This is Antwerp (Part Three)

Sandwiches! Helloooooo!

More from the 'This is Antwerp' tourism Antwerp trip.

There was a choice of two workshops on this particular day. Make a leather bag and take a visit to the fashion museum, or silk screen print at Ctrl Copy. After my residency at Harvest Workroom (some more pics here), I was keen to see how screen printing factories worked in Antwerp, so boarded the taxi van with the guys to the outskirts of Antwerp.



We had a bit of time to kill upon arrival so Pants Off climbed on a car. We all took photos of Pants Off on the car. Then we headed to the river side in search of photos and abandoned buildings. 

This morning was one of my favourite memories from the trip. The grey. The cold. The slow time. The brilliant company. Walking slow. Looking down. Looking up. Enough time to see. Taking photos. Laughing. Climbing through corrugated metal walls. Skipping over puddles. Listening to different languages. So far removed from my regular life. No phone service. So comfortable.



"That's the grey I can't get in my paintings", said Luke's voice in my head as I took this shot.





Antwerp Fujifilm club for life.











The human Antwerp logo.

Art direction by James and Itay.

Sander's little foot sticking out.



Miss this guy!

"A little bit to the right. Um, no, back a bit now. Okay! That's it!"



For Luke.



Mint tea on arrival at Ctrl Copy.

At this stage I still hadn't been to a supermarket in Antwerp so this was about as close as I had been to experiencing the local food packaging design. So lovely!



Almost like a genkan with all those little shoes lined up.



食べたい！





I think we all had in mind that we would each make our own design and then print it, but it turned out that we would make a collaborative design and print it as a group. Can you imagine a bunch of maybe 7 creatives trying to decide on one design that we all liked?

Pants Off's re-enactment: "We don't want to put any words in your mouth, but it would be great if you could use the letters D.A.T.E. But again, we don't want to put any words in your mouth".

*Editor's side note - D.A.T.E = Discover Antwerp Through Experience

"How about we write Mayonnaise in fries"

Itay: "Everyone save some fries. I need a combination of long ones and short ones"

James: "Why don't we write D.A.T.E. in hands?"

Sandwich: "I was art directed out of my design!"

At one stage I was outside acting as a photographers assistant to James as he photographed leftover chips. I was holding an A4 piece of paper as a DIY reflector board! Whaaaaaaat?! I guess it's my punishment for not shooting RAW.




I loved peeking into Sander's bag. He was there next to me, supervising, of course. He was carrying around a tin of pencils and a sketch book. Brilliant! What a dude.



It was brilliant sitting in this room. Coffee. Belgian waffles. A mac per meter. Access to printers, scanners and wifi. Walls lined with nicely designed flyers and posters. Some of the best guys on the planet. Antwerp. Antwerp's outskirts. I could happily work away in a studio like this.

The founder of Ctrl Copy, Sven, expressed such enthusiasm for his screen printing. It was infectious. I really thank you Sven, for your kindness and time, and sharing your expertise with us. I took my little Ctrl Copy tote bag to my local Shimokitazawa supermarket the other day, too.



We each printed a grey sweater with hands spelling out 'D.A.T.E' and a bitmap of a hand from the celebrated 'Druon Antigoon' sculpture in front of the town hall. There were a lot of hands. It was very boy. But I love those guys to bits.



Dinner was at Het bos. I loved the atmosphere of this place.

"The red tokens are for drinks and the green one is for dinner upstairs".

They had beautifully designed flyers, too, which always helps. The below flyer was designed by JJ funhouse. (Picture courtesy of JJ funhouse's instagram)






Later that night we ended up at an advertising agency party at the MAS. It seemed to be an unwritten dress code rule that acceptable colours to wear were black and grey, with very minimal usage of neutrals. I, however, arrived in true trademark Hello Sandwich style, in a ditsy floral sweater. The even better part about wearing this particular sweater to this uber cool Antwerp fashion party was that the said sweater was $6 from Kmart at Broadway. Hah! I'm saving the pic of us all on the dance floor for the archives.

Miss these guys to bits.

Love Sandwich
xoxo