In contemporary society, resistance is no longer just a political act; it is an embodied experience that is expressed through the body, in the sounds of protest and in the creation of art. Across galleries, digital spaces and city streets, art has become one of the most powerful soft tools for challenging authority by creating… Continue reading The art of resistance
As artificial intelligence (AI) takes over and redefines the world at an exponential rate, its implications on society grow vast. With the prolific introduction of AI chatbots, much like the global domination of social media platforms, many are turning to software such as ChatGPT, Replika, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Pi, amongst many others, to… Continue reading Searching for togetherness in a lonely world — is artificial intelligence replacing human connection?
Die, My Love (2025) is directed by the brilliant filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, who has a fearless way of exploring motherhood on screen. She doesn’t show us the happy, gentle and joyful version of being a mother. Instead, she forces the audience to see the messy, uncomfortable reality — the postpartum depression, the internal chaos, the… Continue reading Die, My Love review — the uncanny side of motherhood
They found her by mistake — a life sealed away in cardboard and dust, as though she’d slipped herself into the margins of the world and trusted time itself to stumble upon her one day. Inside that storage locker were hundreds of rolls of film, some never touched by light, as if she believed certain… Continue reading Vivian Maier and the art of being seen
It will come as no surprise to any regular gig-goer that concert prices have risen dramatically in recent years — with many summer stadium shows for 2026 already on sale, it seems this trend is only continuing. For example, pop superstar The Weeknd is charging a huge £176 for front standing tickets at his Wembley… Continue reading The gig economy — why have concert prices gone so crazy?
Gorgias (483–375 BCE) wrote his Encomium of Helen (“in praise of Helen”) as a sort of exercise in the use of language, an example piece, if you will, to attract potential students of rhetoric. We might classify it, in Aristotelian terms, as an epideictic, a “praise and blame” piece of writing. Jean Cocteau, whose treatment… Continue reading Poetry on trial — reading Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus in the light of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen
It is February in Rio de Janeiro, and the sweltering summer is showing no signs of surrender. “Bafado, né?” affirms Mateus, who will show me around. A lush green canopy stretches overhead, its leaves casting a dappled glow over the cobbled driveway as they soak up the morning rays. I am at Sítio Roberto Burle… Continue reading Roberto Burle Marx and the art of the tropical garden
Daisy Greetham Very few TV shows can maintain a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score while delivering the most absurd lines and unjustifiably dramatic plot imaginable. But then again, very few shows are written by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin. Gloriously ridiculous and so far overblown is The Chair Company, the new limited series written by the… Continue reading The Chair Company — Tim Robinson’s profound ability to out-mortify the human experience
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s magnum opus, Frankenstein, has greatly influenced the arts over the past centuries, spanning novels, characters inspired by the creature and film adaptations that provide space for their own interpretation with artistic uniqueness and pioneering elements from the classic story. Among them is Guillermo del Toro (GDT)’s version, released this year, which amassed… Continue reading Frankenstein review — parental trauma themes and biblical allusions
In A Girl’s Story, Annie Ernaux, in a somewhat self-indulgent practice, recounts her girlhood: all its desire, shame and vulnerability that encircles the years of female adolescence. Ernaux’s creative ability to place herself into the body of her 18-year-old self means reliving sexual and emotional trauma. She delves into the summer of 1958 when she… Continue reading Journey to the self — detangling adolescent desire and conditioned female shame in A Girl’s Story
