Arts & Culture

by Hal Conte Timing an exhibition can be a knotty problem for an art gallery or museum, but it helps when your subject matter is trending by default. “Breaking the News,” running at the British Library through late August, covers 500 years of media history using old newspapers, video footage, pamphlets, and more. It has […]

by Beatrix Stark Edie Sedgwick is enshrined in popular culture as a 1960s fashion icon and muse to Andy Warhol. The seventh child of Francis and Alice Sedgwick, Edie was born into a life of luxury and privilege. The Sedgwicks were an extremely wealthy, influential American dynasty that stretched back centuries and appeared to live […]

by Beatrix Stark A new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is being performed for the first time in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as part of the Globe’s Winter 2021/2022 performance series. A story of corruption, deception, and madness, Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most haunting plays. Set in the remote, garish Royal Court of Elsinore in […]

by Hal Conte In Peter Pomerantsev’s book on Russia and so-called “post-truth politics”, he recounts how his father and other Soviet dissidents considered the British Broadcasting Corporation as a light of unshakable truth in a society that could only consider its own, propagandistic media through a cynical and post-ironic lens. David Hendy’s new book on […]

by Beatrix Stark Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988) took centre stage in a retrospective at the Barbican Centre in London which just ended on Jan. 23. The exhibition, titled Noguchi, is an excellent reminder of – or introduction to – the pioneering work of a twentieth century sculptor whose experimentation revolutionised the […]

Co-Editor for Arts & Culture Mia Ivy Jeffries explores the the British cultural ‘soft-spot’ for the royal family and the dangers a lack of accountability may hold in ensuring the power and privilege royal members hold is not exploited.

Zoé Barret looks at Ladj Ly’s ‘Les Misérables’ and its exploration of the inequality within the 93, France’s most notorious banlieue.

Bailey Agbai explores whether the unstoppable mammoth of the streaming industry is going to lead to the death of cinema.

Meera Eldridge explores the tweets that saw author J.K. Rowling under fire and whether we can disagree with her views but still enjoy her art.

‘Bad Girls’ Author Caitlin Davies speaks to Isaac Little about the history of Holloway Prison and Britain’s often contradictory relationship with female criminals.

Isaac Little explores the impact of the Drug War on Mexican society through some of Mexico’s most popular, and controversial, music.

Shehzadi Aziz writes about her interview with Lanaire Aderemi, a final year sociology student at Warwick who performed at the Arts Centre this academic year. On the 2nd and 3rd of October 2019, a final year Sociology student at Warwick gave two outstanding performances in the Warwick Arts Centre. This show was called ‘an evening […]

Arts and Culture Co-Editor Isaac Little explores the resurgence of brutalism, its controversial history and what it all means for Coventry.

Simron Gill explores the commercialisation of the Chinese New Year festival, both in China itself and here in the UK, and analyses the impact of culture upon economy.

Emma Worrall discusses the various controversies that dogged this year’s Academy Awards, and dissects the contenders nominated for Best Picture.

Andrew Kersley recalls a visit to the El-De Haus Holocaust Memorial in Cologne and what it tells us about the nation of Germany and how it memorialises the world’s darkest atrocity

Alpana Sajip reviews Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction masterpiece, ‘The Dispossessed’, telling us what lessons it has to offer in today’s times of political uncertainty

Ceridwen Mitchell explores an intimate new exhibition about the complexity of the female body at Birmingham’s Argentea Gallery.

4th year Ceridwen Mitchell discusses an issue close to her heart and her home, that being the regeneration of social housing in Cressingham Gardens and the admirable stand residents are taking against this act of gentrification in Lambeth.

Matilda Smith discusses Portillo’s talk Life: A Game of Two Halves, upon his visit to the Warwick Arts Centre. A collection of memories and anecdotes that desperately tries to de-politicize itself with these Portillo Moments.

Lewis McClenaghan talks about his experience at the Tate Modern film installation “The Clock” and what it tells us all about cinema, society and the lives of each and every one of us

Politics and Economics Editor Andrew Kersley looks at new Netflix film 22 July and wonders what it tells us about the rise of the far right across Europe

Through exploring Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, Andrew Kersley discusses how Agatha Christie subverts reader expectations and rejuvenates the murder mystery genre.

Rachel Morgan examines the degree to which Netflix’s new show Insatiable manages to achieve the body positivity it spends its runtime striving for.

Hidden beneath the extravagance of an Athenian background, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) captures the capitalistic criticism and misanthropic isolation of one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays: Timon of Athens.

Alpana Sajip takes us around the Tate Modern’s recent exhibition, and the history behind this Post-Expressionist movement

Politics and Economics Coeditor Andrew Kersley uses Spanish Sci-Fi programme El Ministerio Del Tiempo to show the formative role television can play in culture.

Co-editor-in-chief Anita Slater reviews Deborah Levy’s latest living memoir, discussing Levy’s approach to a myriad of topics including gender, marriage and the position of the writer.

Matthew Dale discusses the root of the problem surrounding Studio Ghibli’s crisis of succession by delving into the political and personal reasons for the acclaimed studio’s impending downfall.

Hélène Selam Klieh asks if remembrance inspires the future, is revisiting the past redundant?

Olivia Butcher examines the key exhibits at The Venice Architecture Biennale 2016

A Jordanian writer, accused of sharing a cartoon considered offensive to Islam, was killed two weeks after his release from prison on bail. Hakim Khatib explores why.

Holly Winter reviews the Tate Britain’s recent exhibition Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, arguing that it fails to address the most troubling aspects of our history

Beyoncé’s music constitutes a vast and varied diatribe against the patriarchy. Based on her infamous dissertation, which took the internet by storm earlier this year, Molly Inglis explores constituent parts of Beyoncé’s brand of feminism.

Alpana Sajip explores the wider implications of the Mead Gallery’s 2016 exhibition ‘The Human Document’, considering how truthfully photography can reflect the human condition, and how it has continued to evolve from post-Depression America to today’s digital universe

Fatima Ali Omar reviews the BBC’s recent T.V. film adaptation of Zadie Smith’s 2012 novel, NW – Black identity, struggle and redemption are just some of the themes explored

Molly Russell argues Bob Dylan’s recent Nobel Prize win is wholly deserved: his lyrics of protest and emancipation speak louder now than ever before.

Clare Hymer examines problematic partnerships between oil companies and British cultural institutions, and the importance of creative direct action to combat them.

Sohrab Najle-Rahim examines why we should be wary of the business world’s ‘mindfulness revolution’.

Arts and Culture co-editor Kat Burdon reviews Justin Kurzel’s widely acclaimed reinterpretation of the Scottish Play, examining the tale’s treatment of man, madness, and morality to suggest that its enduring appeal can be found in the lessons it would teach us, lessons long learned and yet never fully acted upon.

Jordan Hindson explores the relationship between mental illness and the creative temperament, with the help of Kay Redfield Jamison’s seminal book Touched with Fire.

Hélène Selam Kleih examines artistic representations of the interrelated issues of immigration, identity and mental health in modern France.

A 21st century re-imagining of Caryl Churchill’s 1981 play, Top Girls, from Arts & Culture Co-Editor Kat Burdon.

Agasty Baylon Yogaratnam discusses the link between comedy and mental health.

Perspective’s Editor Thames discusses the film ‘The Lobster’ in the context of online dating and suggests that looking for love and searching for a job have more in common than you think.

Jordan Hindson reads Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon, and reflects on the chilling moment in history that gave rise to the Moscow Show Trials.

Jordan Hindson examines the use of the death penalty in the US, and argues that Albert Camus still has a lot to teach us.

Themes co-Editor Lizzy Yarwood surveys developments in transgender culture across the Middle East and Asia.

Jamie Taylor analyses the viral videos that rapidly flood our newsfeeds alongside the political soundbites that emanate from our television screens.

Anna Carey asks if we can represent climate change more effectively than the static image of the stranded polar bear.

Jordan Hindson explains why the Spanish Civil War was such attractive subject matter for twentieth-century artists and intellectuals, and explores the immortal works that they produced in response to the conflict.

In his essay ‘Who Owns Auschwitz?’, Holocaust survivor Imre Kertész wrote: “More and more often, the Holocaust is stolen from its guardians and made into cheap consumer goods. Or else it is institutionalized, and around it is built a moral political ritual, complete with a new and often phony language.” Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in American culture, writes Helena Skinner.

Jordan Hindson examines Dr. Strangelove and the Cuban Missile Crisis to reflect on the twisted logic that frames the nuclear debate.

Do you control games, or do they control you? Frank Davies explores the links between contemporary systems of social control and video games.

Arts and Culture co-editor Kat Burdon discusses the importance of clothing in contemporary society, and how the way we dress can impact upon and inform collective and individual identities.

Jordan Hindson discusses what Nafisi’s memoir reveals about the intersection between art and revolutionary politics.

Arts & Culture co-Editor Clare Hymer discusses how our predilection for ‘multiple identities’ is reinforcing hyper-consumption.

What was the experience of the disabled in the ancient world? Annie Sharples challenges our notions of inherent Western progression by examining the representations and experiences of the disabled before the common era.

Arts and Culture co-Editor Kat Burdon considers how the VW scandal could affect attitudes towards the car as our primary medium of transport.

Arts & Culture co-Editor Kat Burdon discusses the concept of ‘eating clean’, a recent phenomenon driven in part by food bloggers encouraging readers to follow a healthier diet. The article exposes the way in which eating ‘cleaner’ has been falsely equated with a greener, more ethically sound lifestyle through the faddish promotion of ‘superfoods’ – many of which are expensive and fundamentally damaging to the environment.