MKG–a woman-owned and operated creative agency specializing in brand action, including live experiences, digital and virtual events, employee engagements and social impact actions–has hired Tricia Desjardins as executive creative director and Matthew Conley as head of production.
Desjardins, who marks her return to MKG where she will report to chief creative officer Lauren Austin, recently served as director of creative strategy at Camp, the family retail experience company. She was previously creative director at MKG, where she worked on such projects as Target’s “Favorite Day Product Launch,” Google’s “Be Internet Awesome” and in-store experiences for Gucci.
Conley served as executive producer at the Participation Agency, where he helped the company grow and increase client revenue by more than 220%. He previously served as producer at Art + Commerce, working on high-end luxury brands. He too reports to MKG CCO Austin.
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question โ courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. โ is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films โ this is her first in eight years โ tend toward bleak, hand-held veritรฉ in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More