Seeing what the naked eye can’t − 4 essential reads on how scientists bring the microscopic world into plain sight
The microscope is an iconic symbol of the life sciences – and for good reason. From the discovery of the existence of cells to the structure of DNA, microscopy has been a quintessential tool of the field, unlocking new dimensions…
Enthralling, dystopian, sublime: NGV Triennial has a huge ‘wow’ factor
If the National Gallery of Victoria’s 2017 Triennial broke attendance records with more than 1.2 million visitors, it is nothing short of a miracle the 2020 Triennial is taking place at all. To bring together more than 100 artists, designers…
The boab trees of the remote Tanami desert are carved with centuries of Indigenous history – and they’re under threat
Australia’s Tanami desert is one of the most isolated and arid places on Earth. It’s a hard place to access and an even harder place to survive. But sprinkled across this vast expanse of desert, sweeping for thousands of kilometres…
The folly of making art with text-to-image generative AI
Making art using artificial intelligence isn’t new. It’s as old as AI itself. What’s new is that a wave of tools now let most people generate images by entering a text prompt. All you need to do is write “a…
In a Roman villa at the center of a nasty inheritance dispute, a Caravaggio masterpiece is hidden from the public
I teach Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, so when I was visiting Rome in January 2023, how could I not try to see a notorious villa that was up for sale and involved in a nasty inheritance dispute? The Villa…
How whiteness was invented and fashioned in Britain’s colonial age of expansion
Fashion is political — today as in the past. As Britain’s Empire dramatically expanded, people of all ranks lived with clothing and everyday objects in startlingly different ways than generations before. The years between 1660 and 1820 saw the expansion…
What is Afrofuturism? An English professor explains
What is Afrofuturism? An English professor explains
Before the Ouija board: William Rossetti’s diary gives an insight into Victorian séances
Death and disease are no strangers to the streets of Britain. By the late 19th century, tens of thousands of people had contracted fatal infections, such as cholera, smallpox and scarlatina, beginning with the first cholera epidemic of 1832, when…
Anxiety can often be a drag on creativity, upending the trope of the tortured artist
In the U.S., anxiety disorders affect about one-third of the population. So it’s no surprise that a good number of artists and writers also suffer from anxiety and depression. But whereas some critics see Vincent Van Gogh’s striking paintings and…
Nel Law stowed away on her husband’s ship to Antarctica. She was the first Australian woman to see its ‘crystalline strangeness’
I know many people born in 1961 – they are my contemporaries and friends. It doesn’t seem so long ago. Their lives and experiences seem modern to me. They don’t seem old: certainly, none of them have problems working their…
