Darya Kosilova

Photographed By Ellinor Forje

“K-O-S-I-L-O-V-A.”

“Polish?” I asked.

“Russian,” she replied.

After three weeks in Europe, Darya Kosilova is ready to return to New York, home. She’ll miss Denmark. “It’s the most perfect place. Everybody is outrageously beautiful. And they’re all on vacation. I’m always working,” she said. She’s right. Trying to reach a professional in Scandinavia (or France, including Stéphane Ashpool) in late July or August, fuggedaboutit. Any semblance of a response comes from an automated voicemail announcing, in two languages, that they are on holiday.

We’re on the rooftop of Generator Hostel in Copenhagen, with a view that could easily serve as a backdrop in one of Lemuel Gulliver’s voyages. White flower pots, part of the rooftop décor, look as though they’ve been lifted from a Brobdingnagian windowsill. Not that it’s a negative. The Generator is impeccably designed for a hostel, unlike the places travelers on a budget often warn you about with a shudder. As Kosilova and I would say in unison, “Disgusting.”

Generator operates across eight cities in Europe, resembling boutique hotels more than the horror stories you sometimes hear from adventurous backpackers. Even though I’ve crossed the main street beside it several times, I’ve somehow managed to miss it entirely.

Kosilova works as an art director for “The Lab Magazine,” the production house curating Generator’s “#REGENERATE14” event, where I had earlier received a message:

Hi

Sorry, there’s been a change, it’s Friday from 7pm. I’ve put you on the list and hope you can make it!

Unfortunately I won’t be there, but my colleagues Emma and Ernest will be at the door, so please say hi to them!

Thanks!

Belen

I reply that I’ll be there with bells on.

“#REGENERATE14” is an interactive concept built around strangers sharing space peacefully. The first edition was held in Berlin, where Kosilova worked with the publication and website she joined four years ago. The Lab Magazine’s team originally comes from Canada. Kosilova met its founders, Justin Tyler Close and Jeremy Power Regimbal, while studying art, at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, in Vancouver. She also collaborates on a visual project called “Appppple Sauce” with creative director Tyler Close.

In addition, she models, something you notice immediately, even before her style. “Lately I’ve been enjoying softer dresses mixed with a more conservative kind of sexy,” she said. 

We’re interrupted by a bee hovering over our drinks, refusing to leave despite our attempts to shoo it away. After circling for a minute, it dives into Kosilova’s cider.

“Did all the bees migrate to Denmark or something? I’ve never seen so many.”

Neither have I. I also can’t remember the last time I saw a ladybird, none all summer. Instead, there are unfamiliar insects at night, as if something has shifted. I’m not imagining it. Damn evolution, if that’s what it is.

“I’m an animal lover but…” Darya Kosilova says, before pouring the cider onto the wooden floor.

Our eyes meet. Then we get back to work.