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Fashion on The Devil’s Railroad: History, Temporality and Modernities in the Brazilian Amazon
No full textIn 1910, on the cusp of the rubber fever that gripped South America, New York photographer Dana Merrill was hired to document the transnational construction of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad, built deep in the Brazilian Amazon. His assignment was to capture the speed and progress of its concluding stages, chronicling the hasty developments that would support U.S. and British economic interests in the face of media reports detailing the monumental loss of human life that had garnered public attention. The railroad was intended to speed up the global exportation of rubber and tropical commodities from landlocked Bolivia, by providing an efficient route via Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean, to fuel U.S. markets. Of the numerous projects of extractive capitalism that materialised at the turn of the century, ‘The Devil’s Railroad’, as it became known in popular parlance, captures the imagination. By the time of its inauguration on 1 August 1912, the speculative boom for Amazonian rubber had crashed in favour of cheaper supplies from the Far East, rendering the railroad not just a late arrival, but already obsolete.
If railroad tracks, much like fashion, typically serve as a signifier of capitalist modernity – symbolizing the speed of industrial progress that propels modern time forward – then Merrill’s photographs of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad are a force of arrest. His camera acted as both an agent of modernity, and an eyewitness to its contradictions, both literal and ideological. Merrill’s gaze underlines the antagonist forces at play between the imperial and nationalistic ambitions to speed up the movement of capital that coalesced in the railroad, with the reality of going around in circles, of the various delays, interruptions and repetitions that serve as a metaphor for history’s selective memories and lacunae. His photographs overturn the cumulative march of time represented by railroad tracks, with a logic that is worthy of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982)
BASED ON AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES/METAL STENCILS
No full textShort story comprised of a juxtaposition of found text from two sources features in the Autumn Issue, 2025, of online literary journal: talking about strawberries all of the time
The Body as Code
No full textA documentary exploring Wayne McGregor’s longspanning investigation into the relationship between the body and technology. Features software tools (Choreographic Language Agent, Becoming) by Marc Downie and Nick Rothwell
When Methods Create Space in Design Education: Insights for future practice
No full textThe nature of design education is changing and must continue to change in response to increasing complexity and uncertainty. This paper presents a conversation between two UK-based design educators who explore how these contemporary societal challenges are being tackled in two interdisciplinary Masters courses aimed at relational and complexity-led approaches to design. The conversation reveals the importance for complex and collaborative practices to embrace relational, visual, reflexive and flexible modalities. This in turn highlights the need for teaching to evolve beyond fixed design processes in order to develop flexible practitioners with the critical capacities for navigating uncertain futures
Celebrity Bromance and Comradery Capital in Asia
No full textAn edited book collection where authors globally contributed. They all applied the theories from our previous book on Celebrity Bromances.
From Bollywood to K-Pop, from Crazy Rich Asians to YouTube stars and Boys’ Love media, this book brings together leading scholars to explore bromance" in celebrity culture across Asia. Celebrity Bromance and Comradery Capital in Asia demonstrates how celebrity bromances are used as global promotional tools in different national and transnational contexts, including China, Thailand, India and beyond. Across chapters written by leading international scholars, the book demonstrates how a "comradery capital" develops as Asian bromances become not just a promotional tool but commodities in their own right in contemporary celebrity culture.
Ten Texts on Painting 4: Lubaina Himid
No full textWelcome to the fourth episode of Ten Texts on Painting. This time, Matt and Andrea discuss the work of Lubaina Himid. We read a 2019 conversation between Himid and the curators of Hollybush Gardens, an essay by feminist art historian Griselda Pollock (2017), and a text by curator Zoe Whitley (2019). Together, we grapple with the complexity of Himid’s work and career, shaped by her wide-ranging interests as a painter, and by her position as a key figure in the Black British art scene of the 1980s and 90s, as curator and artist
bodied thinking, collective speaking
No full textWithin the context of a symposium on writing in an art school, this presentation elicited contributions of texts from participants and audience members (written on note cards, gathered ephemera, lines from other presentations) which were read out in no particular order, forming a temporary collective utterance
The Method
No full textPresented in Motile Attachments, a solo exhibition at Pracownia Portretu. The exhibition is organized around a wooden structure that is ten linear meters and a series of works that integrate handwoven ratchet straps to fasten, tether, hoist, or cinch together found and made objects into sculptural assemblies. The textile elements might be viewed as accessories, yet they are essential to holding the sculptures together. The exhibition addresses how textiles carry the histories of knowledge circulating through the labour and time that accumulates in and around our varied bodies, through carrier-objects, and in embodied social activities like labour, language, and movement. In what sense do such transmitted forms accessorise our bodies—and when do our bodies become accessories to processes of circulation? Motile Attachments extends new sculptural logics of gathering and moving—metaphorically, historically, and materially. Together the works propose possible approaches to the social accessory as relational form. It moves
Vernacular
No full textPresented in Motile Attachments, a solo exhibition at Pracownia Portretu. The exhibition is organized around a wooden structure that is ten linear meters and a series of works that integrate handwoven ratchet straps to fasten, tether, hoist, or cinch together found and made objects into sculptural assemblies. The textile elements might be viewed as accessories, yet they are essential to holding the sculptures together. The exhibition addresses how textiles carry the histories of knowledge circulating through the labour and time that accumulates in and around our varied bodies, through carrier-objects, and in embodied social activities like labour, language, and movement. In what sense do such transmitted forms accessorise our bodies—and when do our bodies become accessories to processes of circulation? Motile Attachments extends new sculptural logics of gathering and moving—metaphorically, historically, and materially. Together the works propose possible approaches to the social accessory as relational form. It moves
Generative AI in Documentary Photography: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges for Visual Storytelling
Get PDFGenerative AI is increasingly used to create images from text, but its role in documentary photography remains under-explored. This paper investigates how generative AI can be integrated into documentary practice while maintaining ethical standards. Through interviews with six documentary photographers, we explored their views on AI’s potential to support community-driven storytelling. While AI presents opportunities for creative expression and community involvement, concerns about trust, authenticity, and decontextualization of images persist. Photographers expressed doubts about AI’s ability to accurately representlivedexperiences,fearingitcould compromise narrative integrity. Our findings suggest that AI tools should be designed to enhance collaboration and transparency in storytelling, complementing rather than replacing traditional documentary methods. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on AI in photography, advocating for the development of tools that preserve the ethical foundations of documentary storytelling while empowering communities