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Benin Gets Its Art, And Its Artistic Groove, Back

Says one sculptor, the descendant of a king of Dahomey, "The artistic awakening of our population was switched off from the end of the 19th century to 2022. ... We are now waking up." - The New York Times

Artists Who Built Their Careers Around Instagram See The Platform’s Changes Yanking Away Their Audience

"'But things have changed since Instagram was in its golden years,' says who's watched her reach and engagement plummet in recent months as IG began implementing changes — new features that have ushered the biggest vibe shift in its history." - CBC

The Scientist Whose Books Are Her Secret Joy And Shame

Ali Hazelwood wrote one of last year's bestselling books, a romance called The Love Hypothesis, but the scientist author won't give away her real name. "Pen names are common in the romance genre, which has historically been stigmatized and minimized." - Washington Post

This Young Singer Says Long Covid Has Taken Away Her Voice, Job, And Passion

The 21-year-old had been performing "her whole life" until she contracted COVID-19. Now what? - BBC

The Numbers For Black Architects Are Abysmal

One solution? Expose kids to architecture and architects starting in elementary school. - Fast Company

Making Community-Engaged Art Means Taking Risks

Jana Harper: "The thing about community-engaged work is that it takes an actual community for it to work. ... I feel like I just introduced the seed, but everyone else planted, watered, and now, are hopefully sowing the results. This work now belongs to the community." - Glasstire

Live Performances Have Been Back, But The Pandemic Isn’t Over

And that means audiences have been thin on the ground. "Fewer than half as many people saw a Broadway show during the season that recently ended than did so during the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic." - The New York Times

The Ukrainian Artist Painting Military Equipment As A Symbol Of Resistance

"Varvara Logvyn might look like any other open-air artist working in Kyiv’s historic Independence Square ... except she doesn’t direct her attention to a canvas, but to a large, steel antitank obstacle known as a hedgehog." - Washington Post

The Push For A Memorial To LA’s Biggest Race Massacre

In 1871, a mob murdered 18 Chinese people and looted every Chinese building in what's now downtown LA. "A bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk outside the Chinese American Museum on Los Angeles Street stands as a rare memorial. It’s smaller than a pizza box." - Los Angeles Times

Author Karen Joy Fowler On Reading Doris Lessing

"Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow and Ken Kesey – their women were inexplicable. They were often childish, petty and shallow, yet desirable. My bewilderment just seemed to be something I had to put up with until Lessing showed me I didn’t." - The Guardian (UK)

How This Small East Coast Film Festival Became A Hot Spot For Black Hollywood

"Steadily growing in size and prestige since incubating 20 years ago in the Brooklyn apartment of co-founders Stephanie and Floyd Rance, the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival sits enviably at the confluence of Black culture, industry sea change and everyone’s dream vacation." - Washington Post

A Mystery In The Desert, Solved

Michael Heizer's megasculpture in the Nevada desert is called City and is a mile long, half a mile wide, and the artist's masterpiece. "It had become the art-world version of ancient Atlantis, a chimera. Art-world Atlantis will shortly be accepting reservations." - The New York Times

Finding A Greener Solution To The Vinyl Backlog

By replacing vinyl with a different plastic, can this Dutch company get records playing again - without all of the delays, and without as much plastic waste? - BBC

Our Digital Filing Systems Define Us

"Sorting through this morass might seem too overwhelming to even consider—unless we shift how we think about the purpose of organizing information: What if the end goal was not efficient retrieval? What if, instead, the sorting process itself was imbued with meaning?" - The Atlantic

In New York, Writers Gather To Read, And Support, Salman Rushdie

"The writers included Gay Talese, Kiran Desai, Roya Hakakian, Colum McCann, Amanda Foreman, A.M. Homes and many others; their remarks were sometimes calls to action, and sometimes highly personal." - The New York Times

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