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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
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Art

From a pencil sketch to cherubs dancing in stone – recreating a Donatello work

7 minutes

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video

Dance and theatre

How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood

16 minutes

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video

Design and fashion

Refined towards imperfection – a ceramic artist recreates a rare Korean treasure

15 minutes

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Making

From log to Go board – the world’s oldest game, made the old-fashioned way

20 minutes

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video

Design and fashion

From sheep to sea – an ode to the iconic sweater that warms Cornish sailors

4 minutes

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video

Food and drink

From set-up to close, a day at the farmers market is a whirlwind sensory feast

10 minutes

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video

Rituals and celebrations

From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual

13 minutes

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video

Making

Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery

9 minutes

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Architecture

How the Dorze in Ethiopia make ‘beehive’ houses from bamboo that last a lifetime

35 minutes

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Technology and the self

‘Perfection is for the gods,’ and this sculptor gets to a thousandth of an inch of it

14 minutes

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Information and communication

There are many ways to make a flat map of the world – each of them a unique distortion

10 minutes

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Making

How sky-high dreams launched one man’s audacious life in homemade rocketry

5 minutes

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Architecture

Cultural wisdom begets cozy temporary homes for the Nenets of the Siberian Arctic

32 minutes

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essay

Archaeology

The clothing revolution

What if the need for fabric, not food, in the face of a changing climate is what first tipped humanity towards agriculture?

Ian Gilligan

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essay

Art

Changed by art

Gazing at a painting feels like an almost magical encounter with another mind but what real effects does art have on us?

Ellen Winner

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video

Design and fashion

Pre-Hispanic and colonial traditions combine in Mario’s uniquely Mexican artworks

6 minutes

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video

Work

The last of her kind, Gricel regales Cuban cigar-rollers with readings and good humour

10 minutes

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Food and drink

Making sauerkraut is a spiritual matter for the ‘fermentation fetishist’ Sandor Katz

12 minutes

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video

Design and fashion

The only thing more entrancing than a marbled book cover is the process that creates it

13 minutes

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Making

Kerala’s skilled hand-weavers struggle to survive the rising tides of modernity

12 minutes

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Technology and the self

A curtain that twitches as people walk by creates a delightful paradox of privacy

3 minutes

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video

Biology

Making dentures can be oddly riveting – a fusion of biology, craft and fun

5 minutes

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essay

The future

Where did the grandeur go?

Superlative things were done in the past century by marshalling thousands of people in the service of a vision of the future

Martin Parker

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video

Music

A project to compose music from everyday life is a joyful jolt of pure creativity

5 minutes