Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations

Architecture Art Biography and memoir Dance and theatre Design and fashion Film and visual culture Food and drink Home Music Nature and landscape Rituals and celebrations Sports and games Stories and literature Subcultures Travel

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Photo of a person painting waveforms on clear film with a brush and ink beside audio equipment.

videoMusic

A dispatch from the dawn of the electronic music age

14 minutes

Painting of a bridge’s skeletal structure on a billboard with a colourful sky and greenery in the background.

videoHome

An artist’s wistful survey of his demolished childhood home

8 minutes

Painting of a landscape with a helicopter, purple mountains, people near a stream and vehicles by trees under a blue sky.

videoNature and landscape

The joys that follow rain – an animated Aboriginal artwork

2 minutes

An older woman sitting on steps, speaking to journalists holding microphones and cameras outside a house.

essayBiography and memoir

On her own terms

Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook remains shocking, necessary and imperfect – a dazzling experiment in living as a woman

Catherine Taylor

Painting of a distressed man with wide eyes holding a dying man with a bloody head. They lie on a red pattered carpet near a toppled throne, dark, rich tones in the background.

videoGlobal history

Why this once-banned Russian painting remains controversial

25 minutes

Photo of a silhouetted diver poised on a high diving board against a dark blue sky.

videoSports and games

Elite high-divers take the plunge in this dazzling short

7 minutes

A modern library with tall bookshelves and people reading or using devices in a cosy, well-lit atmosphere.

essayTechnology and the self

Books and screens

Your inability to focus isn’t a failing. It’s a design problem, and the answer isn’t getting rid of our screen time

Carlo Iacono

Painting of abstract blue and orange shapes on top of a pink and beige background with black plants

videoArt

Transforming landscape painting into a portal through time

10 minutes

Photo of a child in a colourful winter jacket and knitted hat, in a snowy forest, with a thoughtful expression.

videoNature and landscape

A father and son’s search for the line where the snow starts

12 minutes

Hands intricately painting a small figurine’s hair black with a fine brush, the figure wears a blue outfit.

videoLove and friendship

An action-figure maker’s outsized tribute to his late brother

15 minutes

Two figures in flowing robes standing amidst partially submerged bodies in a dark, eerie landscape.

essayStories and literature

Subverting hell

In their visions of the underworld Dante and Milton were truly subversive, incorporating predecessors into their own repudiation

Charlie Ericson

Felt art of a man in a red turban with sheep on a hillside under a stylised sun.

videoAnimals and humans

A musical ode to Indian wool and life on the Deccan Plateau

8 minutes

Painting of a vibrant futuristic city with lush greenery, people and colourful signs, featuring advanced architecture and technology.

essayArchitecture

Compost modernity!

The vision of solarpunk: joining nature with technology in vibrantly inclusive ways to create a world that truly blooms

Yogi Hale Hendlin

Rock painting of animals in red pigment on a rough stone surface, depicting various quadrupeds across the rocky wall.

videoArchaeology

What the ‘Louvre of the desert’ reveals about the human story

15 minutes

Illustration of a person standing with arms outstretched on a car roof filled with cheering people, trees in the background.

videoLife stages

Youthful joy and civil unrest collide in this epic road trip tale

11 minutes

A person riding a motorcycle on a vertical wall in a wooden cylinder arena with spectators above, indoors.

videoSubcultures

The Indian daredevils who feel at home in the Well of Death

6 minutes

Photo of two silhouettes walking by fountains with bokeh effect in the foreground, Arc de Triomphe in the background.

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Computers can’t surprise

As AI’s endless clichés continue to encroach on human art, the true uniqueness of our creativity is becoming ever clearer

Richard Beard

Aerial photo of an industrial conveyor unloading material into a turquoise water body, surrounded by carved sand dunes.

videoProgress and modernity

From Michigan to Singapore, a meditation on dreams built on sand

17 minutes

Three people draped in German flags standing in a town square during a gathering, with a rainbow in the cloudy sky.

essayAnthropology

Dreams of the far Right

Young Europeans join far-Right movements less out of grievance than out of a profound yearning to believe and belong

Agnieszka Pasieka

Photo of a snow leopard looking up with a mountainous background and some foliage in the foreground.

videoAnimals and humans

There’s a gentle artistry to a museum taxidermist’s craft

8 minutes

Photo of a person with glasses holding a clarinet, finger to lips in a shushing gesture, blue sky background.

videoNature and landscape

A breezy ode to wind ponders its power, beauty and utility

10 minutes

People lowering a wicker coffin into a grave in a green landscape with hills and a river in the background.

essayDeath

How to become a tree

Many people today want to commit their remains to rejuvenating the planet. But are these green deaths just greenwashing?

Hannah Gould & Georgina Robinson

Sepia-toned photo of a person in traditional armour with a spiked helmet holding a weapon in a forest setting.

videoDesign and fashion

How islanders of Oceania built fearsome armour without metal

18 minutes

A person playing a stringed instrument with focus on the tuning pegs and the blurred player in the background.

videoMusic

Why millennia of history echo in each strum of a Persian tar

4 minutes