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An upcoming exhibition at Londons Design Museum will let guests take a journey through Wes Andersons never-before-seen personal archivesfrom the coat worn by Gwenyth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums to the original Grand Budapest Hotel model and the actual puppets used in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox. The exhibition, titled Wes Anderson: The Archives, includes more than 600 objects collected by the iconic filmmaker over the past 30 years. It opens on November 21 and runs through the following July, and advance tickets are already on sale. Aside from a smaller initial showing at la Cinémathque française, a collaborator on the exhibition, this will be the first time that Andersons archives have been displayed. In fact, most of the items have rested in storage ever since the shooting of their respective films. Max Fischer’s Rushmore Swiss Army knife. [Photo: Roger Do Minh/ the Design Museum] An extensive archive Andersons personal object curation began after the making of his first feature-length film, Bottle Rocket, which was released in 1996. Andersons meticulous collecting of these items began when he realized that everything that had been made for Bottle Rocket was owned and then sold off by the films production company, the release explains. So, from his second feature filmRushmorehe personally took care of every item after shooting concluded, ensuring he was the guardian of all items crafted for each movie. Model of The Grand Budapest Hotel [Photo: Thierry Stefanopoulos/La Cinémathque française] Because of this concerted effort, the Design Museum now has access to items from 1998s Rushmore all the way up to Andersons most recent project, the 2023 short film anthology collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More. Richie Tenenbaum poster, The Royal Tenenbaums. [Photo: Richard Round-Turner/ the Design Museum] Some of the most recognizable pieces in the collection include props, costumes, and puppets from Andersons films. From The Grand Budapest Hotel, theres the original candy-pink model of the titular hotel, standing several feet tall; the films Boy with Apple painting, which becomes a central character in itself; and the jaunty concierge costume worn by Ralph Fienness Gustave H. From The Royal Tenenbaums, theres the much-emultated tan fur coat worn by Gwyneth Paltrows Margot Tenenbaum, as well as a poster of Richie Tenenbaum thats shown in the film. And from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, costumes from the full ensemble cast will be on display together. Miniature washing machines, Isle Of Dogs. [Photo: Richard Round-Turner/ the Design Museum] Fans of Andersons animated stop-motion films, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, will get an opportunity that might be the most exciting of all: coming face-to-face with the characters themselves. Rat puppet, Arch Model Studio, Fantastic Mr. Fox. [Photo: Richard Round-Turner/ the Design Museum] A glimpse of Wes Anderson’s creative mind In addition to props from the films, Wes Anderson: The Archives plans to offer a peek into Andersons work process and lesser-known details from his career. Starting with the earliest point in his artistic evolution, the museum will show a screening of Andersons Bottle Rocket short film, the original 13-minute version of the eventual feature-length movie starring Owen and Luke Wilson. The short serves as the very first example of Andersons now-iconic style, and is often cited as the launchpad for his later fame. Wes Anderson’s personal notebooks from The Royal Tenenbaums. [Photo: Roger Do Minh/ Wes Anderson] Also on view will be a series of Andersons annotated notebooks from the set of The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as early sketches, storyboards, and polaroids from set. In short, its a Wes Anderson superfans most far-fetched dream, all contained in one museum showing.
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E-Commerce
Hawa Hassan was only 4-years-old when fighting forced her and her family from their home in Somalia. Hassan spent the next three years in Kenya, where some of her earliest memories were of running around tents in a refugee camp with her siblings and helping her mother stock the goods store shed opened there. When she was seven, Hassans mother sent her to live with family friends in Seattle. It would be another 15 years before she saw her family again. A lot of my childhood was spent wondering about my own background and my own identity, said Hawa, a chef and entrepreneur who now lives in New York. For many years, I had this deep desire to find people like myself and tell that story. [Photo: courtesy Ten Speed Press] Hassans new cookbook, Setting a Place for Us: Recipes and Stories of Displacement, Resilience, and Communities from Eight Countries Impacted by War is the fruit of that longing. To write it, Hassan spent three years travelling and interviewing dozens of chefs and entrepreneurs from Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, and Yemencountries perhaps better known to outsiders for civil strife than rich ingredients and complex flavors. The chapters are divided by country, each one offering a brief history; lush photos of daily life; several recipes; and at least one interview with a local grower, restaurateur, or community organizer. My number-one goal is to tell a different story about what it means to be from these places, Hassan said. I hope that when people pick up this book, they come for the recipes, but they stay for the stories. In the DRC she spoke with a baker who found success delivering mikateor doughnutsto customers during the pandemic. A brewer from Baghdad reflects on building a new life in New York and highlights masgoufa grilled fish with tamarind sauceas a must-try Iraqi dish. Though many of the people she spoke with have been displaced, Hassan said she intentionally focussed on food traditions and everyday life rather than conflict. This was much more about the idea of home rather than what the temperature of a country is, or what your politics are, she said. Mikey Muhanna, a social entrepreneur featured in Hassans Lebanon chapter, said that perspective came as a relief. I was apprehensive at the beginning, he said. There’s a million orientalizing books, like, let’s go to war-torn countries and talk about real people on the ground, but the more I got to speak to her, and her collaborator [photographer Riley Dengler], I realized that they were coming from a place of real curiosity. He said Hassans work offers a blueprint for how to report on communities other than ones own. Its really powerful to see somebody who has the life perspective that Hawa has tell these stories with integrity, patience, and curiosity, he said. Hassan traces the roots of Setting a Place for Us more a decade back to a six-month stay in Norway, where her mother and siblings eventually settled. After so many years apart, Hassan said she had to learn to find her place again in her family. That’s when I started thinking about how I know it’s not only my family that has these big stories to tell about being othered or impacted by war or by family separation, she said. Hassan was working as a model in New York at the time, but in Norway she spent hours in the kitchen with her mother making Somali food. When she returned to the U.S. in 2015 she started to lay the groundwork for her company, Basbaas, a condiment company with offerings like tamarind date sauce and coconut cilantro chutney. In 2020, she published her debut cookbook, In Bibi’s Kitchen, which she cowrote with Julia Turshen. A collection of recipes from grandmothers in eight eastern African countries, it won the James Beard Foundation award for Best International Cookbook. The sauce [company] has helped me to inch my way onto the American dining table, and tell a story of not just being a Somalian girl, but being an African girl, she said. She saw In Bibis Kitchen as an expansion of that storyoffering a glimpse of womens daily lives in East Africa. Following the success of In Bibis Kitchen, she was approached by Food Network TV to host her own show. She starred in Hawa at Home, where she cooked dishes like Doro Wat and made piri piri sauce, bringing East African food to new audiences. Her new book is a more intimate exploration of her life storyone that relates to millions of displaced people around the world. Setting a Place for Us is the next layer of who I am that I’m willing to share, which is a person who’s been impacted by civil unrest, displacement, and family separation, Hassan said. But despite the heavy subject matter, the book is largely optimistica celebration of the places people have returned to after years away or that that they continue to long for from afar. My philosophy is we have no sad stories to tell, Hassan said. Setting a Place for Us: Recipes and Stories of Displacement, Resilience, and Communities from Eight Countries Impacted by War will be published on Tuesday, May 13, by Ten Speed Press.
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E-Commerce
In April 2024, Yahoo acquired Artifact, a tool that uses AI to recommend news to readers. Yahoo folded Artifactswhich was cofounded by Instagram cofounders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrominto its revamped news app to help surface and curate content for readers. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone came on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about the acquisition, the companys approach to news curation, and what the future could hold for the private equity-owned company. This interview has been edited and condensed. Yahoo acquired news discovery platform Artifact last year. Now, the technology is used in Yahoos revamped news app. Why did you acquire the platform? Artifact had come up as a startup founded by the Instagram cofounders. It used AI and advanced algorithms to pull in really great content and also do a great job of surfacing it. When we read that they were going to shut it down, I reached out to Kevin Systrom immediately to say we should talk about acquiring it. We basically took the backbone of the Artifact app and made it the Yahoo News app. We look to acquire companies if they can fill a gap for us. We’re not in the game of acquihires. It has to be a product fit. We’re the No. 1 news publication in the U.S. in terms of total traffic. We got to that point by being an aggregator. Were aggregating thousands of sources and then using algorithms to surface the right ones for each of our millions of users. With Artifact, how are you using AI to personalize a users newsfeed? We hope the end user doesnt think about it at all. It’s just about the Yahoo News app getting smarter at delivering the right content to you at the right time. We’re very pro publisher and we are a big part of the ecosystem. We send them traffic and give them revenue as part of it. We’ve been doing that for over 20 years. That is, in some ways, pro publisher, but AI summaries come up on search and articles get summarized via bullet points. That means users may not actually read the articles, and media companies will get fewer page views. I would think about it a little bit differently. If you go back to the beginning of how Yahoo has always worked with publishers, we’re a huge part of the ecosystem in sending traffic out. It’s very important to us to keep the ecosystem very healthy, at least how it historically was. I understand your point, and certainly that’s a new factor for publishers to worry about in terms of AI companies sucking in all their data. Everything we do is with the publisher. We brought all of our publisher relationships to Artifact. Even when there’s a summary, it’s not trying to [stop people looking at] the article, it is trying to pull out the highlights of [the article]. We will also summarize a topic across publishers just for helpful understanding. But again, it all goes back to sending people down the funnel to [media] properties. But they would only go down that funnel if they want to learn more, right? I don’t know how much time youve spent with any of these apps, but I’d say they’re bullet points, short tidbits at the top. They’re really not summarizing the whole article. A news algorithm designed for people can contribute to their biases. Yahoo’s role is nonpartisan, but how do you think about balancing the goal of providing a customer service with preventing the information that only reinforces a reader’s beliefs? We think a lot about it. We try to be very nonpartisan. It’s a hard job. One of the signs we’re getting it right is I get nasty emails from people on both sides. Part of our job with the algorithm is to make sure readers don’t go too [far] into the rabbit hole and that [they] actually can continue to see a balance of things. At the same time, our job is to customize for them as an individual, so the algorithms take that into account. But there are a couple other things happening. We also balance [AI curation with] human curation, which is part of Yahoo being the trusted guide for all these years. Then of course, we are working with trusted publishers that we have long standing relationships withnot sharing user generated content. How does the app fit into Yahoos business strategy? In any given month, we are usually the No. 2 ranked property on comScore in the US multiplatform or in the top five across desktop and mobile. We’re in the top five with Gen Z, and 90% of internet users in the US touch Yahoo in any given month. So monetization of one property is not our issue. We monetize very well. Most of it’s through advertising, like with any major freemium publisher or product. A certain percentage of our users subscribe to our more premium offerings in given categories like sports or finance or email. News is just a part of that. You’ve said job No. 1 is making every one of these products and brands under Yahoo superstrong on their own within the categories in which they operate. There’ve been news reports saying you might want to spin off different products and take them public. There’ve been other reports saying you might want to take the company public as a whole. I guess I’m trying to get a sense of what you think the future is for Yahoo. I would answer that maybe two ways. It’s our job to create value and grow the business, which 30 years old. But for those who don’t know, we were spun out of Verizon by Apollo, the world’s largest private equity firm in September 2021, then I came in as CEO. Most private equity firms want returns. There are two ways to get a return. If you’re a private equity firm, you could go public or you can sell. It is also possible that your investors feel that they have a tiger by the tail and want to hold out longer. I’ve founded startups, I’ve worked at big public companies. It doesn’t matter the size of your company, the name of the game is growth either way. That’s also a sign of a healthy company. It’s a sign that you’re delivering for users. We’ll create a very valuable company, whether it’s us stand-alone going public, or it’s someone acquiring the company. That said, we definitely have inbounds all the time, especially because it is owned by private equity of people trying to pick off part of our pieces of our company. Part of the private equity game is probably to listen to everybody and understand what your options are. Every search engine tech company that puts out any kind of content or that aggregates content is partnering with LLMs like Open AI or Anthropic. Who are you partnering with? Going back to the late 2000s, Yahoo has had a longstanding relationship with Microsoft, which led to an easy relationship with Microsoft copilot. We have the second largest email platform after Gmail, it’s in the hundreds of millions of users. Even a year before Apple announced this Apple Intelligence series of products that would show up in their mail product, we announced AI in Yahoo Mail, helping you serch mail, summarize it, write, edit, and more. That partnership was done with OpenAI. We also are partners with Anthropic, with Google, and others on other products that we have. We work with everybody so far and we’ll continue to do so. Were also internally building a bunch of our own AI products. I think it’s too important to leave it purely to third parties. We have to have our own expertise there.
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E-Commerce
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