we do and we are progressing and moving in the forward direction. But we are not submitting ourselves to the fast-moving nature of our world and to the compulsion of cultural change. Though the only constant is change, we are taking it really easy. Both feet on the ground as we can’t fly. Well, sometimes we can… If something is not happening now, we can wait with ease for another good moment because the next moment will always be the best.

Print was declared dead when online magazines got stronger and stronger. But you still believe in the power of print. What makes it so unique to you?
“Punk was dead when the first punk said: Punk is dead!” This is nothing nostalgic, it is a serious thing. Somehow we are fulfilling a desire that had been there for so long. It is also the wish to have something real in a digitized world. We are digitizing our brains day in day out. It is something for the tactile perception. Watching, reading, cutting, folding, tearing out a piece of art and altering it into new art, or hanging it on the wall, sharing issues or articles, burning the paper. It’s like having sex instead of thinking of it. Sometimes the thought is enough, but reality can be pretty sweet.

What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
I love and hate superlatives. And it’s hard to pin down a single moment or thing to claim it the most beautiful. But I would say it was the birth of my son Henri, because this magic was not happening on this planet.

What would you like to see more often?
People with courage and presence. James Turrell skyspaces. The real mountains. Or a James Turrell skyspace in the mountains, like the one in Switzerland I found last summer. The sea. The skateboard under my feet. My friends that I love but live to far away, even just to see them for a high five…

What do you prefer: sunrise or sunset?
I love both. Including the twilight. Sunset is about ending, which can be really dramatic. But the aesthetic, the transition is such a beautiful thing. The sunrise is always the beginning of something new. The unfolding, the flourishing, watching it all grow and not knowing where it will take us.

When was the last time you gave back and what did you do?
Giving should be natural in order to receive. But always without expecting anything in return.

What is your tactic for making the world a better place?
Staying in the now and keeping in my mind that life is actually about nothing. No faster, stronger, better, whatever. It all just happens in its own pace. Just give up! That is the formula.

Who is your personal hero?
No glorifying, but it could be a long list. If I think of someone next door, it would be my son who just drew me a complex weather chart, my good friend who just borrowed me a piano or the other who connected me to one of my most favorite street photographer from New York!

What is your picture/sound for IWISHUSUN?
Picture: the fall leaves and the golden sun in the woods the other day.
Sound: the sound of my skateboard I am riding on down the street by the sea while I am humming.

Did we forget to mention that Jenne takes beautiful pictures, too?! Check out his photos here.

A few weeks ago we presented our first creative partner project and our first short film, the result of a cooperation between Berlin-based composer and music producer Robot Koch and the photographer Sabrina Theissen. For “In a Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen for IWISHUSUN” our ambassadors got together to take a look at the topic of sight, which IWISHUSUN has dedicated its work to. These photos shown below and above document Robot Koch’s working process.

The process and the thoughts of the two IWISHUSUN ambassadors are documented in intense imagery in Editude Pictures’ short film, “In a Creative Dialogue – Robot Koch x Sabrina Theissen for IWISHUSUN”: