Wednesday 13th August 2025
Blog Page 665

Oxford Museums and the Artefacts of Colonialism

Lydia Stephens
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Oxford Museums and the Artefacts of Colonialism

The repatriation discussion is one which fitfully reoccurs whenever a high profile case will reach the mainstream media. In May 2018, the V&A considered returning Ethiopian treasures to the city of Maqdala. Very little has been heard about this since. More recently, however, the debate has been gaining important ground. Museum after museum have been caught up in it: the V&A, the British Museum, and recently Oxford’s own Pitt Rivers. But why now? Such artefacts have been in Britain for centuries, so why, given the more pressing political questions, are we discussing repatriation?

Author Rhiannon Lucy Cosset argues Brexit has had a major influence on the repatriation debate; it “chisels away any right Britain had to the Parthenon Marbles,” which were taken in the 19th Century, among other artefacts. Since we are jettisoning ourselves from the EU, she argues, our claims to items belonging to other EU countries seem increasingly tenuous. However, the British Museum, whilst a contentious case, got away unscathed. Resistance against repatriation continues – perhaps because the debate itself is a colossal misnomer. Referring to our beloved national museum as “The British Museum” seems comical given much of its contents are not British at all.

When talk of repatriation come up, Brits will get defensive. Objects that have been in your country for your entire lifetime can feel British. However, prior to our own lives, these objects had a history that was pre-British; and pre-colonial. This is a fact we fail to engage with time and time again.

As it stands legally, there are no laws requiring nations to return items back to their country of origin. In 2007 the UN commissioned the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). UNDRIP seeks to facilitate repatriation, but only applies only to human remains, and ceremonial objects. Moreover, UNDRIP is non-binding. In some instances, museums have seen fit to return objects – the University of Birmingham returned Aboriginal remains and objects of spiritual significance to Australia. But this was their choice, and what British museums will do is ultimately a British decision.

But who are we to even declare our decision is ‘final’? Shockingly, over 40% of the UK have deemed the Empire a good thing. Presumably former colonies would disagree, but we still see it as our call. It is no wonder so many are comfortable with their colonial history given how much we refuse to engage with it. Words like ‘acquisition’ ‘exchange’ and ‘donate’ do not tell the whole story as much as ‘stealing’ might. 

The Pitt Rivers houses over 300,000 objects, one of which is a bracelet, an orkatar, sacred to the Maasai tribe who recently visited the museum. According to the database, [the orkatar] was “donated” to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1904 by Alfred Claud Hollis, a colonial administrator in British East Africa, but there is no information about how it came into his hands. How can a stolen object be “donated”? Historian David Olusoga has said the same of the Benin bronzes (which currently are held in the British Museum), and declared that if Britain want to keep and display stolen objects, they need to be clear about their history and where they come from.

Many have noted that a primary purpose of museums is to teach history. Lying about the history of objects, then, seems counterproductive. Moreover, the Pitt Rivers has encountered major problems in contextualising its possessions, and the Maasai tribe’s visit was partly to help rectify this. The Pitt Rivers’ database was allegedly full of errors and gaps: one object marked as a Maasai bracelet was revealed to actually be an anklet.

All of this aside, there are, of course, many valid reasons not to return items to the countries where they are from. Dr Jharna Gourlay responded to arguments made by Olusoga noting the practicalities of repatriation: “More people come to Britain to see these artefacts. How many of them will go to Pakistan or Afganistan?”

A more compelling argument is that were these items to be returned, there is no guarantee they would be safe there. Some ex-colonies suffer the threat of fundamentalism. Gourlay cites what “happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and Babri Masjid in India, and what Isis did in Syria,” as an argument against repatriation. However, he argues overall, and most compellingly, that ex-colonies who “claim restitution in the form of returns of goodies encourages cheap sentimentalism.”

Perhaps this “cheap sentimentalism” is the problem. Repatriation ought to be more than a simple shipping of objects and a begrudging rearrangement of museum displays; it should involve understanding and apology, as part of the more important process of decolonising. We imagine colonialism happened in the past, and are affronted at the idea of apologising in 2018 for atrocities committed hundreds of years ago. But to pretend what was done in the past has little to no bearing on the present would be foolish. The ramifications of Britain’s colonial past still have bearing on the present day, and one need only look around Oxford to see this.

Whilst other nations like France have recently began negotiations to send colonial-era objects back to Africa, Britain has yet to do the same. Oxford, which claims to be a centre of learning should surely have some motivation to help. If museums such as the Pitt Rivers are for learning, they need to take a hands on approach to decolonisation in a way that isn’t tokenistic but actually engaged.

Some may argue repatriation is not the way to engage with British history, and perhaps it is not. But how can we continue to prioritise our own curiosity over the needs of those from whom we have robbed? The contents of the Pitt Rivers for the Maasai tribe to whom they belong are not “historical curiosities” – they are part of a living culture. It may be too much to ask people to engage in a past that they weren’t directly involved in, and to make up for thefts committed before their time. But a certain level of compassion for these existing cultures wouldn’t go amiss.

Olusoga, in a talk in Oxford, described seeing a British Ship in a museum in Holland. He explained the strange feeling of seeing something from your own culture, albeit your culture’s past, in a foreign museum, making it not too difficult to imagine how the ‘acquired’ contents of our own museums would make others feel. Whether repatriation is the way forwards, it seems difficult to conceive of an educated future when we will not fully engage with the past.

Film First: a box of tissues are needed for the first film to make me cry

Michael Shao
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Film First: a box of tissues are needed for the first film to make me cry

I would often chase fireflies around in my backyard as a child, in a time when both myself and my perception of the fate of the fireflies I caught were the products of ignorant bliss. My friends and I would catch them in the palms of our hands before gently sliding them into plastic water bottles and large Ziploc bags. We created luminescent lanterns and radiant pouches filled with little stars, or whatever else our imaginations decided on that given night. The way they flushed a warm yellow were akin to the summers in which they were caught: unhurried, yet deliberate.

Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Isao Takahata, tells the story of a teenage boy named Seita and his younger sister, Setsuko, who both live in Kobe, Japan, during World War II. From the get go, the film ramps up your emotions and dispenses with the pleasantries. The film’s first shot depicts a janitor examining Seita’s lifeless body, from which his spirit emerges to join Setsuko’s – the audience learns instantly of the fate of the film’s main characters. Takahata immediately pushes further, depicting in the following gut-wrenching scene a moment months earlier. Seita and Setsuko escape the firebombing of Japan conducted by the United States near the end of the War that left much of the nation in ashes – and their mother dead and mummified, her burn wounds oozing blood through the bandages.

Takahata’s challenge to the audience is two-fold: to scar them in the first ten minutes, and then to see if he can beat the law of diminishing returns and make them cry until their eyes turn red for the next hour.

Takahata has no fear of raising tensions too high. After the death of their mother and in light of the uncertain fate of their father, a Japanese Naval Admiral, Seita and Setsuko stay with their aunt. In the desperation of wartime, their aunt feeds them just enough rice to survive and sells their mother’s precious kimonos for more rice. Takahata takes great patience in communicating the loss of all familial responsibility in survival mode – not through the melodrama typical of western war films, but through long, painstakingly patient shots that allow reality to slowly sink in.

Seita and Setsuko eventually move to a cave in the hills nearby with enough money to buy food. However, the audience gradually realizes that there is no more food to buy. Setsuko grows weak and malnourished. There is no dramatic reveal in which the starving character emerges suddenly, thin and frail; Setsuko’s fate is slowly planted into the audience’s minds, until they, like Seita, understand the inevitable. A heartbreaking scene shows Seita preparing dinner for Setsuko, using mud to make the rice balls.

Yet there are glimpses of beauty among this suffering that Takahta catches in the landscapes of the beautiful Japanese countryside, and in a scene in which Seita and Setsuko catch fireflies and use them to illuminate the cave. They are soon brought back to a harrowing reality, as they wake up the next morning to find all the fireflies dead. Setsuko uses the little strength she has left to bury them.

Takahata pulls at the heartstrings in a brutally unconventional manner. There is no romantic heartbreak, no dramatic twist, and no puppies killed. The film succeeds in part for the same reason that Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List did; it tells a tragic story through painfully empathetic scenes, eschewing overused tropes or dramatic gimmicks that culminate in the melodramatic payoffs everybody was expecting.

The film teaches us a great deal about war in its brief 89-minute duration, and perhaps in the simplest way possible. War is not a game of Risk, or merely the black and white film reels depicting soldiers and machine gun fire on Omaha Beach. War is the mother who is raped, the child who is orphaned, and the village filled with uninvolved citizens deprived of the full and rich lives they once might have lived. War is the reaper that looms over 17 million Yemeni women and children, and the Vietnamese who still suffer birth defects to this day from the lasting effects of Agent Orange. War is the domino theory and The Clash of Civilizations that is easy to read on paper and stomach when we forget or misconstrue what war really is.

The grave in which Seita and Setsuko’s fireflies were buried is not only shallow, but a reminder of the transitory nature of things that seem modest in the moment, but are reflective of the wider locus of our lives. The conservation that it takes to preserve these creatures – to preserve peace – is often taken for granted. Takahata’s work is crucial in its circumventing of human forgetfulness through meaningful, cinematic reminder.

The old stomping grounds where I caught the fireflies were real and defined, with images of the dying oak tree off in the distance and the potent smell of grass in the summer burned into my memory. We typically think of animation as being separate from reality, whereas motion pictures seem to carry greater power through the lens of a camera. And yet, no film, animated or otherwise, has ever felt as real to me as Grave of the Fireflies. Zach Braff’s 2004 comedy-drama Garden State was shot quite literally in my backyard, yet Seita and Setsuko, despite their improbably large eyes and sketched-out mouths, feel more real to me. Takahata boils down the whole range of human suffering and joy into an impeccably chosen set of diamond-in-the-rough moments. Though the style of animation threatens to make war seem distant and fictitious, Takahata creates an emotional experience that not even Brokeback Mountain and Requiem for a Dream could accomplish.

Grave of the Fireflies is a film that communicates and confers raw feeling upon its viewer like no other. It is a film that Roger Ebert once said “belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made”. Watch it with a loved one, with your family, or by yourself. Just be sure to bring a few boxes of tissues.

Chris Grayling has really outdone himself this time!

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Chris Grayling has really outdone himself this time!

The Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP is a deeply odd man, even by the high standards of the Tory party. In each of his three ministerial roles, he has a frankly impressive record of removing funding from the most essential services he could get his hands on. As Minister of State for Employment, he made about 20,000 of his own employees redundant. Genius! In his role as Justice Minister, he reduced state legal aid ensuring the poorest people would be even more unfairly treated by a so-called justice system. Bravo, Chris! You’ve outdone yourself.

You may be wondering how he could beat that in terms of sheer counter-intuitiveness; how he could possibly cut something more ridiculously fundamental. Well, never knowingly overestimated, Grayling has managed it. Take a moment to sympathise with his position. You’re a Transport Secretary seemingly hellbent on cutting necessities. You have a straightforward mission: get someone with a few boats to move some cargo across the Channel. What’s the most essential thing you could tamper with? What’s the most imaginative way to balls up this remarkably simple task? Whatever you’ve come up with, it’s not insane enough. Chris Grayling has awarded a freight ferry contract… to a company that owns no ferries.

Seaborne Freight, the company in question, is clearly an establishment held in the highest esteem by Grayling. We must take him at his word that they were researched thoroughly. At the time of writing, however, their website boasts a peculiarly empty timetable, because there’s nothing to put on it. In case you forgot, THEY OWN NO FERRIES! They have less than three months to acquire ferries, hire and train staff, and start running services. They have already reported delays to this process.

I don’t know what Grayling imagined would happen. Perhaps he thought that, come the day of Brexit, he’d tip up to Ramsgate port ready to unveil his new trade route. He’d cut the ribbon on the crane and watch as it ceremoniously dumped the shipping containers into the sea, just where the ferries should be. One by one, the containers would fall to the floor of the Channel, laden down by crates of Britain’s main post-Brexit export: jam. The national anthem would play, and Grayling would be lauded throughout for his uncompromising belief in Brexit.

One is moved to wonder what Chris Grayling would be like in other jobs. While his propensity to cut everything except his expenses (he claimed £5000 to redecorate his taxpayer-funded apartment in Pimlico, less than 20 miles from his constituency home) might make him a good DFS salesman or hairdresser, there are very few other jobs you could see him excelling in . As a teacher he’d probably get rid of the pupils and teach to an empty classroom. If he drove an ice-cream van, he’d pull up to the curb playing “Turkey in the Straw”, turn the engine off, and start handing out empty cones to bitterly disappointed children…If he were a road safety officer, he’d throw away his lollipop and high-vis and just stand beside the road, watching the cars speed past.

Grayling will be remembered as Transport Secretary for several things: telling ministers in Japan – home of the bullet train – that the UK has better trains than them; failing to remove a single drone from above the UK’s second largest airport; and claiming cycle lanes were “a problem for road users” after knocking a man off his bike with a car door. Even amongst such strong competition, the decision to award the contract is his strangest gaffe yet.

The Lady’s Mad Review – ‘a triumph’

Paul Nash
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The Lady’s Mad Review – ‘a triumph’

Thistledown Theatre’s production of Rebekah King’s new play The Lady’s Mad has toured around the UK during December, with performances at Holy Trinity, Stratford, Somerville College, Oxford, and the Corn Exchange, Wallingford (where I saw it).

Both the play, and the production, are a triumph. Set during the English Civil War, the story concerns Lady Hester Cavill, who receives a delegation from the Roundhead soldiers who have arrived in the parish to seek aid from the Cavill family, particularly Hester’s Parliamentarian husband Sir Arthur. But Hester herself is a Royalist and, in her husband’s absence, refuses to help. Thus begins a stand-off between the Cavill family in their fortified mansion, and the rebel troops who are led, or inspired, by ‘Mad Moll’, the prophetess from ‘the Playhouse at Southwark’. The conflict thus revolves around the two women and their disparate ideologies.

The plot has its roots in historical fact, albeit with the conflict and its protagonists operating within fictional paradigms. Hester is surrounded by her family (including her sister Eleanor, who claims – like Moll – to be a prophetess) and, as the drama mounts, finds herself in the position of having to capitulate to the rebels. To do so without betraying her King she asks her daughter to help her feign madness; thus, the climax of the play is a meeting between two ‘mad’ women: Moll – who is, we find, far from mad – and the equally sane Lady Hester, who attempts to play the part of a madwoman. The play concludes with two ballad-sellers meeting on the road and striking a deal that they will compete to sell a ballad each – one tragic, one comic – based on the story of how ‘two madwomen fought each other for a castle’. Thus the story becomes distorted and sensationalized in a ballad carried around the country as news.

This distortion of truth by the media is one of several subtle messages of the play. One can read parallels with other conflicts, notably between the Civil War of the 1640s and the political divisions of Britain in our own time. There are obvious feminist overtones to the story too, and the play explores the complex roles – both positive and negative – of women during the Civil War. However, on the whole, the narrative avoids moralising and is essentially a story of people, of personalities, caught up in a national conflict with deep social, political, and religious roots. The play is all the better for presenting a human drama rather than more overt symbolism.

The performances, handled by a small cast with some parts doubled-up, are all excellent. Sarah Pyper as Lady Hester has the hardest (and largest) role and carries it off brilliantly. Craig Finlay is splendid as the Roundhead Lieutenant and the tragic balladeer, and Hannah Wilmshurst (in a series of breeches roles) matches him as the comic balladeer, Hester’s younger son Charles, and a Roundhead soldier. Emily Saddler brings a calm authority to Mad Moll, and Laurence Goodwin is excellent as the foolish and self-regarding Eleanor (the only truly unsympathetic character in the play). Billy Moreton impresses as the elder son James, and Daisy Howard shines too in the difficult role of the daughter Anne – a character at once modest and self-effacing, yet quietly deceptive.

The sets, costumes, music, and lighting are all simple, but support the performances well. The director, Nathan Peter Grassi, must take a good deal of credit for the overall success of the play, as indeed must the author. Rebekah King’s script catches the tone and language of the period very well, and is full of drama and wit; sometimes bent to comic effect, but usually deployed to sharpen the exchanges between the characters. The transitions between scenes and between tones (as between the meeting of the two ‘mad’ women, which is intense and cerebral, and the two ballad-sellers, at once witty and bawdy) are handled well by both writer and players. Indeed, it is hard to find anything to complain of in the production. The only criticisms I can make are of a couple of small points in the presentation: the books which lie on Hester’s desk are clearly not of the seventeenth century, and Miss Wilmshurst’s tights in the final scene are rather more Folies Bergère than they are Civil War. However, these criticisms will be perceived for what they are – mere anachronisms.

Books to buy in the first few months of 2019

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Books to buy in the first few months of 2019

Writing this significantly increased the chances of me buying at least seven new novels this term, despite having a whole dissertation to write, so in reading this, you may be at risk of finding yourself some new must–buy books..

Return of a Popular 2018 Author: Mr Salary: Faber Stories by Sally Rooney (January 3rd)

Sally Rooney is a name that I have seen everywhere after her 2018 second novel Normal People was recently long-listed for the exciting Man Booker Prize. It seems a lot of people got a hold of, read, and loved, both of Rooney’s books in 2018 and whether you are one of those people, or, like me, are yet to read any, you might want to add her short story Mr Salary to your 2019 to–read list

Retelling of an old story: An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (January 8th)

Just like his first novel, The Fishermen, which was published in 2015, Chigozie Obioma’s second novel is influenced and inspired by both classical Greek tragedy and the mythology of his home country of Nigeria. As another Man Booker Prize long-listed author, his second novel is a book that readers of the first will be eager to get a hold of, but there is no reason that anyone couldn’t pick up a copy of this contemporary retelling of the Odyssey, narrated by the spirit of the chi, or spirit of a poultry farmer.

Beautiful book cover: The Binding by Bridget Collins, (January 10th)

I first saw The Binding on Twitter and, as much as I know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, instantly wanted to get my hands on a copy so that I could admire the stunning blue, brown and gold cover in real life. Then I found out that it was a book about books and the likelihood of me soon owning it further increased. The historical fantasy follows the story of Emmett, who becomes an apprentice Bookbinder in a world where memories can be forgotten by sealing them in a book.

A few nights in fantasy Paris: The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi (January 15th)

This Young Adult fantasy, from the author of the 2016 novel The Star–Touched Queen, is set in a dangerous alternate nineteenth-century Paris. As with The Binding, the physical copy is stunning, making me wonder if fantasy authors have a love of intricate covers. It follows a diverse cast of characters attempting to find an ancient artefact. I am currently reading and loving Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and it has been said that if you like Bardugo’s novel you will almost certainly enjoy this, so I personally can’t wait to give it a read.

Drastic genre change: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (February 5th)

His 2014 book A Brief History of Seven Killings may have taken the literary world by storm, having won the Man Booker Prize in 2015, but in his latest novel, Jamaican-born writer Marlon James chose to leave historical fiction behind in favour of fantasy. In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, James’ weaves imagination with African history and mythology to form the first book in his new Dark Startrilogy, set in a world in which there are thirteen kingdoms, a wealth of adventure and a sense that not everyone is telling the truth.

Non–fiction I’m most ready to read: It’s Not About the Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race – edited by Mariam Khan (February 21st)

I am actually good friends with the sister of the Miriam Khan, the editor of It’s Not About the Burqa and have been since we shared a table in a sixth-form class. Since then I have heard a few updates on her very cool sister, who managed to get a job in publishing and edited this book, a collection of voices which are rarely represented in the media. It really deserves to be read by all.

Most anticipated sequel: Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi (March 5th)

Tomi Adeyemi’s debut young adult fantasy, Children of Blood and Bone, was released in 2018 and topped multiple bestseller lists, but Adeyemi’s novel made the press before the book was even released, when the seven–figure deal for the rights to her book led people to compare it to Harry Potter. The West-African inspired story is stunning – I sped through the first novel and cannot wait to return to the well-crafted world. The film rights for the first book may have been secured by Fox but there is certainly time to catch up on the series before both film and second book are released.

‘Say we want a revolution’: Music, politics, and protest songs

Lauren Hill
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‘Say we want a revolution’: Music, politics, and protest songs

2018 has been the year of political statements. From movements such as #MeToo to student protests against gun violence, a number of artists have turned to music in order to make their voices heard. American singer Halsey delivered a powerful poem about her experience of sexual abuse at the 2018 Women’s March, while at the Grammys 2018, Kesha’s emotionally-charged performance of Praying was striking in its context, highlighting continued sexism in the music industry. American Idiot by Green Day made a return to the UK charts in July, in time for President Trump’s widely-protested visit. Throughout these events and other political uncertainties, protestors have relied on music to make a comment on contemporary society.

This is, of course, nothing new in itself; art and politics have always been connected to some degree. Music exists within a particular social and historical context, and any attempt to grasp its meaning should reflect this. While some may hold the view of music as a transcendent or absolute art form, the fact is that music is an integral part of human culture and society. Plato illustrates this connection between music and politics in Book IV of the Republic, writing that ‘when the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them’. Musical innovation can be used to subvert the established order, making it essential to any political movement. In this way, song is, and always has been vital to any protest movement, serving to bring unity and cohesion. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, songs ‘invigorate the movement in a most significant way’.

An immediate glance at the history of protest suggests that music was a powerful countercultural force, particularly from the 1960s onwards. John Lennon made significant contributions to the anti-war movement with songs such as ‘Give Peace a Chance,’ (1969) and ‘Imagine’ in 1971 (co-written by Yoko Ono) which, with its idealistic lyrics, hymn-like melody and simple chord progressions, came to be considered an anthem for world peace. ‘Revolution’ (1968) by the Beatles is another classic example of anti-war sentiment, inspired by protests against the Vietnam War. The repetitive nature of the lyrics is arguably a key feature of protest song, allowing it to be quickly learnt by a large group. Despite denying being a writer of protest music, Bob Dylan, was also associated with this anti-establishment stance, and influenced by the folk revival; civil rights protestors adopted many of his songs (such as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘Times They Are A Changin’) as anthems for the movement. It is easy to romanticise the history of protest song, perhaps there are issues in the genre’s subsequent commercialisation and its creation of ‘idols’ whose impact can be overstated. Nonetheless, it demonstrates the interplay between music, politics and culture has always been a part of our history.

In a very different way, hip hop artists have also dealt with political issues. Since ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as well as the political rap of Public Enemy (see: ‘Fight the Power,’ which references James Brown), many artists have expressed their anger about societal injustices, racism, and poverty. More recently, the hip hop collective Somos Mujeres, Somos hip hop, featuring female rappers from across Latin America, has continued the trend of politically conscious rap; pushing back against a male-dominated industry, the group have used their music to protest against issues such as domestic violence, abortion, sexual abuse, and girls’ education.

So where will protest music go in 2019? Should artists be mixing politics with music anymore? Does protest music even matter?

While protest music, in the traditional sense, does not seem as prevalent as it was in previous decades, politically-focussed music remains a strong marker of identity, a voice for marginalised groups, and a powerful tool for communication. Social media has expanded the potential impact and reach of political songs, offering new opportunities to activists and musicians across the world. Discussing his recent EP, ‘Nina Cried Power,’ a compelling tribute to protest singers of the American civil-rights era, Hozier stated that ‘all music is political, no matter what’. Olly Alexander from Years & Years echoes that music has political meaning, and that ‘you’re either saying something or saying nothing’. With this in mind as we head into 2019 and the political events it will bring, we can only hope music will continue to say something, rather than nothing.

 

 

Space Shifters at the Hayward Gallery

Charlotte Hall
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Space Shifters at the Hayward Gallery

Upon entering the Hayward Gallery’s latest and much-praised exhibition ‘Shape Shifters’, my heart, in a small way, sinks. The huge 20 artist curation explores 50 years of perception-changing minimalist art. Time Out describes it as “an eye-bending journey into the brightest recesses of minimalism” but at first glance, with Jeppe Hein’s huge, slowly rotating mirror ‘Illusion V’ and Anish Kapoor’s funfair mirror-maze-like distortion cube ‘Non-Object (Door)’, it appears to promise more of a paid-for photo opportunity for the hundreds of visitors pouring through the doors – all weaponized with front-facing phone cameras and selfie sticks. Prejudiced, my fears at first seem to confirm themselves, though in a way there is a self-fulfilling irony in selfie-takers being distortedly mirrored back at themselves in hundreds of reflective silver balls or purple fish-eyed glass.

However, by the time I come to Helen Pashgian’s untitled translucent pieces, I realize that I had decidedly missed the point. Disregarded by the selfie-warriors, these three pieces of bent shapes encased in spheres of transparent polyester resin seem to swallow rather than to reflect their environment altogether distorting the features of the room. The spherical shape ensures that the onlooker’s own image is always at the centre of the reflection; looking in as you move around them means seeing yourself transported into an alternate-reality that transforms kaleidoscopically around your own reflection. The more I watch the world inside the spheres change, the more I realize the exhibition is about using the simplest things – the nature of a material, the shape, texture, colour of an object – to transmute the perception of its audience of the environment immediately around them. Literally, to shift the space.

This was the eye-bending minimalism aforementioned, but as the Hayward press release describes “not a geometric, austere, serial minimalism, but one with a more alluring, elegant and playful sensibility.” Intentionally chosen as the final exhibition for the Hayward’s 50th anniversary year, it seems a fitting juxtaposition to the geometric and austere beauty of the building’s brutalist architecture, a beauty that is often overlooked through its sheer utilitarianism. One of the most fascinating aspects of the exhibition is the way in which the artworks interact with and transform the gallery space itself, refashioning hallways or roofs as exhibition spaces, or disguising themselves as part of the architecture, such as Posenenske’s Square Tubes Series D constructed entirely out of galvanized steel ventilation pipes.

At the same time as engaging the architecture, however, the artworks also bounce off their fellow exhibits and even the visitors themselves. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ piece Untitled (Golden), a floor to ceiling curtain of golden beaded strings, jumps into a dazzling swaying motion when a visitor steps through it, transforming for a moment into what looks like silk. This phenomenon, reflected in the pool of glass that looks so convincingly like water filling Roni Horn’s Everything was sleeping as if the universe were a mistake (in itself a beautiful piece, an extraterrestrial caldera of, in the artist’s words “Super-cooled liquid”), seems to change the nature of both pieces, turning them both, intertwining gold and purple, into something indescribably sensual.

The star of the show, for which at peak times there is an internal queue of over an hour, is inarguably Richard Wilson’s 20:50. Despite the wait, the intense serenity of this silent pool of used engine oil is quietly overwhelming. Viewed from a walkway that slices into the middle of the jet-black pool, the surface perfectly reflects the room around it as the dark-alter ego of itself. With this piece Wilson wanted to “generate a whole new way of understanding your place in the world” for his viewers by subverting their preconceptions about architecture and space. The unconventionality of his medium uses something socially considered ugly, a waste product, and turns it into beauty. It is in many ways the perfect counter-piece to the Hayward gallery itself given the negative perception of brutalist architecture. There is an unexpected and simple beauty of the newly refurbished upper gallery being suspended through its reflection in utter blackness.

The exhibition is not so much a collection of artworks as a carefully curated series of subtly interlocking experiences and Wilson’s words ring in my ears as I head for the exit, through the first room with the rotating mirror. It still reflects the throngs of iPhone-bearing tourists persevering through the opening doors, but those on their way out leave with their phones tucked away, and glance at the strangely angled mirror-images before leaving this reality and space into another.

Sequels and Spinoffs: serving commercial or creative interests?

Chung Kiu Kwok
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Sequels and Spinoffs: serving commercial or creative interests?

“Okay cool BUT WHAT ABOUT WINDS OF WINTER”, reads the entirety of the most liked review on Goodreads’s page for George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood. The beauty of Goodreads’s semi-democratic system is that it can be relied on to yield fairly representative opinions, factoring in some degree of social media savvy required to get your review to the top. The point is, the above reviewer was by no means an anomaly: When Fire and Blood hit shelves last month, its release was overshadowed by the avalanche of voices demanding that, instead of furnishing yet another 700-page side project that nobody had asked for, Martin should get to work on the next instalment of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The latest offering of the series that began with A Game of Thrones in 1991 has been seven years in the making with no end in sight.

Most cases of maligned spin-offs are not as overt as outright having a hand in hampering completion of the main series. There are more subtle ways they can detract from the experience of the original. Perhaps the most polarising sequel of recent years, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, drew intense scrutiny for contradicting Lee’s repeated assertions that she would never release another novel, with many wondering whether she’d been “taken advantage of in her old age” by opportunistic publishers. It didn’t help that Watchman, although chronologically set two decades later, was practically an early draft of what would eventually become the classic To Kill a Mockingbird; the most jarring transformation manifested in the complete reversal of Atticus Finch’s character from beloved civil rights near-icon to raging segregationist. While some readers pointed to red flags in Mockingbird that had always betrayed Atticus’s underlying prejudices, others argued that Watchman portrayed a prototype of a character who would evolve through revisions into the principled man they’d always loved.

Although To Kill a Mockingbird will likely remain a classic no matter what spin-offs/rip-offs are published in its name, there are lessons to be learned from the controversy surrounding Go Set a Watchman. Most obviously, far from immunising works from being put under a microscope, the names of legends such as Harper Lee set an even higher bar for the novels they headline. After all, a higher-profile author means a louder, larger fanbase, and the last thing fanbases like is being told that they were wrong. Wrong about the story; wrong about the message; wrong about the fundamental beliefs of the figure they revered. To rub salt in the wound, the offending publication was barely more than a naked cash grab.

Commercialisation of lucrative book franchises makes for an easy target, but by no means do spin-offs require financial motivations to attract fire. Take the perennial childhood favourite of Harry Potter. Even after J.K. Rowling’s infamous assertion that “the story of [Harry Potter and the Cursed Child] should be considered canon”, legions of fans adamantly decry the stage play as horribly written, out of character fanfiction that butchered the spirit of the original series. As the world’s first billion-dollar author, it’s unlikely that Rowling was in desperate need of extra cash from Cursed Child. The critically acclaimed play, whose West End production picked up six Tony Awards, was more likely a product of genuine creative interest on the part of its writers (Rowling was one of several contributors). That didn’t save it from the ire of fans. Popular authors’ universes often expand beyond their control, fan theories evolving into cemented pillars of belief. If additions to an author’s universe clash with those beliefs, even if the additions are technically consistent with previous works, there inevitably arises the sense of being somehow cheated, of seeing a known truth destroyed.

Whether such a feeling is justified remains a different and not easily answerable question. On one hand, an author’s creations are theirs to do with as they please. They owe their audience nothing, the argument goes, and have the right to publish whatever spin-offs, sequels, prequels and companion colouring books (yes, it’s a thing for an increasing number of fantasy series) they wish. But this argument trivialises the amount of time and money that readers invest into a published series, which are invaluable to its success. Like it or not, the moment that an author accepts financial compensation for their work, an element of commercialisation is introduced into it. As long as creative engagement and dedication to the original canon stand alongside, rather than subordinate to, commercial interests, there should be no reason to fear the presence of monetary incentives in the publication of spin-offs. The brand power of a hit original won’t redeem shoddy writing in its successors, but a well-written, canon-consistent sequel may enjoy a warm welcome even if undertaken as a profitable venture. Spin-offs, sequels and the like are just like any other book: They stand on their own merits.

The Gilets Jaunes and working class anger

Daniil Ukhorskiy
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The Gilets Jaunes and working anger

Two weeks ago, the Gilets Jaunes turned out for a fifth straight weekend of protest. It was time for me to see the movement first hand. Crossing onto the Champs-Élysées from Rue Marbeuf, I was searched by the police like anyone else wishing to go on the avenue that day. My appearance was met with quizzical looks from the gendarmes, as I lacked a yellow vest or any other visible sign I was a protester.  

Whilst the movement is another example of the strong French tradition of civil disobedience, it is also unique. Many of the grievances voiced by the Gilets Jaunes are rooted in the country’s economic stagnation, and Macron’s failure to address it. It is not policy failure, however, that constructed a broad coalition of the French working-class. It is Macron’s image as an out-of-touch, elitist, and arrogant ruler which has allowed protests over a carbon tax to become his government’s defining crisis. If he is unable to fix his image and kickstart the economy, Macron could be surrendering his country to the very populists that he defeated.

For a Saturday in December, the Champs-Élysées turned out to be surprisingly empty. Bereft of cars, and with police only allowing a trickle of protesters to enter, the broad Avenue was dotted with groups of people in yellow vests. They were mostly chanting and singing, with a handful staring down the gendarmes blocking off streets.

I spent the rest of the day speaking to protesters, trying to wrap my head around the movement that was dominating French political discourse. Every commentator seemed to have their own opinion on the origins, goals and tactics used by the Gilets, and I was determined to formulate my own.

Broken promises

Macron and his administration have an approval rating of 23 percent, or roughly half of Donald Trump’s. The Gilets Jaunes movement is its most serious crisis yet. The reforms to date, including a repeal of the ISF (wealth tax) and a shake-up of university admissions have been met with widespread discontent.

The “Eco Tax” on fuel, which sparked the Gilets Jaunes movement, was presented by the government as an initiative to help meet climate goals. Working-class people disavowedit for being blind to the needs of poorer communities. In a city like Paris, public transport is cheap, efficient, and used by people of all social strata. Rural areas of France, however, are lacking such services. Protesters pointed to the fact that they depend on driving every day to get to work.

Despite slowing growth in 2018, spokespeople for the Gilets Jaunes do not point to indicators of economic health. They point to specific initiatives, spun as evidence of Macron being ‘out-of-touch’. Caring little about what the policies entail, the movement is focused on personal gripes of economic hardship. What started as a movement against the self-contained issue of carbon tax has morphed into an all-encompassing proclamation of working-class anger.

This anger is largely justified. Macron’s policies of economic liberalisation have not borne the promised fruits. As France’s National Institute of Fiscal and Economic Studies reports, purchasing power and consumer confidence have waned and the business climate has continued to stagnate. People across France feel abandoned and ignored. Previously, this would mean a series of strikes, organised by experienced and professional unions, campaigning for a specific policy change. Now, the movement crosses party lines and unites most of the rural working class.

The Macron government’s main problem, however, lies not in their policies. They have an image problem. Rolling back the Eco Tax and promising an increase of the minimum wage did nothing to assuage the wave of anger, further illustrating how disconnected the anger is from policy considerations. When announcing the €15 billion package aimed at alleviating economic hardship, Macron did it from his Ivory Tower, an exquisite gilded office at the heart of the Palais de l’Élysée.

Like no other

The Gilets Jaunes are, broadly speaking, disorganised and uninformed. Unlike previous popular movements like Nuit Debout or other campaigns against Hollande’s labour law reform, there is no unified leadership or set list of demands.There is only a large group of angry, disillusioned people, many of whom simply proclaim that they want “no more taxes” or Macron’s resignation. For Macron and his administration, this presents a unique challenge, especially the latter demand. As a classically educated technocrat, Macron’s response to most issues is thoughtful policy change or grandiose speeches. His interactions with the public have been rocky and defensive.

When confronted by a young jobless man in September, Macron told him “go across the street and find yourself work”. The man was adamant that his job search had been prolonged and fruitless. This arrogant and callous remark symbolises Macron’s attitude of superiority– a focal point of criticism by the Gilets Jaunes. What Macron said to the young man was technically true: the hospitality sector has a job surplus. People, however, want to see a more empathetic President who is ready to listen to the concerns of the working class instead of talking down to them.

The dangerous alternative

As with other times of profound dissatisfaction with the ruling class, the environment is fertile for extremism to take hold. Marine Le Pen and her rebranded Rassemblement National pin economic problems on migrants and minorities. On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon points to big business as the root of all issues. This rhetoric has seen a resurgence as the popularity of the Gilets Jaunes increases.

Countless protesters that I have spoken to proclaimed that they didn’t vote in the previous election. Many used an old French saying: “choosing between the Plague and cholera” to compare Le Pen and Macron. Some of the rhetoric used by the protesters was even more alarming. When allocating blame, many lumped big businesses with the media, even alluding to a Jewish conspiracy. Reports have quoted protesters as denying climate change or blaming migrants for their economic hardship.

The spread and normalisation of such rhetoric throughout this mass movement is the most dangerous consequence of the protests escalating. Marine Le Pen voiced her support for the Gilets Jaunes, using the opportunity to promote her own ideology. The RN has been climbing in the polls as Macron’s popularity plummets, and the stage is set for a populist resurgence in the European Parliament elections in 2019. Those results will show whether Macron has allowed Le Pen’s brand of populism to flourish.

If the government cannot change the fact that thousands of voters see them as out of touch in bed with the elite, the consequence may be much more serious than a loss of power for the young En Marche party. Allowing the rhetoric of hatred to take root, something that Macron has spoken against countless times, could be a catastrophic failure and impact generations to come.

Time for a change

Macron’s concessions failed to placate the movement, as did a plea not to protest following the terrorist attack in Strasbourg. The Gilets turned out across the country for a fifth straight weekend of defiance.  It is clear that the government will not be able to solve this crisis with a set of laws or a particularly emotive speech delivered from the steps of the Élysée Palace. The demands of the movement vary regionally and individually, meaning that, to make a dent in the movement, the President must rethink his image – fast.

For the angry protesters across France nothing would make more of an impact than Macron swallowing his pride and admitting personal failure for a misguided policy and for his own attitude. Delaying his address to the nation for days after the apex of violence in Paris only reinforces the image that he is hesitant to accept his shortcomings. Although Macron accepted ‘a share of responsibility’ he was not ready to admit failure in full. Everything that I have gathered from watching Gilets Jaunes appear on the news to speaking with them in person, is that policy concessions will do nothing to appease their anger. The French economy has been in stagnation long before Macron ascended to office, and it is not surprising that he was unable to unilaterally reverse this trend.

He may believe that it is unfair to take the entire blame, given the complex origins of the movement. Despite what he may believe, the crisis cannot be solved through a rational dissection of its causes and origins. It is time for Macron to beg the people’s forgiveness before it is too late.

Ousted Oxford MP to be awarded peerage

Ben van der Merwe
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Ousted Oxford MP to be awarded peerage

The former MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Nicola Blackwood, is to be granted a peerage and a return to government, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Nicola Blackwood served as a Minister in the Department of Health before losing her seat to Liberal Democrat Layla Moran in the 2017 election, and has since been working as a senior advisor for healthcare projects at the lobbying firm Global Counsel.

The Mail on Sunday reports that Ms. Blackwood is expected to return to her role as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care after the Christmas recess, despite losing her parliamentary seat 18 months ago.

Nicola Blackwood’s Global Counsel page highlights her “background in political office” and “experience from the health sector”, noting that she works for the firm on “policy areas related to technology and healthcare.”

Last February Ms. Blackwood was cleared by Parliament’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, to take jobs in the private sector on the condition that her employers would not unfairly benefit from her time in office.

Ms. Blackwood subsequently took paid roles at Policy, a firm which helps private sector companies get contracts in public services, and Eagle Genomics, a biotechnology consultant. She is also on the board of directors of the lobbying group Campaign for Science and Engineering.

Global Counsel serves a number of companies in the private sector with political interests, such as energy giant Centrica, which successfully lobbied for the government to ease restrictions on fracking.

The director of Spinwatch, a group which campaigns for transparency in lobbying, David Miller told Cherwell: “This is the latest in a long line of revolving door appointments involving public servants who go on to work for private clients in the lobbying world. There is no effective regulation of this and it is simply unacceptable for lobbyists to be appointed as government ministers in this way.

“Reforms are needed to the registration and regulation of lobbyists to make such issues clearer, and we need to abolish the totally inadequate system via [the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments] and introduce much stricter rules on the revolving door and conflicts of interest in order to protect the public interest in such matters.”

Global Counsel’s chairman is Peter Mandelson, who served as a minister under Tony Blair before losing his seat and subsequently returning to government as a peer.

Ms. Blackwood and the Oxfordshire Conservatives have been contacted for comment.

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