Showing 256 articles
The Danger of ‘Historical Illiteracy’
Author: Sabine LeitnerApril 30, 2017
Studies in several countries have highlighted that there is growing ignorance and lack of interest amongst young people about even basic historic facts of fairly recent national history. Americans of all ages fail to answer simple questions like “Who won the Civil War” and “Who did we gain independence from?” One of the most frequent [...]
A Revolution for the Future
Author: Pierre PoulainApril 17, 2017
It will not surprise anyone if we say that the world we are living in has become “global”. Although this globalization was initiated at the political and economic levels at the end of the second world war, it became subject to a huge acceleration at the end of the 20th century, first with the development [...]
Nikola Tesla, forgotten inventor.
Author: Florimond KrinsApril 17, 2017
Nikola Tesla was probably one of the greatest minds of the 19th and 20th centuries, yet his name is rarely associated with one of his many inventions, AC electric power. When we mention the discovery of electricity, or how we came to use it in our modern civilisation, we think first of Thomas Edison, Michael [...]
Language and Culture
Author: Pinar AkhanApril 17, 2017
If you have ever tried to learn a new language, you might have noticed that it is not only about learning the alphabet, vocabulary and grammar. It also involves learning a new way of thinking and expressing yourself. Language carries references to the culture to which it belongs and, by interacting with a language, we [...]
Cinema and the 20th Century
Author: Alfredo AguilarApril 17, 2017
If we were to ask ourselves ‘what is cinema?’ we might say that it is an artistic expression, or perhaps a good way of telling stories, a form of entertainment or, frankly speaking, just plain business. The true answer is, probably, all of them. Whatever the case, it would be practically impossible to understand the [...]
Interference: An Option or A Necessity?
Author: Pierre PoulainApril 17, 2017
As a street photographer I have the opportunity to travel worldwide, to present exhibitions, to present various photography workshops, and of course to take new photographs. From those travels there is a photograph I have always presented in my last few workshops. I use it to illustrate a “dynamic composition”, which is a composition with [...]
The constitution of the human being in the Western tradition
Author: Agostino DominiciFebruary 7, 2017
From time immemorial, human beings have asked themselves the question ‘who am I?’ And philosophers, theologians and metaphysicians have all come up with different answers. The classification of the various human ‘constituents’, from one system of thought to another might have changed, but the underlying principles in question have remained the same. Thus, even though [...]
What is folklore?
Author: Pinar AkhanJanuary 27, 2017
What do you think of when you hear the word “folklore”? Stories, myths, festivals, songs, dance, masks, riddles, crafts, beliefs… All of these and much more are comprised in the term folklore. The word – literally meaning “the learning of the people” (Folk-Lore) – was coined by William J. Thoms in 1846. It refers to [...]
Utopia at The Bauhaus
Author: Siobhan FarrarJanuary 27, 2017
Four hundred years ago in 1516, Thomas More wrote his extraordinary piece of work ‘Utopia’. More derived the word Utopia from the Greek words ‘ou’ & ‘topos’, which together translate as ‘nowhere’. Rather than being a blueprint for a fantasy future society, Utopia is aimed much more at our faculty of imagination – it encourages [...]
Keep calm and get going!
Author: Sabine LeitnerJanuary 26, 2017
What a year 2016 has been. Even more unpredictable than 2015 (who would have predicted the mass migration that saw almost a million migrants enter Germany alone?) and perhaps a sign that 2017 will follow in the same vein. It has been variously called “momentous”, “the year of revolution”, “the year in which Westerners lost [...]
A Revolution for the Future
Author: Pierre PoulainDecember 26, 2016
Do we need to learn from History? On December 3rd I was sitting in front of my laptop, wondering what might be the theme of this article. I didn’t want to write about something that I didn’t believe was important or significant. Usually I let my intuition identify a subject, but on that day, this [...]
Hilma Af Klint: Painting the Unseen
Author: Siobhan FarrarNovember 12, 2016
Earlier this year the Serpentine Gallery held an exhibition described by the Telegraph as “a sense of unfathomable mystery”. Hilma Af Klint, a Swedish born female painter who began producing work in the early 1900s, is beginning to be recognised as the first artist ever to have produced a piece of ‘abstract art’. Prior to [...]