Sunday 12th April 2026
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College Insider at St Anne’s

Cherwell Life
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College Insider at St Anne’s

SOS—if this letter is found please send help (51°45’43.6”N 1°15’45.4”W).

It’s been 54 days since we lost contact with the rest of Oxford. In that time we have seen no sign of life save for a few squirrels (which we have taken to eating raw out of pure desperation) and the odd Hugh’s student, on whom we have given up taking pity—they truly are a lost cause and I hear they already have a conch. We huddle on the quad in order to shelter ourselves from the bitter north wind where, if you’re lucky, the masses of people block out the sight of the brutalist monstrosities which, in all honesty, look better now they have been left to decay.

A new principal has arisen from the anarchy and we gladly obey her, fearing the wrath of her law enforcement background. Between you and I, if anyone is in fact reading this, I fear an uprising. As food supplies run out and tensions build, certain members of the college have only grown in self-importance. A journalistically-minded student has donned his blazer and has begun discreetly spreading his agenda through a crudely constructed pamphlet of propaganda, using dry leaves and what I presume is pigeon blood from the grotesque red colour.

The new library looms tall over us, a cruel reminder of a future that might have been. But, despite the hope it was intended to create, its box-like structure is a daily reflection of the Jericho cage in which we are trapped, cut off from society.

It is well known that Anne’s chose to build a coffee shop in favour of a chapel, which is a cruel kind of irony now that we are in such dire need of salvation from a higher force. We pass around an iced latte as a sort of communion wine, but the effect is not the quite same.

I have been writing these letters daily, in part for my own sanity, and attaching them to the back of Ali’s kebab van, in what is probably vain hope of rescue. I fear that, once supplies run dry, things might take a turn. Luckily, due to our foundation as a women’s college, I am unlikely to be chosen as the first sacrifice.

Please, if you find this, contact the authorities. Faces look increasingly gaunt, and the men look increasingly nervous.

Not Wong: Banal racism

Brian Wong
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Not Wong: Banal racism

When we talk about racism, the most vivid imagery which springs to mind tends to be the usage of racialised slurs, violence carried out on the basis of ethnic and racial lines, and a ‘backward politic’ associated with individuals who endorsed the movements of le Pen, Trump, Farage, and such. More imaginative and informed minds may see racist flashpoints and undertones present in incidences of conflict between law enforcement and citizens (e.g. police brutality in America), or immigration controls implemented by governments such as the current one in the UK. But a commonality persists—from a liberal point of view, racism is distant; it is evil; it is extraordinary. And in many ways, the liberal movement—whitewashed and dominated by individuals exempt from the most pernicious forms of racism—understandably posits that racism is an issue of moral wrongness, of absolute abhorrence, and of relative rarity.

Imagine there’s no heaven,

It’s easy if you try.

But that’s rarely, if ever, the case. For the subjects who act as vehicles to the deeply entrenched power relations it exemplifies, racism is proximate, banal, and ordinary. It is not merely the outcome of someone who is capable of great evil and incapable of moral remorse. It is not merely found in the most extreme and rare of circumstances. It is not merely a social issue, a political topic, or an agenda item to be incorporated into a movement which could do with some greater political capital. It is real, and wraps itself around the victim’s experiences, perspectives, and decisions. The kind of racism I’m talking about is mundane and boring—it is banal, and it is the banality of racism that makes it so universally destructive.

No hell below us,

Above us, only sky.

Racism exists in the form of relational assumptions which define the interactions between individuals. Here in Oxford, that translates to cases where, as a Chinese student, you may be asked if you’re looking for tourist directions or ‘the wrong college’ when trying to enter a college for a tutorial. Or cases where the restaurant waiter rocks up and decides to speak very, very slowly to you, even though you are clearly more than fluent in the language, or when you’re told by the shop owner that you speak very good English for a Chinese person. Note that none of these cases is an instance of malicious intent—the porters are not evil, and neither is the waiter nor the shop owner. Indeed, upon hearing of your discomfort, many may argue that you’re overreacting to these cases. After all, surely these people are merely being friendly, right?

Imagine all the people living for today,

Imagine there’s no countries,

It isn’t hard to do.

But racism doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work in the form of non-victims policing the emotions and reactions of victims, and telling the victims that their experiences are non-representative and have been over-interpreted. The subject of racism is, ultimately, more than merely material harm. And the assumptions about one’s identity, based purely upon how one looks, are acts of violence in and of themselves. When persons of colour have to take on additional burdens of emotional labour not only to explain their intentions—but also the presumptions of why they are entitled to operate, live, and act within certain spaces—that imposition is inherently unfair. And these additional burdens are particularly pernicious when you’re expected to react in a non-confrontational and ‘respectable’ manner as you try to convince the deeply cynical porters that you really are not trespassing into some college’s territory, or the police officers passing by you at night (particularly if you’re in America) that you are not an illegal immigrant or a drug dealer, or the professors and students you meet in certain institutions that you are not merely there as a result of quotas. Note that, once again, in none of these instances are the perpetuators of racism evil. Neither are they extraordinary. Nor are they distant and removed from the so-called liberal bubble we inhabit.

Nothing to kill or die for,

And the worst forms of banal racism are ones that are disguised in the rhetoric of justice and morality. Take the US, for instance, where racialised violence perpetuated by the state is framed in terms of the police carrying out their duties of law enforcement and peacekeeping. Let’s be very clear here. An overwhelming majority of policemen are not evil—they do not intend to or wish to carry out acts of unjustifiable, excessive violence. Instead, they are merely cogs within a greater machine, banal participants in a wider game, performers within a performance which is structured to create confrontations and unjust killings that harm both police and civilians of colour. Through norms, rituals, and practices that implicitly condone racialised policing (e.g. stop and frisk, targeted and sweeping profiling, and imperfect regulation of arms usage), the system propagates itself through individual actors who often have no malign intentions. And when the system becomes challenged and called out, the default defence is the view that these policemen are not evil people. Of course that’s true­—but that means nothing in the wider scheme of the pursuit for justice.

And no religion, too.

Or take the Manchester shootings, where the actions of a radicalised, bastardised individual who happens to adhere to a twisted and poisoned version of Islam somehow entail a moral burden on behalf of the Muslim population in the UK to perform grieving and mourning. It is as though, if they fail to mourn as expectation demands that they do, the mere failure to mourn would serve as evidence that the entire Muslim community is to blame. I think it is imperative to show collective solidarity in times of crises, and believe that individuals— regardless of religion or ethnicity or race—ought to mourn the victims of the vile, abhorrent act carried out last Monday. But, at the same time, the banality of racism percolates and takes root through the emotive fervor of grief, by instilling the expectation amongst us that Muslims ought to grieve particularly hard so as to justify the fact the terrorist who carried out the attack is an outlier and not the norm. Note—the racism here embodies no malicious intent, and, if anything, it is driven by (I hope, at least) a desire for reconciliation and harmony. But this absence of malice does not absolve it of its wrongness—the wrongness of imposing unjustifiable expectations on a community purely based on their ethnicity or race.

Imagine no possessions,

I wonder if you can,

No need for greed or hunger,

A brotherhood of man.

An objection may be that Islam is not a race, and criticisms of Muslims ought not be taken as evidence of racism. But let’s not neglect the fact that the dog whistles and prompts used to discuss Islam are often couched in poorly disguised, racialised language. Every time an episode of domestic terrorism occurs, the issue of immigration inevitably becomes dragged into the picture, with critics of cultural pluralism gleefully hopping on to the bandwagon to attack cultures using racialised stereotypes and references to the ethnicity of the terrorist. Islam is not a race, but the ways in which Muslims are attacked—banally and ordinarily, in many cases—are inherently racist.

Explicit racism is repugnant and abominable. But in many ways, it is far easier to identify and call out than banal forms of racism. Banal racism is when someone raises placards at a protest condemning racism, and then continually perpetuates stereotypes and myths about persons of colour over a pub conversation or casual chatter with friends. Banal racism is when someone glibly asserts the beginning of a ‘post-racial era’ whilst persons of colour live under complex webs of prejudice, barriers and discrimination that they must navigate on a daily basis. Banal racism is when someone decries that racism is no longer “the most important thing to care about today”, and allows their privilege to taint their performative allyship with blatant ignorance. Above all, banal racism is when racism continues to thrive in the post-Trump era, and yet so-called allies resign themselves to singing performatively, in a Kumbaya circle around a campfire.

You may say I’m a dreamer.

But I’m not the only one.

I hope some day you’ll join us.

And the world will live as one.

Evoking emotion and rejecting repression through art in the Middle East

Jasmin Yang-Spooner
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Evoking emotion and rejecting repression through art in the Middle East

In our modern-day culture of reverence for empiricism, the arts are often unfairly judged to be inherently inferior to the sciences. Leaving aside the obvious counter-argument that, in fact, many large corporate firms such as McKinsey, Barclays, or even Google employ scores of humanities graduates in top positions, there is an additional, two-fold case to be made for the necessity of art, which might be equally utilitarian as the case usually made against it. From the freemen of Ancient Greece to repressed citizens in the conflict areas of the near East today, the arts have remained an integral cornerstone of humanity’s survival.

The importance of visual art for the beholder lies in its ability to evoke emotion through recognisable scenarios, associations, or empathy. By evoking those emotions, the observer has the opportunity to release them (together with other pent-up emotions) rather than keeping them in, which results in a certain mental purification (usually called catharsis). By experiencing these emotions in a more ‘sterile’ environment, rather than in real life where they might have consequences, it is then possible to be more level-headed in day-to-day life. An important and concrete example of this phenomenon would be the art published in the Turkish satirical publication Penguen, of which two authors have recently been charged with insulting President Erdogan. By dealing with negative emotions concerning the regime in their country in a humorous way—humour is one of the best cleansers of the mind, as the authors of Greek comedies already knew—the Turkish citizens are less likely to have this bottled-up anger come out in ways that might have dangerous consequences, and the burdens placed upon them may seem more tolerable.

Another form of art, different from comedy and satire, that is of great importance for those under oppressive or repressive circumstances would be the kind of art expressing endured suffering, uncertainty, and other negative emotions. Any burden is made more tolerable by the knowledge that there are others struggling in similar ways and visual art uniquely allows, due to the exact associations and evocations varying from individual to individual, for the portrayal of the experiences of one to be a reflection of the experiences of many others as well. The Syrian artist Ammar Azzouz, for example, recently had his work ‘Chaos of War’ on display in London, where he now works as an architect. This watercolour painting portrays an abstract, disfigured body, which would evoke different substantivized memories and fears for each, yet speaks of shared and recognisable pain.

Art also has the ability to convey strong emotion, being a form of self-expression for the creator. This is particularly evident in works produced under repression, since they tell us about their necessity through both their contents and the circumstances of their creation. It is clear that culture produced by individuals suffering indescribable horrors is very important to preserve their experiences.

For art allows the artist to experience a certain catharsis by sharing their ordeals (much like a therapy group can help against traumas), and makes it easier for others to start to compre- hend through feelings, rather than reasoning, what suffering exists in our world. A second point, however, deserves far more attention than the cold reasoning above: in many cases, artists in oppressive regimes are risking their very lives to create their art, highlighting the fundamentality of creativity to humanity.

This is currently evident across the near and middle East. Ali Farzat, a Syrian cartoonist, was pulled from his car in Damascus by masked men, presumably security forces, on the 25th of August 2011. They beat him severely and left him by the side of the road, where passers-by later found him and took him to hospital. These masked men told the artist it was just a warning. They ordered him to “stop satirising Syria’s leaders.”

Farzat responded that he would not give up on his art, and would continue to oppose the regime, despite the risks. Many other artists standing up for free speech have suffered similar fates, such as sketch artist Youssef Abdelke, who spent two years in jail under the regime of Al-Assad. Nevertheless, Syria’s artists go on, just as some artists have always done under repression: the human instinct to express themselves through art can in some cases even overpower the fear of death. Not to mention, their works help others in similar situations to cope with reality.

In conclusion, denial of the importance of art is also a denial of a fundamental part of humanity in the observer—who can use visual media as a release from the emotions of everyday life—and therefore. also an invalidation of the immense sacrifices made by artists creating this art. Not to mention it rejects the urge and mortal need of the creator to express themselves in any way possible, especially when circumstances do not leave many options open to this end. Anything that is worth risking death at the hands of a repressive regime should be taken very seriously. The sciences further our understanding of ourselves and the world around us in physical terms, but if we want to understand concepts beyond the grasp of measurements and direct perception, if we want to understand our humanity itself, the humanities are invaluable.

The extraordinary life and lenses of Robert Capa

Katherine Wood
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The extraordinary life and lenses of Robert Capa

Robert Capa once said that ‘if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough’, and, indeed, his extraordinary lifelong proximity to war produced some of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. May 25 2017 marks 63 years since he was killed by a landmine explosion in Vietnam. Capa’s untimely death is emblematic of his fearless search for meaningful photographs throughout his career, working as a war correspondent for Life, Time magazine and other esteemed publications. He dared to go further than any other photojournalist of his generation, and it is thanks to his bravery that we now have pictures of such historic moments as the 1944 D-Day landings on Omaha Beach, where no other photographer was present.

Born in 1913 in the Jewish quarter of Budapest, Capa left Hungary at the age of 18 to study in Berlin, a move which would mark the start of a restless life of travel. As anti-Semitism swept through Germany, he fled to Paris, where he met and shared a darkroom with Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Seymour. Almost immediately, his photographs showed a fascination with the individual—his first published photograph was an intense close-up of Leon Trotsky giving a lecture on the Russian Revolution. In 1936 Capa took on his first war assignment documenting the Spanish Civil War.  Perhaps his most famous photograph, of a Spanish Loyalist at the moment of death, was taken at this time, and Capa was proclaimed as the world’s best war photographer.

It was also during this early period that war began to influence the young photographer’s personal life. While covering the Battle of Brunete, Capa’s professional partner and wife-to-be, Gerda Taro, was killed. Capa was traumatised and never married after the tragedy. Despite, or perhaps because of this personal tragedy, he continued his work as a war photographer until the end of his life. He, too, was to die prematurely while photographing the Indochina War in 1954. He met his end in conflict, like the very people he captured on film.

Undoubtedly, one of the most striking aspects of Capa’s work is his closeness to his subjects, both physically and emotionally, which allowed him to capture what Cartier-Bresson called ‘the decisive moment’. In doing this, he gave the concept of ‘war’ a new association in the minds of those outside it—that of the human faces behind statistical masses. Capa’s photographs are emotional, and illustrate his belief that ‘in a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody: you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on.’

At the same time, however, his photography remains that of a restrained observer. Despite his own feelings and those of the American soldiers around him, his photography maintains a level of detachment, allowing for the viewer to form their own opinions on the war. His photographs of dying German prisoners of war are as sensitive and tragic as those of Allied soldiers: they are not ‘the enemy’, but humans who found themselves born in a certain place at a certain time. Likewise, his images of collaborators in liberated France, with their shaven heads, are perhaps not what we would expect. They are simply ordinary people, often women who had had babies by German soldiers. It is up to us, as viewers, to reflect on the way they were treated. As Capa himself said: ‘The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.’ This is true not only of the suffering of war, but also its victories. The idea of France’s liberation, for example, may fill our imagination with images of immediate, unbridled happiness and freedom, but Capa does not hide the real messiness which accompanies even the most triumphant moments.

The celebrations after the liberation of Paris, for instance, were interrupted by a sniper attack, and he risked his life to document it. Similarly, his photographs from Naples in October 1943 highlight the cost at which the city’s liberation came. His pictures of joy are overshadowed by those of grief and despair at the loss of life, which he believed to be his ‘truest pictures of victory.’ Moreover, Capa manages to convey the sense that world events—even those as great and all encompassing as war—are only ever the consequences of individual actions. By the time they reach newspapers or history textbooks, these actions are forgotten: they are buried in the anonymous narratives whose characters are countries, pacts, and armies. Through his images, Capa preserves some of these moments, and reminds us of the personal level at which the events of war take place. One side’s defeat is not an abstract event which takes place instantly. It is rather a discussion between two generals, or two officers from opposing armies waiting for instructions. As Capa’s photography demonstrates, D-Day wasn’t just a political turning point on a time line. It was the physical wading of thousands of men towards a Nazi-lined shore.

After the Second World War, Capa found himself unemployed, which he described as ‘a war photographer’s most fervent wish.’ He co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris with partners including his long-time friends David Seymour and Henri Cartier-Bresson, and became president of the co-operative in 1952. Yet, two years later, he made his fateful return to the front to cover the Indochina war in Vietnam. War made his career what it was, but also cut it short.

The human desire for an easy explanation

Anonymous
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The human desire for an easy explanation

From Caesar to Joan of Arc, Pythagoras to Marie Sklodowska-Curie, Cicero to Catherine the Great, history is often presented as a chronology of the deeds of greats who defined their era and advanced mankind. This seems fairly logical and natural. After all, the individual soldier has very little influence over the outcome of a battle, much like the individual senator has very little influence over the outcome of a parliamentary vote. This perspective on history, with the lives of the ordinary described only as results rather than causes of circumstances, is as old as western literature itself. The Iliad, a founding work of the western canon, cares little for ordinary individuals—but might simply be the consequence of a human desire for easy explanations.

After all, it’s convenient to write off the Second World War as a result of Hitler’s charisma, evil, and willingness to exploit the woes of interbellum Germany: while it is recognised that there were circumstances which made his rise to power possible, the devolution of the Weimar Republic into a dictatorship and the subsequent outbreak of war are largely ascribed to Hitler as an individual person. Similarly, Octavian is credited with many of the early successes of the Roman Empire, and Margaret Thatcher is blamed for the closing of many coal mines in the north of England. No matter the background events, the narrative is the same: in the end it is the greatness or wickedness of one individual who exploited these events to bring about a certain outcome. Individuality is essential in history.

However, the author Tolstoy, ironically also seen as one of history’s greats, doesn’t agree with this conventional narrative. In his eyes, great men are nothing more than personifications of their deeds, and their deeds are nothing more than the conclusion, rather than the instigator, of a movement of people that could not have been stopped nor encouraged further even if this individual had tried. In the author’s own words:

“In historical events great men are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.”

The idea that the free will of historical actors is being exaggerated is well worth considering, although of course all considerations are nothing but hypotheticals, which are always hard to answer. The example Tolstoy himself gives for this theory is Napoleon. He argues, firstly, that the general was propelled forward by French desire to bring an end to a very troubled period in their history, irrespective of his personal virtues; secondly, that the wars he waged were inevitable due to the French mood at the time, irrespective of his personal ambitions; and, thirdly, that battles were won and lost on the morale of the soldiers, irrespective of his proficiency as a general. It seems like this means moving from the one extreme—absolute responsibility in the hands of an individual—to the other extreme— no responsibility in the hand of an individual.

But it is a point of view worth discussing, especially considering the arguments Tolstoy makes for each of his assertions. The idea that Napoleon might have been propelled by the popular mood rather than his virtues is not a very controversial point, and particularly makes a lot of sense when one what might have happened had there not been the historical, flesh-and-blood Napoleon. The notion that this would immediately have led to the establishment of a liberal democracy in France is, of course, a bit silly and, though it is unlikely that any other random figure would have followed the exact same path as Napoleon, it does not seem outrageous to think that the endpoint would have been roughly the same. After all, even a dictator needs the public mood on his side.

Furthermore, if the public mood was firmly against waging wars of aggression, there was no way the general would have been able to rouse an army to march all the way to the frozen plains of Russia, no matter how good an orator he would have been. No doubt he was inspiring, but it seems that people willing to be inspired can be inspired by any figure: Angela Merkel is widely considered to have little charisma, yet seems to inspire Germany exactly in the way it wants to be inspired.

As to his last point: strategy in battles, as Tolstoy points out himself, tends to quickly break apart and not even Napoleon’s supposed genius could save the French army when its morale was broken. There most certainly is merit to the idea that great individuals of history are nothing more than personalisation of their actions and of the public mood, in order to fulfil a human desire for heroes and convenient explanations. History has shown us time and time again that acting against the public mood or trying to swing it, whether in dictatorship or democracy, tends to end badly for power figures. The inconvenient truth could be that history is nothing but coincidence upon coincidence and that we individuals are woefully unimportant: if so, let’s hope the movement of time might bring us all interesting lives.

Making the shift from ‘model’ to ‘role model’

Francesca Salisbury
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Making the shift from ‘model’ to ‘role model’

Let’s roll back to 1966. Labour is in power with a majority of 96 seats, the Beatles are at the top of the charts with Paperback Writer, and Twiggy has been named the face of the year by the Daily Express. Best known for her petite frame, androgynous haircut and startlingly long eyelashes, Twiggy—real name Lesley Lawson (née Hornby)—was effectively England’s first supermodel. Discovered in a hairdressing salon after modelling for the new—and what would become her signature—cropped look, this skinny 16-year-old went on to take the fashion world by storm.

Twiggy’s success—and prolonged success at that—marked a turning point in fashion history. Previously, modelling had been regarded simply as the act of displaying clothes, makeup or hairstyles on an aesthetically pleasing figure. But Twiggy opened up a whole new dimension of modelling; the cult of the personality. Fans didn’t just obsess over the clothes she wore, or the way she drew on her eyelashes (although these certainly did garner a great deal of fascination)—they adored the girl in the dress, the person under the kohl. Her huge eyes sparkled with curiosity, intelligence and ambition. She wasn’t just a mannequin.

Despite retiring from modelling in 1970, Twiggy maintained her celebrity status and went on to become an award-winning actress and singer, famously playing the leading role in Ken Russell’s adaptation of musical The Boy Friend and released a plethora of successful music albums. The public have not lost their fascination even today; more recently Twiggy has partnered with Marks & Spencer to create a popular collection, and she has also generated her own style blog, where she discusses her HSN clothing line “Twiggy London”, remaining at the forefront of fashion journalism.

While Twiggy may have started the trend of Models as more than just the clothes they showcase, it certainly hasn’t ended with her. Today, it is hard to find a model who isn’t pursuing other paths or promoting bigger causes. Take Karlie Kloss; first discovered at the age of 14, she went on to walk an astounding number of catwalks during New York Fashion Week before becoming a successful Victoria’s Secret Angel and featuring on the cover of Vogue. In more recent years she has branched out, leaving behind her high fashion past to partner with chef Christian Tosi creating ‘Karlie’s Kookies’. She has also successfully founded ‘Kode with Klossy’, a training camp that aims to empower girls to learn to code and pursue careers in technology and computer science. In her words, “After experiencing the power of code myself, I knew I had to do my part to help girls know they could pursue it, too.”

Karlie is not the only one using her platform to promote other causes. Ashley Graham, the first size 14 model to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, is a leader of the body positivity movement and has collaborated with Addition Elle, Dressbarn and swimsuitsforall to create various clothing, lingerie and swimwear collections. Similarly, 5ft8 model Adwoa Aboah—currently on the cover of i-D and Love magazines—has founded an initiative called ‘Gurlstalk’. The website claims, “We are working together to create a community of girls from all different backgrounds, looking beyond external differences, and focusing on the essence of what it means to be a girl in the 21st Century.” The Gurlstalk Instagram combines behind-the-scenes fashion and lifestyle shots with everyday accounts of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, helping to raise awareness of and normalise the presence of mental illness in today’s society.

It’s clear that just being a pretty face won’t cut it anymore. Models such as Karlie Kloss, Ashley Graham and Adwoa Aboah—building on the work of their predecessors—have set a precedent for the girl-empowering, initiative-founding, barrier-breaking, more-than model. Using the tool of social media, these women have exploited the platform they have been given to draw attention to real, everyday issues that affect them and their generation. By using their fame for good, these catwalk and social media stars are changing the face of modelling and altering fashion history as we know it, proving that you can be beautiful and intelligent, striking and high-achieving, famous and ultimately, very real. After all, as Twiggy said, “You can’t be a clothes hanger for your entire life!”

 

Feminism and fashion with Leomie Anderson

Nicole Rayment
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Feminism and fashion with Leomie Anderson

An international model, an activist and entrepreneur, twenty four year old Leomie Anderson is the epitome of the versatile IT girl. I had the opportunity to interview the Victoria’s Secret model before her talk at Christ Church’s Blue Boar Lecture Theatre. She discussed her decade in the fashion industry, being catapulted into supermodel stardom and her disquiet regarding the pressures young girls are facing. Leomie was invited by the Oxford Guild Business Society, as a part of the launch for the Guild’s Infinity Speakers Series, set up by Matthew Lawson, President of The Oxford Guild: “The Infinity series is a unique speaker series targeted at encouraging women and ethnic minorities to believe that they can succeed in any occupation they choose, and making sure that they have positive role models to which they can aspire. In the wake of a recent surge in racial tensions and divisive policies, we are fighting back against discrimination and striving to create a positive culture of belief that students can do anything they want to, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or background.”

A born-and-bred South Londoner, Leomie was scouted at fourteen years old during her daily commute home from school by an agent from Premier Model Management, her current modelling agency. “I was at the bus stop and a man approached me and asked “have you ever considered modelling?” I thought he was a pervert and ran away, which you should do at fourteen years old when someone asks you to model for them! I saw him again the next day, and he gave me a business card and asked me to give it to my mum. Two months later I was scouted by a different Premier agent—it wasn’t until then that I actually went into the agency, and the rest is history!” The supermodel made her national debut in 2011 as one of Premier’s New Faces, when she appeared on the Channel 4 documentary series ‘The Model Agency’. It delineated the realities of life both within her mother agency and the dazzling modelling industry. Perky, witty and charismatic, Anderson stole the nation’s heart and became a notable face within the fashion industry.

“The show was honestly very interesting because I didn’t know what to expect and what was going to end up being on the show. I love to talk (she giggles), so having someone follow me around with a camera was great! It was my first time going to New York and it was my first ever show season, so it could have been a complete mess. I could have been the girl used as the example of ‘modelling careers don’t always work out’. However, I was very lucky and ended up being booked by Marc Jacobs, and that launched my career.”
Leomie Anderson describes her personal style as tomboyish and said that having an older brother was always something that had influenced her digressive style and love for trainers. “You have to pay me to wear heels! I will only ever wear them for shows and special events”. She rocked up to the interview in a black fitted waist blazer paired with a baby pink elasticated waist belt, loose-fitting army pants, some old-school black Nike high-tops and a Vintage Chanel Sport Fanny Pack in black and white.

I was interested in finding out about the policing of a model’s style while working with a modelling agency, and whether or not Leomie herself fell victim to this. “That’s interesting (she laughs). Being in the fashion industry has taught me what I don’t want to wear more than anything actually. You’re constantly surrounded by models who are constantly told by their agencies “maybe you should wear this” and sometimes models’ styles can be policed, especially when they start from such a young age. I’m not saying that this completely erases an individual’s style, but it can make the model very uniform and I’ve always tried to break out of the mould. If I were to have paid attention to exactly how my agency wanted me to dress between the ages of fourteen to sixteen, I don’t think my style would have developed as much as it has. I’m very much a ‘break the rules’ type of person and I’m always down to experimenting with my style.”

Leomie describes herself as an avid enthusiast for vintage high fashion, and accentuated upon how fortunate she is to be constantly exposed to exclusive vintage pieces at designers’ runway shows. With less of a zeal for current trends, and more of an esteem for vintage fashion, a decade in the industry has gifted Anderson with a distinctive fashion sense. “I love Chanel and I love watching vintage Chanel runway shows and documentaries (she points out her Vintage Chanel Sport Fanny Pack and laughs). I love the brand’s vibe and the fact that Coco Chanel was considered a rebel. In fashion, she was the first person to design the female power-suit which is so inspiring, so her brand is definitely my go-to for inspiration.” The model does not refrain from expressing her qualms on polemical female issues—social media has constituted the primary tool through which she candidly exhibits her concerns.

Last year Leomie sought to create a platform where other women could be heard, so she started up her own brand LAPP: Leomie Anderson the Project the Purpose. The brand consists of two elements, the first being a clothing line, which fuses her own personal style with her dedication to empowering young women with feminist messages, attempting to promote confidence, positivity and unity through fashion. The second element is a blog, which includes a wide variety of stories from women from different backgrounds with disparate, idiosyncratic experiences. From the unjust treatment of black models backstage at fashion week, to the pressures on teenage girls to send sexual images, Leomie seeks to shed light on what it truly means to be a woman in this day and age. “Young girls today cannot differentiate between what is real and what is photoshopped. The concept of social media and the fact that it is not a real representation of life, and just a snapshot, just a little fragment of what someone wants to show you, is so confusing for young girls. It gives them an unrealistic standard of beauty, making them more likely to consider surgery, and to look at Youtube tutorials on how to do their make-up, even if they are just going to school. I created LAPP because I felt like there was a missing piece in the market. I felt like there wasn’t something young women or young girls could visit that has a whole hub of different perspectives that are just for women.” […] I love how people can use fashion to communicate a message—it’s a very universal language. I wanted to create new slogans that empower women and play on pop culture, with an approach of ‘what’s hot right now’. For instance, my ‘Trump Dump’ t-shirt and my ‘This P***y Grabs Back’ hoodie (which Rihanna wore to the women’s march) are items that are ‘hot right now’, and have a powerful message. I’m all about making cute clothes that make people think.”

Something in particular that propelled the Victoria’s Secret Model to embark on her LAPP journey was being invited to speak at an all-girls secondary school. After her talk, she was approached by three girls who had told her that they knew people who had attempted to commit suicide after their nude images had been leaked. “I felt like those girls had nobody to speak to and nowhere to turn to, so I wanted to make them feel like they had somewhere to go, to be able to read stories from people who have had revenge porn leaked, or speak to women who have not engaged in sexual relations at all. In summary, the blog is all about issues that relate to women all coming from an honest place. Because of social media, young girls are receiving mixed messages and I wanted to create a place where it was just honest women writing about issues they cared about.”

In 2015, Anderson’s winning personality and burgeoning ubiquity on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter skyrocketed her to a spot on the Victoria’s Secret Runway—the pinnacle of every professional model’s career. As she discussed landing the job as a VS Angel, the electrifying backstage atmosphere, and her favourite co-Angel, the model’s eyes glistened in delight. “When I first found out I was walking I cried! It was frustrating because I was living alone in New York at the time, so I couldn’t even go to my closest friends and share the news with them. I tried to call my mum, but she never has her phone on her, so it took her about half a day to find out I got the job! I was just so ecstatic because it was something I had really worked hard for and I still can’t put my excitement into words! The backstage atmosphere at Victoria’s Secret is amazing.” “It’s funny because so many people try to squeeze in stories about issues between models and so forth, but I really don’t know which backstage they’re talking about! Everyone is always excited and in good spirits. The fact that they [Victoria’s Secret] encourage all of the models to be themselves, have an amazing time, and exhibit their personalities shows something that fashion is missing at the moment.”

Taking the stage at Fashion Week in London, Paris, Milan, New York, and more, Anderson takes great pride in her job as a supermodel and her opportunity to get a first-hand glimpse at the works of esteemed designers. “The highlight of my career definitely has to be seeing the process behind all of the glitz and glamour. I love watching designers draw out their designs and put together their outfits. The passion that they have behind all of it is incredible, everyone always sees the magazines, the photoshoots, and the runways, but I love seeing designers building up things from scratch and how passionate they are about what they do.” The future for Anderson is beaming. Her blog reads are incessantly growing and she is already working on her next clothing collection which she soon hopes to release.

“At the moment, LAPP is getting on average 40,000 reads a month. I really didn’t know what to expect, but that’s a lot. I’m hoping that, by the end of the year, it will be hundreds of thousands. At the moment, I’m working on the next clothing collections for LAPP. This time, I’m doing something proper and real. My next collection is going to be called ‘Nudity’ which is about the policing of women’s bodies, something that I am really passionate about and am very much excited to bring out.” Leomie Anderson’s Oxford Guild talk was truly spellbinding. Humble, outspoken, and driven, she is the quintessence of a supermodel who utilises her renown dynamically with the hope of inspiring and empowering women. She does this both through her blog and her politically-conscious fashion. The Victoria’s Secret model strives to lend her social media following and prominent voice to other women who may be constrained in effectively communicating their concerns—LAPP functions as a medium through which they are able to do so.

An activist turned entrepreneur, she is triumphantly striving to create a sisterhood through globally unifying the female sex, regardless of their ethnicity, age and location.

Debunking the myth behind organic beauty

Beth Brand
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Debunking the myth behind organic beauty

Following the recent ‘clean eating’ trend, consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of not only what they put into their body, but also what products they put on it. Driven by rumours of health risks associated with some synthetic ingredients, as well as the perceived benefit to the environment, more and more women are switching to using natural products. ‘Organic’ beauty collections are cropping up everywhere, with packaging boldly boasting about their ‘natural’ ingredients; but what do these claims really mean and are they justified? While the word ‘organic’ suggests a product’s ingredients are good for both the consumer and the environment, on further inspection this is not necessarily the case.

‘Clean beauty’ in its most basic sense should be used to refer to products free from any dyes, perfumes, parabens, petrochemicals or phthalates. However, unlike the food industry, there is currently no legal standard in place for organic beauty. This lack of regulation means that in practice, companies can legally write ‘made with organic ingredients’ on product labels even if as little as one per cent is truly organic. With the £61.2 million UK organic health and beauty market growing, and sales up 20 per cent in 2016 alone, it seems that some firms think it is worth being economical with the truth when they have so much profit to potentially cash in on.

The Soil Association, the UK’s largest organic certification body, has recently launched their ‘#ComeCleanAboutBeauty Campaign’, accusing many major brands of misleading consumers with confusing labelling, and urging them to use the terms ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ either responsibly or not at all. Last Monday they published a league table revealing a cross-section of companies, including Boots and Faith in Nature, who they controversially claim are ‘greenwashing’ and using the label ‘organic’ simply to sell more products at a premium price. Even Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s range Goop, which on its website claims to ‘nurture your skin with powerful organic ingredients’, features some products that contain petrochemical derivatives. Goop’s £108 replenishing night cream contains retinyl palmitate, which is listed by the Soil Association as one of its ten most hated ingredients.

How, then, can we ever be certain that what we’re buying is really free of unwanted chemicals? There are several useful apps on the market, like ‘Cosmetic Ingredients Maze’ or ‘Think Dirty’, that allow you to enter ingredients of a product or scan its bar code to discover what’s actually safe. The easiest thing to do though, is to look for the brands that have had their products officially certified as organic, such as Neal’s Yard, whose eco-friendly motto is ‘if in doubt, leave it out’. While the standards and requirements differ for each country, with debate raging over what constitutes ‘natural’, there are various trustworthy international certifying bodies.

In Europe, the Soil Association, BDIH, Cosmebio, Ecocert, and ICEA have teamed up to form an internationally recognised cosmetic organic standard known as COSMOS to ensure that beauty products meet the standards they claim to. Founded in 2010, the logo isn’t widely seen at the moment, but is likely to become more visible in coming years and is something to look out for. For a product to be approved as ‘organic’ by COSMOS at least 95 per cent of all its ingredients must be verifiably organic. We must also question however, our assumption that ‘natural’ ingredients are always safer and gentler than their man-made and chemically identical counterparts.

While it is true that some synthetic ingredients may cause irritation to sensitive skin, there have been no rigorous large-scale clinical trials to definitively prove that any of these chemicals represent a serious risk to consumers or are harmful. In fact, certain essential oils, like lavender and tea tree, can cause skin reactions and allergies; and citrus oils are among those that sensitise skin to sun damage. Natural products also have a much shorter shelf life, as they are harder to preserve against microbial contamination and growth. Even Liz Earle, known for her ‘natural’ skincare range, incorporates synthetics in her formulae.

She justifies this use of preservatives on the grounds that not everything natural is good, giving the example that “cyanide and arsenic are natural and are poisonous, of course”. The ‘clean beauty’ label is wrought with problems, and so any products claiming to be ‘organic’ demand a greater degree of cynicism and research. Despite its appealing ideology, ‘organic’ has become a term hijacked as a marketing tool. It has come to define a woolly category and brands need to provide further definition and transparency

“It kept me hooked right until the final denouement”

Harry Hatwell
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“It kept me hooked right until the final denouement”

Directed by Isabel Ion and Alice Camilleri, this production of A View from the Bridge has a rather dark feel to it, as the lighting focuses the audience’s attention to a very small area in the centre of the thrust stage at the Pilch. This insular and quite claustrophobic staging suits View well but does throw up some problems.

Miller’s masterpiece focusses on the life of Eddie Carbone (played by an outstanding Hasan Al-Habib), a labourer in an Italian immigrant family who seeks to save face at all cost. In the end, his self-pride and his desire not be emasculated by Rodolpho (John Maier), the man pursuing his niece, Catherine (Emma Howlett), lead to tragic consequences. The play turns around a small but heated familial dispute, which further adds to the uncomfortable atmosphere and tension which rises through the play as the conflict between the male characters becomes more fraught.

The narration, performed by Alfieri (Jordan Charlesworth) offers a birds-eye view of the plot and helps the audience to connect with the characters on a deeper, more familial level, in-keeping with the Greek style which Miller successfully recreates.

The acting became more natural and improved more generally as the play went on, with Howlett and Tania Shew (as Beatrice) growing into particularly strong lead actresses. Shew was particularly impressive at showing the audience the subtext of Catherine and Eddie’s somewhat oddly close relationship with subtle looks and glances, which were replaced with suitably aggressive outbursts as the plot developed.

That being true, some of the more elegant parts of Miller’s overall vision were lost in this staging, particularly the scene where Catherine lights Eddie’s cigar—the lack of smoke failed to give the image that the script is crying out for; the elegance is lost.

While the dark aesthetic was effective in transmitting the overall view of the directors, the scene changes were lacking in any real feeling as they consisted of mere changes of light. Music, to fill the silence, would have been desirable to breathe some more life into the performance.

Miller, writing in the foreword to the original play script, described Eddie’s character as a “prototype”: a tragic hero who is slowly destroyed as the action progresses. Tragically, some of the most crucial moments in the play were performed in darkness due to the scantiness of lighting, though overall, Playlliol’s production of View delivered in the end. The performances managed to eke out the tension through the duration of the play and keep me hooked right until the final denouement.

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller was produced by Playlliol at the Pilch Studio, Jowett Walk, and performed during fifth week.

A new era of repressive state censorship dawns over Russian art

Anoushka Kavanagh
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A new era of repressive state censorship dawns over Russian art

In a near revolutionary move, GARAGE – one of Moscow’s leading modern art galleries – launched the first ever triennial of contemporary Russian art, this spring. Unusually including politically charged works, under the ‘Art for Action’ sub-section, the program has been hailed as a turning point for the contemporary Russian art scene: a manoeuvre towards cultural liberalism. Indeed, in a truly profound turn of events, Chechen artist Aslan Gaisumov’s work is amongst the selected. His cold grid of metal house numbers, retrieved from the remnants of Grozny, serve as a reminder of the conflict consequential to separatists declaring independence in 1991, and are an abstruse shock here given the countless cases of artistic persecutions for inciting ‘political provocation’ in recent years.

Yet this liberal outlier is deceptive, for Russia has followed a trajectory towards rising artistic repression over the past two decades. In 2011, this came to global attention when a court ruled that Alexander Savko’s work – ‘Jesus as Mickey Mouse’ (1995) – was to be prohibited from all future publications, as it was deemed ‘religiously offensive’, whilst the exhibition that presented the ‘sacrilegious’ work, Forbidden Art (2006), stirred outcry in itself. The hosting Sakharov Centre directors, Andrei Yerofeyev and Yury Samodurov, were collectively fined 350,000 roubles for ‘inciting religious hatred’ – an offense punishable under Article 282 of the Russian Constitution. More recently in 2015, Freemuse registered seven further violations on visual artistic freedom. Alarmingly, Russia seems to be regressing on creative liberty, with growing similarities to the Soviet regime becoming apparent.

Although today prosecution is usually undertaken on grounds of offenses to the Orthodox Church – with shows like Oleg Yanushevsky’s Contemporary Icons (2004), and Marat Guelman’s Spiritual Invective (2012) defaced in the name of ‘God’ – many targeted examples show little sign of intentional religious offence. When coupled with increasing irregularity of attacks, and questionable verdicts, this suggests a ruse for a new era of totalitarian state censorship.

‘Jesus as Mickey Mouse’ for instance – by replacing Christ with the cartoon character preaching the Sermon on the Mount – actually comments upon the dominance of superficiality in contemporary culture. Savko stated his intention as the representation of “current reality”, or substitution of moral values with mass-cultural values. Though the prosecutor distorted this motive, proclaiming instead that the artist’s technique of uniting sacred and comical elements had produced “a caricature of Jesus”, and thereby presented the Gospel as a cartoon, in a “mocking insult” to Orthodox Christians. Such antagonism suggests ulterior motive in the censorship, which can perhaps be found in Forbidden Art’s original objectives – to explore censorship in modern art. When first exhibited, the work was placed provocatively behind protective peep-holes – as if mocking earlier attacks. It is possibly for this reason, that the piece has been criminalised.

Caution! Religion (2003) – another show subjected to prosecution at the Sakharov – likewise raised problems in certifying offense. The exhibition attracted the attention of the authorities when altar-boys emblazoned works with graffiti slogans reading ‘sacrilege’. Six arrests were made, but ironically it was the curators, rather than vandals, whom were charged with hooliganism and hate crimes. Art historians, from the State Centre for Contemporary Art, were consulted during the trial in attempt to verify these charges: the experts failed to find the artworks blasphemous.

It’s not hard to see why. Kosolapov’s ‘This is my blood’ (2001), for example, may appear to deface Christ by juxtaposing Him within a Coca-Cola commercial. However, Jesus has been cut out of Holy context and pasted onto another setting. The advert dominates in composition, ultimately commenting again upon today’s capitalist worship rather than devaluing faith itself.

Despite this, a case was filed against these academics for providing ‘false expertise’, and a new team offered the satisfactory verdict. Evidently there was reason behind prosecution other than religious protection again. Father Shargunov’s letter to the Duma, in which he noted the centre’s record of controversial shows – including those critical of the Chechen war – as proof of the institution’s subversive nature, has been cited as suggesting political motivation. It became apparent that anything inauspicious to higher authorities’ actions or judgements would face backlash.

The fact that it’s not only supposedly ‘sacrilegious’ work being targeted any more, vindicates this. With attacks becoming evermore frequent and irregular, depictions of overt homosexuality or unpatriotic sentiment seem too to be at risk.

In 2007, Minister of Culture Aleksandr Sokolov, labelled 17 of 240 works headed for the Parisian exhibition Sots Art: Political Art from Russia a ‘disgrace’ to his nation, and barred them from leaving the country. Amongst these was The Blue Noses’ ‘Era of Mercy’ (2007), a controversial satirical photograph depicting two uniformed policemen kissing in a birch-lined grove – no doubt charged with ‘political provocation’ due to Russia’s strong adversity to the LGBT community, in which light the depiction made a mockery of the government. To be Oneself: stories of LGBT teenagers (2015) – meant to be held at Red Square Gallery – similarly agitated the authorities. Attempting to protest the effect of Russia’s 2013 ban on ‘gay propaganda amongst minors’ through a series of adolescent portraits, the artistic activism was repeatedly hindered by police. Roads around the gallery were barricaded, and pictures torn down from the eventual alternative destination of a Moscow boulevard. LGBT photographer Denis Styazhkin was detained in its wake.

Works that satirise Putin’s regime more explicitly have also faced ill treatment. When Vasily Slonov derided regime corruption before the winter Olympics – in graphics-style posters transforming the Olympic rings into gallows and vicious coils of barbed wire – his show, Welcome to Sochi (2013), was closed by federal authorities. Two members of anarchist collective Voina were jailed after a public stunt overturning police cars, in protest of abusive authority, and a shipment of the Blue Noses’ works destined for London, including ‘Mask Show’ (2001), was detained in 2006. This photo derogatively portrays leaders Bin Laden, George Bush, and Putin lounging in boxers on a sofa.

The artists reported that officials were ‘outraged by a less than respectful concept of their leader’, whilst in the former case, federation council member Andrei Klimov, voiced his fury at the denunciatory depiction of the government, likening the posters to images by Hitler’s propagandists of Russia. This is not the first time high level politicians have lent support to artistic prosecution. Parliament member Aleksandr Chuyev proclaimed in the Caution! Religion case that ”There are acceptable boundaries within which it is possible to express an opinion”, boundaries that don’t extend to the orthodox Church. It appears these boundaries more broadly write political criticism off as a taboo too. Unnervingly human rights activists have noted that the Caution! Religion trial was the first occasion since the 1966 trial of writers Andrei Sinyasvsk and Yuli Daniel that individuals have faced criminal charges solely over the content of their work in Russia. Evidently parallels between the Soviet regime can all too easily drawn, as a new era of state-backed repression seems to have dawned in Russia.

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