Sunday, May 18, 2025
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Hidden in plain sight: Public art in Oxford

Sarah Townsend
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Hidden in plain sight: Public art in Oxford

Have you ever had the feeling that someone’s watching you? That feeling that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The feeling you get at night when you turn off the downstairs lights and run as fast as you can up the stairs and into bed.

If you can relate, then you’re either Rockwell in his ‘80s hit single ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’, or you’re an Oxford student walking down Broad Street. Maybe you haven’t even noticed, but someone is watching you – and it’s a seven-foot man stood on the roof of Exeter College.

Fear not. He is, in fact, made of iron, donated by Antony Gormley to Exeter College in 2009, and is one of a hundred identical sculptures scattered across the world. Gormley’s collection, entitled Another Time XI, was declared by him to be a celebration of “the still and silent nature of sculpture.” “The work is designed to be placed within the flow of lived time,” he says, each statue placed on high buildings as if overlooking the streets below.

Although better known for his Angel of the North, Gormley’s work is no stranger to Oxford. Another of his statues, entitled Present Time, is located in the centre of Mansfield College’s main quad. Each sculpture cast from his own body, Gormley intends his work to capture the nakedness of life, telling the Guardian that it returns us to “the truth of the uniqueness of human existence.”

But let’s be realistic here: how many people, just by looking at them, know what these sculptures mean? And why are they considered public art?

Public art, as a genre, usually refers to art that enhances its community or speaks to our time. Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate is the perfect example, one of Chicago’s most popular tourist destinations. Commonly known as ‘the Bean’, it literally reflects its environment, forming the perfect backdrop for your next Instagram post – a mirror that warps the skyline behind it. Even in London, Katharina Fritsch’s sculpture of a giant blue cockerel seems to mean something to its community. Although appearing to be something you might see in a fever dream, Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock has become a bright symbol of modernity in Trafalgar Square. But what, you may ask, do iron sculptures of naked men have to do with Oxford? Does anyone know? Or are we all just pretending to?

Maybe this uncertainty is what makes public art successful. With no disrespect to the Ashmolean, it’s safe to say that art galleries have trained us into a ritual: we look, read the label on the wall, nod our heads, and move onto the next exhibit. Instead, public art often goes unnoticed, integrated into our everyday lives.

Lining the outside walls of the Bodleian, the stone grotesques might not be an emblem of Gothic architecture to one student, but a reminder of the first thing they see when they emerge, dazed, from a midday essay crisis. In fact, these exact grotesques were created in 2009, designed by schoolchildren for the theme ‘Myths and Monsters’. They were then produced by local stone carver, Alec Peever. Now a part of history, their success is not a piece of art with a label attached. Instead, it is embedded in the heart of Oxford’s daily life.

Oxford’s public art might be in more places than you think. The formidable carved figures outside the Sheldonian Theatre, known as the ‘Emperor Heads’ or the ‘Sheldonian Emperors’, aren’t just confined to Broad Street. First commissioned in the 1660s, the specific identity of all thirteen faces remains unknown. The stone carvings are suspected to depict ancient philosophers or emperors but have been weathered and replaced twice. Although not all the original heads have been found, some can be seen standing in Worcester College and Wadham College gardens.

Although slightly less of an enigma, Diana Bell’s Knowledge and Understanding remains a notable piece of art in Oxford city centre. Cast in bronze, piles of books have been stacked on benches in Bonn Square. Presented to Oxford by the city of Bonn in 2009, their spines are engraved with German translations of ‘friendship’, Oxford being the first city to approach Bonn to establish a friendship after the Second World War. Here, Bell’s sculptures serve as a quiet reminder of peace.

Oxford’s public art is scattered right across the city – and its history just keeps evolving. Is public art defined by how the artist intended it to be perceived, or have we, as passers-by, given it new meanings over the years? Is this what makes it public?

In the wake of a national lockdown, we seem to appreciate the surroundings we have and miss the ones we don’t. Maybe when students flock back to Oxford, public art, having previously flown under the radar, will be like the Gormley statue looming over Broad Street. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.

In Winter

Indigo Buckler
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In Winter

The Sun sets behind the trees
(As it must, or else remain raw),
Spindly branches starved of leaves,
Until the freezing fiery glow disappears Behind an army of silhouetted bare twigs.

I watch,
And if I listen to the breeze I hear night. I stay,
Until grey rain in twilight trickles Down the pane like a tear
Falls, reluctantly
Slithering down, down my cheek
As I perch at the frosted glass to see
If dawn will break again,
Or if, maybe,
She will hold steadfast.

Image Credit: Isabella Lill

In Regions Clear, and Far

Anna King
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In Regions Clear, and Far

“…what a height my spirit is contending!/’Tis not content so soon to be alone.”

That belltower of ours was hurling out its eighth chime when we crept shoeless into the morning. Last night’s storm pulsed weary in the sky; 

and the silence was spotless –

so we ruined it.

Ghosts walk this violet-steeped street, circle this tower, shadows

of a past I can’t bring myself to see. It won’t be long, of course, before those flanking leaves are curling and dark, these stones

shimmered and crisp with frost,

and this morning

another memory. 

A glistening trace of fever still clung to the sky. That too I’m sure is gone, burned away by the April sun; and yet it was so quiet

I had to wonder

if we’d not mistakenly walked in on a dream. As though it were the easiest thing to lie on this pavement and fade into rich

fucking

oblivion

I was so tired

Then again, hangovers don’t generally split one’s head in dreams; nor do bruises generally ache between one’s –

Nonetheless, we were less

solid as we came to the turning.

Somehow the prospect of home, its insufferable rush of humanity, was far too tangible for the present hour, however quiet the streets would likely be. Before long, I would drag my thoughts back to train tickets and laundry and coffee-pots

such stuff as small talk’s made on,

and you’d don again your eye-rolls and filial laments; but for the moment the mundanity of it all appeared

as good as death, and so for now,

the path erased itself as we walked. With care I fade into this chaos, 

breathing these rustling branches, this opalite sky, these last tripping bars of this town

our town

so soon torn away – 

How beautiful emptiness was, and how delicate. Oh God –

if only we remained to wander among the stubborn shop fronts, perhaps it would never quite shatter; 

perhaps we could loiter in this great weighted after, 

linger, our fingers hooked into the place which was not quite Saturday morning

this glassy after. But of course, already it was cracking, 

for voices were whispering, scrabbling south to us, slippery, subtle, stubbornly screaming –

there is no us without this city. Oxford is ours

and remains in our debt

it clenches its marble claws round our necks –

and the blood they draw is sweet. Here we learned to love our home; here we forgot

our native shitholes (sometimes)

but still I grew to loathe that city

bereft of a town, I long

for streets you don’t know. Here I watched indifferently as the spirit starved within me, and grew emaciated

with living too much. 

A great fiery gust of wind whipped through the trees and came scraping

and surging

and stirring my heart, and here still it rots away that feeble lock on a dangerous thing…

the wind perished, the soft scent with it – but still I hope, what a fucking mistake –

So do I embrace bitterness, 

watch

the elderly waltz of the clouds? Exhaustion and wine are infinite allies

if one fears seeing clearly

fears waking, merely remembering

because then –

oh I curse my two-tone heartbeat.

A phantom hand in the crook of my waist, and perhaps speakerless murmurs scatter the still morning air. Hope taints like a miserable stain.

I weep for the past,

and the gaping maw of the future; for the trap I escaped and the one I have bought; above all

for the child I am not, 

and for you. 

And like static lurking behind the music on a broken 

fucking

radio, 

the echoed song of my heart

simply

won’t stop.

pandemic

Amira Izhar
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pandemic

Some new pain hides behind the veil of those
Dreaming spires. Some silent assassin poised
Lying in wait.
Hiding in ink, circling
Stale pages in the closed stacks, lingering.

Invisible sylphs ask us to choose: to
Swallow toxic cyanide, or else taste
The most sullen, bitter memory of
Broad Street, overflowing, over the brim, with
Late to a tute
Blem outside the Kings Arms
Is that the Rad Cam???

All people, weighed down by bullet-sized smiles.
We’re wading through smoke, caustic chloroform,
Until paralysed, until parasites
Infect our blinking, saccharine eyes.

The same eyes that looked upon benign red brick
With aspiration, see it crumble like sand
Falling between fingers, feverishly slipping;
As fast as the sweet trance of sleep.

Who dares wonder whether we’ll cross bridges,
Who’ll be the first to neck golden pints, or
See the impossible black of a mortarboard?
Who’ll ask if it’s too brave to dream again?

Image credit: Ellie Wilkins

Friday Favourite: The Neapolitan Quartet

Florine Lips
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Friday Favourite: The Neapolitan Quartet

In a rare interview with LA Times in 2018, Elena Ferrante, universally-celebrated, elusive (the name is a pseudonym) author of the Neapolitan novels, was asked about her fascination with Naples. Her response: ‘In the past, I used to think that only in Naples did the lawful continuously lose its boundaries and become confused with the unlawful, that only in Naples did good feelings suddenly, violently, without any break, become bad feelings. Today it seems to me that the whole world is Naples, and that Naples has the merit of having always presented itself without a mask.’ 

In the Neapolitan quartet – My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and The Story of the Lost Child – the friendship between two women is shaped by this volatile city, where Vesuvius looms on the horizon and the threat of danger lurks behind every corner. The books begin with an elderly Lenù discovering that her lifelong friend, Lila, has disappeared from the impoverished neighbourhood where they grew up, which prompts her to write the story of their friendship. Her motives are unclear – is it an act of love, or of revenge? The following four books take us through this complicated relationship, spanning decades, regions of Italy, key political and cultural movements, and every major milestone in both of their lives. We see the story almost entirely from Lenù’s perspective, save for the inclusion of Lila’s own notebooks at certain points along the way, and from the very beginning it is clear that this is no easy, best-friends-for-life dynamic – Lenù’s response to her friend’s disappearance is that she is ‘overdoing it as usual.’ ‘I was really angry. We’ll see who wins this time, I said to myself.’

This competitiveness underpins their friendship from the very beginning, when they come to each other’s attention as the two smartest girls in the class. The young Lenù is diligent and beloved by her teacher, but it is the scrawny, restless Lila, daughter of the shoemaker, who stands out with her fierce intelligence. Her genius is alienating, and she soon uses it as a weapon to inflict pain upon anyone who gets in her way – ‘her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.’ Only Lenù is fascinated, devoting herself to her studies ‘just so I could keep pace with that terrible, dazzling girl.’ From then on, their paths are forever intertwined. The foundation of their friendship stems from key episodes in childhood, where Ferrante’s skill as a storyteller really shines. Her attention to detail is extraordinary: so many of their childhood experiences foreshadow what happens in adulthood that you almost want to read the whole thing again to see how many clues you missed.

Like the city, Ferrante presents female friendship without a mask. It is not always pretty – there are moments of pure happiness, such as in childhood when they spend hours poring over a tattered old copy of Little Women, but the lives they lead are difficult, and the two friends are capable of inflicting the deepest pain upon one another. Most of this cruelty comes from Lila, who suffers under the limited options available for women of her class when the chance to escape through education is taken from her. Lenù realises early on that ‘no form could ever contain Lila … sooner or later she would break everything again.’ As a character, she is electric, charging the pages with energy – the books lose some their vitality in the chapters without her. And yet, even when they’re separated, Lenù finds the shadow of her friend everywhere, even in her own writing: comparing her work to one of Lila’s childhood stories, she discovers that ‘anyone who wanted to know what gave it warmth and what the origin was of the strong but invisible thread that joined the sentences would have to go back to that child’s packet, ten notebook pages, the rusty pin, the brightly coloured cover, the title, and not even a signature.’ 

The novels are truly stunning, and so is the TV adaptation that is about to start its second season, for which they plucked two actresses from obscurity to play the roles of Lila and Lenù. Ferrante explores issues ranging from political corruption to the struggles of motherhood, and what it means to be ashamed of where you came from, all in relation to two girls from a poor neighbourhood in Naples, going through life with the odds completely stacked against them. Some of its nuance may have been lost in translation, but her writing plunges straight to the heart of her characters’ inner psyche, leaving almost nothing unsaid. Lenù takes one look at Lila after a period of absence and immediately sees that ‘she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to hear the mad sound of the brain in one echo in the mad sound of the brain in the other.’ 

I completely fell in love with these books when I read them last summer, and I honestly envy anyone who gets to read them with fresh eyes. I can’t think of any other author who pays such attention to the intricacies of female friendship; surpassing love interests and family members, Lenù and Lila are without a doubt the most important figure in each other’s lives. Even though only one is given the chance to complete her education, it is the encouragement the other that really makes this happen, proving that everything they achieve stems from this bond: ‘you’re my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls.’

The Court Painter: The Exclusivity of the ‘Popular’ Artist

Alexander Haveron-Jones
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The Court Painter: The Exclusivity of the ‘Popular’ Artist

For the casual modern art admirer, it might initially be difficult to comprehend the business of art in the 17th-century; a time in which an extraordinary gulf between rich and poor – there was not yet a middle class – meant that it was commonly the most elite members of Court who had the funds to commission or buy artworks (particularly portraits). Exclusive in price, the artwork was simultaneously ‘exclusive’ in that those who could afford to commission works regularly sought the most fashionable artists of the day, buying into a fashionability which would assert their relevance in a Court which highly valued commodified shows of wealth such as that provided by artworks which affirm the wealth, virtue, and status of its subjects and owners. This might be compared to the exclusivity of the art market today, where the most popular artists are those who create works so astronomical in price that only the world’s uppermost elite can afford to acquire them: while the obligatory British aristocrat’s status symbol was once a portrait by Van Dyck or Lely, the new international billionaire elite might opt for a $90 million stainless steel rabbit by Jeff Koons.

The decades of the Stuart period were a tumultuous time for the developing European art market, with the execution of the art-loving King Charles – and sudden authority of a Puritanical Parliament – throwing the survival of Charles I’s art collection, consisting endlessly of fine baroque paintings, whose subject matter was deemed to be ‘un-Puritan’, into turmoil. Nevertheless, the monarchical Stuart rule on either side of the Interregnum – particularly under Charles I – saw a resumed renaissance in royal collecting, and became a period in which art was more in demand than it ever had been before.

Influenced largely – as most trends were – by Royal popularity, the desired artists were those favoured by the monarch; it was King Charles I who actually created a title to certify the role of one principal artist amongst the Court: the Principal Painter in Ordinary. The first artist to work under this title was Sir Anthony van Dyck, of whom his employer was a great admirer. Arguably one of the most skilful artists in history, Van Dyck is famed for his ability to capture the human likeness in vividly evocative tones, and amongst splendidly sumptuous classical scenes. It was this talent – alongside having the King’s favour – that resulted in his popularity amongst the whole of Court, whose aristocrats began readily commissioning him for portraits.

However, Van Dyck’s work surpassed merely producing portraits: he also worked on behalf of the King to screen potential acquisitions for the Royal collection, regularly asking for sketches of artworks before purchase to guarantee their quality (in his words, “the schools of the most excellent artists often produce donkeys”: undesirable works which he would be able to reject if he saw a facsimile beforehand). Van Dyck’s ‘co-management’ of the Royal collection, in which he inevitably worked right alongside the King, therefore solidified him as far more than a mere painter. Indeed, Van Dyck’s curation of the King’s works speaks to the extent of Charles’ desire to amass a fine collection, and therefore the appreciation of artwork in the period: one of history’s greatest art collectors, Charles amassed an immeasurable collection, making numerous foreign excursions (along with official art agents) at great expense to Parliament and the taxpayer. Indeed, before his execution, Charles’ hoard boasted works by the supremes of art history, including Rubens, Titian, Raphael, and Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which famously sold for $450m in 2017.

After his death in 1641, Van Dyck was followed in the role by Sir Peter Lely, who rose to similar dominance as his forebear (of whom his works were heavily influenced). Lely, like Van Dyck, was very well-received by the Court, rising to prominence as his commissions increasingly included affluent members of royal circles. The splendour of Lely’s portraiture was such that he soon would become the most fashionable artist to approach for a commission, his works preferred threefold: for their quality, their price (which meant those who could afford them were selectively of eligible status), and their painter being a ‘celebrity’ of the art world.

The extent of Lely’s influence and popularity was such that, after the execution of his patron Charles I, he was actually allowed to continue on and serve the Puritan Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and his son and successor, Richard (even despite his puritanically disagreeable royal servitude). Moreover, following the end of the Interregnum and swift return of Charles II to England in 1660, he remained just as popular and flourished still in the returned Stuart court.

Nowadays, the rise of commercialism has seen the art market develop into something which doesn’t much resemble the refined fancies of the relatively small British Court. There still remains, however, a global fascination with ‘the popular artist’ which does recall the excitement surrounding fashionable artists such as Lely. While the art market is much more diverse now than in centuries past, it remains that some artists are nevertheless perceived to be incredibly desirable: one such example is Jeff Koons, whose net worth – being in the hundreds of millions – is immediate evidence of his personal desirability. In 2019, it was Koons’ Rabbit (1986), a ballon-art stainless steel rabbit, which sold for exactly $91.1 million.

To many, Koons has become a symbol of capitalist commercialism: indeed, most artists don’t tend to collaborate with luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and BMW. While his tremendously profit-motivated practice might set him apart from 17th-century artists (and most other artists of today), there are further similarities: Koons has a large team of assistants working round-the-clock in a studio (factory) to meet the demands of his many multi-million-dollar artworks, sold in galleries across the world. Of course, Van Dyck and Lely’s studios were not functioning in such a modern Koonsian mania of profiteering, but the price of their works was certainly representative of their ‘luxury’ prestige and was helped along by studio assistants to maximise production.

Surely, no modern artwork could be worth $91.1 million in genuine brilliance alone: like most commodities, price is representative of demand, and Koons’ works being as expensive as they are, are self-evident that even works produced by a studio are valued solely largely for their position as a symbol of wealth and contemporary fashionability, somehow validating their owners who are able to boast of their ownership ‘of a Koons’.

Despite the prices his works fetch, I would argue that Koons is not especially original; while some of his earlier works are marked by a strong sense of ghastly contempt for the mood of pop culture and saturated media in which they were created, his recent pieces regularly duplicate renowned historical artworks (with an added polished steel blue ball or two, whacked in the centre and called a few tens of millions). The fact that Koons’ work isn’t fundamentally collected for its originality or trailblazing creativeness affirms the view that his works’ popularity is such because they are tokens, as opposed to the treasures of a genuinely distinctive and individual collection. This factor distinguishes Koons from the artists of the Stuart Court who, although satisfying the demands of their high-paying sitters, were fundamentally talented, producing works in styles (and a quality) which had never been seen before, or since.

An artist (photographer) similarly iconic – though distinctly more ‘original’ than Koons – is Annie Leibovitz, who has photographed sitters from Queen Elizabeth and Theresa May to John Lennon and Angelina Jolie. Though undoubtedly less famous than Koons, Leibovitz net worth (in the low tens of millions) remains a testament to the popularity of someone whose income (unlike Koons, a sculptor/painter) is not achieved through selling physical pieces of artwork to members of the public: such is much more like Van Dyck and Lely in this sense, as her desirability is due to her talent. Leibovitz has a remarkable ability to capture a pureness and vulnerability in her famous sitters: she photographed a curled, nude John Lennon with Yoko Ono mere hours before his murder in 1980. In 2007, she was invited to photograph the Queen (infamously asking her to remove her tiara, a request later misrepresented on film by the BBC and causing an internal scandal).

Therefore I would argue that Leibovitz is a much closer modern example of a ‘Court painter’, or, someone whose combined talent and popularity (the latter resulting from the former) makes both them and their work desirable to the elite who can afford to commission a (photographic) portrait which evokes the exclusivity of the Court Painter.

While it is inevitable that the art market’s capitalist conversion has caused it to progress from the baroque refinement of the Stuart period, it nevertheless remains that the contemporary art market is one which often values the names of artists over the actual merit of their works. Examining the continued popularity of ‘popular artists’ in a modern context provides an intriguing comparison, and reveals how the human desire to buy into a fashion is the one thing that has not changed, although these statuses are no longer Classically- alluding commissions for English country houses, but rather, the brash tokens of capitalist collecting culture admired on the owner’s summer visit to their third house in the Bahamas.

University adapts graduation policy in wake of objections

Flora Murray
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University adapts graduation policy in wake of objections

The University has today reversed its decision to confer all degrees in absentia, offering students that were due to graduate in May the opportunity to attend a degree ceremony at a future date. 

This decision, according to Pro-Vice-Chancellor Martin Williams, was taken in response to the “strength of feeling across the University community” expressed by colleges, the Student Union, and an open letter to the University with 2,314 signatories. 

Previously, the Degree Conferrals Office had communicated to students that those due to attend graduation ceremonies on 2nd and 9th May would have their degrees conferred in absentia. Students who graduate in absentia cannot be presented again in a traditional ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre. 

The open letter that was written in response to the decision requested that students be permitted to attend ceremonies at a later date, if necessary in smaller groups, thereby providing them with a choice. 

The degree ceremony, the open letter states, is “the final opportunity to partake in the rich traditions of the University as one of its student members.” Many “will have quickly left Oxford after their last examination, intending fully to return for this farewell to their tutors and to each other.”

In response, an email sent by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Martin Williams this morning states that affected students will now be presented with the option to have their degrees conferred in absentia or to attend a future ceremony. Students who choose the latter must wait until the rescheduled graduation to obtain their degree certificate. 

Trinity College alumna Vivien Hasan, who wrote the open letter, told Cherwell: “We are delighted that the University has recognised the importance of this once-in-a-lifetime event, and would like to thank the 2000+ supporters who signed the open letter, particularly the 300+ who left written comments. I was so heartened to see support coming from all corners of the student and alumni body, and take this as a real testament to students’ appreciation of their journey at Oxford, and of its traditional forms of celebration.”

The letter began circulating among the Trinity community on Friday 17th April and has since spread to students, family members, and alumni across the University. In the written comments, many signatories highlighted the personal significance of experiencing the ceremony, while others criticised the University’s initial decision and lack of communication. 

Though the University aims to keep the ceremonies’ venues and format as true to tradition as possible, it is understood that postponed events will have to be “modified from their current form”. 

Detailed arrangements for the revised ceremonies are to be organised by a new working group, with more information to follow. Decisions are yet to be made regarding ceremonies from September 2020 onwards. 

Mental Health Services Under Corona: A Chance to do Better

Sasha Mills
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Mental Health Services Under Corona: A Chance to do Better

TW: suicide

With almost half of the world’s population under social distancing measures, people are being forced to adapt to a situation that is almost inevitably conducive to worsening mental health. Professor Rory O’Connor, in a paper published in Lancet Psychiatry, has called for greater monitoring of how the pandemic is impacting mental health. O’Conner has pointed to: “increased social isolation, loneliness, health anxiety, stress and an economic downturn,” as serious, potential threats to mental well-being.

For those with pre-existing mental health conditions, the present situation is likely to only make things worse. A regular routine and the ability to socialise often allows for respite from the symptoms of mental illness and can make day-to-day life easier. Meaning that, for many, the lockdown is an almost nightmarish situation to navigate. While data on mental health incidents has yet be gathered, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths of the Police Superintendents’ Association has said that: “there are very early indications of an increase in suicide attempts and suicides.”

Mental health services in the UK were already under strain before the start of the pandemic. A report by the BBC in 2019 revealed that half of the patients treated by the NHS’ adult counselling service have to wait over 28 days for their second appointment after their initial consultation. Of those who have to wait for more than 28 days, a sixth have to wait over 90 days. For those in a state of crisis, that can be enough time to make matters significantly worse.

Following the pandemic, we are likely to see an increased need for essential mental health services. After SARS, there was a 30% increase in the suicide rate of over 65s. The US-based Disaster Distress Helpline has already seen an 891% increase in use since the start of the crisis. Paired with the economic recession that the pandemic has led to, it is going to be more difficult than ever to find the necessary funding needed by the NHS to restore mental health services.

While it is inevitable that the crisis will lead to a rise in the prevalence of mental health difficulties, there is also a possibility for innovation in the mental health sector, and an increased awareness of mental health in the public eye. Despite the uncertainty of future funding for mental health services, the government’s decision to devote an additional £5 million to mental health charities during the crisis promises that we may start to see a growing prioritisation of these issues.

Counselling, both privately and through the NHS, is finding its way online. For many, accessing therapy is a luxury, and the adaptation of these services to a remote format may level the playing field for accessing mental health services, especially for those with dependents who may struggle to fit counselling in, especially if it’s not accessible locally. While websites such as Better Help have been offering (paid) online counselling for a few years, services like this still have not really reached the mainstream. Perhaps there is something to be said for the power of in-person interaction. It is certainly a lot harder to distance yourself when you are in a room with someone, but taking this stance cuts many people off from accessing invaluable help.

Most significantly, the pandemic has allowed greater empathy between us in terms of mental health issues. Few people I know would describe the situation as impacting them positively, and this shared experience has opened up a greater honesty both publicly, and in individual relationships. For the first time in my life, I’ve found myself being truly open with my friends about the things that I’m dealing with on a day to day basis, and it feels like the discourse around this kind of struggle has become more accepting, and easier to navigate.

While the future is not clear, part of me is optimistic that this is a real opportunity for things to get better. A time of crisis forces us to confront that which we would rather avoid, and for better or for worse, forces what was once hidden out into the light. While we all want to return to ‘normal’ life, I hope that this widening honesty around mental health is not something that changes. It seems like something that has been missing for a while. 

Album Review: Rina Sawayama’s ‘SAWAYAMA’

Sofia Henderson
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Album Review: Rina Sawayama’s ‘SAWAYAMA’

Rina Sawayama is unlike any other contemporary pop artist. Listening to her music transports you to nostalgic memories that don’t quite exist, capturing the feeling of playing the Bratz Wii game in 2007 just to listen to the soundtrack, or of pre-teen angst discovering Evanescence and Paramore in your bedroom. At the same time, it sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard.

The Japanese-British Cambridge graduate first graced our Spotify playlists with her 2017 EP Rina, featuring the previously-released ‘Tunnel Vision.’ Building on existing success, such as with standalone single ‘Where U Are’, Rina nonetheless brought Sawayama’s unique persona, and her music’s idiosyncratic production, into sharper focus. Much like the swan metaphor used in the music video for ‘Cherry’ – an exploration of her sexual identity against an early noughties backdrop – she has blossomed into an even more colourful and confident artist.

And so, Rina Sawayama emerges shimmering on her debut LP, SAWAYAMA. It’s clear that emulating Y2K has become her signature brand, and it’s one which is increasingly popular with the emerging generation of young people who grew up in that era. However, alongside fresh ideas, and thematically intertwining critiques of capitalism and patriarchy with an exploration of her experience as a British-Japanese woman, Sawayama successfully takes inspiration from the music of her childhood to craft an album that feels authentically her.

The LP opens with ‘Dynasty’, a rock ballad of sorts. Declaring that “the pain in my vein is hereditary,” Sawayama turns the connotations of a ‘dynasty’ of wealth and power on their head. She doesn’t pause for breath, either, launching into the album’s three singles, ‘XS’, ‘STFU!’ and ‘Comme Des Garçons’, successively. In ‘XS’, Sawayama plays with the conventions of classic noughties pop songs focusing on wealth, appearance, and “excess” (see what she did there?), delivering a cutting indictment of the trappings of capitalism – a force which constantly tempts us to consume “just a little bit more” or to yearn to fit into a size XS.

Stand-out track ‘STFU!’ alternates between angry verses and a pissed-off chorus of “shut the fuck up!” (if you hadn’t already guessed). Against a screaming, cathartic release of rage, the music video fulfils Sawayama’s desire to voice her anger at the sometimes-paralysing dual experiences of racism and misogyny. As her date stabs into his sushi with his chopsticks, commenting, “I was quite surprised you sang, y’know… in English”, he makes his fetishisation of Asian women – and total lack of self-awareness – uncomfortably clear. Sawayama awkwardly half-smiles before launching into the aggressive anthem, her giggles shifting into manic but melodic laughter.

Her thematic focus does not falter – in ‘Comme Des Garçons,’ she references the popular designer brand in a feminist dance anthem of sorts, declaring, “I’m so confident… Like the boys.” Sawayama revealed to Rolling Stone that the track’s inspiration was “the idea that the socially acceptable version of confidence is in acting ‘like the boys’, otherwise as a woman you get called a bitch.” It’s a declaration of her own confidence in faking it ‘til you make it, her clever use of genre laying the shallow reality bare.

Closing the first half of the album, ‘Akasaka Sad’ and ‘Paradisin’’ continue along similarly experimental lines. The former’s hook seems almost directly lifted from Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’, but the track is far from a generic copy of an early noughties hit. Once again, Sawayama draws on her own experience – namely, the bond she feels with her parents through the distance she feels from Japan. On ‘Paradisin’’, she takes a much more straightforwardly nostalgic approach, continuing to hold our attention with a faster video game soundtrack-style vibe.

The second half of the record takes a slightly different turn. While the framework established from the beginning remains, each track seems simpler, calmer. A basic love song wouldn’t seem out of place here, yet Sawayama continues to tackle a different kind of personal material. ‘Love Me 4 Me’ serves as a kind of ode to herself; on ‘Bad Friend’, she explores her own role in the loss of a best friend on the same day as that of a partner. Towards the end of the album, ‘Chosen Family’ continues the discussion of platonic love. It’s a song written for her own chosen family – her “LGBTQ sisters and brothers.”

The track ‘Tokyo Love Hotel’ is where Sawayama paints the clearest picture of the difficulty she has found with feeling at home – exploring how Tokyo feels both like where she belongs and where she is an outsider. Using the metaphor of the love hotels used by tourists, she comments on how they see Tokyo as a personal theme park without stopping to think about the lives of the people who live there. But she too is a tourist: in the end, Sawayama admits, “I guess this is just another song about Tokyo.”

While the second half of the album lacks the punch of the first, it finishes on a high with ‘Snakeskin.’ Through the skilful metaphor of “a snakeskin handbag that people commercialise, consume, and use as they want”, she laments the pain of being used – by those she loves, by the music industry, by the society we live in – expressing her burning desire to break free and “shed” her skin.

Delivering her first LP, Rina Sawayama has already crafted her own pop persona. She plays on a generation’s memories of childhood whilst offering fresh subject material to encapsulate the mood of her late twenties. She’s angry at the world, reflecting on the choices of her younger self, as she attempts to put the pieces of her current identity together. And that’s why it works so well – aren’t we all?

Do we prefer man-made disasters to natural ones?

Various contributors
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Do we prefer man-made disasters to natural ones?

Amid the chaos of frightening facts and deadly conspiracy theories, we ask: do we prefer man-made disasters to natural ones? You’ve given us some of your opinions below.

Lydia Anderlini: Conspiracy theories provide an ‘alternative unreality’

Two days ago, I flew from London to my home in Washington DC. It was a seven-hour flight but already it feels like I’ve entered a parallel universe. Besides being isolated in my childhood bedroom rather than my grandmother’s guest room, the difference in news coverage of COVID-19 between here and the UK makes me feel like I’m on a different planet.

In the UK, the daily press conferences are informative and provide some sense of clarity in the government’s approach to the virus even if the officials don’t always give straightforward answers. But in the US, President Trump’s press briefings are a loopy mess of conspiracy theories about China, miracle cures, economic booms, and digs at Joe Biden. Clarity only comes when Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the US National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, takes the podium to deliver the uncomfortable truth Trump refuses to.

Yesterday I turned to FOX News, to see what they’re talking about. It was strangely comforting- in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome way- because five minutes of Fox and you could believe that medication exists, vaccines are coming, tests are taking place nationwide, everyone has a wardrobe full of PPE which they’ll never use because by next week, we’ll all be out. It feels good to live in that alternative unreality.

FOX leads the pack in peddling in conspiracy theories and pseudo-science, and this isn’t new. We’ve seen it for years with climate change that they claim is just an anti-capitalist hoax. It seems that so long as a threat can be labelled as ‘man-made’ it is understandable, manageable, controllable, and conquerable. But a threat that is not man-made, that does not adhere to national borders or international alliances? It’s scary. The less we understand the problem the scarier it seems. 

Hearing scientists talk about what they know about the virus, is to listen to them talk about what they don’t know about it. The journalists want simple, soundbite-length answers, but the scientists can’t comply. They talk of the research that is still needed and how far we are from cures and vaccines. Like climate change, more research leads to more questions about its impacts. Though we may not fully understand how the virus attacks our bodies, or how climate change is going to impact us all, that is not an excuse to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the information we do have just because it’s incomplete.

The Earth and the human body are both nature’s creations and humanity’s scientific knowledge is nowhere near understanding them fully. But man-made threats, we can understand and stop. Take the UN’s call for a global cease-fire during this pandemic, suddenly wars that have been ongoing for years, that seemed so complicated to stop, have stopped. Politicians and militia leaders made this decision. But there is no equivalent measure for disease outbreaks or hurricanes, they can’t be stopped just because suddenly our politicians have the will to do so.

Resolving or preventing natural disasters will implicate us all to act, no one will be excused from the effort. But it also will require politicians and nations to acknowledge the fact that scientific research, though confusing and often unsatisfying, is the only way to truly prepare for nature’s threats. Threats that will only get worse if we continue to ignore the research we already have.

Lauren: Our response to COVID-19 is nothing new

When I asked my mum if coronavirus feels like the most important thing she’s ever lived through, I wasn’t expecting the answer to be yes. She was born in 1968, so she’s seen the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the internet, 9/11 – even the moon landing (just). My brother made the point that his and my generation is quite desensitised to events like this one, given that a lot has happened since the year 2000, and we’re less inclined to see their importance on a historic level. There might be something to connect this with the fact that by and large, it isn’t the ‘zoomers’ blaming this outbreak on China or on 5G telephone masts; this is very much a ‘boomer’ phenomenon.

The bigger a problem is, the greater our need to explain it. This is a survival mechanism – we need to understand a threat to our safety in order to protect ourselves from it. A natural reaction to crisis, it can manifest itself in odd ways when we’re faced with something that is truly inexplicable and just a chance of fate. The argument can be made that this wouldn’t have happened if we all stopped eating meat, but disease is as old as time itself, and unconquerable even by modern medicine.

A millennium or two ago, people would rationalise a plague as the act of a displeased god, or gods. In this context it’s easier to see why we might be inclined to blame technology, something also omnipotent and often misunderstood. Even more so when these ideas come from people who have an air of credibility: in March, a US doctor on disciplinary probation claimed that 5G poisons our cells, forcing them to excrete waste and therefore bringing on COVID-19. Ironically, the idea that ‘airwaves’ are harmful comes from our fear of change – in the 1990s, critics of mobile phone usage argued that exposure to 2G could in fact cause cancer. We know that this isn’t true, just as we know that this coronavirus spreads by human-to-human transmission and not from telephone masts. But the psychological reasoning behind conspiracies like these remains unchanged.

The effects of nature are a much harder thing to rationalise than is technological revolution, which is ultimately man-designed. It isn’t excusable to promote these theories if they cause real damage. Pinning the blame for the virus on China especially is unhelpful, and it also encourages racist and xenophobic statements. But we live in a world where climate disaster and ecological breakdown are becoming fast-approaching realities. Extreme weather in the past decade has shown even climate change deniers that nature is something we live on top of, rather than alongside, and that we can’t abuse it forever without facing the consequences. The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder of this too – while its impact could have been lessened with proper preparation, eradicating deadly disease is still beyond us. Conspiracy theories, as outlandish as they may be, can be far easier to face than reality.

Emily Passmore: Conspiracy theories reflect a desire to control our own fate

The coronavirus pandemic has had an extraordinary impact on the way we live our lives. Freedom of movement has been drastically curtailed. Our work or education has either been adapted, often changing significantly, or has been put on hold. The IMF has predicted an economic slump to rival the Great Depression. In short, it has made the normal functioning of society completely impossible.

Wanting something or someone to blame for this is a perfectly understandable response. Conspiracy theories blaming 5G networks or biological warfare for the pandemic make for a satisfying narrative, with a clear chain of cause and effect, and an obvious villain. Preventing future crises becomes a simple matter of removing this villain from our society, whether through economic sanctions and international law, or burning down your local 5G mast.

The true causes of the virus do not make for such a neat story. Viruses are part of nature and new viruses mutate by chance, not by design. Perhaps there is some blame to be apportioned over the spread of the virus; government responses at home and abroad have been far from ideal. However, there is nobody to blame for the creation of the virus itself. That was down to nature, and as no government could have anticipated the mutation, no government could have been prepared to completely shut down the virus.

Accepting this means accepting the massive role nature plays in determining the course of our lives. More specifically, it means accepting that if our lives are stable, it is ultimately a matter of luck – one act of nature could change our lives entirely. We are not the masters of our own destiny, individually or collectively; we are just one part of a massive ecosystem governed by chance and the laws of nature.

Yet the idea that we can control our fates is culturally embedded and psychologically comfortable. If COVID-19 is man-made, it still holds; there is some group of people orchestrating the crisis, and in disempowering them, we can end the crisis. Each stage can be explained by someone’s decisive action. But, if the virus spawned naturally, nobody is in control, and perhaps more importantly, there is no sure-fire way to prevent a similar crisis happening in the future.

Of course, we are not entirely powerless. Emergency measures have controlled the spread of the virus and prevented countless deaths. By changing attitudes to public health and crucially funding priorities, the impact of a potential future outbreak could be greatly reduced. Even so, the threat of a return to social distancing and quarantine would remain, throwing doubt on the future. There would be no triumphant return to the old status quo of not worrying about disease.

The prevalence of conspiracy theories claiming that COVID-19 is a man-made disaster doesn’t indicate a preference for man-made crises; it reveals a deep aversion to changing the way we think about society and the economy. Consider the climate crisis. There is robust scientific data proving the horrific damage humans have done and will continue to do to the environment. To avoid climate breakdown, there will need to be huge lifestyle shifts and economic restructuring.

Climate conspiracy theories centre around global warming being natural, or if global warming is a man-made phenomenon, the culprit will be one country – again, often China. This eliminates the need for real structural change.

Accepting that our decisions and actions are constrained by the natural world is uncomfortable and requires sacrificing our idealised vision of controlling our destinies. It is no surprise that some prefer to believe a fiction.

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