The word ‘vicissitudes’ can at times means hardship in life or a sudden ill-fated turn of events. However, when Jason DeCaires Taylor uses it to name his underwater sculptures, ‘vicissitudes’ becomes the quality of mutability. It seems strange that the artist would want to ‘set in stone’ his tribute to transience. Sculpture has traditionally been [...]
Thomas Meerstadt’s Separation from Hollywood
American hegemony amongst the film industry is a well known fact. Almost everyone across the globe has seen a Hollywood production and, for the majority of the 20th century, the term Hollywood had more or less become synonymous with the film industry. In fact 85-90% of box-office takings over the last twenty years have been [...]
Ellie Wallis and Emma Walker’s Pursuit of Perfection
“I’m not perfect, I’m nothing.” These bleak and fatalistic words encapsulate the struggle for perfection which plagues many of the female characters in Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar nominated psychological thriller. The film follows an aspiring ballet dancer, in her preparation for the most important performance of her career. The child-like, naïve Nina must realise the darker, [...]
Gareth Davies on Waste Land
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish. We’re all familiar with T.S. Eliot’s magnum opus The Wasteland. But does its message of a planet in decline still resonate with the world we live in now? Yes, says Lucy Walker, and more than ever before. Her new creation, Waste [...]
Rory Foster’s The Nonsensical to the Commercial
The BBC’s “sound of” feature occurs every year around the same time. It is the BBC’s attempt at guessing what new bands will ‘make it’ in the coming year, and it’s normally able to push a few of its 5 shortlisted artists into the limelight. However, two artists in particular are giving the public a greater [...]
Alex Conway on The Importance of a DJ
One of the questions I get asked the most is ‘what is the point of a DJ? Can’t iTunes do the same job?’ There is a huge community of music aficionados who despise modern disk jockeys; I’ll try to explain why the world needs DJs and what we actually do. I have been DJ-ing since [...]
Ali Paul on The Price of a Ticket
Eden wakes up to his manager rapping on the hotel door. “Half an hour till bus call – you better have rested your voice last night.” His manager is greeted by unerring silence. More frantic knocking commences. “I’ll get a taxi,” he grumpily responds. “There’s no way I’ll be ready in half an hour”. Eden lets [...]
Dubstep: The Internet’s First Child
Dubstep, let’s face it, sounds like a monster with tourettes having an epileptic fit. Upon its creation it was completely alien to anything anyone had heard before, and still mostly only attracts the male half of the population. So, how has it achieved such a wide fan base and (after being a little diluted) pretty [...]
Christian Drury and Growing Green?
One of the highlights of the 2010 General Election, often missed by commentators obsessed by a hung parliaments and new potential coalitions, was the election of Caroline Lucas. In the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, they voted for the first Green MP in British history. For any small party an MP is a huge step, allowing [...]
Lizzie Dearden’s Climate of Suspicion
In the wake of The Guardian’s exposé of PC Mark Kennedy, who lived as ‘Mark Stone’ for six years while spying on environmental activists, the policing of environmentalist groups has come under scrutiny. After infiltrating the movement at Earth First in 2003, Kennedy embedded himself in a group of activists and joined protests across Europe. [...]
David Fraser Clarke’s Sea Change or Climate Change
I like to think of our battle against climate change as like that of a recovering alcoholic. Often well intentioned, we know the dangers of doing nothing. When the circumstances are right, we make huge strides forward and success seems possible, but we can’t help but fall off the wagon the moment things get tough. [...]
Jasmine Tarmey on Dickens’ Train of Thought
Murder on the Orient Express, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Railway Children: literature, especially children’s fiction, is rife with images of the steam train. Many would love to board the Hogwarts Express for a magical world of spells, potions and broomsticks without thinking about their journey’s side effects. After all, a child’s first impression of [...]
Sophie Taylor’s Shrinking Golding Down to Size
English Literature is not exactly considered synonymous to the theme of environmentalism and with around 30 million trees being destroyed every year for the production of books in the US alone, this is hardly surprising. However, one common theme in literature is man’s relationship in the world with nature, an element explored by art movements [...]
Helena Kaznowska is Addicted to Austen
Today’s society seems obsessed with every aspect of both the novelist and their novels. This seemingly recent craze has resulted in the production of countless books, films and documentaries on the lives of writers, such as the 2003 film The Hours (based on Virginia Woolf and her novel Mrs Dalloway) Shakespeare in Love, Kafka and [...]
Harriet Evans is Making Herself Heard
It’s been over 180 years since Shelley called poets the ‘unacknowledged legislators’ of the world and since then, the number of writers and poets has increased unfathomably. Yet, when was the last time a writer really held up a mirror to the world and critiqued it? It’s a long-standing tradition that the act of writing [...]
Maksymilian Fus Mickiewicz’s A Tribal Culture
Speaking to The Zahir, Miriam Ross, press officer of the London-based NGO Survival International, describes her own battle with the Botswana government to protect the alternative way of life the Kalahari Bushmen have chosen to lead. Their mission statement is simple: to protect marginalised people’s rights. Those in opposition range from corporations looking to grab [...]
