#Suyin Haynes

[biglisbonnews]

Baesianz: the collective bringing Britain’s Asian communities together Baesianz has always centred community at the heart of their work. They host a football club Baesianz FC, created by the co-founders and the artist Nicole Chui as a safe space for women, trans and non-binary players from the Asian community. Their frequent fundraising events to support Asian and diasporic communities draw huge crowds (a […] The post Baesianz: the collective bringing Britain’s Asian communities together appeared first on gal-dem. https://gal-dem.com/baesianz-the-collective-bringing-britains-asian-community-together/

[aarushinagarr]

Week 1: Praxis - Creative Practice vs Critical Thinking

This week, we discussed the significance of connecting creative practice to critical thinking. As designers in training, we need to take note of how the content we consume can make inquisitive statements whilst maintaining creativity behind it. We were required to write a short story based on a social issue. I chose to write about religious hate crimes.

This week, we discussed the significance of connecting creative practice to critical thinking. As designers in training, we need to take note of how the content we consume can make inquisitive statements whilst maintaining creativity behind it. We were required to write a short story based on a social issue. I chose to write about religious hate crimes. 

My story follows a riot occurring in the 1990s in Rajouri, Jammu, and Kashmir (India), that was driven because of religious and political differences created during the Partition of British India in 1947. We still face repercussions of the political choices made then and this has caused lots of violence in India. 

I believe any form of storytelling are effective ways to make bold statements. Specifically to me, creative writing is a form of expression that I use to communicate my feelings frequently. I wanted my story to be a mix of fiction and reality. The purpose of this was to give the problem at hand emotion - making the reader understand the situation more empathatically.  

Moreover, I dived deeper into a performance artist and feminist, Khubra Khademi. She is well-known for provocative works that address gender inequality, women’s rights, and societal issues in Afghanistan. She uses her art to challenge the patriarchy of the Taliban regime. In 2015, Khademi performed “Armour” where she walked through Kabul in a suit of metal armour that accentuated her curves, drawing attention to her chest and back. Her performance spoke for the harassment women experience in public spaces. During this walk, Khademi quickly became a victim of harassment and verbal abuse. She received death threats that forced her to flee Afghanistan. 

Khademi’s work now still follows the same themes and is expressed through her creativity. This ties in with our theme of Creative practice with critical thinking - using artistic expression for a cause. 

WORD COUNT: 307

CITATIONS

"Rajouri District." District Administration Rajouri, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, rajouri.nic.in/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024. 

Bose, Sumantra. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Harvard University Press, 2003.

Hussain, Altaf. "Kashmir's Troubled Past and Its Impact on Hindu-Muslim Relations." BBC News, 10 Mar. 2003, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2744229.stm. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Lamb, Alastair. Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990. Roxford Books, 1991.

Ganguly, Sumit. The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace. Cambridge University Press, 1997. 

Haynes, Suyin. "This Afghan Artist Was Forced to Flee after Protesting Harassment." Time, 1 May 2018, time.com/5255770/khubra-khademi-afghanistan-armor/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

McGivern, Hannah. "Khubra Khademi on Fleeing Afghanistan and Living in Exile in Paris." The Art Newspaper, 5 July 2017, www.theartnewspaper.com/2017/07/05/khubra-khademi-on-fleeing-afghanistan-and-living-in-exile-in-paris. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Houghton, Mick. "Feminism and Resistance: Khubra Khademi’s Armor Performance in Kabul." The Guardian, 10 Mar. 2015, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/10/feminist-art-khubra-khademi-armor-kabul. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

[andiloop]

New Documentary Explores the Realities of Being an Intersex Person and Their Treatment By Society

BY SUYIN HAYNES — JUNE 19, 2019

[sciencespies]

How Codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman Broke Up a Nazi Spy Ring

https://sciencespies.com/history/how-codebreaker-elizebeth-friedman-broke-up-a-nazi-spy-ring/

How Codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman Broke Up a Nazi Spy Ring

Armed with a sharp mind and nerves of steel, Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1892–1980) cracked hundreds of ciphers during her career as America’s first female cryptanalyst, successfully busting smugglers during Prohibition and, most notably, breaking up a Nazi spy ring across South America during the 1940s.

But until records detailing her involvement in World War II were declassified in 2008, most Americans had never heard of Friedman. A man—then-director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover—took credit for Friedman’s wartime success, and she took her secret life as one of the country’s top codebreakers to the grave.

Those eager to learn more about Friedman’s extraordinary accomplishments can now watch a new documentary, “The Codebreaker” on PBS’ “American Experience,” for free online. Based on journalist Jason Fagone’s 2017 nonfiction book, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, the film also draws on Friedman’s archival letters and photographs, which are held by the George C. Marshall Foundation.

As Suyin Haynes reports for Time magazine, the PBS documentary arrives amid a surge of interest in Friedman: In 2019, the United States Senate passed a resolution in her honor, and in July 2020, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that it would name a ship after her.

Born into a Quaker family in Huntington, Indiana, in 1892, Friedman studied poetry and literature before settling down in Chicago after graduation. A devoted Shakespeare fan, she visited the city’s Newberry Library to see a 1623 original edition of the playwright’s First Folios, wrote Carrie Hagan for Smithsonian magazine in 2015.

There, a librarian impressed by Friedman’s interest put her in touch with George Fabyan, an eccentric millionaire seeking researchers to work on a Shakespeare code-cracking project. She moved to Fabyan’s estate at Riverbank Laboratory in Geneva, Illinois, and met her future husband, William Friedman. The pair worked together to attempt to prove Fabyan’s hunch that Sir Francis Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays, filling the texts with cryptic clues to his identity. (Years later, the couple concluded that this hunch was incorrect).

When World War I broke out, Fabyan offered the government the assistance of the scholars working under his guidance at Riverbank. The Friedmans, who wed in 1917, became leaders in the first U.S. codebreaking unit, intercepting radio messages and decoding encrypted intelligence.

Though Friedman never formally trained as a codebreaker, she was highly skilled at the process, historian Amy Butler Greenfield tells Time.

Butler Greenfield adds, “She was extraordinarily good at recognizing patterns, and she would make what looked like guesses that turned out to be right.”

After World War I, the U.S. Coast Guard hired Friedman to monitor Prohibition-era smuggling rings. She ran the unit’s first codebreaking unit for the next decade, per Smithsonian. Together, she and her clerk cracked an estimated 12,000 encryptions; their work resulted in 650 criminal prosecutions, and she testified as an expert witness in 33 cases, reports Time.

All told, wrote Hagan for Smithsonian, “[Friedman’s] findings nailed Chinese drug smugglers in Canada, identified a Manhattan antique doll expert as a home-grown Japanese spy, and helped resolve a diplomatic feud with Canada.”

Friedman succeeded in her field despite significant barriers associated with her gender: Though they both worked as contractors, she earned just half of what her husband made for the same work, according to Smithsonian. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Navy took over Friedman’s Coast Guard unit and essentially demoted her. (Women would only be allowed to serve fully in the military after 1948, notes Kirstin Butler for PBS.)

Elizebeth Friedman, right, with her husband, William. Though William earned fame as a cryptologist during his lifetime, Elizebeth’s achievements have only come to light in recent years, when documents detailing her achievements were declassified.

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Friedman achieved her greatest code-breaking feat in the 1940s. Working for the Coast Guard, she led a team that eavesdropped on German spies as they discussed the movement of Allied ships in South America. This was high-stakes business: As Americans fought in World War II, they feared that Axis powers would attempt to conduct Nazi-backed coups in several countries in South America, per PBS.

In 1942, Friedman’s worst fear materialized. Cover transmissions from the Nazis abruptly stopped—a sign that her targets had discovered they were being spied on. As it turned out, FBI director Hoover, eager to make a career-defining move, had tipped off Nazi spies to the U.S.’ intelligence activities by hastily raiding sources in South America.

Then 49, Friedman was left to deal with the aftermath, which PBS’ Butler describes as the “greatest challenge of her career.”

Adds Butler, “Even after Hoover’s gambit set her efforts back by months, Friedman’s response was what it had always been: She simply redoubled her efforts and got back to work.”

Eventually, Friedman and her team used analog methods—mostly pen and paper—to break three separate Enigma machine codes. By December 1942, her team had cracked every one of the Nazi’s new codes. In doing so, she and her colleagues unveiled a network of Nazi-led informants led by Johannes Sigfried Becker, a high-ranking member of Hitler’s SS. Argentina, Bolivia and Chile eventually broke with Axis powers and sided with the Allied forces, largely thanks to Friedman’s intelligence efforts, according to Time.

Friedman’s husband, William, earned recognition during his lifetime and is credited by many as the “godfather of the NSA,” an organization that he helped to shape in its early years, Fagone tells Jennifer Ouellette of Ars Technica.

His wife, meanwhile, “was a hero and she never got her due,” says Fagone to Time.

“She got written out of the history books,” Fagone continues. “Now, that injustice is starting to be reversed.”

#History

[thechurchandabortion]

Pro-Choice Movies? Here’s a Few

A Times article by Suyin Haynes discusses the new crop of movies about abortion, and these movies are different from their predecessors in a big way: they actually let the charactes have abortions. The characters’ stories don’t always revolve around abortion; it just happens. I look forward to the day where abortion is no big deal, but we’re not there yet, so at least we have these movies to turn to for a positive representation of women who have abortions. 

https://time.com/5799385/abortion-onscreen-representation/

[videolotnik]

🇬🇧🇵🇱⬇️ #freedom #pigeon #gołąb #myanmar #birma #brieftauben #palomas #holuby #porumbei #photography #pigeonlove #pigeonlovers #gołąbekpokoju #prawaczłowieka #humanrights #Repost @time • • • • • • 🇬🇧 An artist projects symbols of protest on a building to show support for the National League for Democracy in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 5. Since the military coup four days earlier, a community of artists based in Myanmar's largest city is creating striking, often satirical images and circulating them as part of the civil disobedience campaign on social media and out in the streets, writes Suyin Haynes. The images feature ironic slogans, comical illustrations of military leaders and the three-fingered salute popularized during last year’s pro-democracy protests in Thailand. One artist, Khine, says the community is responding to the coup with wit and an "abundance of energy." Read more at the link in bio. Photograph by @nytimes/@reduxpictures 🇵🇱 Artysta projektuje symbole protestu na budynku, aby wyrazić poparcie dla Narodowej Ligi na rzecz Demokracji w Rangunie w Birmie 5 lutego. Od czasu przewrotu wojskowego cztery dni wcześniej społeczność artystów z największego miasta Birmy tworzy uderzające, często satyryczne obrazy i rozpowszechnianie ich w ramach kampanii obywatelskiego nieposłuszeństwa w mediach społecznościowych i na ulicach, pisze Suyin Haynes. Na zdjęciach pojawiają się ironiczne hasła, komiczne ilustracje przywódców wojskowych i trójpalczasty salut spopularyzowany podczas zeszłorocznych protestów prodemokratycznych w Tajlandii. Jeden artysta, Khine, mówi, że społeczność reaguje na zamach z dowcipem i „obfitością energii”. Przeczytaj więcej pod linkiem w biografii. Zdjęcie: @ nytimes / @ reduxpictures (w: Myanmar) https://www.instagram.com/p/CLPga0Jltz4/?igshid=19xcdljkxis6e

[biglisbonnews]

Britain’s policing was built on racism. Abolition is unavoidable For nearly a week now, officials have been quibbling over and even denying the findings of the much-anticipated Casey report. The report, commissioned after the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met police officer in March 2021, is a damning indictment of the force. Baroness Casey concludes that the force is institutionally […] The post Britain’s policing was built on racism. Abolition is unavoidable appeared first on gal-dem. https://gal-dem.com/britain-policing-casey-review-report/

[amypca]

Women Leading the Fight Against Climate Change.

Christiana Figueres.

After heading a climate-change nonprofit for eight years, Christiana Figueres took on leadership of the UNFCCC, the body responsible for international climate-change negotiations, at the agency’s lowest point. Just five months earlier, the world failed to reach an agreement at the 2009 Copenhagen summit. She injected a unique sense of optimism, attempting to remove the talks from what she calls “the political trash can.” It worked: Figueres successfully steered world leaders to reach the Paris Agreement in 2015. Along with a number of other women involved in the negotiations, Figueres was successful in shedding an important light on the gender dimension of climate change. She’s now writing a book about what the world needs to do in the next 10 years to combat climate change. —Jennifer Duggan

Rhiana Gunn-Wright.

While working in Detroit’s department of health in the mid-2010s, Rhiana Gunn-Wright realized how the environment shapes a wide range of social–justice issues. The government urgently needed to address climate change, she thought, but “you weren’t going to solve the problem with just solar panels,” she says. “People were being poisoned.” Now, Gunn-Wright is bringing that holistic approach to the national level, working behind the scenes at New Consensus, a think tank with ties to progressive lawmakers. As the group’s Green New Deal policy lead, she is charged with thinking through the nuts and bolts of the program and strategies to pitch the bold climate plan. If progressive Democrats make further gains in Washington, Gunn-Wright’s proposals could wind up as law. —Justin Worland

Hilda Heine.

Climate change is literally at Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine’s doorstep. “Around my house, I have had to build a seawall,” she says, “because there is water coming over from the shoreline.” The sea is encroaching quickly on President Heine’s low-lying Pacific island state, and over the past four years, the government has had to put in place adaptive measures like building coast–protection systems and seawalls, she says. Heine has taken to the international stage to share the story of her country and the difficult decisions her compatriots are facing, including the possibility of relocating. She chairs the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of some 50 countries particularly in peril from climate change, despite having contributed a pittance to atmospheric greenhouse gases. Heine is adamant that everyone needs to take action; she’s committed the Marshall Islands to going carbon–neutral by 2050, and the nation was the first to submit its emissions pledge under the Paris Agreement. —Jennifer Duggan

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, from the Mbororo pastoralist community in Chad, has spent the past 10 years working to bridge the gap “between the international decisions [on climate change] with the reality on the ground,” she says. “I want to tell people what it is like in my country.” Traveling the nation to meet with indigenous groups, she kept hearing how much the environment was changing. “Each year I am seeing resources shrinking, and my people are struggling for survival,” says Ibrahim. Leading up to the historic 2015 climate-change meetings in Paris, she was a key leader among indigenous groups that successfully lobbied to have their rights recognized, and she was selected to speak at the signing ceremony of the accords. Indigenous communities are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, but they can also offer solutions, says Ibrahim. “The traditional knowledge of indigenous people, that is centuries old, can help the world adapt.” —Jennifer Duggan

In 2015, Tessa Khan was living in northern Thailand and working on behalf of a women’s human-rights nonprofit when news of a district-court case more than 5,000 miles away caught her attention. A court in the Hague had ruled in favor of some 900 Dutch citizens and a group known as the Urgenda Foundation, which had sued the Netherlands, demanding that the state reduce its greenhouse–gas emissions. Khan realized the courts could be a powerful tool to fight climate change and in the process mitigate what she calls “one of the biggest systemic threats” to international human rights. She moved to London and joined Urgenda, where she now provides legal assistance to people around the world who want to take their governments to court over inadequate climate policies. She says she hopes the cases draw attention to the actions governments need to take to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to show how ordinary people will be impacted by climate change. —Tara Law

Katharine Wilkinson

Author, public speaker and teacher Katharine Wilkinson has been passionate about protecting the planet since she went on an outdoor retreat 20 years ago as a high school student in North Carolina. “I went from loving the outdoors … to feeling incredibly convicted about how much work there was to be done,” she says. In 2017, the book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming became a best seller. Wilkinson was the primary author. One of her guiding principles is the need to shift the climate-change discourse to “be more courageous and more emotionally intelligent,” she says, and the book is “about moving through what is hard and continuing to rise to the challenge.” Wilkinson recently co-hosted her own outdoor retreat, the Feminist Climate Renaissance, bringing together women from across sectors. “The climate crisis is also a leadership crisis,” she says, “and many women and girls are stepping in to fill that void and lead us forward … in a way that has not been the status quo in the climate movement.” —Suyin Haynes

My Thoughts on These Inspiring Women -

Iv picked out a few of these wonderful women from the times article I was fortunate to have a read of. My reasoning for choosing these subjects in particular is the amazing work they have successfully achieved for the planets wellbeing. I wanted to touch base with some of these ideas that I relate closely to with my own work and go though some of my own thoughts with their existing current work with climate change. Christiana Figueres takes against the fight for climate change politically and thus raises important issues for a turning point in government. I often feel that the government skim over climate change issues as the economic growth from deforestation matters is huge and would cause problems for them in return, however it needs to be brought up for our planet to be able to thrive so that one day our children can lead a healthier life. Rhiana Gunn-Wright brings up key elements of mistreatment to public health as she stated  “you weren’t going to solve the problem with just solar panels,”, meaning more needs to be done in order for the problems to be reversed in time. Now more than ever, we are on the edge of reason, we are able to change but if we leave the problem any longer it will be a long cause. Hilda Heine talks of climate change effecting the sea levels and corrupting the coast as the atmosphere warms up from co2 emissions that are partly cause by mass deforestation. One feeds the other in an ongoing catastrophe.  Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim speaks of the ways her country is being mislead with resources running out and priorities going to the few instead of the many. She explains that she has to inform people what is happening in her country as if nobody knows the terror going on with starvation. Tessa Khan leads the law cases against  which worked out in her favor of the 900 citizens and the group Foundation, which had sued the Netherlands in demanding that the state reduce its greenhouse–gas emissions. Katharine Wilkinson takes the educational standpoint which speaks to the younger generation about how the planet once was compared to the melancholy reality we are faced with today. I love that activists take this route as it shows that passing down the threat will encourage at a young age to be passionate about their future planet. My faverate qoute from this article was “I went from loving the outdoors … to feeling incredibly convicted about how much work there was to be done,” By Katharine Wilkinson.

All illustrations  by -  Jacqui Oakley

LINKS -

https://time.com/5669038/women-climate-change-leaders/

[idiosyncreant]

TIME’s 30 Most Influential Teenagers: Han Hyun Min

Growing up in a largely homogeneous society, Han, who is half Nigerian, half Korean, was often made to feel ashamed of his appearance. “There are so many prejudices about darker skinned people in South Korea,” he tells TIME. “When I was in kindergarten, some of the mothers in the playground would tell my friends, ‘Don’t play with him. If you play with him, you will become darker too.’” But Han, who was discovered on Instagram, is now one of the country’s most sought-after fashion models; he’s a fixture in local magazines and walked in 20 shows during the recent Seoul Fashion Week. Although he has faced discrimination—he was denied several early castings because of his skin color—Han says he hopes his rising profile will help make South Korea’s beauty standards more inclusive. “My dream is now a reality,” he tells TIME, “and I want those like me to feel they can achieve the same.” —Suyin Haynes

The whole list is great (I love that both Willow and Jaden Smith are on it, and I like that the order is reverse-age order) and worth reading, too!

[db-best]

Greta Thunberg and the rise of young female activists - Vox.com

Greta Thunberg and the rise of young female activists – Vox.com

Climate activist Greta Thunberg just became Time magazine’s youngest-ever Person of the Year, at just 16 years old.

“For decades, researchers and activists have struggled to get world leaders to take the climate threat seriously,” Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland wrote in Time’s cover storyannouncing the Swedish activist’s selection. “But this year, an unlikely teenager somehow…

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio Drops Out of 2020 Race. There Are Still 19 Candidates Left

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that he is ending his presidential campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

That leaves 19 candidates left in the race.

“Getting out there, being able to hear people’s concerns [and] address them with new ideas has been an extraordinary experience. But I have to tell you, at the same time I feel I have contributed all I can to this primary election, and it’s clearly not my time,” de Blasio said during his appearance on Morning Joe.

“So I’m going to end my presidential campaign, continue my work as Mayor of New York City and I’m going to keep speaking up for working people.”

Breaking: Bill de Blasio announces he is ending his presidential campaign pic.twitter.com/vL8GcX3xV5

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 20, 2019

Mayor of New York City since 2014, de Blasio announced his presidential campaign in May and was largely seen as a long-shot in the crowded field of Democratic candidates. He did not qualify for the third Democratic debate in September and looked unlikely to qualify for the fourth.

Despite attempts to tout himself and his past achievements as mayor and his progressive credentials, his campaign failed to resonate with voters, polling at less than 1% as a first-choice candidate in a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll between Sept. 13 and 15.

De Blasio becomes the seventh Democratic candidate to drop out of the race. Eleven candidates have so far qualified for the fourth debate, set for Oct. 15.

By Suyin Haynes on September 20, 2019 at 08:28AM

[itsfinancethings]

A few days after protesters pulled down a statue of British slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, a statue of the Jamaican-born actor Alfred Fagon in the same city was vandalized with bleach. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a very pointed comment and shows there’s clearly a lot of feelings and emotions attached to the idea of what these individuals represent.

Public sculptures and statues have been used to signpost, to exemplify what power looks like and to maintain the systems of power. Now, the public is looking at its representations of people and delving into history, instead of glossing over uncomfortable parts of the past and moving on.

We have to look at what these sculptures are and what they were intended as initially. In the U.S., they were intended to celebrate Confederate generals. That is a belligerent, aggressive, conscious act, because it normalizes a racist mentality and psyche. When we look at the U.K., it’s so hard to see a statue of someone who made all of their money from slavery. Pulling down Colston’s statue is not removing history — it is creating a historical moment, and at the very least it’s acknowledging the existence of a new contemporary thinking. You can’t hide behind words like “tradition” and “history” if they’re used to neutralize any kind of discussion about change.

Now we’re thinking about who gets to make these replacements, and it’s a process that shouldn’t be rushed. The immediate response to Colston’s statue has been to ask: who do we put there instead? There’s currently a petition to instate a statue of Paul Stephenson, the leader of the Bristol bus boycotts. There could well be a sculpture like that and we could find alternative figures from history, but I think that’s still playing the game of aggrandizing particular individuals and setting people apart.

Image courtesy of Stephen White / Frieze. “Numen (Shifting Votive 1, 2 & 3)”, 2017, Thomas J Price

For me, it’s not a zero-sum game. There’s almost a sense of entitlement from white creators, to think that they have the solution. White artists are putting themselves forward to create replacement sculptures of slave owners with no sense of irony. That’s a savior complex, and that exemplifies what is wrong, when even the solution doesn’t involve the Black experience. Black lives matter, the Black experience matters, and Black quality of life matters. Black artists should be looked at first to replace many of these sculptures that may be removed. If we cannot see the irony in taking down a statue of a slave owner, and replacing it with work by an artist whose ancestors have benefitted from slavery, that’s an indication of even wider issues.

If we really want to engage with history, and utilize sculptures in public spaces to do so, then there needs to be consultation with the public on a case-by-case basis. We need to get a sense of what people feel. But people are only going to have feelings and opinions about things they already know, and that’s why I think that things can’t end at sculpture. Education in this country needs to be looked at from the ground up in terms of how we teach what the U.K. was built on, what the U.K., has done and what it represents. If we don’t understand that, we can’t move forward.

As a sculptor, I have always been interested in observing other people and trying to create empathy. One of my early projects was a large-scale stop-motion animation projection of a small brown Plasticine head, based on someone I saw who happened to be Black. My initial intention wasn’t to create works about race, but I realized that there was power in the figurative, and there was power in representing people who looked like me, because I could give a real insight to that experience.

All the figures I make are fictional, because I’m trying to critique the whole concept of portraiture. Portraiture is based on this idea of a person having the money to commission an artwork, or having done such great things that an artwork is commissioned in their honor. My characters don’t smile because that is a demand that is placed upon people like myself in order to not seem threatening. I want to remove that weight and that psychological pressure, and show that if you’re a Black person being represented in sculpture, you don’t have to be an athlete, or strike a pose, or fulfil an expectation.

These figures are imaginary people that do not conform to the expectations of dressing for success—they could be slouching, or they could be wearing a hoodie, like one of my pieces does, in reference to police shootings. The fact is: what you wear as a Black man can get you killed. As a Black man, you get used to being looked at with slight suspicion.

Image courtesy the artist; Image courtesy of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. Left: “Lay It Down (On The Edge Of Beauty)”, 2018, Thomas J Price; Right: “Cover Up (The Reveal)”, 2019, Thomas J Price

As well as celebrating our historical figures, I would like future sculptures to look like people that I recognize, helping to counter the endless stream of limiting tropes and identities for Black people, not just in the U.K., but in the U.S. and globally as well. There needs to be an openness and more nuanced understanding of what it means to be Black, and that’s only going to happen when there are people in positions of power to commission who understand where our art comes from.

I really hope we have some bravery and courage, and show a genuine desire to learn from and look into our past, and to incorporate those new understandings into our strategy for inclusion. We have an opportunity to create a more cohesive society if we choose to take it. Do we further ingrain the current system of choosing historical figures to represent the values we should aspire to? Or do we look for the commonalities we all share and embrace representations of those who have previously been stigmatized or invisible?

It’s not going to be popular at the beginning, and there will be people who are utterly against it because it threatens their understanding. But if we don’t as a society make that contract with one another to pursue something more radical, then the debate around statues is all just talk.

As told to Suyin Haynes

[liliannorman]

Angry, Whiny, Self-Righteous High-school Dropout Picked as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Guest essay by Eric Worrall I guess this was inevitable. 2019 PERSON OF THE YEAR GRETA THUNBERG BY CHARLOTTE ALTER, SUYIN HAYNES AND JUSTIN WORLANDPHOTOGRAPHS BY EVGENIA ARBUGAEVA FOR TIME Greta Thunberg sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her across the Atlantic Ocean. Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded globe, a child’s yellow… Angry, Whiny, Self-Righteous High-school Dropout Picked as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[papundits]

TIME Grovels For Greta Thunberg, Teenaged 'Pool Of Resolve' And 'Icon Of A Generation'

TIME Grovels For Greta Thunberg, Teenaged ‘Pool Of Resolve’ And ‘Icon Of A Generation’

By Tim Graham ~

Time‘s cover story awarding teenaged Greta Thunberg their “Person of the Year” energetically paints a legend. The toadying trio of Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland combined for this goopy introduction:

Greta Thunberg sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her across the Atlantic Ocean. Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded…

[raisboneza]

Last Year's Nobel Prize in Literature Was Canceled Over Scandal and Conflict. Can 2019's Award Mark a Comeback?

Last Year’s Nobel Prize in Literature Was Canceled Over Scandal and Conflict. Can 2019’s Award Mark a Comeback?

9 OCTOBER 2019 AT 19:33

from TIME by Suyin Haynes

This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature marks a first in the award’s 118-year history. On Thursday, there won’t just be one award announced, but two simultaneously: one for 2018 and the other for 2019. Each winner will receive over $910,000 in prize money and the international acclaim accompanying recognition as a Nobel Laureate.

With winners in…

[biglisbonnews]

Against the binary: imagining a future of holding my chest high Welcome back to gal-dem’s monthly gender column ‘Against the binary’, bringing you Yas Necati’s latest reflections on finding gentleness, home and joy as a trans person. I’m scared of losing sensation in my nipples. I’m scared there might be complications with the surgery. I’m scared of how much it costs; of asking people for money. I’m scared […] The post Against the binary: imagining a future of holding my chest high appeared first on gal-dem. https://gal-dem.com/against-the-binary-top-surgery/