Oct 20Authenticity: Reclaiming a sense of proportion in a messNo Bears (Jafar Panahi 2022) & Alice Sherwood Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture, Mudlark, London 2022 the theory — no matter how bonkers — could be just three clicks away Alice Sherwood And the little bears growl to each other, “He’s mine, As soon as he’s silly and…Philosophy7 min readPhilosophy7 min read
Sep 19Her LimitedSchneemann, he was a great painter. Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics and Sin Wai Kin: The Story Cycle The subtitle ‘Body Politics’ appended to the Barbican Art Gallery’s Carolee Schneemann exhibition connects with Carol Hanisch’s influential essay from 1969, “The Personal is Political.” The reference appears to anchor Schneemann’s practice in…Feminism8 min readFeminism8 min read
Sep 7The Affirmative Other:‘I Joan’ and ‘Feminine Power: the divine to the demonic’ ‘I Joan’ at London’s Shakespeare’s Globe would have vindicated sceptics at the time of the Hundred Years’ War who decried that no woman could lead the French army to victory. In Charlie Josephine’s zappy version of the story, there was…Feminism6 min readFeminism6 min read
Jul 25Black Star Line: In the Black Fantastic and The Railway Children Return.‘Our future together is golden,’ were the aspiring last words of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnston’s resignation speech. The sentiments of Johnston’s utterance were strangely echoed in the ambition of Ekow Eshun’s exhibition, ‘In the Black Fantastic’ at London’s Hayward Gallery. It opened in the days leading up to Johnson’s…Diaspora9 min readDiaspora9 min read
Jun 11Cornelia Parker and Everything Everywhere All at OnceNo, everything, everywhere, all at once isn’t a description of Cornelia Parker’s practice, although it could be. It’s the title of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s movie, released in the UK the same week as her exhibition opened at tate Brittan. I offer a connected reading of these cultural moments…Cornelia Parker8 min readCornelia Parker8 min read
Mar 21Turning Red and Losing ItTurning Red (Domee Shi 2022) is a Disney Pixar animation based around the life of Mei, a thirteen-year-old second-generation Chinese girl living in Canada. She senses her mother’s hopes and dreams pinned on her, but she has a ghastly affliction. She suffers an occasional fantastical transformation, turning into a giant…Disney8 min readDisney8 min read
Mar 16My BatmanI went to a showing of The Batman (Matt Reeves 2022). Its hard-boiled saga, stretching through the crystal landscape of Gotham, adding a layer of Blade Runner’s 2019 LA to a bedraggled vision of New York, all steel doors, weeping concrete, and classical Deco Gothic. The narrative assumes you already…Batman5 min readBatman5 min read
Dec 12, 2021The Mummy IssuesHi Mom 你好，李焕英, (Jia Ling 贾玲 2021) and Last Night in Soho, (Edgar Wright 2021) In movies, traversing time and place has never been easier. Now, there is little need for rattling control panels or to channel lightning into a power-hungry flux-capacitor; everyone assumes time travel is part of modern…Chinese Cinema7 min readChinese Cinema7 min read
May 28, 2021Slavery and Those Meddlesome KidsPsycho Goreman (Steven Kostanski 2020) It will seem petty to disparage Psycho Goreman, a lovable and wacky teen movie with an overwhelming central performance from Nita-Josee Hanna. However, the genre merging horror, sci-fi, screwball comedy is deplorable. The film rejoices in the motif of enslavement. It normalizes it, and even…Frantz Fanon5 min readFrantz Fanon5 min read
May 15, 2021Drifting Away, A New Spirit of AcquiescenceNomadland (Chloé Zhao 2020) & Once Upon a River (Haroula Rose 2019) As the dust settles on the accolades bestowed to Chloé Zhao and Frances McDormand for Nomadland, I am curious to consider how the movie questions if independence is possible in societies systemically inflected by perfectionism. To assess this…Frances Mcdormand6 min readFrances Mcdormand6 min read
