Tag: Spotify

  • The South Sea Islanders

    In 1863 a group of 67 labourers arrived in Brisbane, the first of 62,000 people from 80 Melanesian islands who endured forced migration to provide cheap labour to Australia’s cotton and sugar industries. This influx of people, which lasted until 1904, brought a new dynamic to the country, but many of the recent arrivals were…

  • The Spotify playlist

    Each week a playlist of audio is curated to go alongside the articles on the blog. There is always a link with the articles although sometimes it is less obvious than others. To listen click on the player above or go to Spotify and search for “Music to read a blog by”. Paying subscribers to…

  • Rohit Bal

    The Indian fashion designer, Rohit Bal, known for his innovative blending of the sub-continent’s cultural heritage with contemporary design, has died. Bal credited his early childhood experiences of his mother’s shawls and saris with his success, saying that “Fabric is the… lifeblood of fashion”, and his understanding of materials and techniques resulted in a label…

  • A note about photos on the blog

    Over the past few years I have been very conscious that photographs convey a lot more than words but that has presented a moral dilemma. These days when images are an ever-present part of our daily lives it is easy to find something on the Web to use as an illustration for an article. In…

  • The forest that penned a song

    A legal bid has proposed that an Ecuadorean forest be recognised as the co-creator of a song, a moral ownership that could help save it. The petition, initiated by the More Than Human Life (Moth) Project, is going to submitted to the country’s copyright office that will ask for Los Cedros cloud forest to be…

  • Living the ancient high life

    A recent and surprising discovery has been uncovered in the high altitudes of Uzbekistan’s southeastern mountains. The region was long thought to have been uninhabited because of the problems with living at such altitudes but this discovery, made using lidar, the remote sending technology that uses reflected light to map out surroundings in three dimensions,…

  • Emily Van Hoff’s playful quilts

    Graphic designer, Emily Van Hoff, has come up with a new line of quilting fabrics. The new fabrics have been created for Moda Fabrics and will be available next year. Until then have a look at the artist’s quilts that combine weaving with sculptural techniques and colour to explore materials and their possibilities. See more:…

  • So she was turned to a pillar of salt

    Jo Rogge, an artist who lives between South Africa and Namibia, is non-binary and creates work that comments and highlights social issues that they have experienced. In this show, just ended in Windhoek’s “The Project Room” in Namibia, Rogge’s repurposed textiles take their place alongside visual art. The textiles are found pieces that have been…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each blog is accompanied by a playlist of audio pieces on Spotify, the streaming platform. The playlist brings together disparate music and, sometimes, other audio that has something to do with the entries on the blog. To listen to the playlist click on the Player above or go to Spotify and search for “Music to…

  • No Dogs

    This award-winning film is a hard-hitting, stylish and shocking look at 1930s America.