Earlier this week, I was cleaning out my wallet of old receipts and random punch cards and remembered I had a library card - that fun, special edition Mets card that even this Yankees fan snagged. I had forgotten that you can book free tickets to museums via Culture Pass using the card, so sure enough I snagged 2 tickets for the Noguchi Museum later this month!
The weather's been crappy in NYC these past few days which I find perfect for a museum outing. Sharing some upcoming exhibits in case y'all want to check them out!
Before I get into the series, can we talk about how brilliant Ruth Wilson is? There's something so terrifying and hauntingly beautiful about her when she's on screen, across all her roles: The Affair, Luther, and this series, The Woman in the Wall. I always find myself entranced by her performances - you can almost feel how she transforms into her cold, disassociated, and distant characters.
If you’re a fan of British dramas like Broadchurch, Happy Valley, or The Fall, then this is your cup of tea. It’s a slower paced drama that delves into the tragic and horrific history of the Catholic Church-run Magdalene Laundries in Ireland. The laundries were asylums where unwed pregnant woman were sent and forced to work. It's believed that over 30,000 women were forced into working at these laundries. Many were forcibly separated from their babies, who were later sold to families throughout Ireland and overseas.
This piece explores the work of several contemporary Black women artists who explore minimalism as their primary style, in a world where the style has been defined by hyper masculinity and widely adopted by white men.
I particularly enjoyed what the painter and sculptor, Torkwase Dyson, shared regarding her practice, noting that she was influenced by the post-minimalist painter Mel Bochner, “who was asking radical, spatial questions — questions about language and class and production and belonging.”
Her work comprises of “hyper shapes” which began as visualizations of the various enclosures that enslaved Black Americans used as vehicles for their own liberation. For example, the hull of the ship docked in Richmond, Va., “in which Anthony Burns stowed away for Boston becomes in Dyson’s hands a curved line; the box in which Henry “Box” Brown mailed himself to freedom becomes a square.”
Tension between pro-independence indigenous Kanak communities and French inhabitants has been simmering for years but this time over proposed changes to extend voting rights to non-indigenous residents 🇳🇨
Okay, but where was this when I got dengue in December. 😭 It's the worst thing I've experienced and there's currently an outbreak in South America, thanks to climate change. If you're traveling, be sure to get vaxxed! 🦟
Has anyone listened to this podcast? It came out last year but I only just completed the first episode. Dan Kitrosser, the host, explores the story of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s daughter, who travels to America in 1967 (with a secret memoir in tow) - quickly becoming known as the Cold War’s most famous defector. 👀
