Political Pandora

What happens when stories made for everyone fail the people they purport to represent?

Art is a way we can realise our imagination, feel its potential and piece it into a form of hope. Upon entering the Edinburgh Palestine Museum, one is not first encountered by images of ruin, but by Anani’s grand canvas of rolling hills, lush green trees, and floral meadows. Where one enters expecting violence, Anani’s painting embraces us in its haven and pokes at our presumptions: Why is it that people expect only darkness when they hear of Palestine? 

The ambience of Spain’s bustling streets, usually filled with vibrant music, laughter and warmth, now echoes the discordant sounds of protesters and perplexing scenes of water pistols being aimed at tourists as their idyllic vacations to the country turn into waking nightmares for both them and the Spanish locals protesting their influx.

Both Amazon and the judicial system of South Africa have acted as neocolonial powers, employing colonial tactics to further dispossess the Khoisan people. In this case, Amazon as neocolonial infrastructure is supported by the divide and conquer strategy and by the South African post-apartheid legislature and judiciary, which ensures the systemic erasure of the Khoisan people.

The crafts that once connected us and the earth have faded from view and taken with them fundamental relationships. A political enquiry into these media allows us to take craft seriously, as a tool to imagine and shape more cooperative, sustainable and liberating ways of life. This has never been more necessary than amidst our epoch of rapid accumulation, consumption and disconnection.

In the 1920s, New Orleans saw the emergence of a new genre within its African-American communities. It was an expression of their musical culture and a form of resistance against classical styles. Since jazz in the U.S. was formed as a resistance against the oppression faced by the African-Americans, were these values retained in the Indian Jazz scene? Did it stay closely linked to the elite audiences who consumed it, or did it also culturally emancipate certain populations?

The global rise of right-wing gender discourse and advocacy is a testament to the fact that there is no monolithic gender system that exists in any given society.