🌍 People power: the magic we make together 👫

Plus the secret to shakshuka, the world’s most remote disco and a spring vibes playlist

As spring somehow both slowly and suddenly – and thank-f***edly – comes into being, signposted as it always has been by nature’s own brilliantly unpredictable bursts of colour, this week we’re considering another sort of old-as-time magic – the singular and mighty impact that can be made only when we, as humans, join forces.

While last week we dived into renting instead of buying, a very structured, low-contact sort of sharing, today we’re all about the more organic kind. The ‘mad ideas written on the back of a fag packet’ kind. The ‘speaking all over each other but it’s alright because we’re so excited’ kind. The joyful, creative and empowering kind.

Take The Red Dress, a project that employed embroiderers across 51 countries for their artistry over 14 years, creating one beyond-intricate dress, incredibly rich in stories and significance.

Or, on a smaller, sort of secret tip, there's Rhode Island-based former performance-art collective Forcefield, an evolving punk group who had the brainwave to start creating mad knits using yarn from the many mills that had shut down in their area.

Or, on a much more global scale, the fact that the US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement – created to tackle climate change in a strategic way, as an international 'team' – demonstrates just how important it is for the likes of us, whether through street-level exchanges or grassroots gangs or local hangs, to work even more closely.

So we’ve pulled together a list of unique, interesting and cool examples of collective power for you to check out, from giving a river living rights, to living in a new, more communal way, to a food frontiers magazine that’s choosing to focus on improving ‘livingness’ in their neighbourhood.

And why is this so important to us here at BRiMM? Because we’re going to be bringing our community together (that's you and the brands we’re currently curating to offer you) to pioneer a new lifestyle model – based on collectivity, supporting, sharing and all those warm but immensely powerful and really rather magical things.

Tune in, team up and let's turn the tide.

Team BRiMM

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FROM THE COLLECTIVE

Sam’s flagged that Earth Watch has, impressively, planted more than 200 tiny forests

Rebecca’s excited by this year’s just-announced Detour Discotheque destination, helping to spread travellers off the beaten tracks for a fourth year

Matt’s got us onto purpose-driven community The Conduit members’ club

We love to hear what the collective is finding. Share your links with Becky

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GOING WITH THE FLOW

Just this month, the River Ouse has become the first waterway in the UK to be recognised as “a living entity”. Joining sister ‘live’ examples in Canada, Colombia and New Zealand, the Ouse has been granted permission to “flow, thrive and be free from pollution”. How? Because Lewes group, Love Our Ouse, kicked off a ‘Rights of River Declaration’ initiative at a local fest in 2022 that then led to UK-wide workshops, a national River Rights Network and a relatively fast-flowing trickle effect which has now resulted in the Ouse getting its dues.

→ READ MORE

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ROOMIES WITH A VIEW

With spaces across Europe including in London, Paris and Madrid plus New York and Washington DC, Cohabs offers a lower-impact way to cohabit in stylishly renovated houses, mostly complete with solar-powers, rainwater harvesting systems, energy-saving tools and second-hand furniture. A minimum three-month fee includes everything from internet access to cleaning (!) to community events like yoga classes and club nights.

→ LEARN MORE

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ALL THE GEAR

Re-action was created to rebel against the now mass-adopted assumption that open-air pursuits require a tonne of shiny, new high-tech kit. A collective of outdoorsy organisations who know what they’re talking about, they're each choosing to change the industry’s plot via community-based circular solutions, like lending libraries, repair shops and planet-positive running trails.

→ SEE MORE

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IN THE FIELDS

‘Beautiful and rich’ may not be how we’d normally describe mould, but that’s what springs to mind when we look at the pages of MOLD, a Brooklyn-based magazine committed to “designing a more just, accessible, and joyful relationship with our food”. So committed, in fact, that it’s ending publication on this year’s summer solstice, to focus on sister project Field Meridians, an artist collective whose goal is to facilitate ecological resilience. MOLD, meanwhile, will be sticking around (obvs) as a very handy archive.

→ LEARN MORE

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THE SECRET TO SHAKSHUKA

This 45-minute recipe for eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce comes recommended by food editor friends, and is best complemented by fresh bread for excessive dipping.

→ MAKE THIS

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MUSIC FOR CLIMATE OPTIMISTS

Seasoned party-playlist maker and laidback mover and shaker Rick is here to put a spring in your step as the sun reemerges and the nights begin to bloom…

WHAT’S BRiMM AGAIN?

We’re building a shop, journal and collective to prove that living within limits isn’t living less – and to put the profit to work for the planet.

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