‣ Almost a century ago, the K’ëgit totem was bought and carried off by a Swiss artist. This week, a delegation from the Wet’suwet’en Nation was finally reunited with the cultural gem in Paris, CBC News reports:
Connauton, who was also part of the delegation, said the pole is now prominently displayed at the museum’s entrance.
“[It] is the first thing that a person sees when they enter the Quai Branly Museum … it’s very impressive, as you can imagine.”
For Mitchell, though, seeing the totem pole in-person was a deeply emotional and “upsetting” experience, he said.
“It was cut into three pieces to get it inside the museum,” he noted.
Birdy Markert, a matriarch-in-training, whose great-grandfather Hagwilnekhlh Arthur Michell was among those involved in the sale of the pole back in 1938, said leaders at the time were pressured into agreeing to the deal.
“He [Arthur Michell] was definitely elderly at the time and so I feel like he was being taken advantage of through this whole process,” she said.
As part of her research, Connauton said she is currently looking through the museum’s archival documents to understand how the artifact was sold and acquired.
‣ Critic Jasmine Weber writes beautifully in Burnaway about the queer architect who shaped Sag Harbor’s historically Black Azurest neighborhood, where she herself spent many childhood summers:
As I perused these snippets while researching Meredith, my fascination with her artistic accomplishments became inextricable from my awe over her great, groundbreaking love. I became familiar with Meredith in 2020 and immediately began researching and writing about this undersung designer with whom I felt an instant affinity, finding connectivity to her legacy as a Black woman artist. But it was not until this summer that her letters began to mean so much to me. Queer, in love, and attending my first residency away from home while researching and writing about Meredith, I pored over their letters, relishing in their tenderness. I shared them with my partner as we maneuvered the early months of a new relationship and found parallels to our own romance. I was both heartsick considering how much Meredith and Colson sacrificed to be together in the face of fear and potential alienation and spellbound peering into their near-lifelong romance. Alongside all they accomplished as trailblazers in their communities, their union was extraordinary.
‣ Journalist Ruairí Casey writes in the London Review of Books about the German government’s draconian crackdown on anti-Zionism and immigrants at large, beginning with a Palestinian artist’s Guernica Gaza series:
The resolution calls for immigration, asylum and criminal law to be tightened to combat antisemitism, and for universities, where antiwar activists have occupied buildings and set up encampments, to be granted wider powers to discipline and expel students. All levels of government are asked to prevent the financial support of projects and organisations – Documenta is mentioned as an example – that ‘spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the BDS movement’. The IHRA definition is to be considered ‘authoritative’. The new resolution cites the 2019 BDS text as its model, ignoring a parliamentary assessment from a year later, which found that if that resolution had been formulated as legislation, it ‘would not be compatible with the fundamental right to freedom of expression and would therefore be unconstitutional’.
In August, dozens of Jewish artists signed an open letter that called the text ‘a malicious distortion of reality’ for conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel and suggesting that the most urgent threat to Jews in Germany comes from migrants and leftists. Fifteen Israeli NGOs said it ‘would be instrumentalised to attack and constrain German funding for our human rights work’. Several legal scholars have said it would be unconstitutional.
‣ As a shameless fan of LoFi Girl background music, Kyle Chayka’s dissection of the “digital and physical cocoon” of cozy tech made me rethink my priorities. He writes in the New Yorker:
Social media in its original form reflected an urge to connect with other people living their lives somewhere else in the real world. The coziness trend suggests that the Internet and artificial intelligence can lead us ever inward. In the cozy era, our screens and the related accoutrements of digital life fulfill all of our emotional and sensory needs. Stef Kight, a journalist in the D.C. area, and a fan of cozy content, told me that the trend is connected, in her mind, with a TikTok mantra: Romanticize your life. As she put it, “Let’s romanticize even the most insular, habitual things that we do. We can still make it enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing and comfortable.” Last winter, Kight hosted a reading retreat for her book club, gathering twenty women in two plush houses in Virginia to read and discuss books amid a snow-covered landscape—another aestheticized act of coziness, though a notably social one. By contrast, the archetypal cozy figure at her desk, plugged into multiple screens, is an image of loneliness which is also meant to assuage loneliness. #Coziness, in a way, stylizes isolation, making it look desirable. This is an old paradox of the digital world: the same platforms that provide connection also have a way of cutting us off. But #cozygaming suggests that the solution is to surround yourself with yet more gadgets and devices, whether an ergonomic Aeron desk chair, a video projector that turns your wall into a scene from “Harry Potter,” or a new A.I. companion who follows your every move. As Friend’s Avi Schiffmann told me, “I do think the loneliness crisis was created by technology, but I do think it will be fixed by technology.”
‣ Software designer Jordan Mechner approaches the subject of gaming from an artistic perspective, explaining the importance of preserving digital cultural relics on the Internet Archive Blog:
As a game developer, I’ve been in the rare and fortunate position of being able to archive and share source code, assets and development materials from many of my games. One reason is that my publishing contracts let me keep the copyrights (unusual even in the 1980s, almost unheard of today). In 2012, the Strong National Museum of Play agreed to receive a large pile of cartons that were taking up significant shelf space in my garage. When I turned up a long-lost box of 3.5” floppy disks containing Prince of Persia’s 1989 source code, a team of experts descended on my house with a carful of vintage hardware to extract and upload it to github. Wired magazine sent a reporter and photographer to cover the event. Few game studio employees can expect such privileged treatment.
‣ In Gaza, school hasn’t been in session for almost 14 months. Amid Israel’s brutal bombardment and its psychological toll, parents have been left to scrape together makeshift classes. Ahmed Alsammak spoke with a few of them, writing in the Intercept:
Eventually, Aldremly found Aya Hasan, a displaced English teacher who was sheltering nearby and offering lessons to families in the area.
Hasan told The Intercept that she started teaching her own children, 10-year-old Imad Aldain, 7-year-old Nadia, and 5-year-old Adam after they fled from Gaza City. Later, many displaced families asked her to teach their children.
At first, Hasan would visit families’ tents for lessons. Then the owner of Aldremly’s 35-apartment building offered Hasan a small space free of charge, allowing her to teach displaced children in the area for very minimal fees. Hasan had lost her job as a teacher and translator because of the war, she said, and the classes were the sole source of income for her family of five. She would charge students two shekels ($0.54) per class, earning around 700 shekels a month.
“I taught 30 students English, Arabic, and math using enjoyable methods,” she said. “It was a stress reliever for them more than an educational experience, as there were no books and notes.”
‣ Reporters Without Borders has charged X for disinformation and identity theft after a video circulated with its logo, the organization’s statement explains:
Is X’s deliberate unwillingness to fight disinformation punishable by law? Does it make the company complicit in the pollution of public debate? With the new case brought forth by RSF, the French courts now have the opportunity to address these pressing questions, establish X’s legal obligations and hold it to account. The case highlights the lack of moderation that allows disinformation to flourish on Elon Musk’s social media platform. RSF is represented by lawyer Emmanuel Daoud and his team from the law firm Vigo in this legal affair.
In late August, RSF discovered a video falsely labelled as content from the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, claiming RSF authored a study on Nazi beliefs among members of the Ukrainian military. RSF revealed how the Russian state “laundered” this false information by repeating it through official channels, namely its foreign ministry and two of its foreign embassies.
The video — which uses RSF’s logo, graphic charter, and photos of RSF’s advocacy director — was widely shared, mainly on X and Telegram, reaching nearly half a million views by 13 September, when RSF published its investigation.
‣ Scientists discovered a saber-toothed cub mummy in the Siberian permafrost, giving us — and illustrators who bring extinct creatures to life — a clearer idea of what the cats looked like, Riley Black writes in National Geographic:
The ancient cat’s coloration is another longstanding question. Modern cat coat colors tend to be associated with their hunting environment. Lions, cougars, and cats that live in open, grassy habitats often have light and relatively uniform coats. Given that Homotherium prowled the chilly “mammoth steppe,” with few trees but lots of grasses, it seemed likely that the cat would also have a coat suited to blending into the wide open spaces.
“The uniform dark brown color of the mummy fur turned out to be completely unexpected,” Lopatin says. Much like a set of cave lion cubs found in the permafrost several years ago, Lopatin notes, Homotherium cubs were likely born with a darker coat color which lightened as the cats grew up.
‣ Someone please explain to me how this was greenlit:
‣ I’m a Bubbles, now and forever:
Required Reading is published every Thursday afternoon, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.
