Pi Magazine - Issue 733: Progress

Editors’ Foreword

This year, our own respective understandings of progress have been repeatedly challenged and reshaped. In a similar vein, progress in this magazine is wholly subjective. It exists on a global and societal level, but also as an intimate exploration of personal growth and stagnancy. Each writer in this issue has offered their own poignant definition of progress, challenging the uniformity of a shared experience in time. This magazine seeks to celebrate progress that has been made, whilst also reflecting on the present and aspirations for the future.

We hope that this issue encourages you to reflect on the progress that you see. As our writers explore this theme, a myriad of thoughts and feelings arise- regarding what has changed, what has stayed the same, and what will come next. We are immensely grateful to our team of writers, editors, and designers for producing this latest edition of Pi Magazine. Enjoy issue 733 of Pi Magazine: Progress!

Your EIC’s, Anushka and Josh

The Geometry of Progress Cecy Park..........................................................................................................4

A Letter on the Progress of LGBTQ+ Rights · Dominic Gaetani...............................................................4

Wake Up, Slow Down, Repeat · Wiktoria Gucia..........................................................................................6

War in Ukraine: Two Stories of Blue and Yellow Steps Lilly Hasselblatt.................................................8 The Duality of Progress · Meriel Wehner.....................................................................................................10

Between Starshine and Clay: In Conversation with Sarah Ladipo Manyika · Joshua Jones..................12 The Metamorphosing Indian Subcontinent Heeba Hasan......................................................................14

Growing with glass · Natalia Zernicka-Glover.............................................................................................16

To the Griffith from the Cockatrice · Hannah Mildner ............................................................................17 Ching Ming Keziah Cho............................................................................................................................18 A Rummage Through My Closet · Gabriella Alexandra Chipol...............................................................19

The Rise and Fall of Girlboss Feminism · Nell Wedgwood........................................................................20

The Fight for Women’s Rights in 2022: Reasons to Stay Hopeful Kate Peacock...................................22 Why Can’t We Have Fun Anymore? · Eliza Rose Power............................................................................24

The Devil Wears TikTok · Kate Crawley......................................................................................................26 In Defence of the Arts Coco Kemp-Welch.................................................................................................28

The Progress of Halloween · Oscar McFie Lyons........................................................................................30 Is ABBA Voyage Really the Future of Live Music? · James Clark.............................................................32 Committee.......................................................................................................................................................34

t he g e o m e t r y o f p rogress

A Letter on the Progress of LGBTQ+ Rights

We start from a single point. A single point in time and space. We take the first step; it is the motion itself that defines progress. And thus the point ceases to be a point; born is a line. A line as a trace of time and space. We hereby gather, admire the expanse of the line; how to sketch a future born of the past. And thus we are thrust to choose the direction of motion; up and down, back and forth, left and right. A progress to operate within our realm of metaphor.

Which path to take?

Written by Cecy Park

This century has seen progress in the realm of LGBTQ+ rights which a paragraph cannot explain. In the past two years alone, five countries have decriminalised homosexuality and six have granted same-sex marriage. These victories cannot overshadow the daily repression and violence our queer siblings experience of course. But we cannot be pessimistic.We have the support of governments, human rights organisations and companies among others. Each day we grow into a global movement with effective outlets for change to occur. So let us wave the rainbow flag of freedom and empower the powerless, for each step we make sends waves of progress throughout this world. Through unity and strength we stand and queer liberation will one day be a reality.

Written by Dominic Gaetani Artwork by Beca Summers

Photography by Stan Majewski

Wake Up, Slow Down, Repeat.

Written by Wiktoria Gucia · Artwork by Nell Wedgwood

I am not your usual type of ‘sleepwalker.’

In fact, my symptoms do not fit the definition of ‘sleepwalking’ in any way. Yet, somehow, when I pace the populated streets of London my instincts shut down. It’s almost as if when I step out of my snug, comfortable space (also referred to as my overpriced London flat) my body decides to restart itself. Determined to make it from point A to point B, I often walk so hurriedly that I don’t realise when I cross the street.

Recently, I took five minutes to myself to scroll through my Instagram feed and I came across a TikTok that I more than related to: a New Yorker sarcastically telling tourists to practise fast-walking before coming to the city: “set the treadmill to five miles per hour”, she jokes. Initially, I chuckled to myself at the situational irony of life in the metropolis. But my amusement was quickly dismantled when, browsing a bookshop window later that day, I noticed a dull, simple phrase written on a bright orange book.

slow down.

To my disappointment, when I finally had the chance to Google this book, it turned out to be an economic and historical analysis of our world. Honestly, I could have expected this judging by the title: Slowdown, The End of the Great Acceleration – and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy and Our Lives would unlikely be the wellbeing manifesto that I expected. But I didn’t have to read any self-care book to realise that the simple words ‘slow down’ were meant for me. So I wrote them down, in capital letters, inside my Winnie-the-Pooh notebook which I continuously use as a form of self-care with inspirational quotes and random doodles.

The next day, I was back to racing to my lectures and overtaking all the people that dared to walk slowly and appreciate the beauty of the world around them. Apparently, I didn’t listen to my midweek revelation, and even the words in my notebook didn’t help to change my ‘grind mindset.’

The answers to these questions didn’t come easily. In an era where success is defined by non-stop work and productivity above all costs, my ‘grinding’ was admired by the people around me. Waking up at 7am everyday to run a 5k, putting on fashionable clothes to head out of the house by 9am, and always being ready to tick everything off a long ‘to do’ list, often made my friends envious of my motivation. By the end of my second year at university, I had achieved everything I had aimed for, but I was exhausted. During summer, I found that I couldn’t stop and just exist. There was no me without work. I’m now aware that what I was experiencing was a simultaneous cultivation of burnout and toxic productivity.

I couldn’t escape the sleepwalker state of being and I wanted to understand why:

Why could I never take time for myself? Why did I always feel like I have done nothing? Why was I turning into a well-oiled machine rather than becoming a mature and empathetic adult?

Remember the treadmill TikTok mentioned earlier? Ironically, it was whilst running at the gym (hungover and on two hours of sleep) where I finally heard the words that I’ve been afraid to hear since my, now forgotten, ‘slow down’ moment:

These were the words of Tricia Hersey, also known as the founder of The Nap Ministry – a place that, until now, I could never see myself attending. In the podcast, Hersey details her own enlightenment in being too tired to continue working. Despite social norms pushing her to ‘power through’ her extreme fatigue, Hersey would end up falling asleep at any appropriate occasion to give her body what it eagerly wanted: rest. It seems like an unquestionable truth that taking time out for yourself is essential in advancing both mental and physical health, but doesn’t it seem strange that we are all given only two days to do this? In her book, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, Hersey addresses the different ways in which our current system has made us ignore any signs that our bodies send us, prioritising productivity and an ever-present need for success above our own desires.

Just last month, a friend of mine boasted about being offered a full-time position at a prestigious investment bank. But don’t be fooled, she didn’t take it. After spending her summer coming into the office at 9am and not being able to leave until nearly midnight (with the benefit of being offered a free Uber Eats and an Uber ride home by the bank) she realised that she disconnected with the world around her – she joined what I now like to call the ‘sleepwalking club’.

Meanwhile, I have decided that I’m no longer part of this capitalism-fuelled ‘club.’ I’ve started taking naps; I don’t run at 7am because my body hated it; I daydream about anything and everything. I managed to slow down. Admittedly, I often get anxious about doing ‘nothing’. But then I remember that the ‘nothing’ is opening up my mind to fresh ideas, making me look at people on the street with curiosity, allowing me to connect with my body. By doing this, I pride myself in knowing that no one will ever make me into a machine, and I suggest you slow down with me.

“ifyou are not resting, you will not make it. I need you to make it.”

War in Ukraine:

Two Stories of Blue and Yellow Steps

Written by Lilly Hasselblatt Artwork by Ellena Kappos

Many steps after the others, always heading in a better direction. A “movement to an improved or more developed state, or to a forward position” — this is how the Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “progress.” But for Anna and Sofiia, two UCL students, the world has stood still for almost ten months, since February 24th to be exact — the day that began with steps towards the border, the day that their country was first attacked by foreign troops and Ukraine was at war. The desire for the world to continue spinning in familiar patterns and for everything to be brought back into balance — immense. The knowledge that this would not happen overnight — present. But how many times do the moon and the sun have to rise, how many steps must be taken, so that the dreams of those in the shelters about united families do not end with their waking at dawn? Are there perhaps, even now, small rays of hope that allow a tiny glimpse of progress?

Anna remembers every moment of February 24th, when she was living in Kyiv, Ukraine. Bombings surrounded her, as well as paralysing fear. The fact that other people can just invade another country when all its citizens are peacefully asleep in their houses shocked her. After thirty minutes of panic, the 24-year-old calmed down. Over and over again, the national media had shown the plan of action for civilians in the event of an invasion, over and over again she had gone through how it would go. The backpack had been packed for a long time; now it was only a matter of letting go: “I didn’t know how I would leave the city, the infrastructure system collapsed in an hour. I was scared, frustrated, and refused to believe that it was happening to me, but at least I knew what to do. I was ready to flee.” One step after the other until she arrived in the west of Ukraine, then in Poland, then in Canada, and finally, in London.

London was where Sofiia was that Thursday, that 24th. When the 19-year-old closes her eyes she can still see the single text message she had received from her mom in Ukraine when she had woken up: “We are alive.” Immediately, she was trying to help people like Anna to manage their escape, to protest against the war, and to create a voice for refugees in the United Kingdom. At first, it was difficult for

Born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, Anna (24) lived in Kyiv for the last seven years studying and then working as a lawyer. She arrived in London in September 2022 to begin a master’s degree at UCL.

her to meet all the grieving, desperate people and to expose herself to the suffering every day. But she soon realised that only many shoulders can together carry the worst horror. And so the walk to the next demonstration became a little easier with each passing day. One step after the other.

“Everything experienced is progress”, Anna says. Not what the attacking troops are doing, but everything the Ukrainians are experiencing right now. They have all learnt how to be more resilient, how to fight back, and how to defend their values. They learnt how to be brave and strong and proved it to themselves and to the whole world: “The world didn’t give us three days, we are fighting for nine months, as a nation we are as strong as ever before.” And Anna says that she can feel progress herself and in her Ukrainian identity, and in her mind which has adapted to this nightmare. At the same time, Sofiia adds, this very nightmare also teaches one of the most important perspectives: the love and appreciation of what seems self-evident, the importance of simplicity and peace in daily life, each day anew.

Sofiia (19) was born in Kyiv and lived there until the age of 13, when she moved to the UK. She is now studying for her bachelor’s degree at UCL.

These are lessons that both would have gladly done without, and which demand a high price that cannot be paid voluntarily. Thousands of people are dying every day, thousands of people are losing their homes, their families, their light in the dark. But thousands of people are fighting for new rays of light — for other people’s chances to live. Referring to all these fights and fighters, Sofiia states: “In terms of the war, progress can be considered by the fact that the Ukrainian military has been pushing back against the invaders in the Kharkiv region and the overall glory and strength of the Ukrainian army is increasing.” One step after the other.

Only steps forward, driven by hope. This is, for now, what keeps Sofiia and her family believing and fighting — both in London and, most importantly, in Ukraine itself. But not only can they make a difference, everyone can. Anna stresses the importance of every voice, every action, and of everyone’s ability to be an agent of the Cambridge Dictionary’s “movement to an improved or more developed state, or to a forward position”. “Especially students are an engine of progress. And all revolutionary changes start with us,” she says. One step after the other, until the many dreams do not end with the first blink of an eye at sunrise. One step after the other, until there is no standstill at all. One step after the other, together.

The Duality

of Progress

Written by Meriel Wehner Artwork by Zhuoran Cai & Nell Wedgwood

‘Progress’ is tricky to define. Despite positive connotations, the word itself does not denote improvement – just change. However, the concept is a bit more complicated than a purely positive or negative shift; a dichotomy between the two is always inherent within its actualisation, pushing us to pursue the worst in response to the best, and vice versa. Growing from the same static moment, the duality of progress continuously regenerates as each side feeds off the other.

As an American, I have an extremely mixed relationship with my country. I want to be proud, but there have been unprecedented accelerations in intolerance, culminating in the now undeniable spectre of hatred dominating our sociopolitical atmosphere. America is at a crossroads and one thing is clear: if negative progress is not redirected there will be nothing left to save.

I grew up in Massachusetts, the ‘bluest’ state, but I come from an extremely conservative deep-south family. To me, America’s political divisions have always been painfully obvious, even if I didn’t comprehend the toxicity until 2016. One of my earliest memories is President

Obama’s inauguration: my mother was so excited that she decorated a cake with the American flag to celebrate. However, that wasn’t the universal reaction. I was only six, but I distinctly remember hearing my babysitter say: “I hope you’re so happy when your taxes go up.” This was not an isolated comment, and as I got older it became harder to ignore. Visiting my grandparents’ house meant seeing a framed picture of them shaking George H. W. Bush’s hand, and saying I wanted to be a political journalist meant being told: “you can’t trust CNN [Clinton News Network]”; or my personal favourite, “you’re young, you’ll be a Republican once you’ve learnt more about the world.” That isn’t to say it was one-sided. I was probably the worst agitator, and I cannot deny that my own attempts to ‘redirect’ progress were destructive.

As both a family and a country we are deeply divided by the invisible line enshrined in 1861. Widely considered America’s darkest moment, the Civil War was primarily a reaction to progress, as the reality that a slave-owning America could not call itself the ‘land of the free’ rendered change inevitable. Regrettably, this was considered decidedly ‘un-American’ by many, and counterprogress manifested as an imperative to

preserve the integrity of the Old South, as fundamentally slave-based, at all costs. Despite their loss, America’s racism problem did not die with the Confederacy; abolition sparked its own counter-progress. This is not to call my family hateful or imply in any way that they would have been anti-abolition 150 years ago: they are good people who I love deeply. Nonetheless, the facts are simple, even if the situation isn’t. The magnitude of the dichotomy irreparably splintered us, and that symbolic chasm has been maintained for generations. We have significantly evolved since 1865 but, nonetheless, the last six years have seen such shocking regression that 54% of Republicans consider another civil war ‘likely.’ Simply put – the danger is real, and I am terrified.

fit the bill. He won in 2016 by voicing sentiments that had long existed, albeit in silence, in much of the nation. There is nothing special in what followed. MAGA developed a cult of personality, brainwashing the masses to be desensitised to violence and hateful rhetoric as ‘political discourse.’

Herein lies the issue – once in action, progress is hard to stop. Charlottesville, January 6, and the ‘Big Lie’ are all stages in a larger progression: the radicalisation of the Republican Party. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t give the disgraced ex-President undue credit: the far-right as a whole is responsible for fighting social progress through ‘culture wars.’ Policies like the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill unabashedly aim to resurrect intolerance and discrimination in response to the changing social atmosphere. America’s gun problem is another clear demonstration. Republicans blame crumbling ‘family values’ – progress itself is at fault and the solution is regression. Fear of losing freedom and life as they know it manifests as they dig in their heels to protect the constitutional, God-given right of any American (even a 17-year-old sociopath) to buy an AR-15 from Walmart and open fire on a kindergarten classroom.

It might be more palatable to think that this descent into hate speech and political violence began with the disgraced ex-President but, again, progress is reactionary. Barack Obama made history but he also made a lot of people angry. The 2016 Democratic nominee – a woman – further stoked the fire. To many, it was unacceptable that positions of power no longer belonged to the white man alone. The anti-progressive movement was ready, it just needed a catalyst who could interrupt social momentum. The disgraced ex-President, whose father was arrested at a KKK rally in 1927,

It is natural to fear change but it is unacceptable to express anxieties through discrimination and violence. Instead, it must be recognised that positive progress is that which is positive for everyone. Hatred, while unforgivable, is learnt. Recognizing that kindness is the only way forward can dismantle negative progress before it does irreparable harm. We cannot prevent fear but we can overcome it.

Herein lies the issue — once in action, progress is hard to stop

As both a family and a country we are deeply divided by the invisible line

Between Starshine And Clay

InConve rsation WithSarah Ladipo Manyika

i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay

- Lucille Clifton, ‘won’t you celebrate with me’

In her latest release, Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora, Sarah Ladipo Manyika recounts her conversations with twelve truly inspiring individuals over recent years. Ranging from first lady Michelle Obama to Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, the voices in the collection offer a unique snapshot of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the African diaspora today. Inspired by Lucille Clifton’s poem ‘won’t you celebrate with me’, the collection delves into the reality of lived experience and its relation to human aspirations. I sat down with Sarah one Sunday morning to discuss her thoughts on the nature of progress.

What inspired you to write Between Starshine and Clay?

As I’ve been reflecting on the past few turbulent years, I’ve found myself thinking more than ever about the role of art, about the stories that are told and not told, the way that stories can be manipulated, about democracy and the fragility of progress.

During Covid, I started a conversation series with the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, in which I spoke to pioneers around the world. This book is a combination of some of those

Written by Joshua Jones Artwork by Daniela Gil Nieves

conversations and other essays organised into three sections: creatives, curators and what I call ‘changemakers’. It essentially highlights people, most of whom I’ve been lucky enough to get to know personally over the years, who have inspired me and whose lives and work I feel speak to many contemporary issues we are reckoning with.

You mention some areas of concern regarding society today, what are your thoughts regarding progress writ-large at this moment in time?

In an absolute sense, we can see that there has been a lot of progress in the world. But at the same time progress hasn’t moved as quickly as we might have expected, in terms of our own ‘enlightenment’ as human beings.

Just because progress has been made doesn’t ensure that progress continues or can’t be rolled back. I remember great euphoria around the election of Barack Obama, thinking that America had moved forwards at least when it came to thinking about race. But then came the backlash to having a Black President. We see similar rollbacks of what we thought was progress in history. One of the people featured in the book, Professor

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., reminds us what happened after the Emancipation Proclamation with the violent backlash to Reconstruction and the Jim Crow laws curtailing voting rights. We need to be vigilant about progress and there is always more progress to be made.

From your conversations, may I ask who stood out as particularly inspiring agents of progress?

Oh that’s such a hard question! They are all inspiring in different ways. Evan Mawarire, for example, inspires me for his courage in galvanizing a national movement for change in Zimbabwe. Margaret Busby inspires me as a visionary publisher. I’m inspired by documentarian Xoliswa Sithole with her powerful films on women’s and girls’ stories, and by Anna Deavere Smith and her extraordinary one-woman plays. Toni Morrison has inspired me for decades as a writer. Each one also reminds me that we don’t have the luxury to despair and be pessimists. Willard Harris, the remarkable 102-year-old in this book, reminds me of the bigger picture: there has been progress, so we can never throw up our hands and give up. I always remember what James Baldwin said about the need to remain committed to struggles against injustices while keeping one’s heart free from despair.

Lord Michael Hastings is one of several in the book who’ve said that their work is to plant trees under whose shade other generations can sit. It is inspiring to realise that change doesn’t always happen as quickly as we want but that it is ongoing.

The title makes me think of simultaneously celebrating progress whilst recognising that there is a long way to go. Senator Cory Booker, for example, describes his motivation as the thought of the change he can make three generations from now. What progress do you hope to achieve in three generations time?

I would like to get to a place where the emphasis is on our shared humanity. It feels like such a waste of time and energy to fight over differences that don’t need to divide us. There are so many other things that we need to be focusing on. I hope that we’ll be in a better place to tackle some of the larger existential crises right now, such as the climate crisis.

Lastly, do you have any final thoughts and advice regarding personal progress?

One of the biggest lessons that Willard Harris has taught me is to never stop learning. I try to embody that spirit more, constantly learning as a writer and as a human being.

To a younger generation, and to myself, I’d say that it’s important to listen and that it is okay to be wrong. We can’t learn without making mistakes.

The other thing I would say about progress is that it takes a while to work out what one wants to do in life. I feel that there is a lot of pressure on younger generations to work out what they want to do and ‘make it’ when young. To me, some of the most interesting and inspiring people have only found what they love to do in their middle years. As Willard Harris has told me many times: “Don’t take your pain in advance”, which I interpret as focusing on what’s in our power to do today and worrying less about the unknowns and ‘what ifs’ of the future.

The Metamorphosing Indian Subcontinent

Written by Heeba Hasan · Artwork by Sophie Hoet

‘Today’ is a liminal space, a certain dance of eternity with presence, a back and forth push of a pendulum – one moment I am in British India walking through Karachi Library or the Mohatta Palace, the next I am in Indian Britain walking along Edgware Road, hearing my friends tell me they live in a part of London only inhabited by desis. Today we stand like strangers to the present moment, seeing it as an amalgamation of multiple pasts. When we inspect it we act like foreigners looking at an item and wondering what it does, where it came from, where it plans to go: as I see the shackles of the past and notions of the future enrapturing the world, I can’t help but wonder where this transition is taking us, how the politics and balance of power will shift now, and to ponder on what Time has done to the Indian Subcontinent.

As Covid-19 established the helplessness of even the greatest powers in the face of a mere disease, and as the West and the East seem once again on the brink of war, the shuffle of cards seems inevitable – everyone senses this doomsday but there are only whispers: ‘balance of power’, ‘third world war’, ‘rising Asia’. We converse around the elephant in the room (the sheer impossibility of the world remaining as it is), give it many names

in many languages, define it in a flexible palette of shapes, sizes and colours, but nobody dares to imagine. We all know but do we feel? Can we comprehend?

Close your eyes and let me transport you back to an Indian market place in 1700. Swift and passionate Punjabi bounces off the walls in Inner Lahore, where sounds echo in large tall chambers with their carved doors and kaleidoscopic windows. In 1700 India was the richest country in the world. We would soon be captives to the anglicised accents of the West but we had once been swimming in an ocean of beautiful, breathing, growing identities creating a force of culture that was the Indian subcontinent.

My language, Urdu, was the child of Indian flexibility born of Turkish, Persian, Arabic and Hindi: an evolved form of Brijh Bhasha. It contains elements of all these worlds within it, acting in itself as a bridge – not strict and prescriptive but gentle, fathoming, pliable, and compassionate. Perhaps, back then, society was just like this.

There is a flurry of sound all around you: some singing, some chanting, some haggle, some play, some sit and breathe it in with their chai and chaat at a roadside cafe. They offer it to you and you take it in. This is pride and not shame. There is no desire to anglicise. Everyone is dressed in flowy cotton kurtas to stand under the sun, to roam the streets, and all you hear is the dark thick eastern accent. Only authenticity, richness, and pride.

But that was 1700. My mind is brought back to the present predicament. Explicitly - terrorist; implicitly - uncultured, uncivilised, uneducated, in need of Western aid and prescriptions: simply not enough. What do you hear in the streets now? Silence. Cultural scarcity in place of richness, silence in place of song, fragile conversation, inhibited play. Watered down, diffused, diluted! The markets here are afraid to embrace themselves; my people stumble on their own tongues, trying to speak correctly. There is no more of that self assured rumble in the marketplace but one is almost too afraid, too eager, to be right. This land reeks of frustration, of inert bodies brimming with repressed passions. As we are unhappy with our own selves, we constantly tussle between our truth and our aspirations; we accept how the world treats us. We label ourselves jahil - uncivilised - and we give up. We submit to the power structures, the role of the underdog, and forget our own strength. It is bred, perhaps, from

those long years bearing white bodies on our brown backs across the Indus. The current situation of globalisation seems to be bringing a shift, however, catalysed by the pandemic. It helps to uncover our divide, to show us how small the distance between the West and the East really is, and how strong the armaments of the West truly are – they are not infallible, as helpless as any in the face of adversity, as insecure and afraid of being overpowered, as human, as evil, as good- indeed, as jahil. This is a time of great questioning. Let us imagine once again.

All this day-dreaming may sound fanciful but shifts have always been dramatic in the past and change is both predictable and rapid. Not too long ago we had empires, kingdoms, ships, and letters. Wars were fought with arrows and swords. In today’s age, all we need to oppress or impress our neighbours is a strategic plan, diplomatic power, and the best technology. Every country’s battlefields, manners, situations, and understandings of each other have changed. The shared colonial ages and the two world wars have taught a lot to a wide variety of countries and have served the rest with immense power. Although the imagined future could seem strange it is not entirely foreign to us: we have seen these images before, they are still fresh in the mind’s eye and history always promises to repeat itself.

Written by Natalia Zernicka-Glover Artwork by Beca Summers

Growing with glass

A face smushed. Glued, white and pink, against a glass plane You can picture it, right?

No Alice in Wonderland nightmare is required To envision the greasy gleam of lightly sebum-coated skin up tight behind a glassy sheen

Perhaps once, as a kid, you pressed yourself against a car window, your mum’s mirror, or the cold milk bottle you brought in from the doorstep.

I certainly did, and I felt the cold-warm –Pure joy. Slightly sticky.

I saw my friend Charli last week. We sat in a pub, hands clasped around deep dark beer bottles. Luke-warm and filled with bubbles.

As we talked about the winter, I firmly pressed my fingertips into the glass. Pushing, peeling, Waiting to see if I’d grown

I was taught to smile, demure, no teeth. It showed when you didn’t let me speak. I also learned to iron young. The proof hides in my hands and tongue.

But rage concealed inside your hand Enticed my act of speaking first –Out of revenge; some sort of thirst For the blood like that of the lamb.

That thirst was gunning for a goat, Who, with one hand, reached down a throat To nurse and noose a man divine, And with the other, learned to lie.

I dressed up in black and violence, And still you didn’t come. I stripped myself of plumes and hubris; Wax melts over my sun.

You sent your final letter, Your call to the Seraphim. I heard them march downstairs, I heard their guns and wings.

Are you one, now, among them? I feel it through the page: That agony of desire And your mechanical veins.

I think back to you Or just to the milk in your eyes. I watched it flow through Like the venom in your smile.

Now I stare into the mirror. I peel, pull, and shrink in terror

As I watch the cold glaze of my gaze Turn to the one rested on your face.

This kind of love can only storm Over the fire in the womb. It works well for a little warm Lighting in the tomb.

To the Griffin from the Cockatrice

Artwork by Beca Summers

Written by Hannah Mildner

C hingMing

Look down to see street lamps, cars rushing by, dark spaces where they lived. Look up for contrails. After all this time we still watch for airplanes.

Written by Keziah

Cho

Ching Ming Festival: traditional spring holiday in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, also known as Tomb-sweeping Day

at some point in april you straighten up and make your way back to the supermarkets, the bus stop, church. they can’t tell you how glad they are to see some more colour in your face. no, really. you look great. at lunch you tuck in, steaming plates of rice with glistening slices of bird carcass, grease trickling down your chin, the news in the background. some bald man in a suit says the intercity bridge is going swimmingly. outside the streets are straight and grey as rigor mortis. when nine o’ clock comes you turn the tv on. some bald men in suits raise glasses of wine, to the future. you turn the tv off and go to bed. one day you find yourself bleary-eyed in the driver’s seat. a sparrow crashes into this fume-riddled space you call a parking lot and you think, tough luck buddy. you drive to the seaside town for coffee and buns but it’s a humid day and the air weighs as much as his mottled hand on yours (never again never never) so you drive back to the parking lot where that sparrow is still hopping around. at home you sink into the sofa with the soap opera on. stay with me, she wails, i love you, we can go back to how it was. the ending is crap. tell yourself the tragedy ends but the story doesn’t.

A

R u m m a g e

T h r o u g h M y C l o s e t.

A rummage through my closet. My fingers; scan, swipe, brush across every fibre and fabric with an intangible yearn to touch

Clothes, long forgotten, hang across my vision. Blurred, like frameless heads, whose empty eyes carry worn memories.

Bare, at the disposal of my fingertips. Each item: leather, cotton, chiffon, velvet, silk, lace together.

weaving fragments of a broken past.

Pausing, unconsciously, at the rugged fabric of that old green shirt. The tender warmth of its glimmering sequin stars –are paralyzed by a wooden noose and icy hook

Written by Gabriella Alexandra Chipol

hanging lifeless as the world shifts by. I see a faded electric emerald dream. And though I long to turn back time, to rewind, to see her once more… I watch myself from a distance.

Artwork

by Beca Summers

And there, she stands. On a monochromatic stage, she’s still glittering, in her theatre.

The Rise and Fall of Girl-Boss Feminism

Written by Nell Wedgwood · Artwork by Nell Wedgwood and Holly Solway

It is no longer controversial to call yourself a feminist, which is good. Yet the two views seen most are exclusionary and dichotomous: there’s the whitewashed, à la #GirlBoss brand, or the ‘no self-respecting woman would choose to be girly’ brand. How did we get here, and how can we move past it?

The popular discourse on feminism throughout time has held a heavily Western bias. The simplified overview of its history is often given in a description of waves, largely based within American and British politics.

Riding the Waves

The first wave was the first real feminist political movement in the Western world. It focused on the right to vote, the provision of healthcare, and access to education for white women. While large gains were undoubtedly achieved in progressing gender equality during this wave, its roots were nowhere near any kind of moral high ground. Many first-wave feminists supported eugenic programmes, and depicted women of colour and colonised women as underdeveloped and too immature for the vote – think suffragettes, a movement led by privileged, rich, white women.

Second-wave feminism dominated the 1960s and 70s, fighting the de facto patriarchal structure of society. It focused on reproductive rights, sexual liberation, domesticity and the workplace – think Gloria Steinem, and Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am Woman’.

Third-wave feminism appeared in the 1990s and naturally grew out of the civil rights advances from the second wave. It embraced diversity, fostering new feminist theories, such as intersectionality, postmodern feminism and transfeminism. It also embraced individualism and, as such, girlboss feminism was born. Girl-boss

feminism found its ground in promoting individual choice – think the Spice Girls.

In the 2010s, fourth-wave feminism emerged. It was defined by digitally driven, action-based campaigns, movements, and protests – think #MeToo and The Women’s March.

Without getting too deep into the fundamental issues of capitalism, gender roles, and most other societal ‘norms’, the world can be a very confusing place for a budding raging feminist. Growing up in a gendered society, it seems pretty much impossible to come away without at least some level of internalised misogyny. When I was younger, I didn’t want to like pink. Don’t worry, I watched Legally Blonde and was reassured that strong, independent girls can tear down the patriarchy in any colour. Even so, there’s currently a fine line to tread to make your feminism actually inclusive, and by extension, actually feminist. Going from an ‘I’m a feminist because I choose not to be girly’ mindset, to an ‘I choose to be girly, and utilising that choice is a feminist action’ one isn’t really solving anything.

I have been known to be partial to a pink and sparkly girl-power-esque meme to share on my Instagram story, but there is a danger of allowing an essential movement to be reduced to cutesy, whitewashed social media posts. Of course, it is amazing for people to use their platforms to support and uplift women. Woo, yes, empowered women empower women and all that jazz. But the grey area comes in the form of all the overlooked women that a simple #GirlBoss isn’t empowering.

If it’s not intersectional, it’s not feminism.

It’s natural that issues that affect you directly are going to be the ones that initially seem the most pressing and are at the forefront of your awareness. However, recognising that, it becomes a responsibility to educate yourself about

How did feminism lose its meaning, and how can we get it back?

what’s affecting everyone else. If our feminism isn’t prochoice, body neutral, anti-racist, trans-inclusive, and challenging ableism, ageism, and classism, then we need to ask ourselves, who is it really for? It’s perfectly valid to want certain things for yourself, but asking myself this question allowed me to re-evaluate how I apply the label of feminism to my beliefs, words, and actions.

The digital nature of fourth-wave feminism makes it more accessible and easier to propagate than ever before. It also runs the danger of reducing the cause to stories, likes, and shares, rather than real action. Girl-bossing has helped empower many women in the Western world to have more confidence in themselves, their abilities, and their personal lifestyle choices. But it does less for women living in the rest of the world, or for women within the Western world who are part of other marginalised groups: women who don’t

have the privilege to make girl-boss lifestyle choices, and are stuck fulfilling the roles assigned to them out of necessity to ensure their personal safety and financial stability.

Embracing your inner girl-boss might help you work on yourself and foster self-confidence, but it does nothing to advance gender equality, or change societal and institutionalised sexist norms and policies. The nature of the girl-boss movement inherently centres the individual. Feminism as a movement, on the other hand, is about the mutual gains and steps towards the equality of a group of people as a whole. If you want to work on yourself, do what works for you, but ask yourself who it’s really for and who it really helps before you label your girl-bossing a feminist action.

The Fight for Women’s Rights: Reasons to Stay Hopeful

Written by Kate Peacock · Artwork by Ellena Kappos

In what initially appeared as a harmless, innocent year ahead, 2022 has turned out to be a minefield. We collectively entered January with a sense of naivety; that all would be well again after an eternity of Covid regulations and restrictions. Yet by February, war was afoot on Europe’s doorstep, outlooks for winter were bleak, and the bubbling hate and loathing emulating from the far-right seemed to be boiling over the edge. A sense of anxiety and trepidation began fluttering into our lives.

For women across the globe, the epitome of this fear has come from the United States. Abortion has been a contentious topic for as long as it has existed, however, many developed nations began legalising it in the 1970s as a response to the wider social movement of the sexual revolution. In the US, the legalisation process went through the judicial system and was taken to the Supreme Court, where it was eventually approved in the landmark Roe v. Wade case of 1973. Protests surrounding the Roe v. Wade verdict began as soon as the decision was made, with pro-life advocates storming the streets in the 1970s. Yet, for five decades, the pro-life movement was limited to picket lines outside abortion clinics and empty promises of reversing the decision. That was until 2016.

The Trump era brought the anti-abortion movement onto a much bigger stage and, with the appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices, made the reversal of the 1973 decision appear feasible for the first time. As a result, the most recent challenge to Roe v. Wade, and thus abortion rights on a national scale, was successful. On 24th June 2022, the constitutional right to abortion in the US was overturned, allowing states to criminalise the practice. The chaos that ensued was frightening, with women across the US having to cross state lines, reports of doctors and even taxi drivers being arrested, and in some cases incidents of rape victims being refused abortions.

Elsewhere in the world, things continued to look bleak for women’s rights. Andrew Tate – a hypermasculine, misogynistic social media influencer –had grown in popularity, particularly amongst young boys. Meanwhile, in Iran, a 22-year-old student was beaten to death by the police for showing strands of hair from under her hijab, sparking mass protests and further police brutality. Reports of rape and sexual abuse have been frequent. Emerging beneath the surface has been a dark and twisted reality:

The world hates women.

At least, that’s how it feels. This year we have been hit with story after story about sexism, sexual assault and general misogyny that has left most women dreading what the future brings.

Yet, upon digging deeper, there are reasons not to give up yet. Just this August, Spain approved its affirmative consent bill, prompted by the powerful “solo sí es sí” or “only yes is yes” movement. Affirmative consent defines rape as when a woman cannot or does not consent, as opposed to when they explicitly say “no”, or when physical force is involved. Many other European countries have similar laws, which shows evidence of increasing rape convictions and the likelihood of victims coming forward. Spain’s law, however, goes further, criminalising street harassment and the sharing of someone’s sexual pictures without consent. Of course, this legislation has been met with backlash, but it nevertheless represents a huge step forward and encourages other nations to follow suit.

The turn to the consent-based (rather than coercion-based) legal framework of sexual consent is a contemporary movement. Countries considered incredibly liberal, such as Sweden and Denmark, only brought in these laws in 2018 and 2021, respectively. Whilst it might seem like the women’s rights movement is at a standstill, hard work is still being done behind the scenes.

What’s more, the recent protests in Iran have sent shockwaves throughout the world, not only due to the barbaric nature of the ‘morality police’, but also as a result of the staggering courage Iranian women are demonstrating. The hardships women of colour face are often ignored by the Western paradigm of feminism, yet now tragedy has thrust them upon the world. The enduring protests and vigour of Iranian women have united women across the world to support a common cause - one saturated with sympathy and heartbreak, but ever more determined and enraged. A cross-cultural phenomenon is revealing itself, where unity and anguish are fuelling both women and men to defend Iranian women and women’s rights as a whole.

There is certainly something ominous in the air this year, but counteraction is prevalent too. Although often hard to see, when you look, you will find progress. Women’s rights have undeniably faced setbacks this year. Yet the drive for change, equality, and respect will not end. Our job now is to simply keep hopes alive in the face of adversity.

WHY Can’t We Have FUN Anymore?

Written by Eliza Rose Power · Artwork by Beca Summers

My generation are having less sex, drinking less alcohol, and having less fun than every generation before us - and we’re not actually very happy about it.

I know what you’re thinking, drinking less and fewer lifetime cases of chlamydia is hardly a bad thing. And I’m not trying to say it is. What I’m worried about is that our increasing propensity for mental and physical ‘wellness’ seems to be coinciding with a very real crisis in pleasure. In trying to make ourselves feel better, from the inside out as it were, we’re holding ourselves to standards of behaviour that are, quite frankly, ruining our fun. Rather than for the sake of hangoverfree Sundays and early morning gym sessions, it seems we’re choosing sensibleness over hedonism because we’re deathly afraid of what other people are going to think of us if we act outside of these standards.

It’s not surprising that the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic has taken off in this day and age. The clean girl doesn’t get messy drunk, fall down stairs, or apologetically throw up in Ubers. She rarely drinks, has porcelain skin and a capsule wardrobe, and critically, doesn’t

ever upset her friends or family. Now, we could argue it’s about the aesthetic alone — claw clips and gold hoops over minimalist matching activewear — but I think it’s the personality that people are really desperate to emulate. Prudent, disciplined, and effortlessly flawless in every aspect of their lives. It’s also not surprising, then, that this character rarely exists in real life. Humans are complex and flawed, arguably more so than ever in our late teens and early twenties, and we’re not meant to be getting everything right like it can appear some people are on social media.

In the advent of constant social media policing, then, I fear our reluctance to go out and have fun is a product of worrying what we’re going to appear like to others. We’ve all heard some variation of ‘your twenties are there to make mistakes’, but do any of us nowadays actually afford ourselves the space to do so — without being so critical of ourselves that we’re left with debilitating anxiety, or indeed hangxiety, the following day?

Built over years of tearful phone calls detailing what I’d done the night before and sharing the very strong conviction that absolutely no one would ever love me again, my older sister — a millennial — thinks these thoughts are just a product of my own insecurities. That I am so uniquely critical of myself that it’s just me that can’t go out and enjoy myself. But I can’t help but notice this unease around letting loose is expanding far wider than those of us with fragile mental states and especially crippling cases of ‘what will everyone think-itis.’ What to her would have been routine behaviour for a normal, albeit slightly chaotic, night out in the early 2010s, for many of us, it would seem, is an example of our unparalleled moral failing.

It’s not that I want us to keep doing more ‘reckless’ things if they make us feel bad. But can we call this progression towards wellness ‘progress’ if our avoidance of going out or having uninhibited fun comes not from a place of self-love, but from a fear of ruining our perfectly curated public image?

It seems the performativity once reserved just for Instagram has seeped into reality, creating a pressure to appear like the perfect student, friend, and partner on and off the screen.

In a culture characterised by oversharing (you need only to momentarily flick through TikTok to work this out), we’re exposing ourselves to the opinions of others and priming ourselves to be influenced by such, more so now than ever. Not only through the responses to our own content, but by absorbing the scrutiny faced by influencers, content creators and other individuals in the public eye. Research has found that this constant social media policing has had more of an effect on our own self-worth and selfesteem than ever before. Whilst not the fault of the individual, our increasingly puritanical virtual culture seems to be hurting us in our actual, real-life, culture.

Like most things in life, the answer to this dilemma appears to be the notoriously elusive concept of ‘balance’. More so than ever, it’s important to achieve a balance between those selfcare Sundays and fun nights out — selfgrowth and self-compassion. This starts with being kinder to ourselves when our behaviour doesn’t perfectly match up to the expectations set by the infamous, if not entirely unrealistic, ‘clean girl’.

The Devil Wears TikTok:

Are we cancelling couture?

Written by Kate Crawley · Artwork by Sophie Hoet

At the turn of the twentieth century, trending fashion was a novelty for the elite: however, this was about to change when, in 1943, the first ever New York Fashion Week was held. Although initially an event for the wealthy to buy the latest Parisian styles during the Second World War, Fashion Week prevailed, earning prestige as the centre of the fashion world. Today, Fashion Week is a bi-annual event in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, unveiling designers’ latest collections on the runway. On the catwalk we see, or rather the media informs us of, the groundbreaking capabilities of clothing; even those who would consider themselves disconnected from this world of couture might have seen Coperni’s spray-on dress on Bella Hadid in Paris this year.

Those who are very much immersed in these runways are high street fashion retailers. They watch, hawklike, ready to implement the latest trends in their coming lines. With the arrival of fashion week, emerging trends became accessible to the average consumer. The industry is inherently hierarchical as couture sets trends to trickle down the ranks, eventually reaching the everyday consumer. As Meryl Streep tells an oblivious Anne Hathaway in the 2006 blockbuster The Devil Wears Prada: “It’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, it was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of ‘stuff’.” As trends fall into the hands of the masses, the runway promptly remodels itself.

In 2005, Topshop disrupted this hierarchy. Staging a show at London Fashion Week, the high street retailer infiltrated the world of high fashion, elbowing their way into that room. The exclusivity of the couture runway was shaken. However, whilst demonstrating the industry to be penetrable, Topshop’s catwalk reinforced Fashion Week as the pinnacle of the industry; ‘real fashion’ remained on the runway.

It is no secret that since the nineties consumerism ballooned. We wanted faster fashion. The bi-seasonal

year, divided into spring/summer and autumn/ winter, no longer cut it, as high street retailers produced more and more sub-seasonal lines; with the more lines they dropped, the quicker clothing became dated. The prolific rise of TikTok has exacerbated this trend beyond belief. As the most downloaded app of all time, it is difficult to underestimate the impact of the social media platform. TikTok has revolutionised social media through its revolutionary algorithm and advanced app design, forcing its user to engage with every single post. TikToks weasel their way onto other major platforms in an unreciprocated manner; you rarely see tweets on TikTok for instance. Whilst we roll our eyes at Instagram reels or YouTube shorts, it is impossible to miss how great a threat TikTok poses to these pre-established giants.

The app is so addictive in its ability to continually offer new content to the user, or at least content that feels new. Trends typically cycle through the app in a matter of days. Whilst on the runway styles are set years in advance, fashion appears and is forgotten within a week on TikTok. Hence, high street retailers find themselves at a crossroads: to watch the runways or to frantically follow what’s trending online.

Retailer Zara has made their bed. With the process from the design stage to the shop floor taking ten to fifteen days, the company has broken from the world of high fashion to keep up instead with the relentless pace of the internet.The impacts, particularly in places where these garments are produced in dire working conditions and later received as landfill, are environmentally and socially catastrophic. How, however, does this shift in the structure of the trend cycle alter who is setting those trends?

TikTok is free to any user with a smartphone. Whilst not suggesting that TikTok trends have the same artistic ingenuity of the runway, the app demonstrates another form of creativity. Most content on its platform is created for free for an anonymous audience. With an algorithm that

enables anyone to go viral, anyone can start a trend.

If TikTok is controlling high street retailers, the voice of the consumer, or the TikTok user perhaps, suddenly becomes instrumental in the formation of trends. No longer does fashion emerge solely on the runway.

The rise and prevailing popularity of the mullet, for instance, could demonstrate the consumer’s increasing rebellion against ‘what’s in Vogue.’ Similarly, the popularity of second-hand shopping on the app instigates a new form of consumerism; the desire for non-replicable clothing, the desire to be different through a recognised and ‘trendy’ medium, breaks away from the authoritative voices of high fashion. The consumer still wants ‘on-trend’ clothing, however, the influence of TikTok in setting those trends disrupts the traditional authority of the high fashion industry.

As an app, TikTok promotes both the fastest fast fashion ever seen and sustainable consumerism. It is revolutionary in the potential it offers anyone to start a trend. Where Topshop pushed their way into ‘the room,’ TikTok negates the need for that room altogether.

Is the education system falling out of love with the arts? As the popularity and availability of arts and humanities courses such as English Literature have diminished, and with the UK government releasing an article pushing artists towards ‘real’ jobs in cyber, it would appear so. However, while such examples are symptomatic of our educational system’s disillusionment with the arts, I aim to prove that they are just as integral to our society as science.

Having taken arts subjects at A-Level and as a current student of Spanish and Latin, I have spent a great deal of my time justifying my educational choices. The arts encourage self-reflection and aid lateral thinking, but their most important attribute is the ability to debate and come to a civil disagreement rather than a resolution. Prospective lawyers are often encouraged to study History to develop their ability to debate, understand different perspectives, and find support for tenuous arguments. While there is rarely one obvious way to answer an essay, scientific education follows a more direct approach in solving predominantly clear-cut solutions. Although this is not the case for all scientific subjects, there is nonetheless a fundamental distinction in the methods of teaching arts and sciences that is rooted in the substance they are trying to teach. The acknowledgement that we are not omniscient, that what we most strongly believe might not actually be true, and yet we can still live in harmony with those with whom we disagree: these are the intangible qualities that the arts and humanities teach us.

Is the edu c a t i o n s y s t em falling out o f l o v e w i t h the arts?

Even more abstract in the study of these subjects is how they link to progress. ‘Progress’ is defined as the move towards an ultimate destination, and as a concept is arguably meaningless unless the final destination is different to the starting point. I would argue that the main aim of science is to develop the world through discovery and improvement, hence the link to progress: however, progress cannot be the sole aim of the arts or their very essence would be corrupted. The beauty in studying the arts is not the ultimate goal you reach but rather the discovery that you must go through, which often entails a deeper understanding of yourself, society, and humanity as a whole. Ironically, art doesn’t really have an end point: it is arguably impossible to ‘analyse The Wasteland to completion’ because it is a subjective piece of work.

The basis of the products of science is their use. But if the nucleus of science is utility, the anchor of art is emotion, and I can only experience the depth of the desperation, futility, and sorrow felt by soldiers in the First World War from reading Dulce et Decorum Est for example. Indeed, not only can I tap into the emotions that Wilfred Owen must have felt as a soldier, witnessing the grim reality of warfare, but I can also align and link our highly distinct realities. Art and the arts capture the incredible constant in humanity: emotion. There is a connection that we find in the arts that crosses over boundaries of culture, geography, and time. Why is Shakespeare still so coveted? He lived five hundred years ago and yet he speaks of concepts and social situations that still happen today.

Of course, any argument I make would be severely lacking if I did not recognise the necessity of science in our world. We would not have the efficient, comfortable life we have today without it. Yet, simultaneously, what would a life without the arts be like? Would we lack emotional intelligence, or entertainment (a capitalist heaven, perhaps, where there was nothing to do except work), or joy? Art connects us to each other, to the world, and to ourselves.

Sheffield Hallam University stopped offering English Literature courses because graduates “struggle[d] to get highly paid jobs” and it is sadly true that throughout history some of the greatest writers, artists, and dramatists have been born wildly wealthy and not needed to worry about financing their pursuits. I cannot claim to have come up with a solution to financially support the arts, but I hope I have justified their existence and their necessity to our society. For a strong society to function and flourish as healthily as possible it needs an interdisciplinary mix of arts and sciences without one being overshadowed by the other. As Keating said in Dead Poet’s Society, “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Written by Coco Kemp-Welch Artwork by Ellena Kappos

PROGRESS OF HALLOWEEN

Written by Oscar McFie Lyons Artwork by Manca Rakun

Halloween, our giddily celebrated annual holiday which combines childhood fears with the universal yearning for escapism, also happens to be the title of a 1978 movie turned series. A towering figure within the horror genre, John Carpenter’s classic is deserving of its grandiose yet endearingly knowing name. The recent arrival of Halloween Ends as the totemic final nail in the franchise’s coffin, a gloriously reverent albeit largely irrelevant closing piece in Generation Z’s deserving trilogy, provides glorious grounds for assessing the evolution of the horror genre more broadly.

Halloween stands for ‘something’. Admittedly, I don’t quite know what that ‘something’ is. It could be to do with the simplicity of the title itself. Or perhaps Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, a true heroine who has achieved, alongside Riplie and Connors, huge and enduring cultural status. Arguably this ‘something’ is Carpenter’s ability to craft a horror movie so delightfully eerie that the audience can overlook the absence of genuine drama throughout the film’s opening hour. Carpenter demonstrates such supreme faith in the unsettling that he appears almost unconcerned with the lack of motives that have become central to contemporary horror storytelling. This is no oversight. Laurie’s haunting vision of the Boogeyman during class arises from absent minded window gazing. But the truly interesting thing about all of this, or so I propose, is that this mundanity left cinemagoers satisfied, even thrilled. Consider the rage of Halloween at the time, the squeals of horror that reverberate down to us from our parents’ generation. Not to mention the movie’s sizable profit, too. And now, in 2022, we have the thirteenth instalment of the

Halloween franchise, Halloween Ends.

Despite the sheer joy Halloween Ends brought me in a near-empty picture house on Halloween night itself, I never managed to free my mind from the spectre of the original. It is telling that Halloween Ends shifts the enduring tension between Laurie and Michael Myers towards the former’s granddaughter Allyson and newcomer Corey Cunningham, both of whom feel ostracised by the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The score of Halloween Ends, a genuine window into the soul of the movie, acts more as a parallel to Stranger Things’ synth jukebox than the haunting voyeurism exposited in the original. The climax to the movie underlines the fact that, in attempting to move past that legacy, Halloween Ends finds itself uncomfortably bound by the audience’s genuine affection for the two mainstays of the franchise. Where Halloween is a study in control and the eeriness it can generate, Halloween Ends so desperately attempts to fill its at times baggy 111-minute running time with narrative that the result is more fishing net than conventional franchise hit.

The lacklustre nature of the latest Halloween instalment hints at something larger at work in the horror genre. Situated alongside an era of horror movies that encompasses the Insidious franchise and The Conjuring universe, and upcoming trilogies of The Strangers and The Exorcist, Halloween Ends points to the impressive juggling act necessary within the genre today. Halloween Ends strives to integrate a multi-layered narrative that goes beyond the traditional tropes of classic horror, featuring themes of PTSD, communal breakdown and even suicide, to situate itself firmly within a post-MCU cinematic universe landscape, all whilst being burdened by the need for stewardship of Halloween.

ABBA

Is Voyage

Written by James Clark Artwork by Nell Wedgwood

Having been an avid concert-goer for six years, and an ABBA fan for twice that, the news of ABBA Voyage, the virtual concert residency of the greatest pop band of alltime, was like a dream come true. For years I’ve pored over every single bit of ABBA concert footage available, played the live albums, and listened to every bootleg to boot. But now, finally, it was my chance to get as close as possible to a band that shaped not only my childhood but the lives of millions of people around the globe; who would doubtless be heading straight for London to do the same.

The initial reviews were staggering: an immersive 3D experience with technology that has to be seen to be believed, and more hits than you can shake a stick at. ABBA were once again heralded as pioneers – this time of a new concert epoch, combining the corporeal with the virtual and moving beyond humanity’s limits. Of course, this is fine in theory, but how illusionary and boundary-breaking could the concert really be?

In early August, after months of waiting, it was my turn to experience what was being heralded as a mind-bending, reality-defying night of live entertainment. I took my space near the front of the stage, eager to get as close as possible to the fab four’s virtual appearance. Then, suddenly, with a flash of light and a puff of smoke - there they were. Or rather there they weren’t. The illusion of a material ABBA standing directly before me was so carefully crafted, utilising arenaspanning lighting effects and a precise angling of the stage, that it became easy to forget the barrage of hits being thrown at you. These 3D models didn’t just look like ABBA, they were ABBA: from the stray hairs to the individual physical habits, the realism is undeniable, and I had to keep reminding myself the band wasn’t actually in the room with me.

And yet – for all the visual magic, the unparalleled setlist, and the tangible sense of joy amongst the crowd - something felt off. I’m not sure if it was the use of ABBA’s studio vocals or the gap between the projection of the ‘ABBA-tars’ and the front of the stage, but at times it seemed to me like a

Really The Future Of Live Music?

glorified club night. Naturally, I still had an incredible time, and judging by the comments of others who’ve seen the show I’m in the minority with my reservations. But I can’t shake the feeling it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

ABBA Voyage was one of the first concerts I’d been to after a two-year global pandemic-enforced break, and all the rest I’ve been to since have been some of the best nights I’ve ever had. The jubilation felt in those venues served as a reminder of how joyful and freeing it can be to celebrate the same thing as thousands of other fans. After two years of staring at a screen, now music fans have the chance to interact and engage with their favourite artists in the flesh, who seemed more grateful and attentive than ever to the fans who’d seen them through an incredibly turbulent time for the arts. Perhaps this was the reason why ABBA Voyage fell slightly flat for me. Although there was a brilliant live band playing alongside the ‘ABBA-tars’, there was something distant and aloof about the whole exercise that made me think I might have had a better evening putting on the 1977 classic, ABBA: The Movie.

With concerts like ABBA Voyage being dubbed the ‘future of live music’, I wonder how I’d feel if these predictions were to materialise in the coming years. As climate change threatens to restrict the length and frequency of artists’ travels, and fans pining for a way to see their favourite musicians in their prime, I wouldn’t be surprised if virtual live music becomes a staple of the arts scene in decades to come.

But as successful as ABBA Voyage proved these ventures can be, I wouldn’t consider virtual concerts a replacement, or even a rival, to the real thing. The hologram future that ABBA Voyage offers may be the ticket to a whole new realm of musical endeavours but, for the rest of us mere mortals, I think its course will forever run parallel to whatever new and exciting live talent is due to come our way in the future. If the pandemic taught us anything it’s that we want to see and be seen; ABBA Voyage, for all its vision and verisimilitude, can’t offer us that quite yet.

Lily Wielar, Beca Summers, Cecy Park, Vanessa Tsao Contents & Committee Artwork Nell Wedgwood

Section Editors

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