Arizona Muse Joins Julianne Moore In Celebrating Chopard's Move To 100% Ethical Gold

Arizona Muse Joins Julianne Moore In Celebrating Chopard's Move To 100% Ethical Gold

Chopard made a landmark announcement on March 22 that by July 22, the Swiss maison will only use ethical gold in all its jewelry and watch creations. Long-time friends of Chopard including Colin and Livia Firth, Julianne Moore and Arizona Muse joined Chopard's Caroline Scheufele and Karl Friedrich Scheufele in making the announcement. 

The commitment to sustainability is a long one. More than 30 years ago Chopard brought all its jewelry-making processes in-house in order to guarantee control of every aspect of their relationship with miners as well as promises made to Chopard clients. 

In 2013 the Maison made the decision to invest directly in artisanal gold, to increase its availability to the larger market. The company has a long-standing relationship with Olivia and Colin Firth, who champion sustainability through their Green Carpet Collections. Chopard defines “ethical gold” as gold acquired from responsible sources that have been verified to meet international best practices. From July 2018 Chopard gold will be responsibly sourced from either artisanal small-scale mines in the Swiss Better Gold Association (SBGA), Fairmined and Fairtrade schemes, or from the RJC Chain of Custody gold through Chopard’s partnership with RJC-certified refineries.

Holt Renfrew Supports Doutzen Kroes' Knot On My Planet Campaign, Lensed By Chris Colls

Holt Renfrew Supports Doutzen Kroes' Knot On My Planet Campaign, Lensed By Chris Colls

The beautiful, inspiring supermodel Doutzen Kroes teams up with Canada's Holt Renfrew to support Doutzen's 'Knot On My Planet' activism. Chris Colls is behind the lens, capturing the Holt Renfrew x Knot On My Planet‘s Spring 2018 campaign to support the Elephant Crisis Fund./ Makeup by Sil Bruinsma; hair by Panos Papandrianos

“If we educate people about the crisis, if we share more stories and make this bigger, I feel positive that African elephants will be here for our children to see in the wild. We have to stay hopeful for the future, always.” – Doutzen Kroes

Myanmar's Logging Elephants Rated By Their Mahouts Display Differing Personality Traits

Myanmar's Logging Elephants Rated By Their Mahouts Display Differing Personality Traits

Goddess Hathor's Fifth Dynasty Priestess Hetpet's Tomb Unveiled A Century After Discovery In Egypt

Goddess Hathor's Fifth Dynasty Priestess Hetpet's Tomb Unveiled A Century After Discovery In Egypt

Archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered a 4,400-year-old tomb close to Cairo, one that contains rare wall paintings and is thought to be the tomb of a priestess named Hetpet. Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the discovery located near the Giza pyramids. 

“The tomb is in very good condition,” Dr. Waziri said. “There are colored depictions of traditional scenes: animals grazing, fishing, bird-catching, offerings, sacrifice, soldiers and fruit-gathering.”

Hetpet is believed to have been close to Egyptian royals of the Fifth Dynasty, part of a prosperous period in Egyptian history known as the Old Kingdom during which the pyramids, temples and palaces were built under the rule of pharaohs. Hetpet served as a priestess for Hathor, a goddess depicted as a cow and associated with fertility, motherhood and love. By this time in women's history, female priests were not that common in ancient Egypt, but Hathor's priesthood was an exception. 

Hetpet's name was first seen on antiquities uncovered at the site in 1909 by a British explorer who sent them to Berlin and Frankfurt.  The tomb itself was not unearthed until more than a century later in 2017

In Madagascar, Six Lemurs Are Among The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates

In Madagascar, Six Lemurs Are Among The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates

I met up with an old digital friend today, Dr. Patricia Wright who was featured on the Turkana Basin Institute website, referenced for her work in Madagascar on saving lemurs. Specifically, Dr. Wright was named a Natural World Hero by Natural World Safaris, organizing informed, wildlife adventures worldwide.

Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island, located in the Indian Ocean about 1400 miles southeast from Nairobi, or a 3 1/2 hr. plane flight. Having developed largely in isolation, Madagascar is known as one of the world's richest ecosystems. After gaining independence from France in 1960, Madagascar has fallen victim to repeated political instability, several coups including one in 2009, disputed elections and widespread violence.

Once a great source of paddy rice, coffee, vanilla and cloves -- and tourism -- Madagascar is among the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on foreign aid. Young girls on the island are pressed into having sex with men young and old, and their lives are severely impacted by the Trump administration's abandonment of US AID support for birth control. 

As for the lemurs and Dr. Patricia Wright, who we last wrote about in 2014, their fortunes seem worse than ever. A new report released in November 2017 by the world's greatest experts on primates focused on the plight of 25 of the Earth's most endangered primate species.

Tanzania's Southern Selous Game Reserve Is An Unexplored Safari Adventure Waiting For Us

Tanzania's Southern Selous Game Reserve Is An Unexplored Safari Adventure Waiting For Us

The Serengeti's wildlife sanctuary is a vast expanse over 5,700 square miles and its otherworldly animal migration is one of the New Wonders of the World, writes Vogue.com. According to the Tanzania Tourist Board, nearly 1.3 million people visit the country annually, with about two-thirds of visitors heading for the Serengeti. The others stick close to the north—the Ngorongoro Crater, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and Lake Manyara—and also the island of Zanzibar.

This reality leaves the southern half of Tanzania perhaps the best-kept Safari secret with untouched terrain and the Selous Game Reserve, twice the size of the Serengeti. 

Comparing the two, Ruaha houses 10 percent of the planet’s lion population, as well as one of the largest elephant populations on our planet. Selous is home to the world’s largest population of wild dogs, is nicknamed Giraffe Park because of the density of these long-necks animals, and is home to some of Tanzania's last remaining black rhinos. Not only is nature's extraordinary wildlife abundant, but seeing it is an almost solo experience. 

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Queen Elizabeth II & Ghana President Nkrumah In A 1961 Diplomat Foxtrot Watched In Black & White

Queen Elizabeth II & Ghana President Nkrumah In A 1961 Diplomat Foxtrot Watched In Black & White

In consenting to a foxtrot -- yes, it happened for real -- with Nkrumah, Elizabeth II achieves more in a few minutes than British diplomats dealing with the young nation have managed to achieve in weeks. The dance scene itself is quite dazzling, as Elizabeth finds her Jackie-O side. Comparing the images from 'The Crown' above and the real-life photos below,  there is more physical space between the couple in the real-life dance -- if these images don't distort the truth. And we must always remember that 'The Crown' is a fictionalized account of history, viewed through the lens of the British Empire and Britain's crumbling monarchy.  

In reality, the Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965, in a project jointly financed by Ghana, the World Bank, the United States and the United Kingdom. Few sources -- even those who write that 'The Crown' is racist ( well SURE it is, given that colonialism was racist) -- debate that this foxtrot between Elizabeth II and President Kwame Nkrumah -- The Lion of Africa --was a diplomatic success on multiple fronts.

Eye: South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

South African artist Tony Gum is the recipient of the 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize. Gum's gallery Christopher Moller Gallery mounted a solo show for Gum, who is barely 22 years old. 

Gum's presentation 'Ode to She' is inspired by her own experiences and reflections as a Xhosa woman. Her work is rooted in the tradition of 'intonjane', an Xhosa rite of passage into womanhood practiced in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The ritual in which a girl is secluded at her homestead after her first period, is symbolic of her sexual maturity and ability to bear children.

AOC has previously written about the talented Tony Gum. See end of article. 

Eye: Stella McCartney Joins Forces With Ellen MacArthur Foundation In Global Fashion Impact On Environment Study

Eye: Stella McCartney Joins Forces With Ellen MacArthur Foundation In Global Fashion Impact On Environment Study

The fashion industry turns towards London for Monday night's The Fashion Awards 2017 in partnership with Swarovski. To build excitement, several honorees have been announced in advance.

Stella McCartney Environmental Fashion Warrior

Designer Stella McCartney will be honored with a Special Recognition Award for Innovation, reflecting her commitment to innovation and for utilizing her influence to promote environmental responsibility.  

Stella will use her platform to back the Ellen MacArthur foundation campaign to stop the global fashion industry consuming a quarter of the world's annual carbon budget by 2050.

In a report published this week, round-the-world sailor and environmental campaigner Dame Ellen MacArthur exposes the vast scale of waste, and how the throwaway nature of fashion has propelled the fashion industry into a new reality of creating greenhouse emission of 1.2 billion tons a year -- larger than the combined total of international flights and shipping combined.

Other important factoids in the report reveal that:

Faye Cuevas Brings Higher Intelligence To Africa's War On Elephant Poaching

Faye Cuevas Brings Higher Intelligence To Africa's War On Elephant Poaching

Calling herself "the accidental conservationist," (Faye) Cuevas can pinpoint the moment she realized that she wanted to fight poaching.

"The first time that I saw an elephant in the wild was in Amboseli National Park here in Kenya two years ago," she said in Feb. 2016. "It was life-changing."

"At the current rate of elephant decline, my 6-year-old daughter won't have an opportunity to see an elephant in the wild before she's old enough to vote," she said. "Which just is unacceptable to me, because if that is the case then we have nothing to blame that on but human apathy and greed."

"The Kenya Wildlife Service and other many conservation groups are doing fantastic conservation work," Cuevas said. "However, the reality is that there are other challenges — from a cyber perspective, from a global criminal network perspective — that really necessitate security approaches integrated into conservation strategies."

Enter tenBoma -- or '10 homesteads' -- which uses technology to pull together diverse sources of information, from rangers to conservation groups. She analyzes the data to "create value in information in ways that it rises to the level of intelligence."

Wild Elephant Matriarchs Slept Just Two Hours A Day Or Less In 35-Day Study

Wild Elephant Matriarchs Slept Just Two Hours A Day Or Less In 35-Day Study

Two elephant matriarchs have shocked scientists worldwide with their sleeping patterns. The two supermoms in Botswana's Chobe National Park qualify as insomniacs, sleeping about two hours a day and not in an interrupted slumber.

One would expect the elephants to be exhausted after traveling nearly 19 miles in 10 hours without rest. Not so for these high-stamina creatures who also stayed up for a record 46 straight hours, based on the small study conducted by the UCLA Center for Sleep Research and the nonprofit research group Elephants Without Borders. 

"The elephants were studied for continuous 35 day periods [from a distance]," Jerry Siegel, director of the Center for Sleep Research, told NBC News. "Elephants move with their herd and move very frequently, so animals sleeping a lot would be left behind."

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Doutzen Kroes & Imaan Hammam Are 'Born To Be Wild' For Porter Magazine #21

Doutzen Kroes & Imaan Hammam Are 'Born To Be Wild' For Porter Magazine #21

Top models Doutzen Kroes and Imaan Hammam come together in the third set-in-Africa editorial 'Born To Be Wild' for Porter Magazine's #21 Summer 2017 Summer Escape issue. Vincent van de Wijngaard captures the beauty of the African landscape, wildlife and the Maasai people, with styling by Julia von Boehm. / Hair by Tomohiro Ohashi; makeup by Lotten Holmqvist

Richard Leakey Plans Libeskind-Designed 'Cathedra' Honoring Human Evolution In Lake Turkana

Richard Leakey Plans Libeskind-Designed 'Cathedra' Honoring Human Evolution In Lake Turkana

Renowned Kenyan paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey has commissioned a new museum in the desert near Lake Turkana. Designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, 'the cathedra' will be constructed at 400 miles north of Kenya's capital in Nairobi,  near the border with Ethiopia. 

It's in this region that the Leakey family and their decades old teams have uncovered many of the best-preserved fossils of humanity's ancient ancestors, some dated to 4 million years ago.

Lake Turkana is home to all the inspirations behind Anne of Carversville's Jewelry & Gift Collection, including Ethiopia's Omo Valley people, who live at the northern tip of the lake. It's the world's largest permanent desert lake and by volume the world's fourth-largest salt lake. 

We have many connections to LakeTurkana and Africa's Rift Valley both psychically and in our commitment to elephant conservation and the use of woolly mammoth bones in our jewelry. It's believed that woolly mammoths migrated out of the Rift Valley towards cooler climates and reliable water sources. 

Richard Leakey, the 72-year-old Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) chairman took Polish-American designer Daniel Libeskind to Lake Turkana to explore the project, now that financing has been secured for the design phase of the project. "Can we do something here that will absolutely stand-alone and wow?" Leakey asked the master planner of New York's post-September 11 World Trade Center redevelopment.

His vision is for a museum that is a "very creative" experience and not a fancy house for fossils. A museum pedigree is reason for eliminating people, not recruiting them for the project. The Kenyan powerhouse wants people from Silicon Valley or creative advertising professionals. "Why don't we have a room you come in to wearing a 3D headset and sit quietly in the middle of a band of Homo erectus moving all around you? That's much more interesting than a skeleton of Turkana Boy behind glass."

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Marique Schimmel Fronts 'Safari Deluxe' | The Woolly Mammoths Are Coming

Marique Schimmel Fronts 'Safari Deluxe' Lensed By Laura Sciacove Nciacovelli for Marie Claire Italy's May 2017 'Safari Deluxe'.

Safari looks in May magazines are standard fare -- except for Maria Grazia Chiuri presenting her first cruise collection for Christian Dior on May 11 at the Upper Los Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve in Calabasas, Ca. Continuing her design inspiration inspired by strong women worldwide, Chiuri turned to stellar American artist Georgia O'Keeffe,  along with the writings of feminist shamanic author Vicki Noble. The LATimes writes: 

Although all of the pieces bearing the Lascaux-inspired imagery caught the eye, the most memorable were the full skirts, sleeveless dresses and blazers that rendered the drawings of oxen, deer and horses in a silk jacquard that had a dusty golden cast to it.

AOC covered the opening of France's new exhibition center Lascaux 4, a full-size replica of the ancient cave paintings in the Dordogne region of France. 

Nicolas St-Cyr, artistic decorator of Lascaux-4, officially known as the International Centre for Cave Paintings, is one of the few to have visited the real Lascaux. “It’s very special. You have the feeling you are in the presence of man 22,000 years ago when you see the paintings. These were talented artists, working by the light of animal oil lamps, and it’s like they were done yesterday. I was trembling when I came out.”

Virtually all of the Lascaux paintings are of animals, and 'no' there are no woolly mammoths portrayed in the caves. But the Rouffignac cave nearby, with paintings from the same time period, is best known for the large number of woolly mammoths on the walls. 

Prince Harry Continues Diana's Work On Landmine Free World 2025 Day April 4

Prince Harry Continues Diana's Work On Landmine Free World 2025 Day April 4

Prince Harry will speak at the Landmine Free World 2025 reception at Kensington Palace to mark International Mine Awareness Day on April 4. Harry is committed to continuing in his mother Princess Diana's footsteps in pursuit of a world free of landmines by 2025, writes Vogue UK.

Diana was photographed walking through a mine field in Angola to raise awareness of the risk of often lethal undiscovered landmines. 

Can A White Cube Museum & Conference Center In Lusanga Redress Economic Inequality In The Democratic Republic Of Congo?

A RENDERING OF THE WHITE CUBE IN LUSANGA (IMAGE: © OMA)

Can A White Cube Museum & Conference Center In Lusanga Redress Economic Inequality In The Democratic Republic Of Congo?

With the establishment of LIRCAEI, the iconic modernist White Cube will be recontextualized in the setting that has historically underwritten its development. In economic terms, plantations have funded not just the building of most European and American infrastructure and industries, but also that of museums and universities. On an ideological level, the violence and brutality unfolding on one side—the plantation zones—has informed and haunted the civility, taste and aesthetics championed at the other: the White Cubes. By colliding these two opposite poles of global value chains with each other, LIRCAEI aims to overcome both the monoculture of the plantation system—that exhausts people and the environment and the sterility of the White Cube—a free haven for critique, love, and singularity, that, more often than not, reaffirms class divides.

A RENDERING OF THE WHITE CUBE IN LUSANGA (IMAGE: © OMA)

Dana Schutz' Painting Of Emmett Till Creates Controversy At Whitney Biennial 2017

Dana Schutz' Painting Of Emmett Till Creates Controversy At Whitney Biennial 2017

Fredrik Lerneryd Captures Beauty & Ballet Magic Of Mike Wamaya's Kibera Dance School

Fredrik Lerneryd Captures Beauty & Ballet Magic Of Mike Wamaya's Kibera Dance School

"The sun rose in Kibera this morning, and it rose in my world, too, with my rapture over these Fredrik Lerneryd images of ballet dancers in the Kibera neighborhood of Nairobi. They are my best Christmas gift.

Anne of Carversville has a long psychological, emotional and now functional relationship with Kibera. Initially, my lovefest with the largest slum in Africa was triggered by JR's famous 'Women Are Heroes' project, with Kibera being one of the four slums featured in his everyday examination of the beauty and heroic female efforts worldwide. Over time I pieced together collection of intimate and deeply personal connections to Kibera through my muse Dan Eldon.  The functional dimension of AOC's connection to Kibera is GLAMTRIBALE's support of The Kibera School for Girls, with 5% of revenues. Another 5% is earmarked for elephant conservation.

The dancers photographed by Fredrik Lerneryd learn dance through a program run by UK-based charity Anno's Africa, which provides alternative arts education to over 800 children in Kenya. "

Tony Gum Creates 'Mercurial Aesthetic' Free of Racial, Cultural Or Sexual Oppression

Tony Gum Creates 'Mercurial Aesthetic' Free of Racial, Cultural Or Sexual Oppression

Women artists were more obvious in this year's Art Basel in Miami, and especially at PULSE Miami Beach.

At Christopher Moller Gallery, young Capetown artist Tony Gum, born Zipho Gum, was such a smash in New York March 2016 and then Art Basel Miami December 2016, that she was just named in ArtNet's 14 Emerging Women Artists to Watch in 2017.

Vogue called Tony Gum "the coolest girl in Cape Town", based on her tightly curated Instagram feed. Her Instagram becomes a gallery to communicate with corporate brands like Coca-Cola and Adidas about issues of race, women, pop culture and art through the lens of her own penetrating, clear-eyed, articulate and sophisticated vision.

On Site: Decoding Betye Saar's Uneasy Symbolism At Milan’s Fondazione Prada

Writing for Hyperallergic.com, Seph Rodney surveys the work of American artist Betye Saar at Milan's Fondazione Prada. AOC wrote about Saar in advance of the exhibition opening, but Rodney's impressions put the works in an environmental context and also filtered through the writer's own personal thought universe.

My favorite work in the show is a small teal room titled “The Alpha and the Omega” (2013–16), which contains a related suite of individual works, including a suspended structure threaded with neon tubes and representing a ship. Below, a small playpen holds a collection of inflated balls, two empty chairs face each other across a board set up for an unfamiliar game, and two fancy birdcages sit quietly with entire worlds contained within them. This room is a bit more enigmatic and quietly serene. According to the gallery guide, the installation looks to represent the entire journey of a human life. “The Alpha and  the Omega” also demonstrates that Saar can do more than manipulate racist icons; she can give you a glimpse of her internal life, tell you that she is ready for tomorrow to arrive.

Related: Racist Objects: Confronting Racist Objects The New York Times

A Painful Past Still Present The New York Times

For a more detailed discussion of the art of Betye Saar, read our exhibit opening overview: Assemblage Artist Betye Saar Shows 'Uneasy Dancer' At Fondazione Prada Opening Sept 15-2016