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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations

Architecture Art Biography and memoir Dance and theatre Design and fashion Film and visual culture Food and drink Home Music Nature and landscape Rituals and celebrations Sports and games Stories and literature Subcultures Travel

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Painting of a group gathered around an orrery, with expressions of curiosity and wonder illuminated by its light.

essayArt

In the glow of the candle

Joseph Wright of Derby put science at the centre of his art. Eclipsed in his lifetime, his work still burns with radical ideas

Charlotte Mullins

Photo of a car’s interior at night with motion blur, showing a driver’s arm steering through illuminated streets.

essayIllness and disease

Katie’s story

Frontotemporal dementia is rare and ruthless. When it robbed Katie of her husband at 33, his story became her life’s work

Lynn Hallarman

Painting of three 18th-century men in discussion, one holding an illustration. A dog lies on the floor.

essayVirtues and vices

David Hume vs literature

Hume distrusted literature and worked to discredit character sketches as legitimate forms of philosophy

Katie Ebner-Landy

A video camera reflected in sunglasses with a scenic view of water and hills in the background.

videoGlobal history

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, a young couple discovers a strange, newly open world

18 minutes

Silhouette of a bird on a branch against a golden sunset sky.

essayAnimals and humans

Life thrums with music

Listen to the boundless sounds of nature, the great animal orchestra, whose songs imbue the world with fresh meaning

Jay Griffiths

Painting of a black bird with a red tail on a white tree branch set against a blue sky and yellow landscape.

videoNature and landscape

Scenes from Aboriginal Australian pottery chart the turn of the seasons

7 minutes

Vintage black and white photo of a woman in a garden sitting beside a large urn with a sleeping dog lying nearby.

essayFamily life

Glorious and mundane

I once exalted in the extraordinary. But as I’ve learned from Virginia Woolf, indelible beauty is also found in the everyday

Diana Saverin

Abstract sketch of a cityscape with buildings, cars and patterns in pencil and ink.

essayArt

Witty wotty dashes

Doodles are the emanations of our pixillated minds, freewheeling into dissociation, graphology, and radical openness

James Reath

Photo of a person in white walking along a cliffside path near a stone structure with a scenic landscape view.

videoArchitecture

Steep climbs lead to sacred spaces carved high into the cliffs of Ethiopia

9 minutes

A surfer in a wetsuit emerging from a large turquoise wave with white foam crashing around.

essaySports and games

The secret

At the heart of surfing, whether you’re a kook or a famous charger, is the pursuit of moments so pure they clean you out

M M Owen

Illustration of a blue dragonfly, a green leaf insect and a brown butterfly wing on a light background.

videoHistory of science

Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful

8 minutes

A stork and chicks in a nest on a metal pylon above a grassy landscape with a river in the background.

essayAnimals and humans

To build a nest

Throughout the animal kingdom, the parents of newborns must strive to create snug sanctuaries in a hazardous world

Helen Jukes

Photo of three people in traditional robes, two holding wooden staffs, standing outside a wooden building in sunlight.

essayRituals and celebrations

A life in Zen

Growing up in countercultural California, ‘enlightenment’ had real glamour. But decades of practice have changed my mind

Anshi Zachary Smith

Black and white photo of a man in a suit speaking passionately at a podium with microphones.

essayBiography and memoir

The story of Malcolm X

Alex Haley co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X but Haley left out some profound elements of Malcolm’s political thought

Alex White

3D heat map graph with peaks in red and valleys in blue showing data variation.

videoMusic

A riveting audiovisual dive into what makes sounds harmonious, or not

28 minutes

A round pot encircles a hole in the soil, around the hole are dried leaves, a stone and a stick.

essayAnthropology

Spider divination

Life is complicated. In Cameroon, initiated diviners read the messages of spiders to untangle possible futures

David Zeitlyn

Abstract digital art of a web-like cosmic structure with purple and orange filament patterns, resembling a universe simulation.

essayCosmology

Rivers of galaxies

What are the largest shapes in the Universe? The answer might be found in the most unassuming places here on Earth

Mark Neyrinck

Painting of a vast landscape featuring rocky hills, a woman with a child and distant snow-capped mountains under a cloudy sky.

videoNature and landscape

After independence, Mexico was in search of identity. These paintings offered a blueprint

15 minutes

Photo of an ocean sunset seen through a round window with a warm sepia tone across the sky and water.

essayLanguage and linguistics

The grammar of a god-ocean

To truly explore alien languages, linguists must open themselves to the maximum conceivable degree of cosmic otherness

Eli K P William

Photo of a woman in a red coat gazing out a foggy window with a contemplative expression.

videoProgress and modernity

Moving from Tibet to Beijing, Drolma reconciles big dreams with harsh realities

31 minutes

Vintage photo of people erecting tall structures in a tropical setting with palm trees and a thatched building.

videoArt

A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea

7 minutes

Photo of a man lying on a bed with white sheets, looking peaceful against a blue background.

videoConsciousness and altered states

What do screens depicting serene natural scenes mean to those living in lock-up?

12 minutes

A large white cathedral with golden domes near a river, surrounded by trees with autumn colours.

essayArchitecture

The replica and the original

Architectural copies of lost structures require reckoning with history and heritage. At what cost is the past rebuilt?

Elizabeth Kostina

Blurry photo of a townscape with unfocused colourful lights strung across buildings in the evening.

videoAgeing and death

Memories of friends and neighbours light the streets of a seaside village in England

11 minutes