The Politics of Fury
Artist Shirin Neshat returns to overtly political territory with her most radical work in decades, The Fury. Shot in Brooklyn, the film captures the rage of women under tyranny and throughout history through mesmerising multi-channel video and photographs overlaid with Farsi calligraphy. Here, Neshat discusses fear and solidarity, the power of collective action, and why she chose to make work of such urgent brutality now.
Roughing Up Perfection
Tim Marlow has spent his career animating institutions, from the Royal Academy of Arts to the Design Museum, where he's been director since 2019. In conversation, he speaks about the tension between elegance and energy, why chasing populism is dangerous, and how design offers a lens through which to examine everything from football to Amy Winehouse.
Planting Seeds
Sprouting greens reveal a fading family portrait. As the watercress grows, the image disappears. Spanish artist Almudena Romero works with living plants to create ephemeral organic photographs that question production, consumption, and ownership — art that returns to earth by design. I met with her at Paris Photo.
From Hero to Parasite
Artist Émeric Lhuisset spent seven years photographing Kurdish fighters as they transformed from battlefield heroes to European refugees. His exhibition L'autre rive, created during a BMW Residency, questions how perception shifts when someone crosses the Mediterranean. Elaborate staged photographs inspired by Franco-Prussian war paintings sit alongside simple videos of sea crossings and ephemeral cyanotype prints that fade like memory itself.
Original Sin 2.0
Chris Bangle believes design is trapped in machine age thinking, serving efficiency over humanity. Speaking at the Pratt Institute Design Symposium, the former BMW design director argues we're entering an era where our debt to the planet demands fundamental change. Design must abandon its worship of precision, speed, and machine perfection — learning instead from practices like Kintsugi that celebrate human imperfection and put people first.
A Great Missed Opportunity
The late Marcello Gandini designed the Lamborghini Miura, Countach, and Diablo — cars so radical they remain icons decades later. The legendary Italian designer never separated mechanics from style, believing the car is a complete object where architecture and appearance inform each other equally. His innovations include the scissor door and a secret 20-year research project on revolutionary construction methods.