That sinking feeling
If art’s mission is to change public perceptions or to transcend established practices, it can no longer be apolitical, unaware of social or economic currents. The creators of an exhibit that examines the “cultural afterlife” of taxidermised polar bears, nanoq: flat out and bluesome, by Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, sum up a rather recent...
Understanding the unseen
History, according to the heartfelt judgement of a young scholar in Alan Bennett’s marvellous play The History Boys “[is] just one fuckin’ thing after another.” Biology is a bit like this, because evolution works with a single set of raw materials within the constraints imposed by the planet’s environmental conditions. Every cell is surrounded by...
