Xindanwei | 新单位 A new way of working | 一种新的工作方式

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July Featured People: Sohrab Golsorkhi

Interview & Translation / Cozi GE

This month at Xindanwei People, we proudly present Sohrab Golsorkhi from Tank Magazine. Sohrab has been working at Xindanwei co-working space for months. Let’s see what he’s coping with!

1. Welcome to Xindanwei.com, Please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

My name is Sohrab Golsorkhi, I am originally from London. I work as an art director for Tank. I have worked at Tank for four years. I actually studied architecture at Cambridge University but it was never my intention to become an architect, so when I graduated I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I started out interning in the art department, working on Tank Magazine, as well as our other titles O: and O:Man, and on projects for Tank Form. Somehow I never left.

2. Can you explain a little about Tank Magazine? What it is? Who it is for? What do you do for it?

Tank Magazine is an idependent quarterly magazine which positions itself at the apex between fashion, art, politics, and music whilst maintaining the highest production values. For this reason it has been able to feature some of the leading photographers, artists, and journalists in its 13 years of existence even without the backing of a major publishing house. It was founded by my father, Masoud Golsorkhi, and Andreas Laeufer in 1998. They had both been working in the fashion industry for a number of years. Masoud as a fashion photographer for magazines such as The Face, iD, and Italian Vogue, and Andreas as an art director for various brands and magazines. Tank formed out of their frustration with the increasingly commercial nature of the magazines such as iD and the Face, which they had read and later worked within through the late eighties and nineties.

Gradually as the magazine started to build a following, it started to attract the attentions of brands such as Levi’s and Prada who commissioned us to design and publish magazines for them. Both of which were highly successful. Four issues of Mined were produced for Levi’s and won design awards. And? was a one-off newspaper created for Prada which was sold on newsstands all over the world featuring writing by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Theodore Zeldin. More commercial work followed leading to the creation of our sister company Tank Form. Tank Form is our boutique creative agency, it works alongside Tank Magazine, the two sides of the business supporting and complementing each other. Tank Form works mainly with luxury brands such as Armani, Swarovski, Lane Crawford, and Vivienne Westwood, on a diverse range of projects from publishing and e-commerce, to strategic planning and product design.

3. What were the circumstances that lead you to coming to Shanghai?

We have worked with companies in China for a number of years on projects for Tank Form, and since its inception in 1998, Tank Magazine has featured works by China artists and filmmakers. We found that the largest source of traffic to our website (tankmagazine.com) was from China, this despite the fact we don’t have any official distribution channels in mainland China. We are in the process of redesigning tankmagazine.com, it is due to launch in late September. Our plan is to make it a bilingual English and Mandarin website. So we decided to set up a small office here in Shanghai so that we could pursue new opportunities for Tank Form and to search for and meet potential future contributors to our new website when it launches.

4. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in developing the project?

I decided to come here with as open a mind as possible. I really did not know what to expect, I spent a month in Beijing five years ago, but I knew the city, like the rest of the country has changed immensely since then, so I have been pleasantly surprised with how I have been able to deal with things as they arise. The big thing for me at the moment is trying to find bright, creative people who share the Tank ethos that I can hopefully work with in the near future.

5. What inspire you in life?

Its a bit of a cliche, but the truth is that inspiration is everywhere, and that even in China with its so-called Great Firewall, you can get access to more or less anything online. The problem these days is one of knowing where to look (and also maybe having the will to do it), because sometimes there is just too much stuff. I am really into tumblr for the past year or more. I have about ten blogs at the moment I think. The thing I love about it is the simplicity. That you can have an idea and just do it. I don’t know how to code, but by cutting and pasting bits and pieces from other blogs I see I can sometimes make things look how I would like. I tend to use tumblr as a kind of filtering device. I have an idea, or am inspired by something and just start pulling things together that fit the usually quite simple and narrow brief of each individual blog. It doesn’t have to last forever, you can add things and then stop, but it will always be there online for my own future reference. I guess I am a bit of a digital hoarder in this way. Anyway you should check out sohrabgolsorkhi.tumblr.com it has links to all my different blogs.

I also love love love football. I always say that this is the truest statement I can think of. I tend to be quite up and down about the things I’m into but football is the only constant. Even when it is bad, whether I am watching or playing, I can still find one little beautiful moment that makes it all worthwhile. I was so sad when Paul Scholes retired last month that I stayed up all night watching and ripping videos from youtube. Another thing for me to hoard away on my computer hard disk!

6. What got you interested in fashion?

Not only fashion, because I think that what made Tank standout from the start was a real sincere engagement with other aspects of our culture too, the idea that you can be into fashion and be bright and engaged with the world. In any case I think it was really just a natural process having grown up around it. When Tank first started they were working out of my family home in north London, so coming home every day after school it was hard to avoid, then as I got a bit older I would also assist my father on photo shoots for the magazine. It was never a case of my father insisting that me or any of my siblings had to join the family business as it were, but being immersed in something like that for over a decade kind of made it inevitable I think.

7. Thanks again for providing Xindanwei.com this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

If anybody reading this is a writer, photographer, graphic designer, or anything else really, they should definitely get in touch! My email address is: sohrab@tankmagazine.com Or you can also visit me on the 4th floor of Xindanwei.
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人物（七月）：Sohrab Golsorkhi

采访和翻译 / Cozi GE

在这个月的新单位人物访谈里，我们隆重向大家介绍Tank杂志的Sohrab Golsorkhi。Sohrab 已经在新单位联合办公空间工作了好多个月了。我们来看看他在干些什么吧！

1. 欢迎来到 Xindanwei.com，请简单介绍一下自己。你的来历以及你怎么开始现在的事业的？

我的名字是 Sohrab Golsorkhi，我是个伦敦人。我在Tank杂志担任艺术总监。在Tank，我已经工作了四年。其实一开始我在剑桥大学读的是建筑，但我从来没有想过要成为建筑师，所以最后我毕业的时候我其实不太确定我到底要干什么。随后我开始为Tank杂志工作，先是在艺术部门实习，同时也参与Tank旗下的其他品牌，像是O:和O:Man，以及Tank Form项目的工作。结果一做就做到现在。

2. 可以跟我们说说Tank杂志吗？这是本怎样的杂志？你在里面做些什么？

Tank杂志是一本独立季刊，它的定位介于时尚、艺术、政治和艺术之间，并且在制作上及其用心。因为这个原因，Tank杂志自开刊伊始13年来一直与最优秀的摄影师、艺术家和记者合作，而且从没有依赖过任何一家大出版集团。杂志是由我父亲 Masoud Golsorkhi 以及 Andreas Laeufer 在1998年创立的。当时他们两个都已经在时尚行业工作有些年头了，Masoud作为时尚摄影师和The Face、iD 以及意大利 Vogue这类的杂志合作而Andreas 是多个品牌和杂志的艺术指导。他们整个八十和九十年代都在阅读iD和The Face等杂志，随后还为其工作，但这些杂志越来越商业化，他们在失望之余，产生了Tank杂志。

随着杂志逐渐开始建立起粉丝群，它也开始吸引如Levi’s和Prada等品牌的注意，这两个品牌委托我们为他们设计和发布刊物。这两个项目都非常成功。为Levi‘s做的四期Minded赢得了设计大奖。为Prada做的是一份单期的报纸 And?，And? 找了Noam Chomsky 和Theodore Zeldin这一类作者纂稿，在全世界的报刊亭售卖。随后我们成立了姐妹公司Tank Form，并创造了更多商业计划作品。Tank Form是一家小型创意事务所，它和Tank杂志相辅相成。Tank Form主要和奢侈品牌合作，如Armani、Swarovski、Lane Crawford 以及 Vivienne Westwood，项目的形式多种多样，从出版和电子商务、到策略规划和产品设计都有涉及。

3. 你是怎样来到上海的？

我们已经通过Tank Form和中国的公司进行项目合作已经有很多年了，而且从1998年Tank成立以来，我们就一直约稿中国的艺术家和制片人。我们还发现，我们网站（tankmagazine.com）的最大访问源来自中国，而那时侯我们杂志在中国大陆甚至还没有正规的销售渠道。我们目前正在重新设计tankmagazine.com，新网站计划在九月末上线。我们计划做一个英文和中文双语的网站。因此我们决定在上海这儿成立一个小型办公室这样我们可以更好地为Tank Form寻求新机遇，同时也可以为我们的新网站网罗潜在人才。

4. 你们在实施新计划的过程中遇到的最大挑战是什么？

我来这儿的时候决定尽可能地开放心态。我还真不知道该期待些什么，五年前我去过北京一趟，呆了一个月，不过我已经很熟悉它了，和中国的其他地方一样，北京在那之后也发生了巨大的变化，我很惊奇地看到有这么多的机会。目前对我来说最大的事就是找到认同Tank理念的聪明的创意人才，在不久的将来和我一起工作。

5. 生活中什么东西给你灵感？

说起来有些老生常谈，但事实是灵感无处不在，即使在中国互联网被干扰屏蔽，你仍然可以在网上找到几乎任何东西。现在的问题反倒是怎么知道去哪儿看（可能也包括如何建立决心去做这件事），因为有时候可以看的东西实在是太多了。去年我对tumblr很着迷。我现在可能一共有十个左右的博客。我喜欢它的地方在于它的简单。你有一个想法然后就可以动手了。我不知道怎么编程，但只需要把我从其他博客看到的东西剪贴一番有时候我就可以做出我想要做的东西。我几乎把tumblr当成某种过滤器。我有了一个想法，或是我被什么东西激发了灵感，然后我只要把东西拉到博客里来就行了。它不必一直存在，你可以加点东西然后停止，但它会一直在网上做我未来的参考。我觉得我这样有一点数码囤积狂的意思。不管怎样你可以看一下sohrabgolsorkhi.tumblr.com，里面有我所有博客的联接。

我非常非常非常热爱足球。我总是说这是我可以想到的最真实的声明。我对其他我喜欢的东西经常也会有厌倦的时候，但只有对足球的热情持续不灭。即使是场糟糕的球赛，无论是我观看的还是我踢的，我总是可以找到一个美丽的瞬间让这一切都变得值得。上个月Paul Scholes退休了，我很伤心，整夜没睡光就在youtube上观看和下载视频。我在硬盘上囤积的另一样东西！

6. 是什么让你对时尚感兴趣？

不光是时尚，因为我认为最初使Tank脱颖而出的是对我们的其他文化方面真正的真诚的介入，是这样一种观念——你可以聪明地做时尚并且和这个世界保持关系。无论如何，我觉得发生在周围的这一切是一个自然的成长过程。Tank最初开始的时候他们在北伦敦的我家里工作，所以每天放学回到家我难以避免地要和这一切接触，然后等我长大了一点，我开始在我父亲为杂志拍照的时候做他的助手。我父亲从来没有强迫我或我的后代一定要加入家族生意，但和这些事情紧密接触十多年下来，它们无论如何也有些变得不可或缺了吧我想。

7. 谢谢你接受 Xindanwei.com 的采访，Sohrab，最后对我们的读者再说两句吧?

如果读了这篇采访里的人有谁是作者、摄影师、平面设计师，或者别的什么，那我们绝对应该认识一下！我的邮箱地址是：sohrab@tankmagazine.com 或者你也可以来新单位4楼找我。
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