Saturday 19th July 2025
Blog Page 1019

Thrift shopping: still cool in 2016?

William Shaw
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Thrift shopping: still cool in 2016?

The year was 2013. Justin Timberlake, after a long absence from pop music, released his long-awaited comeback single, the high-class ‘Suit and Tie’. It was a smash hit. Or rather, it would have been, had it not been kept off the number one spot by… well, technically by ‘The Harlem Shake’. But also by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ breakthrough hit ‘Thrift Shop’. The two songs formed a mirror image of each other. Both focused on the power of fashion, and were infused with an extremely cocky swagger. But the boys from Seattle won through for two reasons: firstly, they simply had the better song. Where Timberlake’s off ering was twinkly and just a bit slow, ‘Thrift Shop’ was catchy and energetic, its main sax riff instantly recognisable. Secondly, they had a sense of humour – where Timberlake banged on about his own attractiveness, Macklemore rapped about the joys of wearing second-hand clothes, so it’s not hard to see which of the two was the more likeable. Thus began a career full of promise.

Their last flash of relevance came in 2015, with the magnificent ‘Downtown’. Once again, this song had an obvious counterpart – namely Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ smash-hit ‘Uptown Funk’. But where ‘Uptown Funk’ was polished, ‘Downtown’ was an odder beast. The verses are slipshod but funny – opening with Macklemore getting ripped off by a moped salesman, the song presents a bizarre odyssey about the coolness of mopeds, with undertones of sixties pop and eighties rap. It’s a self-indulgent joy with a more accessible vision of cool than the exclusive ‘Uptown Funk’, precisely because it is so uncool.

‘Downtown’ shows Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at their best. Melodious, strange, and self-aware enough for the humour to work, it’s unlike anything else. The two deliberately stuck out at an odd angle from the rest of the pop scene, a fresh voice adding a touch of levity to an all-too-ponderous music industry. Following the release of their second album This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, I hope they do stick around. But I really can’t think of a better way to go out.

Is this the future, the present or the past of The Strokes?

Graham Mazeine
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Is this the future, the present or the past of The Strokes?

The Strokes have seemed over the past five years to be (much to my despair) a band on their final legs. After putting out two world-class records Is This It and Room on Fire more than 10 years ago, three subsequent albums have failed to reach the bar set by iconic 00’s tracks like ‘Last Nite’ and ‘Reptilia.’ To be sure, there have been highlights in their most recent output – ‘Machu Picchu’ would be the apotheosis of most bands’ work – but the most worrying thing about the future of The Strokes is not the quality of the music, which remains high, but rather the declining interest that the members of the band seem to have in playing together. Since the first two albums, all five Strokes have embarked on side projects or solo careers, with frontman and primary songwriter Julian Casablancas and guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. achieving reasonable critical success.

Nevertheless, the disparate personalities of The Strokes have come together again to record a new three track EP, Future Present Past, which synthesises Casablancas’ and Hammond’s recent solo work with most recent album Comedown Machine in a way that mirrors the evolution of The Strokes over the course of its existence, as the title suggests. The first track ‘Drag Queen’ is a futuristic, 80s-inspired strut with reverb-y synths interspersed with guitars, and a climactic explosion of a chorus. ‘Queen’ seems a natural combination of modern-era Strokes with Casablancas’ solo career and adventurous progressive rock project with The Voidz, which could not be more different to The Strokes while still remaining, by a generous definition, within the same genre. Casablancas always seems unenthusiastic about returning to The Strokes after time away – he recorded his vocals for fourth Strokes LP Angles separately from the rest of the band, and the group only played a handful of shows to promote Comedown Machine. ‘Drag Queen’ should appease his evolving musical taste. It is a Strokes tune in the vein of Angles’ ‘Games,’ a departure from the interlocking, crunchy guitars of Is This It and Room on Fire, but it is definitely an entertaining track with a memorable chorus. If this is the future of the band, they could do worse.

The second track, ‘OBLIVIUS’, is more obviously Strokes-y, and more obviously a very good track. Hammond and Nick Valensi’s guitar work on the intro is intricate, with the dueling riff s bouncing off and complementing each other. As Casablancas cries “What side are you standing on?” in another climactic chorus, one can’t help but feel like The Strokes are still capable of creating music that stays true to what brought them success in the first place, but is still innovative. This sentiment is supported by closer ‘Threat of Joy’, a mellow tune that wouldn’t be out of place on the second half of Is This It with a simple rhythm section framing crooning vocals and clean guitar chords. ‘Threat’ is an homage to where The Strokes came from, and the influence of Hammond, who unlike Casablancas has never strayed far from Strokes-style songwriting in his solo career, is palpable. It is unpretentious, no-frills guitar rock – exactly what made The Strokes great.

The future (‘Drag Queen’), present (‘OBLIVIUS’), and past (‘Threat of Joy’) have combined in a bite-sized EP from a legendary band that doesn’t leave one underwhelmed like the last two LPs did. Each track has its merits, but the latter two tracks are gems that blend the work of the band with the work of its individual members. If they are motivated enough to continue, there is life left in The Strokes.

“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

Harriet Dagnall
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“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

Frank Zappa once argued that ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’ Forgive me Frank but I’m going to give it a go. After all, he did name his children Dweezil, Moon Unit and Diva Muffin, so what does he know?

With so much human history behind us, it is perhaps unsurprising that each generation feels the burden of originality weighing upon them even heavier than the last. The 2006 film, ‘The History Boys’ tackles the dilemma head-on – temporary teacher, Mr Irwin, is coaching a group of Oxbridge candidates for their looming aptitude test, and, though the boys do know the correct answers, he insists that in order to be noticed, they must “say something different, say the opposite.” Regardless of the truth, interest is the key. And with every contemporary album I hear, I’m becoming more and more suspicious that Mr. Irwin has been coaching modern artists in a similar vein. Charlotte O’Connor’s debut ‘For Kenny’ was one of my favourite albums of 2011, and I, a fourteen year old innocent, decided to play it as the soundtrack to a family barbeque that summer, eager for my elders to understand that ‘baby you’re a firework’ and ‘party rock is in the house tonight’ were not all the modern generation could boast, desperate to demonstrate that, to some extent at least, music was not ‘better in their day.’ Instead, they scoffed, ‘Who’s this? They’ve clearly been listening to Corrine Bailey Rae.’ Ouch. As much as this little anecdote still pains me, I think it serves to demonstrate my point- pass us the Piriton, we’re allergic to derivativeness.

Imagine this, Bruno Mars’ ‘When I was your man’ on the lips of, let’s say, Marvin Gaye. Instant classic. Motown fans everywhere accept it into their ranks without batting an eyelid. ’50 Greatest Heartbreak Ballads’ just found its fiftieth track. Adele’s ‘Someone like you’- stick a mind-blowing crescendo key-change at the end and hand it to Whitney and we have a nice new addition to ‘The Bodyguard’ soundtrack. McFly’s ‘Obviously’ (a bit retro, I know, but stay with me), with a few cosmetic changes, wouldn’t actually sound out of place on the Beatles’ 1965 album, ‘Help!’ alongside tracks like ‘The Night Before’ and ‘You’re going to lose that girl.’ What I hope this might demonstrate is that these songs, fundamentally, are not bad songs; not the best by any means, but not bad, per se. I truly believe that each of them, had they been written amongst the originals of their respective genres, would be far more revered than they are today. Yet, at some stage, I have seen each of them tossed aside because they sounded like someone else.

Maybe it’s just me, perhaps I have subconsciously surrounded myself with the most cynical of modern music critics. But, irrespective of my circle of disparagers, I do think it a fair generalisation that we are constantly searching for something new, something original. And it’s becoming a hideously tall order given the sheer amount of music which has preceded us. If you’ll allow me to ascend to my pulpit for a moment, Ecclesiastes 1:9 did call it: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” But is this really a bad thing? We seem unable to detach music from its context; a song written in 2016 might be just as good, perhaps better, than one written decades earlier, yet we critique it more harshly for being a little late to the party. What if we were to judge a song context-blind? Surely, the purity of that experience would be so much greater.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way an advocate for the Simon Cowell school of carbon copies; within much of what our indie friends might refer to as ‘the mainstream’, we do often find an unabashed repetition of the same four chords, the same bland production and the same lazy lyricism (frankly, it’s astounding how we’ve managed to regress from Jimmy Webb’s “and I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time” to “work, work, work, work, work, he see mi do mi dirt dirt dirt dirt dirt.”)  But the opposite extreme is equally terrifying,  our obsession with originality pushing us to a point where we’re listening to something because it’s interesting and not because it’s good, every song shrouded in a series of beeps and whistles, every voice plastered with affectation, all in the pursuit of originality.  I was confronted with a somewhat jarring realisation of the extent of the problem recently, when I was asked to listen to ‘electronic experimentalist duo’, Matmos, whose entire album is composed entirely out of sounds sampled from a washing machine. Just for that extra edge, they even wheel the washing machine out for live performances…it gets a solo. In case you were wondering, it is every bit as shit as it sounds.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh, it’s not like interesting music and good music are mutually exclusive categories, perhaps we should heed the advice of our late, great Bowie and ‘turn and face the strange’ or, to return to comic-musician and child-naming extraordinaire, Frank Zappa, accept that ‘without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.’ Equally, however, derivative and good music are not mutually exclusive either. Can’t a good song be so, regardless of its influences, regardless of its originality? Just a thought (maybe not an original one.)

 

The full blankness of space

Emmanuelle Soffe
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The full blankness of space

As an art historian there is nothing more frustrating than hearing people complain about the uselessness of modern art. “That’s not really art,” they’ll tell you. “My baby brother could have done that.” The judgement that exists amongst those who either think they are expert art connoisseurs of “real” institutionalised art or those who don’t really know anything about art, but quite happily voice their opinions on what they think it is not, represents a certain walled-up mentality that is alarmingly common. The ‘modern art gallery’, or the ‘White Cube’ as it has been previously described by art historians, is in fact a shrine to individual thought; art is not the main focus of such a space and those who assume that it is are attempting to see a traditional, dead art form in an aesthetic that has long been re-born.

Modern art galleries are largely about the experience. The moment we step into a modern exhibition space we fall silent and behave in a way that is reminiscent of how we’d act in a place of worship. The gallery does not allow exterior light to directly penetrate the interior space, creating a chamber-like limbo; a close parallel perhaps to an Egyptian tomb. The ceiling becomes the source of light and the floor is often padded to mute our footsteps, the white walls help us to empty our mind of crowded thoughts. The environment is intended to isolate our body from our mind, to instigate a mindfulness that leaves us fully susceptible to the ideas expressed within the exhibited items. The gallery space turns us into a blank canvas and it is the works on display that paint us and leave their impressions on us.

Entering a gallery space with the preconception that the art “isn’t really art” will not only diminish our experience of the works of art. It is also a violation of the space that is offering us an insight into an entirely different way of seeing and experiencing the world. Take the Tate Modern. A converted power station, it houses a collection of some of the world’s most famous modern art works. Yet what remains its most impressive feature is the huge interior concrete space. With changing installations, the interior space is sculpted according to what is being displayed and we view it diff erently every time we enter it. The blank walls of the contemporary art gallery can prepare our mind for how we should be approaching a work of art on display but equally, the art works shape our perception of the blank space; making it a shifting, tangible entity that exists entirely within our own mind.

In the contemporary era, ideas are more important than art. Installation art galleries like Palais de Tokyo in Paris can become a huge, multi-sensory, dark and humming exhibition space, with video clips on repeat and distant deep-echoing bass that will make the ground rumble. Last summer Palais de Tokyo converted one of its spaces into a horror theme-park; the whole ride was a staged mockery of a fairground ride; it was the concept that mattered and it interacted with every element of the unconscious as much as it did with the conscious senses. In 1958 Yves Klein was one of the first artists who recognised that space was more important than art in the modern gallery. 3,000 people queued to enter his new exhibition, only to find an entirely empty gallery space where everything had been removed and the walls painted white. Klein attempted to help people reach blank status through the blankness of the space, something that continues to exist in modern art galleries today. This blankness can in turn, unlock an unconscious usage of all five of our senses, whilst also stimulating us into expanding the depth of our own thought process. Paris’ PdT mock horror theme park attempted to stimulate both the conscious and the unconscious at the same time, not an unusual feat for contemporary installation exhibitions. Contemporary art installations do however, offer ideas and food for thought, something that the traditional exhibition spaces counteract by their overemphasis on the visual.

In contrast, the Louvre Museum is a cluster of paintings on a wall, a mixture of different genres and periods like some kind of wallpaper. It is an extremely unpleasant and exhausting experience for the viewer. Similarly the Pitti Palace in Florence is a crowded domestic space that has become a clutter of paintings, sculptures, bits of furniture, tapestries that are a glimpse into the traditional cabinet of curiosities. There is no blank space for reflection; instead the overwhelming visual stimuli can throw hundreds of impressions at us at once, annihilating the possibility of subjective interpretation and reflection. There is something refreshing about a modern art gallery for the clarity it gives us within our own way of seeing. Modernism’s refusal to bend to aesthetic convention is to be applauded, not criticised. Creating a universally pleasing aesthetic is no longer the primary purpose of art. Modern art holds the key to blankness and fullness at once, to self-development, and to understanding. Leave the past to the past, and let us, blankly, welcome the modern art gallery with an open mind.

“It’s as though I’m being watched”

Cressida Peever
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“It’s as though I’m being watched”

On one side a black and white aerial photograph of the courts at Wimbledon; on the other just my name, address and a first class stamp. The space where you’re supposed to write the message is still a space. Empty, as always.

Perhaps she bought it on a whim from the gift shop at centre court whilst I had gone to fetch ice creams. Or maybe she saw it on her walk through town after I’d said goodbye at the station.

She has left the postcard blank. And now here it is, wonderfully naked, on my doormat. It overrides my thoughts with strawberries skimming red lips, the smell of freshly cut grass at my palms, bare legs casting long shadows over the lawn.

I stick it to the fridge with the others: Kensington Palace, Trafalgar Square, Borough Market, the Globe on a summer’s day – in actual fact it rained through the performance and we both huddled under my raincoat, laughing, and ignoring the drama.

I meet her, as arranged, at the Southbank Centre. She doesn’t have long – only half an hour. I pretend to look at the pictures, but really I am caught in the flicks of her hair as she turns her head from frame to frame.

Another card, as I’d hoped. It’s an abstract painting made up of blue and yellow blotches. I don’t like the picture. It seems sinister to me, the way two of the blue smears join together like furrowed eyebrows above a smeary yellow sneer. It’s disconcerting. It makes me feel as though I’m being watched. I think I said that to her at the time. I had thought she’d disliked it too, so it’s a surprise that this is her choice. But, thinking back, we didn’t agree on many of the pictures. Perhaps she selected it due to our mutual dislike of it.

Again, there is no message: just my name and address written neatly in black ink, with a first class stamp hovering above. I purr to imagine her going back to the gallery at the end of the day and choosing it, pressing a finger to her bottom lip as she considers which one, delicately licking the fresh stamp, holding it lightly between her fingertips as she slips it into the postbox… Before I can stop myself I’ve reached for the phone. She lets it ring so long that I almost hang up. Then her breath at my ear–

You know you’re not to call. David could hear. 

I couldn’t help it. When can we meet?

Tomorrow he’s on business. I’ll come to you.

And she hangs up. I put the card on the fridge.

She arrives late, with plenty of red wine. She pours it out as I slice onions. We abandon it all and go upstairs.

I wake as the light filters into the bedroom – we didn’t spare the time to close the curtains before we sunk to sleep. She is buried beneath the duvet, face turned away from me. I’m starving. I roll out of bed and into my dressing gown, stumble downstairs. There is a card on the doormat. It’s a picture of the Emirates Stadium, just a few streets away. My name and address are written neatly on the right as per the previous ones. The left is blank as before. But this one has no stamp, of course. She must have picked it up when she got off the tube on the way here. I stick it to the fridge with the others and throw bread into the toaster. She comes down in my shirt and sits at the counter. I give her the first slice and offer strawberry jam from the fridge. She removes the lid and dips the corner of the toast straight into the jar. I make coffee.

You got postcards? She says, observing the fridge. I smile knowingly.

I didn’t think you liked that picture. She continues, casually, dipping her toast and gesturing to the blue and yellow splodges. I don’t say much.

Then why did you buy it?

I wait for her to break into a laugh. But she doesn’t. She takes her piece of toast back upstairs and I hear the shower being switched on. I prise the postcards from the fridge and study them afresh, unease brewing within me. It is unusual that I’ve never caught her buying one. In fact, I’ve never seen her even look at the postcards in a gift shop. I’d always thought she was being coy, playing a game, but now… Now that I look at them they seem strange choices – not the ones I’d have expected her to choose. And she doesn’t play games. That yellow sneer turns my stomach.

Panicked, I march to the front door and throw them into the dust bin on the patio. I make more coffee. I drink it quickly, whilst it’s still too hot and it scolds my mouth. A metallic slap ricochets into the kitchen – the sound of the letter box clapping down on the outside. In the hall I discover the cards rehoused on the doormat. Waiting. Above them a shadow looms against the door, darkening the frosted glass. I can’t speak. I can’t move. I can’t think who. The shadow shifts outside, bending towards the letterbox, which lifts slowly to reveal a dark pair of eyes.

I’m David.

“Smash the shit out of it”

Ellen Peirson-Hagger
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“Smash the shit out of it”

The Big Moon play hard onstage, jumping up and down, making quite the ruckus. When I talk to Fern over a questionable phone line, the band have just their Southampton and London shows to go before they can have a rest and it’s no wonder Fern is worn out. As she says herself, “we just go with it and smash the shit out of it.” Even as a drummer, sat down behind her dancing bandmates, her thrashes pack a punch.

The exuberance of the band’s energy onstage, coupled with tight harmonies, is impressive considering they have only known each other for two years. After releasing a series of singles, The Big Moon already have a strong fanbase. Fern tells me about their Hull show which was “just full of kids looking to get absolutely trollied. They were just going mental. There were boys ripping their t-shirts off which was bizarre.” The tour has been mixed age-wise, and no clear demographic for the band has been figured out quite yet. This can be explained logically, because there is no one genre driving the momentum of their sound. Fern says “the songs are like pop songs played by a rock band. I think people are getting more into guitar bands again, but we’ve still got the element of pop; we’re a mid-point for some people.”

Their new single ‘Cupid’, which came out in April, was produced and mixed by Catherine Marks (Foals, Wolf Alice) as the band let someone else into the studio with them for the first time. “We’re used to tracking everything separately, which is a bit sterile. Catherine basically told us to set up and was like ‘Ok, just play.’ Everything you hear, other than doubled-up guitars and vocals, is tracked live. It’s just thrown together, which is why it sounds much livelier. If someone moves, you go with them. It was a lot of fun.” Fern tells me that they’ve started demoing for an album “just so we can see what we sound like not in a rehearsal space.” By my reckoning, The Big Moon will be playing even bigger spaces very soon.

Preview: Splendour

Georgia Reddington
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Preview: Splendour

In a small room in an unknown palace, four women wait for the arrival of a mysterious dictator. They are: the absent dictator’s wife (Rosie Richards), her oldest friend (Martina Kavanová), a foreign photographer (Natalie Woodward) and her interpreter (Ellie Mae MacDonald). As the conversation and chilli vodka run dry, we soon become aware that in this strange secluded place, all is not as it seems.

Mischa Andreski has taken on the difficult but undoubtedly worthwhile task of staging Abi Morgan’s politically charged drama ‘Splendour’. Together with her strong all-female cast and crew, this group of performers promise to lead us through the tangled labyrinth that is Morgan’s script. The play itself is incredibly experimental; playing with our concept of time with repetitions, flashbacks and soliloquies. This both traps the audience and characters in the staged situation and simultaneously allows for a greater exploration of the character’s thoughts and feelings, whilst also gradually revealing the context of the oppressive force that threatens to, quite literally, invade their private space.

As well as an intriguing format, ‘Splendour’ aims to tackle relevant and provocative themes. This small cast of brilliant women each portray a character that is wholly different to the other. Richards perfectly embodies the indulgent and oblivious wife, her snappy retorts and escalating drinking habits serve as the first hints that her world is slowly crumbling. Kavanová’s passive and calm demeanor seems cleverly constructed and Woodward’s frustrated confusion at the women around her resonates with the equally bewildered audience. As scenes are repeated like a stuck record, the tension in the room increases exponentially, over and over again we see each character failing to communicate with the other, only revealing truths to the audience. Social dynamics, power and hierarchy are put under intense scrutiny and revealed to be fickle, fragile things that can bend and break. The voices (both exterior and interior) of these four women combines to create an intriguing and compelling vision of a world teetering on the edge of destruction.

‘Splendour’ looks set for being a thrilling piece of drama, with a complex script and an incredibly capable cast, it will challenge even the most experienced audience member’s interpretations. This production promises to deliver a fast-paced, tension-filled evening of drama, deception and dissolution. The revolution is coming, don’t miss out.

Review: House of Bernarda Alba

Nina Sandelson
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Review: House of Bernarda Alba

Director Jake Donald’s impressive translation and production of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, is distinguished by setting the play’s rural, conservative Andalucian town in the even more repressive surroundings of The Cellar. Staging it in the nightclub evokes the play’s darkness: descending the steps to the basement to be greeted with silence and stillness, rather than a reverberating bass line, is arresting. Heavy black speakers frame the stage, acting as the all-important thick walls which incarcerate Bernarda’s daughters in their own home. The back wall is a curtain of black lace, resembling the veil the daughters are forced to wear for the eight years of mourning Bernarda imposes on the household: both wall and veil close them off from the outside world.

Performances are mixed: Alethea Redfern plays Adela with appropriate vivacity as well as a tragic desperation to break out of her mother’s authoritarian regime. Laura Gledhill as Angustias is captivating and eerily timid, but the remaining daughters let the otherwise excellent cast down with disappointingly flat performances. Whilst life in that household would draw the life out of anyone the lines are delivered ritualistically, with so little energy.

Some of the lead roles, however, are outstanding, with Ella Jackson and Camilla Dunhill’s handling of the tense power dynamic between Bernarda and Poncia being of particularly note. As the bridge between the daughters and their tyrannical mother, Dunhill is confident as the omniscient eye of the household, yet jaded by her economic and social submission to Bernarda. Jackson sustains Bernarda’s dictatorial intensity and wilful ignorance brilliantly throughout. However, the stand-out performance is Jessie See as grandmother Maria Josefa, whose unnerving moans permeate the beginning of the play and whose believable madwoman-in-the-attic mania instills palpable terror in the audience.

Visual and sound effects were subtle yet effective, staying true to Lorca’s desire to communicate the injustice of life for women in 1930s rural Spain. The sound of church bells is more like a prophetic funeral toll, and noise of the outside world is brought in just enough to remind the daughters of how unattainable this part of the world is for them, the embroidered flowers on their handkerchiefs representing the closest thing they can get to the freedom of the natural world. The daughters are equally spectral in their black mourning gowns and white nightgowns, and the use of the aisle in the audience breaks the fourth wall to bring the audience inside the prison that is Bernarda’s house. Overall, a chilling reimagining of Lorca’s play, brought to life with emotional intensity and innovative staging.

The Yes to NUS vote hides a real need for reform

Daniel Kodsi
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The Yes to NUS vote hides a real need for reform

“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” my friend told me yesterday as I accepted a ‘No Thanks NUS’ pamphlet on the way back to college. You mustn’t, she said, let a relatively minor grievance blind me to the greater good of the Oxford student body.

This is malarkey. The whole of a democracy is not the sum of its parts. Rather, the good of the one is the good of all. Insofar as a society allows the freedom of one member to be infringed upon, it fails to be free. The rights of Jewish students in the NUS cannot be sublimated for the sake of other groups. The obverse is also true, of course. No matter how well Jewish students are treated, it would be our obligation to withdraw from the NUS were Muslim students, students with disabilities, or LGBTQ students discriminated against or made feel unwelcome.

I must admit that I am surprised and disconcerted by the margin of the ‘Yes to NUS’ campaign’s victory. I am struck by the stark divide between words and action. We have heard vocal and overwhelming criticism of anti-Semitism, both in regards to NUS and the Oxford University Labour Club, but there is yet to be any substantial reform. Until such time as a concrete plan of action is formed, I hope and expect that there will be those willing to protest continued injustice. Those calls must be heard and not dismissed on the basis of Thursday’s referendum.

RMF members disrupt Rhodes contextualisation meeting

Harry Gosling
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5
RMF members disrupt Rhodes contextualisation meeting

Five members of RMF today disrupted a meeting in Oriel on the contextualisation of the Rhodes statue, Cherwell can reveal.

Sources close to the scene told Cherwell that the individuals entered the meeting some 20 minutes after it had begun, accusing Oriel of hypocrisy and of purposefully hiding the meeting from them.

The entrance of the group of activists, which included prominent member Ntokozo Qwabe, was a surprise to those present in the room, as the consultation was intended for Oriel students only.

Prominent activist Ntokozo Qwabe was one of the five RMF members who disrupted the meeting
Prominent activist Ntokozo Qwabe was one of the five RMF members who disrupted the meeting

The meeting was taking place in the Robert Beddard Room in Oriel’s Rhodes Building, and was being led by the Vice-Provost of Oriel, Annette Volfing.

After the initial confusion that followed the entrance of the RMF members, Ms Volfing requested that the individuals left the room, unless they were Oriel students. With the RMF members refusing to leave, a “shouting match” reportedly broke out, with the Oriel Vice-Provost repeatedly asking that they leave.

Tensions were running high, with one RMF member saying, “This statue is not about Oriel students. This is not a listening exercise.”

The altercation comes several months after Oriel announced that the statue of Cecil Rhodes would remain in place, and that the college would seek to provide a clear historical context for the existence of the statue.

The primary focus of RMF’s anger seemed to be the perceived U-turn made by Oriel. In December, the college released a statement setting out its commitment to conducting a listening exercise on the statue of Rhodes. By January, however, the college confirmed that it would be keeping the statue, despite not completing the listening exercise.

Indeed the RMF members repeatedly attacked Oriel for its actions as they confronted the college’s Vice-Provost and others who were present at the meeting.

“This is not a listening exercise, this is big money diplomacy,” one RMF member shouted, adding, “You want to shut down the voices of thousands of people.”

One RMF member was also heard describing some of those present in the room for the consultation on the Rhodes statue as “white racists”.

As the heated dispute continued, several Oriel members of staff arrived at the Robert Beddard Room. One individual told Cherwell that the RMF members were removed from the college because it was an “Oriel-only meeting”, adding that the RMF activists should seek to arrange a separate meeting with Oriel College to discuss matters surrounding the statue.

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