DEPLOYMENT #20

Move Therapy

1hr W of Byron

2hrs SW of Gold Coast

Cabin: Ashi

Field Scouts: Stefan Hunt & Vanessa Varghese

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It’s hard work keeping up with Stefan and Vanessa, two of our favourite people. The prodigiously busy couple returned from Bushwick, New York at the height of the pandemic, got married and nestled in Byron Bay. Since then, they’ve both kept themselves stupidly switched-on; Stefan in his capacity as an in-demand director for some of the biggest brands in the world and illustrator for a recent Critical Slide collection, Vanessa with cutting edge movement direction work and her pioneering dance business, Groove Therapy. When they work together they’re equally unstoppable, their short film (which you can watch below) recently won a BAFTA. That’s all a very long way of saying that even the most creative people need to pull the plug sometimes, and these guys definitely fit the bill.

Ashi was an easy drive for the guys, but schedules have a way of getting in a way of time out. So we decided to throw organisation to the wind and instead send Stefan and Vanessa off on a random weekday with short notice, something you can do too if you feel like living life a bit more spontaneously. Stefan, who once created an entire festival around using mortality to combat anxiety, seemed to enjoy it. ‘Tiny home, big experience’ he told us. ‘You like that tagline? I came up with it all alone. Feels like it should be on a billboard on the Gold Coast.’

‘…it’s really just a light hearted segue into this more genuine sentence - “Unyoked. Wow. Perfect. Will 100% do again. Loved it. Didn’t know time went that slow.”’

‘We cooked the Unyoked recipes. We bathed in the woods. We played about 396 round of cards. We slept in big time. We loved every second.’ You heard it from the horse’s mouth. If Stefan and Van can pull the plug on plans, chances are you can, too. also please let us know exactly how long it takes to play 396 rounds of cards. We just really want to know.

The end.

Photos by @stefanhunt
Words by Jonno Seidler @westseidlerstory

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