Inside SEED Club

SEED Club is our global decentralised research community where 350+ brand strategists, insight journalists, and cultural curators sow and grow all the SEEDS you see on Protein. As a contributor you also have the opportunity to collaborate with Protein AGENCY on client projects as well as connect and learn from an incredibly diverse, smart and entertaining group of humans. If you'd like to join, you can apply here.

Jynann Ong

What’s capturing your imagination right now? Drugs and computation are the only industries that use the term “users” to refer to the people operating with that paraphernalia. There’s many “takes” to espouse from this, but I’m specifically interested in similar systems that forge bonded human-object relationships.

Can you share a person and/or project that excites you? For the past several months, my friends and I have been working on a project called Nature KwenTour: Exploring Island-Urban Dialogues from Siargao to London. It’s funded by the British Council and maps local ecologies, memories and shared knowledge to reimagine our relationship with land and community. Taking place in both Siargao (an island in the Philippines overwhelmed with the effects of Western tourism) and London, Nature KwenTour is a collaborative, creative storytelling program sharing knowledge through localised workshops, nature walks, a physical showcase and a digital archive.

What’s next, for yourself or further afield? What could the future of the creative industries look like beyond the client-agency model? What could the currency of value and exchange be which is additive and regenerative, not extractive or exploitative?

What’s something surprising about yourself that people in SEED Club might not know? I appeared in an episode of Newsnight as a teenager when my friend Nellie and I bunked off school to go to an Odd Future pop-up in Brick Lane. The journalist chose us because we were the only girls, and wanted to know if we were offended by their lyrics.

What’s been inspiring you lately outside of your work? Recently I visited Marrakesh and enjoyed marvelling at the natural patterns of cactus spikes. How nature knows how to show up in mathematical perfection.

If you could collaborate with someone – living or dead, real or imagined – who would it be? Copernicus – to converse with the person who disproved the fundamental basis of known reality. I’m not sure what the project would be, maybe something food-based or movement-based would be cool.

Jynann Ong is an independent strategist and cultural researcher, with clients including Nike, DeepMind, Guggenheim, Chanel, Burberry, Arc’teryx and LEGO. She is co-organiser of the London-based interdisciplinary art collective Baesianz, dedicated to cultivating Asian-led narratives through community-centred events and creative activism.

Jacqui Kavanagh

What’s capturing your imagination right now? I’m obsessing over when brands will get their acts together on owning their own resale of vintage and archive pieces, and wondering if they’ve already missed the boat on this segment, which is projected to hit $367 billion by 2029. Regulation will (happily) get more restrictive on the creation of new stuff so this should feel quite pressing to them, I would have thought. I don’t know why they seem to be lagging so much on it. But also, can single brands ever actually recreate the excitement of secondhand hunting themselves or this that exclusively the world of multi brand resellers? Will being handed a set price and pre-unearthed product ever beat the thrill of the rummage?

Can you share a person and/or project that excites you? I’ve been inspired by Paul Jarvis, author of Company of One, who challenges the idea that success must mean constant growth. He reframes ambition as defining your own “enough” in income, hours and impact, and building a sustainable business that serves your life. I can’t stop thinking about an anecdote about the author’s friend’s father who had a post-it stuck to his computer his whole life that read: OVERHEADS = DEATH.

Also, Avram Alpert, in The Good-Enough Life, talks about how how the pursuit of greatness often breeds anxiety, alienation, and even environmental harm. As he writes, “Desiring greatness thus makes a lot of sense, but it also generates the anxieties and paradoxes of the world we live in… we will inevitably feel anxious at our prospects, depressed at our situation, alienated from our fellow competitors, and unconcerned with how we damage the environment if doing so feels like the only way to stay alive.”

I like the idea of reframing how we work not as endless striving, but as creating a business and life that are sustainable, meaningful and, yes, enough.

If you could collaborate with someone – living or dead, real or imagined – who would it be? Fiona Apple on some kind of literary compendium, anthology or magazine.

Jacquie Kavanagh is a creative business leader and founder of Par (short for Projects and Representation), a Paris-based company dedicated to helping creative people and businesses launch and grow (including Protein). She has previously worked in leadership roles at Refinery29, The Webby Awards, Boiler Room, VICE, Condé Nast, i-D and Airbnb Experience Originals.

Tyla Jurgens

What’s capturing your imagination right now? The internet is dead – that’s top of my list of obsessions. Specifically looking at the internet as an ecosystem and how digital marketing has devoured its environment faster than it could regenerate. Users are drowning online and with the absence of signals – thanks infinite scroll) – we are diluting ourselves into toxic cultures of stagnation. I am truly captured by how brands are trying to navigate these stagnant waters, grasping and throwing themselves over one another for the smallest possibility of untainted sources. And no matter how deep into the soil users try to retreat, brands follow us, continuing to place prices onto things that previous held no price. I wonder what system regeneration may look like, and what type of land survey or rehabilitation is necessary to reach a homeostasis.

Can you share a person and/or project that excites you? The Doomscroll Podcast – I watch it on YouTube and consider it one of the best podcasts exploring modern culture and politics. The host, Joshua Citarella, is incredibly likeable, with a journalistic style and broad knowledge across many topics. His selection of guests is phenomenal as well. I’d give it a 10/10 and highly recommend it to your friends.

What’s something surprising about yourself that people in SEED Club might not know? I cry a lot! Especially when talking or writing towards something that I am passionate about. My most radical policies, political views and behaviours come from the softest parts of me. I am constantly working on teaching myself better communication tools towards having constructive conversations surrounding these topics. Sometimes that communication tool is also knowing when to leave the conversation...

What’s been inspiring you lately outside of your work? Book clubs – let’s all talk about what we are reading more! I love hearing how we navigate the same pages in such different ways, experience characters in unique lights, and come away with new and varied opinions. Knowing that no one truly sees exactly what you see – even if they read the same words – gives us empathy and broadens our understanding of the many ways people experience life. I deeply appreciate those who are willing to be vulnerable in sharing their interpretations and challenging each other to think differently.

Tyla Jurgens is a Berlin-based creative strategist and communications specialist whose work explores how storytelling, marketing and education can shape more conscious futures, with a special focus on fashion.

Josh Mansell

What’s capturing your imagination right now? Physical media: records, magazines and analogue photography. Stuff that takes longer to consume or to perform. This year I’ve been getting out of the city more – I started this thing called thru hiking. Which is basically when you carry a big backpack with all your GORP gear in, while you hike from camp site to camp site along a trail. A few years ago I’d have found this idea boring, maybe I’m getting old, but I did one called the West Highland Way this year. I love the space it gives you; a week feels like a month. So I’m loving this idea of reducing stimulus. Slowing life down. Trying the regain some control over my poor, rotted brain.

Can you share a person and/or project that excites you? There is this incredible group called The Sustainable Darkroom with Hannah Fletcher and Edd Carr. I don’t know them personally, but they basically seem to invent new ecological and sustainable ways to develop film because the usual practice is really toxic. That’s a really bad description of what they do so I encourage people to check them out for themselves. Their work is incredibly beautiful. I would love to take one of their courses one day.

What’s next, for yourself or further afield? Well there’s this idea floating around my head “do something you won’t get paid for”. This might seem stupid in this current economic climate, but I’m a professional creative and I’m tired of how, because of my job, I shudder at the idea of using my spare time to make creative work. It’s hard sometimes to remember why you pursued a career in the creative industry when everything turns into the churn. You lose that element of playfulness. And so that’s what I want to get back to – the idea of doing something for no other reason than it simply feels good.

What’s something surprising about yourself that people in SEED Club might not know? Well, after reading these answers, they’ll be surprised to know I’m not over 50.

What’s been inspiring you lately outside of your work? RIP David Lynch. I find how batshit crazy some of his work was super inspiring. He really didn’t give a fuck. So this year, in his honour, I’ve been rewatching Twin Peaks while also rereading Room to Dream. I love him.

Josh Mansell is a London-based senior creative who works across advertising, politics and film.