With eyes focused on the future, college students dream big. Questrom freshman Arin Siriamonthep collaborated with friend Jack Hamilton to create Faux Divinity, a print and digital magazine featuring the talents of them and their peers. Since launching this spring, Faux Divinity has already gained quite a following, and Siriamonthep has high aspirations for its future.
Q: What inspired the creation of Faux Divinity/what’s the backstory?
A: Specifically this year, I’ve been working on trying to figure out what I want to do for the future, which consists of photography and fashion. Also, I would consistently go out at least once or twice a week to do free photoshoots for anyone willing to model for me just as practice.
Q: How was its creation organized?
A: Jack [Hamilton] had texted me because he knew that I was really interested in my photography, and he was having a sort of creative block when coming up with ideas for photoshop projects. We were already friends before, so it wasn’t too hard to jump straight into it.
Q: How long did it take to get started?
A: It took around a month after the first text about it to start up, just because we were both so busy with midterms. We had to set up the Instagram, email, and name along with how we were going to present the magazine in photo concepts, journalist ideas, models, etc.
Q: Where do you find inspiration for your shoots?
A: I find inspiration from anything that I obtain from my 5 senses. Anything that comes at me, I take into consideration how I can curate that into a sort of artistic message or just a fun project to take on.
Q: What inspired Concentration 001: Sight?
A: I went to a store and brought along a friend and told her to choose anything, and I would buy it and take into consideration how to evolve it. One of those items was a pack of googly eyes that I thought would be crazy to see over people’s faces. Although it didn’t come out this way, the original idea was to have all these eyes attached to people’s faces and in a sense, confuse the viewer on which eye was looking where. I thought that eyes had an extremely significant meaning around the world whether people referred to “the eye of the storm” or eyes in religion.
Q: What goals do you have for the magazine?
A: The goal is to not only express our own art and creativity, but also include others along with it. We want to be able to share the idea that there is no real hierarchy that exists but rather that we are all able to do absolutely anything in the world.
Q: What do you think your biggest challenge is for the magazine?
A: The number one challenge for us is finding the time to handle the start of the magazine along [while] being full-time students. Although it doesn’t take long to form an idea, it does take some time to find the specific details with who the models will be, where the location will be, what type of tone we’re going for, etc. However, summer is approaching soon and we’ll be moving faster than ever. Although we do live in different states, I’ll be conducting photoshoots in New York and sending them over to [Jack] to edit in Pennsylvania.
Faux Divinity and its creators have an enormous amount of potential, and viewers are excited to see what they produce next. Follow @fauxdivinity on Instagram to follow their journey and support!
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