The New York subway is a shell of its former self. Even as the city has managed to keep its coronavirus levels lower than many other parts of the country, and despite indications that using it isn’t all that dangerous, ridership is still down 75 per cent from last year. In May, for the first… Read more »
“It’s like a bat signal,” Akwaeke Emezi says of their new book, “to let other people know, hey, what you’re going through, you’re not the only one.” Exploring queerness in present-day Nigeria, The Death of Vivek Oji is a mysterious unravelling of the story of a child who contains much more than his family sees…. Read more »
Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006) fell in love with photography in his early 20s, and spent the next six decades of his life capturing the pleasures of youth, rebellion, and the male form. It all began in 1958, when Weinberger met a teen named Jimmy Oechslin on a street near his home. “Jimmy was dressed… Read more »
Last weekend, several hundred people gathered outside of Tottenham police station to commemorate the nine-year anniversary of the killing of Mark Duggan. Duggan, a 29-year-old Black British man, was shot and killed by police in the North London town, sparking riots in August 2011. The unrest spread across London and 10 other cities in the… Read more »
When it was released in 1999, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a massive deal. Hawk had just landed the first 900° at the San Francisco X Games, propelling him into the upper echelon of American sports icons and priming millions of viewers to see skating as something more than a delinquent hobby. After years of… Read more »
In 1973, at the tender age of 18, Sergio Purtell fled his hometown of Santiago, Chile, for the United States. The decision came after General Augusto Pinochet and Admiral José Merino lead a coup d’état, killing the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. Once situated in his new home, Purtell began studying photography, going on… Read more »
The idea for a Victor Jara concept album came to James Dean Bradfield while he was visiting bandmate Nicky Wire’s older brother Patrick. Patrick Jones is a poet and playwright, and strewn around his study were poems and bits of prose written about the murdered Chilean folk singer and leftist activist. “It was the first… Read more »
Home to one of the world’s last surviving nomadic cultures, Mongolia conjures visions of drifting horsemen galloping through the steppe. But in Ulaanbaatar, the country’s capital, where roughly half of the population lives, there exists a different reality. Beyond the facade of Soviet-style apartment blocks and impenetrable winter smog, there is a burgeoning hip-hop scene… Read more »
Ayahuasca, the dimension-blasting psychoactive substance derived from the Amazonian vine, has for centuries been ingested ceremonially by indigenous tribespeople – and in more recent years, backpacking tourists seeking out its mind-melting properties. But a global boom in psychedelic tourism has fuelled an explosion in ayahuasca retreats in Europe too, creating a teeming, unregulated market catering… Read more »
In 1985, Nan Goldin unveiled The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a slide show featuring photographs taken in New York in the late ’70s and early ’80s. First shown publicly at the Whitney Biennial, Goldin’s intimate portraits of her friends and lovers chronicled the No Wave art and music scene on the city’s Lower East Side…. Read more »
Legendary London DJ duo Coldcut have been making music together for an incredible 33 years now, which means Matt Black and Jonathan More must be fast approaching national treasure status. But don’t expect any valedictory laps of honour just yet from two men still working on, and presiding over, plenty of sonic vitality as label… Read more »
Joshua Brown-Smith thought the news was a hoax at first. It was mid-May, and the 14 year-old had just finished meeting with a community member in his capacity as chair of Young Advisors to Lewisham Council. Worriedly, they’d told Josh about their fears surrounding the newly-announced Transport for London bailout; nestled amongst the government’s conditions… Read more »
