Tag: playlist

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week the blog is accompanied by a playlist of music and sound that reflects the articles. Sometimes the connections are obvious, often not. To listen to the playlist click on the play button on the player above or search for “Music to read a blog by” from within the app. Paying subscribers will hear…

  • Paradise Road

    On the 27th April 1994, the first democratic elections in South Africa were held, ultimately leading to Nelson Mandela becoming President. It was a time of hope and positive change was in the air. There was jubilation and joy, and community, much celebrated around the world. Music had supported and helped to lead the way…

  • Of cranberries and kahikatea

    Weekends on the West Coast are spent exploring the area and this week that exploration took in cranberry growing and kahikatea forests. Agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand is the largest part of the economy with regards to trade, and is unique in having an unsubsidised agricultural sector as a result of reforms aimed at making…

  • Faith Ringgold

    Faith Ringgold spent more than fifty years exploring and explaining. This classically-trained sculptor and painter used her energies to fight inequality through art, in particular “story quilts”, unstretched canvases painted with acrylics and bordered with pieced fabric. These pieces told the stories of Black lives, particularly of women, and celebrate “the human capacity to transcend…

  • The seas around us

    The textile artist Erik Speer uses waste, old stock and ends of line materials to explore an ocean of possibilities. With a degree in marine biology, it is no surprise that the artist’s work focuses on marine life. By using a variety of techniques and materials, Erik creates sculptures that look like coral reefs, sponges…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a Spotify list is curated to go along with the blog. Each piece on the list is relevant to the blog entries, with a mix of old and new music and sound from across the globe. Those with a Spotify subscription will be able to listen to the entire playlist without interruption, those…

  • The Sony World Photography Awards

    The winners of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards have just been announced. To see the images head on over to the BBC website here. The Photographer of the Year is Juliette Pavy with Spiralkampagnen, a documentary series about the forced sterilisation of Inuit women in Greenland. Several thousand girls and women were fitted with…

  • An ancient Chinese scroll animated

    This week the next in the series of Conversation and Cloth talks took place in the Regent Theatre in Māwhera Greymouth. This time the theme was Art and Artists and clothes, costumes, fabrics and decorative items were all part of the show-and-tell. There were books to go along with the talk too. The series focuses…

  • Murals at Pompeii

    Nearly 2000 years ago, the Italian city of Pompeii was obliterated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The blast covered the settlement with ash and pumice that preserved, sometimes in remarkable detail, the details of everyday life in this Roman city. Over decades the site has been the focus of archaeology with astonishing finds showing…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each blog is accompanied by a Spotify playlist, a curated selection of audio that relates in some way to the blog and, occasionally, to current events, such as this week’s eclipse. Paid subscribers to Spotify will hear all the songs in the playlist on the player above or in your own app while free subscriptions…