How to Bury an Entire Museum

When German forces took Athens in April 1941, they expected to find thousands of centuries-old artifacts in the National Archaeological Museum, Greece’s largest museum. Instead, the neo-classical building was totally empty, besides the archaeologists and guardians still on duty. Officers asked them where the relics were hidden and “they answered enigmatically that antiquities are where everybody…

The Factory Girl who Became an Art Deco Ceramics Sensation

When English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff first started designing pottery in the 1920s, her work was so out there, the styled garnered the name “Bizarre.” But the curious and colourful decorative pieces with abstract shapes and pastoral scenes soon gathered an impressive following. Ahead of her time, Cliff’s rise to fame during the mid 20th…

The World’s First Underwater Veggie Garden is Growing Lettuce, Tomatoes & More. Because, Waterworld.

Kevin Costner has entered the chat. Don’t laugh. This is where we’re going to have to grow vegetables if the planet keeps heating up. Someday, it might not be possible to grow food on the earth’s surface anymore and wouldn’t you rather know someone is busy figuring out how to navigate that problem ahead of…

A Chat with the Van Gogh of Typewriter Art

Famous celebrities, historic English buildings and city skylines: What connects all of James Cook’s art pieces is they are made with an unexpected tool, an old or unwanted typewriter. From Essex, Cook first learned about typewriter art while researching Paul Smith, an American artist with cerebral palsy who honed the craft over 70 years. Cook…

Stitching the History of West African Flags

To understand recent Ghanaian history, flags are not a bad place to start. Ghana was under colonial rule by Britain until 1957, but the Portuguese first arrived on the Gold Coast in the 15th century, starting a centuries-long trade industry in goods, arms and slaves. Fabric was a common manufactured material that Europeans brought to…

The Peculiar Flapper Fad of Rouged and Decorated Knees

The infamous nightclub singer and vaudevillian, Velma Kelly, opens the musical Chicago in a sleek bob haircut, slinky black dress and all the glamour and sin of the swinging 1920s. She’s going to “paint the town”, play fast and loose… and “rouge her knees and roll her stockings down”? The last line might seem nonsensical…

The Secret World of “Ghost Shift” Midnight Manufacturing

The ship of Theseus, one of the oldest quandaries in Western philosophy, posits whether an object reconstructed with replaced parts can be considered the same as the original. But what if the ship is constructed with the same parts, in the exact same shipyard, only without the ship maker’s knowledge? It happens far more frequently than…

What’s Up with all the Lady Parts in Medieval Prayer Books?

Let’s say you’re flipping through a medieval Christian prayer book (as you do), and suddenly you come across a curious illustration amongst the prayers and psalms of something that looks unmistakably like female genitalia. A scolding voice in your head tells you to get your mind out of the gutter. But you wouldn’t be alone.…

Inside the Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

Imagine a world in which nature is intertwined with the industrial: giant lotus flowers replace concrete skyscrapers; an urban forest forms a city constantly in shift through a tree’s life cycle. This is the imaginarium of Belgian architect Luc Schuiten. To discover his work is to fall under the spell of a colourful cosmos, where…

Before Broadway, Paris had Boulevard du Crime, a Riotous Theatre District Lost in Time

The Boulevard du Crime, a nickname for the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, could not be more of a misnomer. It was never the refuge of thieves or scoundrels but rather in the 19th century, this street was a joyful nocturnal Right Bank hotspot; a 24/7 carnival with a host of cabarets, cafés and most notably…