Friday 27th June 2025
Blog Page 864

Blind Date: “I was on a date with one of the roguest guys in Oxford”

Lucy Frost and Nicky Halterman
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Blind Date: “I was on a date with one of the roguest guys in Oxford”

Lucy Frost, First Year, Classics, Worcester

Arriving at Turf armed only with the name of my date inevitably led to some awkward staring at strangers until I was saved by the tentative question: “You wouldn’t happen to be Lucy, would you?” Thankfully, this was definitely the low-point of the date as we soon bought drinks and got to talking. On finding out that Nicky was from Oklahoma, I decided to ignore any initial thoughts of stereotypes drilled into me by Oklahoma! only to realise that he fit the bill almost entirely. It turned out I was on a date with one of the roguest guys in Oxford who spends his time playing ultimate frisbee, making cocktails, and spinning (as in full-on Rumpelstiltskin spinning wheel spinning). Despite the clash of his very rogue and my very mainstream interests, the conversation took off. With mutual appreciation of doggos, The West Wing, dabbling while rowing, and P!NK, we took our date to the Balliol bar.

First impression? His name’s Nicky.

Chat? Love it.

Personality? Sam Seaborn, is that you?

Second date? He’d have to get in line.

Nicky Halterman, Second Year, PPE, Balliol

My blind date got off to a somewhat worrying start when I was sent to the Turf at 8pm having failed to find out anything except that I was meeting someone named Lucy. Fortunately I ran into someone else dressed for a summer date and looking equally lost. We got a drink and somehow found a table on a Friday night, so things were already looking up as we set about the standard Oxford checklist of college/degree/part of London/societies. The conversation was enjoyable, if occasionally job-interview-ish, and eventually we managed to push through the opening to questions to showing each other pictures of our dogs, at which point I knew things were going well. We ended up retreating to my College bar for cheaper drinks and a pool table, calling it a night after another pint and some games of questionable quality. In the end the evening was good fun, though we never particularly found a great deal in common or a strong connection.

First impression? Positive, slightly awkward.

Chat? Enjoyable.

Personality? Kind, polite.

Second date? Probably not.

Laali Vadlamani wins Union Presidency for Hilary 2018

Emma Leech
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Laali Vadlamani wins Union Presidency for Hilary 2018

Laali Vadlamani is the Oxford Union’s new President-elect for Michaelmas 2017 following her uncontested election on Friday 9 June. She will become President in Hilary term.

The ex-Treasurer from Trinity College received 496 first preference votes, with 136 votes going to RON.

This marks a particularly low turnout for the Union with only 770 members turning out to vote.

Members also voted for New College’s Stephen Horvath as their Treasurer-elect and St John’s Ed Evans as Secretary. The Librarian-elect is to be Sabriyah Saeed. All officer positions were uncontested as was the position for President.

The Standing Committee and Secretary’s Committee have also been elected with a particularly close result between Standing Committee candidates. 

Both sets of Committee positions were contested and saw James Lamming (Standing Committee) and Charles Wang (Secretary’s Committee) come out on top.

Michael Harkness is the Returning Officer.  

See the full results below:

OFFICERS

Treasurer-elect: Stephen Horvath – 499 (RON – 114)

Secretary: Ed Evans – 498

Librarian-elect: Sabriyah Saeed – 496 (RON – 119)

STANDING COMMITTEE (in order of number of first-preference votes)

James Lamming – 129

Brian Wong – 126

Shivani Ananth– 123

Julian Kirk – 122

Jan Bialas – 108

Runner up: Grace Joel – 88

SECRETARY’S COMMITTEE (in order of number of first-preference votes)

Charles Wang – 82

Shanuk Mediwaka – 77

Adam Watson – 66

Alex Yeandle – 63

Abigail Ridsdill-Smith – 58

Isabella Risino – 58

Charlie Cheesman – 58

Chris Garner – 51

Freya Dixon Van Dijk – 50

Genevieve Athis – 48

Mike Fuller – 42

Runner-up: Matthew Vautrey – 41

First Eliminated: Will Taylor – 25

Cherwell is recruiting for MT17!

Cherwell
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Cherwell is recruiting for MT17!
Cherwell is now recruiting for editorial positions for next term. This is your chance to be part of one of the longest-running independent newspapers in the United Kingdom and to follow in the footsteps of past contributors such as Graham Greene, W.H. Auden, Hadley Freeman, and Evan Davis.

We are recruiting for section editors, deputy section editors, broadcasters, and contributors.

Apply to be a Cherwell section editor here or a deputy section editor here. Apply for a position on the Broadcasting team here. Copy and paste the text from the Google document into your own Google or Word document and email all application forms to [email protected].

Please email [email protected] by 8pm on Monday 12 June to give your intention of applying for a position. The deadline for application forms is 8pm the following day, Tuesday 13 June.

Cherwell is also looking for cartoonists, illustrators, and photographers—all interested contact [email protected] with details of any relevant experience.

Candidates will have a short, informal interview with the editors. Interviews will be held during 8th Week.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for recruitment updates and news.

Our Business team is also always looking for new recruits. Cherwell provides some of the best business experience in Oxford and provides excellent preparation for any media, consulting or banking career. We’ll train you on all relevant parts of the business and teach you to raise £10,000 independently. Email [email protected] to express interest.

Editorial job descriptions:

News:

News is a big section to edit, but it’s the one that has our most exciting headlines and reporting opportunities. This term, Cherwell has held the University to account over its Eurocentric curriculum, reported on a ketamine scandal at Exeter College, and covered the election in Oxford.

Being a news editor means you work closely with the senior editorial team, designing the news coverage, front page and posting content online. We need tenacious student journalists who have a nose for news.

To apply for News Editor, fill out the Section Editor form. It’s very easy to become a News Reporter (and you can still contribute to other sections of the paper too): just send an email to [email protected], come along to our weekly meetings, and you can be at the forefront of student journalism (maybe even literally on the front page).

Comment:

The Comment section has a well-respected tradition of printing cutting-edge opinion pieces from students on a range of Oxford and national issues. Our best debates and opinion pieces are read around the University and online, frequently attracting several thousand hits.

Joining the Comment team also allows you to interview leading political figures and celebrities. In the last year, Cherwell has interviewed Michael Gove, Fiona Bruce, Mary Beard, Jeremy Paxman, Richard Dawkins, David Haye, Slavoj Žižek and Jess Phillips MP among many others.

If you’re passionate about a subject and want to share your views and spark debate, join us. You can be a Deputy Comment Editor even if you haven’t written for us before—Deputy Comment Editors are intended to form a permanent core of reliable writers who can called upon regularly to write for the section. If you just want to write on an ad hoc basis as a contributor there’s no need to fill out a form, just email [email protected].

Satire:

Satire has provided a cutting angle on this term’s General Election, leaving no politician safe from its brutal lens. Each week our Satire Editor writes and sources a number of articles and cartoons. Fancy yourself as the next Hislop? Then this is the position for you. Fill in the Section Editor form to apply for the role of Satire Editor.

Life:

The Life section hosts a number of Cherwell’s most popular features, including our the John Evelyn gossip column and the (in)famous Blind Date.

We also have a Food & Drink page, which you can additionally apply to edit, or to write for. It features a wide variety of reviews and recipes. If you want to review college meals, or Oxford’s extensive number of bars or restaurants, this is the place to look.

Deputy Life Editors are intended to form a permanent core of reliable writers which can called upon regularly to write for the section. If you just want to write on an ad hoc basis as a contributor there’s no need to fill out a form, just email [email protected].

Investigations:

We are extremely proud of our Investigations section, otherwise known as C+. This is where some of the most in-depth, investigative journalism is done, tackling some of the biggest issues in Oxford today. This term, C+ has polled students ahead of this term’s General Election, and has investigated going out culture, life for disabled students at Oxford, and freedom of speech. If you want to test the waters of investigative life before becoming completely in charge of it, apply for Deputy Investigations Editor.

Features:

Appearing in the paper every other week, this term’s we’ve run some brilliant pieces on class at Oxford, Oxford’s traditions and ageism in pop culture. If you’re a fan of the New York Times‘ long form articles, want to interrogate and explore subjects in more detail and fancy reading (or writing) an article longer than the standard comment piece, Features is the section for you. Fill out the Section Editor form to apply to become Features Editor.

Culture:

This term, we created Oxbow, an eight page culture pullout, with pages dedicated to Film & TV, Stage, Music, Books & Lit, and Photo and Art. We’re one of the first ports of call for reviews of all the student plays, as well as all the other cultural delights which Oxford offers.

If you’d like to edit the whole Oxbow supplement please fill in the Section Editor form. If you’d like to edit any of the Film & TV, Stage, Music, Books & Lit or Visuals pages, please fill in the Section Editor form. If you would just like to contribute to Culture occasionally, there’s no need to fill in a form—please just email [email protected] expressing your interest.

Fashion:

Our Fashion section has gone from strength to strength this term. If you want to organise weekly photoshoots, or you’ve got opinions on fashion and fancy being the next Sartorialist, this is the section for you.

Deputy Fashion Editors are intended to form a permanent core of reliable writers which can called upon regularly to write for the section and to help with the weekly fashion shoots. If you just want to write on an ad hoc basis as a contributor there’s no need to fill out a form, just email [email protected].

Science & Tech:

Science & Tech has only recently found a home in our weekly paper, but the section, which started in Michaelmas 2016, now publishes regular, focused and cutting-edge articles in Cherwell.

Covering Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Medical Sciences, Engineering, and everything in between, the section allows a thoughtful scientist to publish musings on any new research that has been dumbfounding them, or even interview their favourite scientist. Recent articles have included a piece investigating the power of the nuclear bomb, the continuing process of human evolution, and the influence of the internet on global politics. Fill out the Section Editor form to apply to edit our Science & Tech section.

Sport:

We report on many major sporting occasions in Oxford—whether your interest is rugby, swimming or lacrosse, there are opportunities for objective analysis of the big games, or not-so-objective match reports from those involved in college matches. Get involved with the Sport section to continue this trend and expand high quality coverage to other sporting fields.

Apply to be a Deputy Sport Editor if you would like to be part of a permanent team of reliable writers which can called upon regularly to write for the section. If you just want to write on an ad hoc basis as a contributor you don’t need to fill out a form, just email [email protected].

Broadcasting:

Our Broadcasting section has produced fantastic content over the last term, from our weekly news round up to interviewing Oxford’s many parliamentary hopefuls, via covering various sporting events. If you have experience in production and editing, or are just keen to learn about being either behind or in front of the camera, then apply to join the broadcasting team.

Playing God since 10,000 BCE

Calum Stephenson
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Playing God since 10,000 BCE

Why are human beings so afraid of the power that they possess? The world is our sandbox, and we have become the masters at manipulating it. We mined the ground to make our cities, with skyscrapers towering far higher than the tallest of trees. By harnessing radioactivity we’ve been able to capture the power of nuclear energy, while our burning of fossil fuels changes the very nature of our planet’s climate.

But while these ideas are modern — with their invention and their effects occurring within the last few centuries — one method by which humans have shaped their environment dates back over ten thousand years. As we developed a greater understanding of the animals and plants around us, we became more and more effective at raising them in our company, and through the selective breeding of the best individuals, we have morphed them to suit our needs. This process is known as domestication.

Its power is highlighted by a man named Kirk Cameron is a New Zealander evangelist who, in 2006, quite hilariously recorded an episode of his television show The Way of the Master in which he argued that the very shape of a banana — with its curved, smooth body and a “tab” at the top that allows easy access to the contents — was an “atheists nightmare”, as it was direct evidence for creation. Cameron was onto something; the banana was designed for human consumption, but not by god. Rather, through the continuous breeding of the tastiest and most comfortable plants in each generation humans have produced the modern variety, which is apparently indistinguishable from creation at first sight. The wild variety of the banana is small bodied with relatively large seeds, whatever flesh it has being very bitter to taste. We have effectively altered this small, awkward little fruit to suit our own image. We’ve played god.

And it’s not just been the bananas. Man’s best friend, Canis lupus familiaris, is our oldest plaything, with remains of the ancestral dogs found in close proximity to humans nearly fifteen thousand years ago. We’ve produced innumerable forms of dogs over the years, for reasons from security to cosmetics, again shaping them by selecting those with the most desirable characteristics for the task at hand. The same can be said of the wild mustard, Brassica oleracea, which through selective breeding has led to modern varieties of kale, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts and kohlrabi, all of which remain the same species of plant.

Artificial selection at the hands of humans has existed ever since we took that first wolf pup into our homes, and has persisted in that form continuing into the present day. However, the relatively recent advent of the field of molecular genetics, accompanied by the ability to physically alter an organisms genetic code, have dramatically increased the ease by which we can manipulate organisms. It is possible to simulate an amount of evolutionary change that would take hundreds, if not thousands of years by traditional methods, within a single generation. It is this speed that causes unrest among the public, as there is no real difference between the two techniques, but seeing such change on the timescales of weeks, months or years can be unsettling to the human psyche, as we fear we have gone too far.

Our tendency to reject our ability to dramatically change the world around us is, in a way, both a flaw and a virtue. It has likely prevented much tragedy in the form of mismanaged genetically modified organisms, which do indeed have the potential to ruin ecosystems. However, this benefit is dwarfed by the failings of the paranoia. Genetically modified crops are necessary should we ever hope to solve the impending world hunger crises. Sterilised mosquitoes have continuously been trialled for use on wild populations, and they outline the potential for biological control mechanisms for diseases such as malaria. We could modify the nutritional value of the meat we consume, making the industry both more efficient and better for the consumer. Shaping the world around is what we have always done, it is only as technology progresses that we become faster and more effective at doing it. We need to wake up to this reality and stop being afraid of our potential.

Labour hold Oxford East as Lib Dems take Oxford West from Conservatives

Jack Hunter
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Labour hold Oxford East as Lib Dems take Oxford West from Conservatives

An enlarged turnout amongst students is being thanked for an increased vote for Labour in Oxford East, as Anneliese Dodds was elected the new Labour MP in yesterday’s general election

Anneliese Dodds won the Oxford East consituency, which contains the majority of Oxford colleges, with 35,118 votes – representing an increase of 15 points to 65 per cent of the vote share. She increased 30-year MP Andrew Smith’s majority by around 8,000 votes.

In Oxford West and Abingdon, which contains a minority of Oxford colleges including St Hugh’s and St Anne’s, the Liberal Democrat candidate Layla Moran snatched the seat from Tory MP Nicola Blackwood, with 26,256 votes to Blackwood’s 25,440.

The National Union of Students have said Oxford East was one of a number in which the Labour vote share had benefitted from an increased youth turnout. In Oxford East, turnout increased by 4.6 per cent, as the Labour vote share increased by by 15 points. Long queues were reported in many constituencies.

Speaking to Cherwell last night, Anneliese Dodds spoke of her encouragement as the results came in. “Here in Oxford it has felt very very encouraging, they have been very supportive of Labour,” she said.

The results in Oxford matched Cherwell‘s recent poll of students which suggested that almost half of students at the university were planning to vote Labour in the general election.

Full results below.

Oxford East

Anneliese Dodds – Labour – 35118

Suzanne Barlington – Conservative – 11834

Kirsten Johnson – Liberal Democrat – 4904

Larry Sanders – Green – 1785

Chaka Artwell – Independent – 255

Oxford West and Abingdon

Layla Moran – Liberal Democrat – 26256

Nicola Blackwood – Conservative – 25440

Marie Tibdall – Labour – 7573

Alan Harris – UKIP – 751

“Exploring what it means to be an intelligent modern woman”

Sîan Bayley
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“Exploring what it means to be an intelligent modern woman”

Girls Will Be Girls is an exciting piece of new writing by student Ella Langley premiering at the Burton Taylor Studio before its run at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.

Supported by an all-female production team, and directed by Hannah Chukwu and Ella Langley, it is an honest and touching account of the lives of seven girls on the verge of adulthood, but still constrained within the school bubble, as they await the results of their application to Oxford University. As Langley explains: “in this environment, in this school, and in that rare moment right before everything changes, girls will be girls.”

In many ways an updated female version of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, Langley’s play centers on what it means to be a clever young woman about to enter the real world. Its account of what it is to be a 17-year-old girl is often achingly familiar, and the play’s explorations of difficult issues such as eating disorders, academic pressure, racism, and sexism should be highly commended.

The play is somewhat constrained, however, by its setting in what appears to be a private single sex school with a clear history of Oxbridge applications—not exactly a universal female experience—and its somewhat outdated Georgia Nicholson-esque humour, which does not always generate the laughs expected.

Nevertheless, many audience members noted the accuracy of the characters and situations presented at such a school, and the play’s heart and spirit more than outweigh any minor issues with its privileged context.

Langley’s girls are a delight to watch on stage, and even the more off-putting and abrasive character of Rose, brilliantly portrayed by Lara Marks, is revealed to be just as self-conscious and vulnerable as the other girls in a notable scene in every schoolgirl’s refuge, the toilet cubicle. It is the strange beauty of this scene, juxtaposing the troubled girls with the more lively and confident characters as they laugh at lunch about their old school days and Oxford interview experiences, that shows the different and opposing sides to being an intelligent teenage girl in modern Britain.

Aided by notable songs that celebrate femininity such as ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ and ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, but often with a slower rhythm and sadder tone, the play’s music likewise captures this tension between girlish freedom and existential crisis. This ultimately culminates in a powerful monologue by Natasha Sarna as Reece, attempting to explain her rash behaviour to her teacher as she meanders through her own thoughts and feelings about the school institution. Here she challenges whether her teachers “have any idea what girls are doing to get their grades”, which contribute to the reputation of the school more than to the girls’ own development. A beautifully written piece of prose by Langley, full of exciting and original imagery as well as powerful emotional content, performed with real feeling by Sarna, this is the highlight of an important and thought-provoking work.

As the lights go down when the girls begin to open their letters, the play ends, but the experience continues. Audience members are invited to go downstairs to share their own messages with their younger selves, and what they wished they could have known then. It is an odd experience to revisit such a turbulent and awkward stage in one’s life, but a necessarily important one. This play celebrates what it means to be an intelligent modern woman and embraces flaws with a sense of humour and sincerity that is often lacking in the media and mainstream culture.

Labour is dominating social media ahead of election, Oxford researchers find

Maxim Parr-Reid
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Labour is dominating social media ahead of election, Oxford researchers find

The Labour party is winning the social media battle ahead of election day, research by Oxford’s Internet Institute has this week shown.

The study found that “hashtags such as #VoteLabour and #JezzWeCan are outperforming the likes of #VoteTory and #StrongAndStable”.

However, the study also pointed out that ‘fake news’ is believed to account for around 13% of social media traffic.

The University’s Internet Institute looked at over 1.3 million tweets posted between the 1 and 7 of May which used hashtags attached to the country’s main political parties as well as the election itself.

Specifically, the study found that Labour’s tweets made up 39.7 per cent of party-specific tweets, as opposed to 26 per cent for the Conservative Party, 9.6 per cent for UKIP and 5.7 per cent for the Liberal Democrats.

Twitter mentions for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, which is looking to replicate its 2-15 electoral success this week, made up 19 per cent of party-specific tweets.

The study also established that over 12 per cent of political tweets are posted by bots (automated accounts). 21,000 of these tweets were for Labour, compared to only 13,400 for the Tories.

Hannah Taylor, co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club told Cherwell: “Labour’s dominance of social media is unsurprising given our huge popularity with young people. Whilst it is hard to tell from these studies whether the content is positive, I am optimistic that this shows how Corbyn has sparked conversation online by offering a real, positive alternative.”

Meanwhile, William Rees-Mogg, Oxford University Conservative Association President, was more skeptical of the findings, telling Cherwell: “Twitter is more of an echo chamber for the views of certain politically engaged people than it is representative of the views of the general public, as evidenced by the over-representation of the SNP. We should make predictions on the basis of data gathered on the doorstep, not hot air and hashtags.”

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) have been contacted for comment.

“The biggest student comedy event of the year”: Oxford Revue and Friends

Miriam Nemmaoui
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“The biggest student comedy event of the year”: Oxford Revue and Friends

Fresh out of a Classics exam and intermittently babbling about Ancient Rome, Olly Jackson met me to talk about the biggest student comedy event of the year, the Oxford Revue and Friends at the Playhouse. Hosted by TV comedian Naz Osmanoglu, the Oxford Revue will be joined by the Cambridge Footlights and the Durham Revue in what promises to be a night of fast-paced sketch comedy.

Olly tells me that the evening will be a culmination of the Revue’s best work from throughout the year, so if you haven’t had the chance to make their termly Audreys, this is the perfect chance to see Oxford’s best comedy talent. New performers have already been through what he calls the “proving grounds” of the Audreys, and the material is mostly tried and tested, so neither audience nor performer is at risk of the dreaded deathly silence which can happen with less experienced comedians.

Ever the sadist, I ask Olly to share his worst comedy show anecdote with me: “It was very tragic, but it wasn’t really my fault—ball gigs are always rubbish! At one minute to midnight, in the middle of our set, someone announced that the fireworks were about to start, and literally everyone left, including the bar staff. We just carried on talking though, because we hoped it would confuse everyone when they returned in the middle of a different sketch.”

Unless something explosive happens during election night, the Revue will certainly have all eyes trained upon them this time though, having secured the best venue in Oxford for their show, as well as their professional comedian host. Olly attributes this to their reputation, which certainly allows them to draw in large audiences and play at big venues like the Playhouse.

Looking at their alumni list from the last 70 years, it’s not surprising: Rowan Atkinson, Michael Palin, Al Murray and Richard Curtis are just a few highlights from the ranks. Indeed, it’s a list rivalled only by the Cambridge Footlights (Hugh Laurie, Richard Ayoade, David Mitchell) who will be sharing the stage on Thursday. Rather disappointingly for this article, Olly insists that the two troupes keep the rivalry friendly: “We went to Cambridge for their Easter gig and we all got on really well backstage. It’s really good and useful to see other people doing sketch stuff”.

One of the advantages of working with other universities is escaping what he calls “the Oxford echo chamber”. Olly says it can be easy to fall back on tired Oxford tropes in sketch-writing: “I hate Oxford sketches, and I always refuse to do them. Sketches about tutes can be funny, but I always think that you can’t show it to anyone other than an Oxford audience.” Olly makes a point of “writing about really weird stuff, which is hopefully universally entertaining”.

As Oxford jokes are out of bounds, I ask Olly to explain the process of coming up with sketch ideas. “Ideas come when I’m just walking around, doing my life…but I also send and receive messages saying ‘wouldn’t it be funny if…?’, and then we will write the other person’s stuff”. This collaborative approach has led to more exciting, fast-paced style of sketch compared to what has been seen in Oxford previously. “All of the sketches are very, very short and punchy. Which is what I think they should be. I think ‘let’s just do the idea!”

The Oxford Revue and Friends will play for one night only on 8 June at the Oxford Playhouse. Tickets are still available on the Playhouse website: http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/whats-on/all-shows/the-oxford-revue/4775.

On That Point: Thank you, David Hockney

Keir Mather
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On That Point: Thank you, David Hockney

I struggle with art. Although I can tell a Rembrandt from a Picasso, and enjoy the works of many artists, overall it’s not a mode of expression with which I feel a strong affinity. That being said, something dragged me out of bed last Monday morning, and compelled me to take the train to London, queue for an hour, and then wait until ten o’clock at night to gain entry to a room stuffed with overly-groomed men and photo-hungry tourists. And that’s because it was the last day of the David Hockney exhibition at Tate Britain.

Now I possess neither the pretentious writing-style nor the required desire for self-aggrandisement to write an art critique, so don’t expect one from this piece. But I will say this—everything I’m about to write is true to me, and if it’s incorrect in artistic terms, I simply don’t give a shit. So you should really take me as earnest when I say that I don’t think I’ll see a better art exhibition in my entire life.

There’s a story behind this. There’s a reason why, when I was younger, I spent so much time poring over Hockney’s paintings. Why I was so captivated by ‘Doll Boy’ and ‘Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool’, and will forever feel my strongest bond to ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging’. There’s a reason why I watched all the documentaries there were on YouTube of Hockney’s life, from his Yorkshire upbringing to his student days in London, to his stories of love and of loss in America. It was all because, in a peculiar way, David Hockney is my gay icon.

Like many other LGBT young people, I spent a lot of time trying to reconcile who I was with where I fit into my community. Where I live and grew up in East Yorkshire, there is no ‘queer community’. And even now, attending a College steeped in radical gay politics, full of loud and proud defiance, I’ve never really felt part of it. But to find someone like Hockney, and his paintings, was a revolution for me. The knowledge that there was an artist from Yorkshire, quiet and polite, who sounded like someone I’d bump into walking down the street back home, who was both openly gay and a renowned figure in British culture, regardless of his sexuality, was a source of immeasurable inspiration to me. Someone who in his art expressed all of that emotion and churning anxiety that I was feeling, of guilt, of budding desire, of raw yearning, and of love. And although I’ve never met him, and am sure he would be embarrassed if I told him this, David Hockney legitimised who I was, and he made me proud of who I am. If he was open about his sexuality, and could still lead a successful and fulfilling life, then bloody well so could I.

I walked into that exhibition with all of these feelings and memories swirling inside me. And then, there they all were. First, the paintings from the 1960s, some of his darkest and most tortured from when he was a student at the Royal College of Art. My dearest ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging’ was the centrepiece. I stopped to stare at ‘The Third Love’, leaned in closer than I probably should have, and spied in white paint amongst the maelstrom of dark colour the words ‘come on David admit it’. All of those adolescent, agonising feelings I had whilst sitting in my room back at home flooded into me. I did not cry, thankfully, but moved onwards to the next room. ‘A Bigger Splash’, and ‘Portrait of an Artist’ came before me, and an American man, standing next to ‘The Room, Tarzana’, quietly admitted to a staff member that he didn’t even know Hockney was gay. Each painting was so large and engrossing, with more vivid colours than my computer screen would ever have been able to reveal. I drank in every last painting, the playfulness of the set designs, the vastness and intricate detail of ‘Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy’ and ‘Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy’, the charming drawings he had made for friends. All of them were beautiful.

Eventually, I was about two thirds of the way through, and my fifty minutes in the exhibition had nearly run out. Pass through this last party quickly, I thought, and you can go back and look at ‘We Two Boys’ one last time. But that was before I walked into Room 10, and was faced with a series of colossal landscapes of The Wolds. This was East Yorkshire, my home, with trees capped with snow, countryside in freezing winter air, and soft spring mornings. Yes, I was being sentimental, but I didn’t care, because I have honestly never felt more proud of where I come from. Thousands of people, from Chinese tourists to London socialites, have been to this exhibition, and have looked at these marvellous paintings of the county of my birth, of East Yorkshire. And as I stood there, visitors fawning over their beauty, I defiantly thought, so they bloody well should.

As the dying minutes of the exhibition’s life went by, I panicked, and ran back to the first room as the vast spaces gradually emptied of people. I stood there, alone, taking in ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging’ before our impending separation. This painting is all mine, I thought, it’s part of my youth and it will be part of my life. A staff member caught me, I let out a laugh, and I went off into the night. I think I now understand why people love art.

So, what all of this means is that I want to say thanks to David Hockney, someone who helped me understand my sexuality and legitimised who I was in a way that a rainbow flag never could. Someone who’s helped put where I come from on the world stage. And ultimately, for being someone who’s made that kid from Yorkshire that little bit more proud of himself. Thank you.

Fashion-able

Charlotte Jackson
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Fashion-able

 

“In a world where the mainstream concept of what is and isn’t beautiful becomes increasingly narrow,” read the introduction of Alexander McQueen’s 1998 guest edited issue of Dazed & Confused, “you have to be young, you have to be thin, you should preferably be blonde, and of course, pale skinned.” This reluctant truth prefacing the magazine’s feature entitled Access-Abled to celebrate disability and diversity, supposedly heralded a revolution in the fashion industry for the new millennium. Rather than normalising or erasing disability, the accompanying images shot by photographer Nick Knight showed models such as double amputee, Aimee Mullins, embracing high-fashion as means of self-empowerment. Her prosthetic limbs emerge through McQueen’s cage-like hoop skirt challenging the viewer and making us aware of the disabled body as an aesthetic possibility.

“As legless and beautiful, she is an embodied paradox, asserting an inherently disruptive potential” identifies Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, theorist and author of Extraordinary Bodies, a founding text in the disability studies canon. This defiant spirit epitomised McQueen, who was devoted to combatting the prejudicial rhetoric which has surrounded images of deformity or otherness within fashion and throughout history. Speaking in a world before the advent of Instagram which has become a 24/7 visual stream of physical homogeneity and perfection, he was prescient in acknowledging how the media plays a profound role in culturally embedding a sense of marginalisation that many people with disabilities experience. Throughout his career and up until his premature death, he aimed to re-define contemporary notions of what it means to be beautiful. But nearly 20 years after this ground-breaking recognition, how far has the industry progressed in its commitment to inclusivity and eliminating ableism?

In a recent study by disability charity, Scope, it was found that 68% of disabled people expressed the need to conceal their disabilities as a consequence of the negativity and discrimination associated with them. This comes at a time when designers and editorial magazines are increasingly capitalising on the concept of female empowerment over physical perfection; notably Victoria Beckham, who commented “I want to empower women and make women look like the best versions of themselves” when referring to the breaking news that her 2017 high-street collection for TARGET will be available in plus sizes. We must question why the fashion industry continues to under acknowledge the intersectional communities of disabled women and risks disenfranchising a proportion of their consumers.

Visibility is crucial to addressing this exclusion, yet the practice of using disabled models in catwalk shows has been reduced to little more than shock tactics, a publicity stunt to propel emerging designers into the international media. Cat Smith, doctoral researcher at the London College of Fashion, refers to this promotion of disabled models as “tokenism” when we read headlines applauding this bold and revolutionary move, but very rarely do we see it filter into commercial campaigns. Smith has dedicated herself to studying representations of disability in the fashion industry through both academic research and her blog, stylishlyimpared.com.

In an interview last year for Dazed’s website she criticised society’s misconceptions of the power of self-presentation for those with disabilities, and claimed it was endemic of the way society treats disabled people in general. She suggested candidly that many believe “we’re not worthy of being seen and that we don’t have the same wants and desires as non-disabled people…people just expect that you’re not going to give a shit about how you look because you are disabled!” She urges the industry to reconsider the way in which it approaches diverse casting to create a more sustainable and meaningful change in the way we conceive disabilities.

During Mercedes-Benz fashion week in Moscow last month we witnessed a positive shift in combatting fashion’s fixation on the normative physical body when Jack Eyers, the multi-hyphenate top model, actor and amputee, opened the Bezgraniz Couture show. The project itself was founded in 2010 by Janina Urussowa and Tobias Reisner, and is engaged in creating stylish and functional clothing for people with a range of disabilities. Through designing adaptive clothes and channeling pilot productions, they aim to establish a new image surrounding disability so that it is no longer something to be concealed; both firmly believe that through “changing the world of fashion – we change the world.”

Similarly, Jack Eyers is representative of a new brand of disability models, and has become a prominent activist for diversity in fashion since meeting the founder of Models of Diversity four years ago. Through his matchless charisma and social consciousness, he is achieving a longevity that many current catwalk models could only dream of—from representing Antonio Urzi in New York fashion week to securing a commercial contract with Boohoo menswear. He laments that “if I’d seen more disabled models when I was growing up, maybe I would have felt more confident about myself … there’s a lot of people out there with physical disabilities that need to be inspired.”

The problem of disability representation is by no means exclusive to fashion catwalks and commercial campaigns, but for an industry so heavily defined by exteriority it’s only a matter of time before we recognise its vast potential in re-evaluating our perceptions on the disabled body. As McQueen intimated so many years ago, “give me time and I’ll give you a revolution”.

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