Exactly one year after we met, in Biarritz, I got reunited with Emily again. FINALLY!
​ This time Saint-Barth was the lieu of luck.

La vie en rose.
​La vie est belle.
Je t’aime Emily.

Video of this adventure coming real soon!

Dresses by My Beachy Side
​Photography by Emily Labouérie  

Sun baked court, 
sparkling in the sun.
Shades of green and velvet red.
First game, first serve. 
In my hand, in the air.

Point after point,
Game after game,
Battle after battle,
Is won or lost…
Game set match...

When will it be love and love again?

She was the only one out there, for miles and miles…
She looked at the horizon, without seeing one building standing tall.
Her fingers picked up little pieces of the earth, she broke them with her bare hands and started rubbing them on her skin.
Right where the shadows fell, she nestled herself down.
You could smell the crushed grass, when she rolled over.
The high haulms twisted around her legs,
She closed her eyes and let the sweet breeze guide her.
She rolled over again.
Tiny little rays of sun were caressing her face, she started dreaming away, she started to play.
She belonged to the wind now,
the wind and the water and the earth.
Nature within herself and herself within nature.
A play that will never end.


Photography by Paul Bellaart

“The Matrix is a system. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

“I’d like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet; you are a plague and we are the cure.”

“What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know.”

“What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.”

“A battery.”

​Photography by David Karlak

When I released #PlasticSushi last year, I received hundreds of messages from environmental enthusiasts supporting and applauding the project (thank you again for that<3) One of those messages was from Thomas Kascha from Natural Tableware. Natural Tableware is a bio-based label that produces disposable products made from organic and renewable sources.
After some e-mailing back and forward and a quick phone call, we decided to meet up in Antwerp for a brainstorm session to see what we could realize together.
Lots of possibilities came out but there was one event that seemed really interesting to me - A live performance on a food festival a few days from that moment on. I had never done anything like this before but I was 100% in the mood for it.

After checking in with the organization it seemed like we had a go,
with this set-up as the main plan:
Nick Bril, chef from 2 Michilin-star restaurant the Jane would decorate my body with a various flavors that would result in a piece of art. To make sure everyone would get the message behind the whole performance I put together a little video. Words of Terence McKenna flowing over shocking imaginary followed by impassioned, earthy drums.

Showday: It was Saturday evening.  I turned up a little early at the venue to have some time to get into the right mood, do some stretches and have a little chat with Nick.
Ready to go.
I laid myself down in the center of the dresser, the black curtain dropped, music started playing, cameras were flashing,
I peeked with my left eye to get a glimpse of the overall reaction. It was a bigger crowd then I expected.
Nick started plating on the lower part of my upper leg while Emily was adorning my chest, working their way up towards each other.  Their hands were moving fast.  I could only feel different textures and temperatures.
15 minutes passed by and Nick dusted the last compartments of the dish.

Now the second part and for me probably the most confronting part would start.  Everyone who wanted to have a spoonful, had to make a donation that would go out to Mission Blue. There was enough for about 50 people but before I even realized there were only some traces of avocado-creme left. 

It was an unusual but incredible experience.

Thank you to everyone who was involved in this little experiment. 
And also thank you to the ones who came close enough to have a bite, to be so incredibly respectful, sweet and generous.

​
​Pictures by Matthias Ramioul

Natural Tableware x Marisa Papen x The Jane -- Credits
Voice-over: Terence McKenna
Video Credits: Natural Tableware / Tirones
Model: Marisa Papen
Chef: Nick Bril (The Jane) Supported by: Antwerpen Proeft / AEG / Koppert Cress

I’ve been running around wild and free in at least 50 countries during the last 2 years. Rarely I found myself in a gnarly situation until this April, in Egypt…

If you don’t wanna read the whole story, I can already tell you how this adventure unfolds.  We ended up spending one of our 8 Egyptian nights behind the bars. If you do wanna read the whole story, this is how we got there:

As Jesse was coming from Australia and I was flying out of Belgium, we decided to meet up in Caïro just before our big trip to Ethiopia. Counting down the days, I started noticing Jesse’s fondly fascination for Ancient Egypt. He kept sending me hieroglyphs, images of the Giza plateau, drawings of goddesses and pharaohs, documentaries… And then even a live-video of a needle penetrating his skin, that became multiple Egyptian-inspired tattoos on his arms and upper leg.  He told me he wanted to create a photographic story, showing what Egypt would have looked like before the Nile at the plateau ran dry.
Knowing it wouldn’t be too easy, considering their religion, culture and current political situation…  
I got psyched to involve myself in this anyways, bought myself some eye-liner and off I was!

Habibi
From the moment I got off the plane, I found it hard to breath. The air was remarkably dry, my nose and lips felt dolorous. It would take us one hour to get to the hotel, I was staring out of the dusted window listening to prayings on the radio. The streets were crowded with 90% of men at least, most of them looking slightly (as in a understatement) miserable for some reason. The energy I perceived wasn’t too positive either.  We arrived.  As I should’ve known Jesse made sure to sleep as close to the pyramids as possible. Our terrace was overlooking the entire plateau and if I’d sit a little bit up in my bed I could even peek at the highest top of the central pyramid. 

We decided to do some prospecting after having laid down for 5 minutes, so I put on my long dress and matching headscarf to bled in, kind of… I thought I did a pretty good job but the Caïro-men could still easily tell I wasn’t an Arabic woman though. They were yelling ‘Habibi’ and ‘Good Galabeya’ while throwing beady eyes at me. Attempt on not-drawing any attention, failed. After we wrestled our way through the crowd we finally found ourself in front of the Sphinx. Selfie-sticks disturbing the view nonetheless I felt overwhelmed by this majestic structure. 
Instead of the Nile, a sea of people was filling up the desert now.
Apparently it was a big Holiday weekend in Egypt. GREAT!
Wandering around, little drops of sweat were dripping down underneath my wide robe while searching for a quiet spot.  And then we found one, a crumbled ruin on the right side of the outermost pyramid. Only one young boy standing in front of something that looked like an entrance. We asked if we could walk passed him to explore, he shook his head and his finger in a horizontal direction at the same time. We asked again while pulling out some dollars (unfortunately that’s how we had to do it) He grasped the bills out of Jesse’s hand real quick and stepped aside.  We were in. We couldn’t stop the urge to snap a first few shots. Dress off, scarf off... Without talking, I started to move and Jesse followed me, smoothly. Somehow a feeling of ease took over. I was tiptoeing on the rocks, my fingers were sliding down the grieved walls softly with the 3 polyhedrons filling my sight.  My present mind was in a state off unconsciousness, my soul was traveling back in time. I’m not sure how many minutes passed by but suddenly 2 men popped up around the corner. 
WIDE AWAKE! Like a cold shower at 5am. 

Jesse threw my dress right into my arms.  The turbaned men came closer, inappropriately close. I backed up a little bit while I was struggling with my dress. From their physical and verbal gestures we could tell they were not happy with this situation. We tried to explain that we were making art, with the biggest respect for the Egyptian culture.
They couldn’t see the link between nudity and art, in any way. In their opinion we were making porn or something like that.
The conversation shifted from one political situation to the other and back to the fact that they busted us. Then the young boy told them we had some cash, the other one was a ‘well-trained’ civilian, he said he had to call the cops.
Until he saw a 20dollar bill. 
We got out. 
Inshallah Allah!

Celebration: falafels and a good night of sleep for another attempt tomorrow!

Sunrise, new day, new plan. After devouring those 10 falafel sandwiches the night before, on the way back to our hotel we met Mohamed.  Mohamed had a horse and 2 camels, to take tourists on a cruise at the plateau. He seemed honest, sincere, was very well-spoken and he just looked cool. We took the leap of faith and explained him what we were here for. He laughed tremendously hard and said we were crazy people but then with a serious, assured voice he whispered ‘Yes, I can help you guys’… We went back and forward to the pyramids every single day, twice a day, Dawn and Dusk, with Mohamed close by our side. He freaked out several, actually, multiple times but without anything super crazy happening we were able to get out of Egypt and start off our Ethiopian roadtrip. 

Not so Habibi anymore
10 extremely intense days on Central African ground passed by and totally exhausted we hit the Egyptian border again. 
You have to imagine, we were surrounded by free untouched souls, semi-undamaged nature, chemical-free everything,
the heartbeat of the earth leading us.
Then only a 5-hour flight later we found ourselves right in the middle of this religious fuck-up again.

Even though, both our bodies and minds weren’t entirely ready for another rumble in the jungle, we felt determined to finish what we started, with this time the temples of Luxor as our dance floor. Because falafel brought us a fair amount of good luck last time we fueled up on them again to get ready for the storm.
Just as in Caïro, the temples were overflowing with bunches of tourists gathered around local tour guides. And while we thought Giza was over-secured, here at Karnak they even took it up a notch, five guards for each pillar. It was silly.
We figured it would probably be a good idea to hide somewhere till a couple of minutes before closing time, then we’d put on our dancing shoes - or actually take them off and then we’d just tell them we got lost. Solid plan.
So once again, I stripped down. 
Dust swooping up underneath my soles while making pirouettes in Cleopatra’s footprints. The thought that probably no-one ever danced in their Birthday-suit between this time and hers made me only spin faster. 
But you can guess what happened next… Busted, once again. And yes, this time we were in some serious trouble.
Like 2 beaten dogs we got guided out by 4 security guards including the principal of the temple where police would be waiting for us with open arms. It was quiet a walk back since we were shooting at the end of the Karnak territory which actually saved our asses. Without being able to share words, I made Jesse clear that he had to delete the images if he saw the tiniest opportunity. Otherwise we would be screwed, big time.
And he did, he formatted the card and gone they were. All of them, gone. Poof, no proof!
I raised my head back up and started marching faster, I couldn’t wait to see the faces of these cops when they’d discover the completely empty memory card. It made me shatter out loud… Looking over at Jesse’s relieved face made me shatter even more. The never-ending walk came to an end and there they were - all lined up, standing fierce and tall. Jesse handed them the camera. They couldn’t figure out how to switch it on so he gave them a little hand. Black screen saying ‘no images’.
Confused and not really content, they looked back up at us - ‘Where are the photos?!’ they asked. We told them we were just testing the light and that we didn’t take any pictures yet. Obviously they wouldn’t believe us. Assuming we were hiding a second card somewhere, it was Jesse’s turn to strip down now.
Since there wasn’t a second card and they couldn’t find anything, not even in between his cheeks, the situation only got messier. We got sent from one police station to the other, to court back to jail, back to court and we just kept telling each of these institutions the same ‘facts’ of our story over and over again (copy machines are still non-existent in Egypt, so every single time it got handwritten down). I knew jail here, in Egypt looked slightly different then in Belgium or any Westernized country but I had no idea what to expect before actually going in. The first cel we encountered was packed with at least 20 men, some were passed out on the floor, some were squeezing there hands through the rails, some were bleeding and yelling. I had never seen something like this before in real life.  Jesse kept telling me, ‘Marisa don’t look’ but there was no way not to look.
At one point this wrecked guy walks in, he got shot or hit in the head or something like that, it looked bad.  Jesse and I both kept going from a state of disbelieve to laughter, to pointing fingers at each other to non-speaking terms and back to anger, we just wanted to get out of this fucked up situation. Asap.
After being stuck there for several hours we finally got some more news, we had to go to court one last time to see what the final consequences would be. As soon as we entered ‘court-room’, our lawyer was waiting for us. I told him to move out of the way because probably the only thing he wanted was money and I wanted to speak for myself. We kept playing the role of stupid tourists that had no idea dancing in skin-colored underwear (we had to change up the story a little bit because otherwise we probably would have never gotten out) on Egyptian ground wasn’t allowed. Our judge was browsing with his big thumbs through these books that looked as old as the pyramids did. Eventually, he gave us a warning and told us never to do something so foolishly shameful ever again. We nodded simultaneously.

As soon as we got back to the hotel, extremely exhausted but still full of adrenaline, Jesse downloaded this software to retrieve all of the deleted files. He succeeded, because here they are, for you to enjoy our bumpy quest in search of Ancient Egypt.
We didn’t t find it back, at all… but I do think we created something Cleopatra would have been proud of.


Photography by Jesse Walker & MP
Sunglasses by ENKI EYEWEAR

This is what was brought to our senses just after being caught in Caïro and just before our lock-up in Luxor.
Speaking of contradictions…

SURMA…
Before laying eyes on this story… 
A short little intro about the true meaning of a tribe:
Tribal people are very distinct and self-sufficient, living of and with their land.
They are not integrated into the ‘modern’ World.
Most tribes have never even been exposed to the ‘modern’ World.
They don't know about the existence of anything that is out of their reach. This tribe for instance had no idea the fact there is an Ocean out there…  Seeing is believing.
They have their own unique cultural, social and political entity which has been passed through for many generations.
They have their own customs and believes, their own beauty-standards, their own religion (read living life in harmony with nature and the spirit world). You may say, they are totally different then we are.
But to me they are, what we once were…
In touch with nature, 
a part of nature,
immensely grateful and respectful towards it…

That being said…
Knowing this and knowing me, you can imagine how stoked I was to go on this trip.
Never had I been so close to witness a lifestyle I had always dreamt of. Here’s what I saw and felt and smelled and thought...

…AND ME
As soon as we arrived in the Omo Valley more and more tribal people started to appear in the lush landscape.
Men with big guns herding 50 cows and 30 sheep, women carrying water and branches on their heads and kids who were just being kids. Running, screaming, playing, waving.
While being tumbled around from left to right (due to a road, you can't really call a road), our guide started prepping us a little bit on what we were about to experience.
I wanted to pay attention but I just couldn't... My eyes were locked on the wild beauty outside.
Then, finally, we pulled up the ‘driveway’ of the mountain we'd call home for a week. Straight away our car got surrounded by a dozen of curious souls - we stepped out.
Laughs and screams and a few reaching hands were coming our way. It was overwhelming.  Apparently/usually when tourists visit (which happens maybe twice a year, or not even); they get into the ‘village’, snap a few pictures, have a little walk through the area and get onto their next adventure.  As much as this would be a different encounter for us, it would be for them.
We were planning on hanging around for the next 6 days.

While zigzagging through the cornfields and the haphazardly-placed thatched little huts, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact how bizar it must be for them… Imagine… Random people rocking up in your backyard, sticking cameras in your face when you're  just strolling through your daily habits, living the only life you know.  Day in, day out. Because I didn’t want them to perceive me as a tourist I didn’t pull out my camera that first day. It was quite difficult to detain though, every single maneuver they made was a reflection of beauty beyond belief.
Soft and gentle - at the same time - primal and tough.

As intrigued I was by their appearance, they were by me. And I probably forgot to mention, you might already have noticed, but a month before this trip I decided to shave my head. I figured I’d look less of a stranger, having the same haircut as they do. It worked. Until they touched it.  The different texture of my millimetered hair compared to theirs got them entertained for a full hour, maybe even longer. At that exact moment their pure energy became truly palpable to me. I literally felt vibrations when some of them were rubbing my head. It was pure magic.

What we claim to call beautiful in our Western World isn’t quite the same how the Surma tribe pursues beauty. Both Surma-men and woman pierce their ears, some woman stretch their lower lip for a plate. They scar their bodies by making little cuts repetitively - isn’t it funny we invented all these cremes, lasers and all other treatments to get rid of ours :)… They also have a long history of painting themselves, using pulverized minerals they create drawings and patterns. Not only is it an expression of emotion and art, there’s also a more practical reason behind it.  Different colors are used for ritual, to prevent illness, to attract the opposite sex or to relate to family members or certain animals. 

Every single day I felt a stronger admiration when observing them. One time I was resting in the shade of a sculptural tree and I was watching 2 men and a woman from a distance, they were just sitting in the grass, playing with some leaves and collecting some stones. I was trying to go back in my memory and imagine that same exact situation happening in our civilized world.
I couldn’t.
On all my travels, I had never seen something like this, just 3 adults, being peacefully nestled down, without any entertainment… No music, no electric devices, no wine, no magazines, nothing, just sharing a word now and then.
Think about it, we all work in order to make money to play...
But then in the evening or in the weekends, we’re too tired to play… We sit down and watch television. You’d think we’d have crazy parties after work or orgies or whatever with all that money we make, but no, we don’t. We pay off loans and buy another car and buy this and buy that. Well… I could go on about this for a long time.
But let’s get back to the day they took me down to the river. Which was the third day of our stay.
Visualizing it again, I still get the shivers.
Because we couldn't really communicate, there was only one thing I could do... go with their flow, my body was their canvas now. With impeccable precision and devotion they were circling around me, using stems and grass or just their fingertips to give my skin a second dimension. And just a few meters further there was Jesse, capturing the whole spectacle. Creating another circle, like a solar system.

Being almost half a year later now, I still have no words to explain what I felt while being with them.
But what is most memorable to me is that, although we come from completely different places...
We connected, they recognized me, they accepted me for who I was without prejudice and they gave me love.

Thank you Surma, for showing me the essence of life.
You truly are forever in my heart.

Photography by Jesse Walker from ENKI EYEWEAR and Me

I hold my head up just enough to see the sky,
And when we go we won't go slow, we'll put up such a fight,
When they fade into the dust and into ash.
But all the children know for sure this pain will surely pass,
Strong and wise and you are love,
And when the tide it comes you will float above,
And you will be one day exactly what you are.
Just keep your head held high, kiss your fist and touch the sky
[Chorus]
Too late to keep the world from dying,
It's not too late to spread the love you have, 
One day when we are ready for crying,
One day I know that we'll be there, little girl.
Too late.
[Verse 2]
The sound we hear it is our hearts they are in time
They're marching clear and swift, the beat forever in our minds It gives us hope, it gives us strength, you know, to carry on
Keep fighting till the end and past the end you will be strong.
[Chorus 2]
Too late to keep the world from dying,
It's not too late to spread the love you share,
One day, we'll all be there, yeah...

Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra – Kiss The Sky

Photography by Jen Senn

Civil;  cultured and polite, as in someone who is civilized. 
Civilization; the stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced.

Well... I believe we as civilized people have somehow a false sense of what is advanced.
Reading or watching the news these days doesn’t really show too much of a cultured and polite behavior. And I honestly think it’s because we’re all going and acting in a way that goes against our natural environment.
We’ve pushed it so far that right now, we even find ourselves destroying our own environment.
Our air, our water... While there’s no way to exist without them…

We can all blame it on the industries, blame it on businesses, blame it on our government, in fact they ARE the foundation of all of this. But… it’s also time to start blaming ourselves.
And of course, we all have different pasts and paths in life. Not everyone has had the chance to carefully outline their own steps, but the fact is… If you don’t come up with your own plan, you become part of someone else’s plan.
That’s when we get turned into slaves, into servants of the system.
Suddenly we all follow, blindly. 
Big herds of people executing their jobs every single day.
Oh sorry, I forgot about the Weekend, 2 full free days, what a privilege.
But then it’s Monday again and there we go again - from 7am till 7pm.
Twisting and turning ourselves to get everything done what is expected from us.
To try and climb the ladder of success. 
​Earn more, get a higher degree, get a better job, a bigger house…

I guess it’s time to open our eyes and realize, this ladder to success isn’t the ladder to happiness...

Photography by Gregory Derkenne 

Photographer by Noah Kalina [website] [instagram]
Production by Sheri Chiu [website] [instagram]
Photo-Assistant - Nick Mehedin
Read on The Forest Magazine 

Gleaming morning dew,
Drops drip down.
They form a wave, 
About to explode into the sky.
Drip, drip, drip.

But then there’s the silent sun,
And then they were gone.
Dry little drops.

Photography by Antoine Verglas 

 Once upon a time, 
in the town of Picasso and Dali, there was a girl.
Every morning at sunrise she wandered around the streets,
Smelled the flowers and danced her way up along the old white plastered walls to top of the village.
And then when she had reached the top, she ran back down. Straight to the sea.
She dove in and swam to her favorite bay where she could be alone with the fish.
Once she touched the opposite shore, she laid herself down on the warm rocks.
To dream a little and absorb the sun.
When she would squeeze her eyes she could see the town waking up on the other side.
She could see it, but not hear it.
She lived for those mornings.
To just float in the salt water and be alone with the fish, in silence.
Until she swam back...

Photography by Mike Steegmans

#PLASTICSUSHI GOES #PLANETPLASTIC
Not only life underneath the Big Blue surface has considerable marks of human fingerprints, (obviously) our whole planet has.
The Earth has been through several major catastrophes and mass extinctions before, but this is the first one in human history - and yes, all thanks to… Ourselves.

When I was a little kid I remember being glued to the screen when watching wildlife documentaries on National Geographic. I’d even have dreams at night about wildlife and wild places.  I remember one dream very fondly. I was running barefoot in the middle of a huge stretch of zebras while the big orange ball of fire was setting behind majestic curly trees. It was marvelous - the realest thing I had ever seen, even though if it was nothing more than a dream. When I woke up, I knew that one day, I’d be running there for real, on African soil, through a sun-covered Savannah, gallopping with those zebras. 

And then this October, 20 years after that dream I found myself In Central Africa, Congo, the land of Gold and Blood. On a mission to realize my vision.
Although a few days before my actual arrival, Olivier, our host told us, there would only be a very small chance to spot some animals in the real wilderness. There was a game reserve (not a zoo, the animals are actually wild and have a lot of space) pretty close to where we were staying he said, but I still wanted the real deal. He thought I was aware of the statistics. And I was... but I had no idea the situation was this bad.

Unfortunately he was indeed more than right... 10 days of driving through incredible nature... 
Encounter with animals:  One baboon. 

For hundreds and thousands of years these African Savannahs were overflowing with wildlife. However, thanks to man’s destructive ways, these animals have been completely disappearing.  To give you an idea, here's some numbers from Kudelungu and Upemba:
32000 elephants to 180,
1000 zebras to 78,
The last lion was seen in 1973,
The last buffalo in 1991,
The last rhino in 1954,
Cheetah and wild dogs have also disappeared, there’s simply not enough prey left for them to eat.
Almost this entire decline is down to human activity. Habitat loss, deforestation, climate change and the biggest felony here in Congo; poaching.

It's safe to say that Africa’s wildlife is in jeopardy, the situation is immersily critical! 

Fortunately it's not entirely too late yet... there's still hope thanks to organizations such as Forgotten Parks. These people are risking their lives day in day out to protect the remaining animals and introduce new wildlife again. The rangers localize poacher camps, they rescue hurt/dying animals, they look for traps that have been put out by the poachers, and they train the rangers very hard to fight them if necessary.  Forgotten Parks also created an incredible educational system where they teach local children about animal rights, the importance of what the rangers do and so on and so on...  I could keep on preaching about this organization for a much longer time but just check out their actions yourself: 
www.forgottenparks.org 

If you don't buy this Calendar please consider making a donation through their website anyways.
Because we all, politicians, businesses, you and me, have an interest and a responsibility to act right now and to protect what we all value: a healthy future for nature, animals and so, ourselves...

I hope this project will open some eyes and it will be the start of a change that has to happen.

The profit of #PLANETPLASTIC goes out to Forgotten Parks. 

And last but definitely not least, a special thanks to legendary photographer Uwe Ommer, Marie-Aude & Olivier Delafoy from Hamaji Magazine and Robert Muir from Forgotten Parks Foundation.
​
Love,
​
Marisa

Trop chaud...

Photography by Marc Hervouet

Hot Trash's "One More Chance (feat. MELI)" shares the familiar experience of wondering if you did the right thing ending your relationship. Most of us have romanticized how blissful it would all be with just one more chance. 

The video represents the feeling you have when you see an old photo of an ex in your phone, reminiscing about the best of times, and temporary amnesia about the truth, making up a romantic story of how it could be again. Starring world renowned Artist and Nudist Marisa Papen, she shares her thoughts on art, freedom and truth with us; "Being true to who we are is the most important thing to me.  We face daily news of abuse of power, sexually and otherwise. Many too fearful to come forward before are finally sharing their voice and truly being heard, knowing they matter, it's so freeing. We also see countless Instagram models looking for likes by exploiting themselves physically while often being judged negatively or blamed for unwanted advances for showing off their bodies. Freedom to be in our truth is a birth right, showing our bodies isn't an invitation for unwanted sexual advances, nor is being naked not an art form, so the controversy around people's rights to be nude feels like a law against our nature. Nudity seems to be extremely confusing for many, no one should be ashamed, abused or forced to hide themselves. I see our bodies as entirely unique, beautiful and ours to do with as we please, as long as we do not harm another. I hope that by sharing my body and art I free peoples beliefs of stigmas, empower them, and open their minds. Much like feeling confined in a relationship that isn't working, many are confined by societies decided on judgements. Now that people are feeling more courageous to express their truth, we are taking back our power. I love feeling free so I choose to make my art surrounded by nature and the beautiful places that draw attention to things that matter to me. Being arrested for my art and the feeling of being free is something I stand firmly against." 

Marisa Papen is a 25 year old nude-artist from Belgium.  Born in the town of Paal, she grew up feeling more comfortable nude than in clothing.  Recently arrested for entering the pyramids at Giza sans clothing, she made global news headlines. 

Hot Trash, comprised of artists Kelly Halloran and Rocco Gardner, will release their freshman album in February, One More Chance is the first single featuring vocals by Meli, recorded at Rancho V in Pioneertown, CA. 

One more chance (feat. MELI) by Hot Trash
Coloring: J Bookallil
Director, Editor: Rocco
Assistant editor: Jonathan Covert

Stars slipping through the clouds.
Shoot and fall, travel in time.
A stellar explosion,
A supernova.
When our inner light aligns,
Connection and introspecting,
​ A reflection of the universe.

Money unlocks the gate to happiness some people say… And I have to admit, it is the key to a lot of things. I mean, if my bank account would be completely empty I wouldn’t be able to explore this World the way I’ve been doing the last couple of years… and since exploring is what makes me happy… there is some truth in it, I guess.

But I will always remember this story my father once told me when I was about 8 years old…  It was a Saturday night and we were driving back home from our every week grandmother-visit. Dinner, play some games, watching F.C. De Kampioenen (great Belgian TV-show)… Right before F.C. De Kampioenen would start, there was a 5 minute intermezzo that revealed the winning numbers of the lottery that week. Without even knowing what it was about, I was super intrigued by the whole show.
I wanted to play too!!  Result = whining little Marisa.
So then my dad decided to tell me what’s the name of the game and what had happened to one of his close friends that had won the Lottery twice in his life. Not sure what the chances are but that’s a lot of ‘good luck’! 
Only a few years after having hit the big jackpot for the second time, he committed suicide. 
Sadly all that ‘good luck’ didn’t pay off for him.

Those words always stayed with me ever since and after having travelled a bunch and sometimes being around people who have made it, money-wise… Owning a lot does not at all mean having a richer life.

Then again, sad but true we need money to live.

So what’s quickest way to get your hands on one of those keys and cash fast? Gambling… Right?!
​Although my path had brought me to Vegas several times before, I had never hit the slots. Maybe because of my fathers story or maybe because I’m generally happy and I don’t need one of those keys or maybe because I was just too fascinated with people who were putting their money on the table… Seeing a natural high in their eyes, blinded by those flashy bright lights.

This time there was no escape, it was my turn to get the Vegas-VIbe on.
I have to admit, it was fun.
Just not as fun as throwing of my clothes, feeling free and escaping into my own World again.

Images created for StarCasino.be
Photography by Max Thompson

All 12 images...
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Photography by Uwe Ommer
Profit goes out to Forgotten Parks Foundation

At first I was going to pen down a story influenced by the Greek Mythologie but in some way it just wouldn't work out.
I could have made a different selection of images probably that would have made it simpler to tie everything together...
But decided I just wanted to share my favorite images with you rather than my words.
So here you go :)

Also,here's 2 other stories that we created on this same trip!
​LOVE GAME & LA PULPO
​
PS: the fish was dead and consumed after (not by me)