Authors

26th October 2021

Underneath the Arches :
building the foundations to fail better
by Neil Cooper

The loss of The Arches as a site for the eruption of anarchic creative collaborations of a generation through all forms imaginable was a shock. Did the forces of conservatism conspire to finish it off in 2015... or maybe its work was done there, and the spirit needed to move on anyway? Neil Cooper's review of Innes and Bratchpiece's history of the venue is epic and elegaic: it deserves all that and even more ...
22nd October 2021

Why Afghanistan?
by
Owen Dudley Edwards

The absurdities of the American War in Afghanistan -backed by their allies- are exposed here by Owen Dudley Edwards. As another view of the tragedy it is heartbreaking in its farcical detail, and recounts a sorry tale which, despite withdrawal of US and allied troops, is far from over for the people of the region.
10th October 2021

A Requiem for Afghan Dreams
by
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Bombarded with multiple narratives on the ongoing tragedy of Afghanistan it's easy to see why many people might shrug and turn away leaving it as a dangerous and desperate void of suffering... 'The US have learnt nothing' writes Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, and does the world a huge service by getting to the heart of the complex Afghan matter with concision, clear-sightedness and neutrality
30th September 2021

THOMAS JOSHUA COOPER :
‘The World’s Edge …’
by Dana Macfarlane

The Scotto-American photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper is a titan in his field. Dana Macfarlane reviews his new show, ‘The World’s Edge – The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity’, at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and discusses the tensions in the work which is 'unsettling' and 'subtly uncanny'.
11th September 2021

RECOVER – SARAJEVO 25 Years On by Chris Leslie

Chris Leslie has spent 25 years documenting Sarajevo. He has followed the changes in that city through the post war period and engaged on many levels with the legacy of conflict. His latest work asks how the city stages its recovery and how we can know it as that city in recovery. What shapes our approaches to it now, and what does it tell us?
1st August 2021

RAW & GREEN? :
Barnabas Calder on Architecture and Energy
by Florian Urban

Form follows Fuel -or is it, Form follows Food? -Or both? In advance of COP26 -and our own specially timed 'Climate' issue in November, Florian Urban assesses Barnabas Calder's new book. Its exposé of Architecture - and especially the production of its materials, steel and cement - as the worst of climate-change culprits is interesting, to say the least, in the light of Calder's published panegyrics on Brutalism...
28th July 2021

A SILLY STORY
by James Mooney

No more emojis. I am never going to become one of these writers who use emojis even if I live for a billion years...
24th July 2021

METAPHORIC
by Raymond Burke

Too big to big up any further as a classroom poster or a one man stage show, Raymond Burke has finally compiled and published the book of the Metaphoric Table with The Drouth. -Can you not refuckingmember what Tmesis is? Do you go red red in the face when faced with Epizeuxis, or is it Anthimeria? -then this is the book to figure it out for you ...
17th July 2021

More than one way to wash a heart…
by Sara O’Brien

Is translation a mere figure? - A type of metaphor where new sets of words or phrases are applied to an object or an action? Is it indeed a ritualistic figure in its transporting of meaning to another shore? Sara O'Brien explores translation as the hosting of the other, and the arrival of the guest from beyond to the new shore.