behind glass

is about breaking, growing, healing and becoming.

us that love can go to great lengths, and that falling in love with life, or someone,

There was more to Van Gogh’s legacy than his paintings. It was his faith, his -un filtered soul, and the unwavering passion to pursue his dreams. Vincent showed ed to listen to his stories, and eventually found comfort in his honest words.

The appreciation he deserved only came long after his death, when people -start and societal pressure, Vincent Van Gogh took his own life at the young age of

The pain, the sorrow and the burden Van Gogh bore went unknown to many.

37, as his career was barely starting.

Yet, loneliness was a feeling he could not overcome. Overwhelmed by sadness in the choice of luminous and golden colours in his paintings. the bright side of life, even when he was at his most vulnerable. This can be seen misunderstanding. Nonetheless, he stayed true to his values and deeply cared for others. He found comfort in teaching a little boy how to hold the -paint brush, and even companionship when crows picked up his bread crumbs. Art was a means to express how life was for him, full of madness, greed, sorrow, hope and beauty; it consoled him. Nonetheless, he always managed to look on

Throughout his life, Vincent Van Gogh put up with loneliness, isolation, and

Over the Rhone can inspire various interpretations in the viewers: a calm, peaceful night along the river, or a contemplation of Vincent’s -depres sion. The painting - like - is melancholic and the vagueness of it could represent Van Gogh drowning in the darkness of his mind.

Starry Night

Starry night over the Rhone was painted in 1888, showing a lovely couple -stroll ing down the bank of the Rhone river under a peaceful starry night. When looking at the picture, one notices how Vincent made a vague distinction -be tween water and sky. He added heavy layers of visible brush strokes using his usual intense blue palette. They are thick, dark and short and look as if he made them in a hurry. All the boats seem to have emerged into the sad night sky.

Growing up, Vincent found no home in the places he had lived, the jobs he had worked, or the people he had met. He was wounded with unsaid love, broken promises and unpleasant truths that all individuals with tender hearts are -frag ile to. Constantly battling depression and being confined by religion growing up, Vincent was unable to express his raw feelings, and no one seemed to open up to him either. His only salvation was art.

Van Gogh’s father described him as a redheaded boy who always looked glum and shunned away from people. Being distant from a young age, it seemed that all that mattered to Vincent Van Gogh was nature. The hours spent wandering in the woods and seeing everything throbbing with life became the boy’s -ear liest moments of happiness and laid the foundation for his creativity. Nature was his muse, and during his darkest time, it was flowers and the sunshine that kept him going.

This lyric, written by Don McLean in Vincent, has been echoing in my head since the first time that I heard the song. Even before I understood the -sto ry of the unfortunate, incredibly talented artist, I was still deeply touched by its meaning. Vincent Van Gogh was an extraordinary and gifted being- but a troubled soul. He had done so much, had gone so far in life, yet he was unable to witness the impact and the inspiration he left behind for future generations.

“This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

by EMMA DO

constantly affirmed of their existence in order to dispel the insecurity that surrounds them; and to affirm their existence, they need to be -acknowl edged, so that they can be remembered and never truly disappear.

ture humans or non-humans. I don’t even know if books are inhabited by souls or not, but by contemplating this idea, I think I have opened the books on my shelves more often. For perhaps, like all souls in the world, they need to be

I read somewhere that today’s technological advances will make books last much, much longer than a human’s lifespan, so that the books on our shelves today will exist in silence long after we are gone. I don’t know how they will speak to other souls in the future. I don’t know if the traces of me reading them will become parts of their soul, something to be discovered by -fu ment I open the books. Whenever I buy a book from a bookshop, I always find something between its pages.This makes me wonder if the bookshop owner slipped it in there on purpose. -Moreo ver, when I open books that I haven’t read in a long time on my own shelves, I always find something in them as well. For example, during the pandemic when I started rereading many of my books I found a postcard from my major crush in secondary school, a list of books that I had made for myself for no reason, and tons of notes I passed in class. I’m not sure whether the soul of the book inhabits whatever is sandwiched between its pages, but these objects do have this secret ability to suggest what made me (or the former owner of the book) happy or sad when we read it. Their cues are so pertinent and so subtle that they transcend time and space, connecting many parallel universes in this single moment when we open the book. Each reading is so different, but there is always some emotion that connects them, an emotion that is ineffable, embodied by what is in between the pages and stirred by the little piece of soul caught in the book.

I don’t mean to turn this into a delusional piece of crappy science fiction, the more realistic dimension of this idea lies in the -mo

The monks chant sutras to express their gratitude to these old, dusty, and -for gotten books that are relics of the past, and respectfully tell them that they may soon have new owners. The books become both the subject and the object of the ritual, their souls are consoled while their physical presence is offered up. The idea that everything has a spirit is ingrained in Japanese culture. The -as sumption that books are inhabited by souls in need of consolation has stayed with me for a long time. At first, I couldn’t help but imagine that, like in Toy Story, the books on my bookshelf might talk to each other at night. Maybe Leviathan would complain that I am a pseudo-intellectual and that I have never read more than ten pages. Maybe Neruda’s poem collection would lament about how I lost his cover. Maybe the books read each other, and talk to each other about literature, philosophy and history and go to gatherings together, like a literal ‘book club’.

As a book lover, I couldn’t wait to go to the Old Book Festival once I moved to Kyoto. Unlike modern book fairs, the old book festival in Kyoto is held in the open space of a temple. Often in autumn, on the first morning of the book fair before all the bookselling begins, the temple holds a ceremony for old books.

I’m not trying to start a religious discussion or invent an Aladdin-esque myth, it’s just that this question has gradually entered my mind in recent years and made me wonder about what it really means to own a book.

Have you ever wondered whether there might be a soul living inside a book?

by SALLY ZHANG & illustrated by XI CHEN

Hi

EDITED BY ANOUK PARDON

Put yourself out there, step out of your comfort zone, and give it a go.

as you are trying them out with people who also have little to no experience in the activity.

to try sports that you have never tried before but come with no added pressure

My advice for anyone in the first few weeks of the year would be to attend as many GIAGs as you can. My first weeks were filled with them, I probably spent more time playing sports than I did in seminars. These events do not only allow you skills without it feeling like I was being seen as an inconvenience. performing well. I was introduced to the sports and taught some of the basic on social media, but ones I thought I would be out of my depth in. So, I decided that the GIAGs would be my chance to try them out without any pressure of

Squash and lacrosse are both sports that I’ve seen played, normally in highlights and research had I wanted to do it in my own free time. an experience it was, thrilling and exhilarating. Without the GIAG I wouldn’t have been able to try out this sport which would have required lots of planning the opportunity to give it a go appeared I took it without a second thought. What

Wakeboarding has been on my bucket list for a long time. So when

So why are the GIAGs so successful in getting people to join? First, it gives the students a chance to experience a sport that would have been previously inaccessible to them. Either because they simply didn’t know the sport existed, or because of the fear of embarrassing themselves in front of fellow students who have been playing since before they could walk.

GIAGs are one-off sessions where anybody can come and attempt a sport (or any society). They require no previous experience in the activity and are a place where you can meet other people who are interested in trying out the sport.

This is where the Give It A Go (GIAG) comes in.

Wakeboarding, lacrosse, squash. When attending the sports fair, I saw so many sports that I was intrigued by but didn’t see myself signed up for a whole year of.

& illustrated by CHARLIE

by is unprecedented however is the amount of support that the 23-man squad received from the English public.

Changing the view on women’s football has allowed careless comments like that of Graeme Souness to be phased out of the language used around the game.

Icons of the Lionesses win. These players will join the likes of Alex Scott and Fara Williams as role models for little girls and pillars of the game. The increased visibility of these women will hopefully promote the women’s game and show the younger generation that no matter who you are, the pinnacle of sports is achievable. Seeing these women on television and in the newspaper should show the next generation of girls that football is a sport for all, not just their brothers. The Lionesses captured the attention of a country for one month, but the changes that they have brought will last a lot longer.

Beth Mead, Lucy Bronze, Ellen White. Names now known by most of the nation.

One of the things that was noticeable is the amount of coverage the tournament got on social media. English players both past and present were vocal in their support on Twitter and other platforms. Helping bring the women’s game to an audience that perhaps would not have engaged with the tournament otherwise. A surprising aspect of the tournament was that Instagram football pages were covered in memes and results of the Euros. This no doubt brought a new demographic to the women’s game.

The amount of coverage of the tournament is unprecedented, both on television and in written media. The semi-final between England and Sweden was watched by 11 million people, according to the BBC. These numbers are normally only seen for men’s matches.

The England women’s football team having success at major international tournaments is not a new phenomenon. In the 2019 world cup, the Lionesses reached the semi-final before losing to the eventual winner, the USA. What

The fight for equal pay and recognition is an ongoing one. Yet, recently there have been large strides made in the right direction with the USA national team having equal pay for men and women. Maybe after this Euros win England will follow in their footsteps.

When England last won a major trophy, in 1966, the England women’s football team did not exist. This tells the story of the struggle that women’s football has faced to exist, and now they aim to reach the dizzying heights of the men’s game.

What were you doing on the evening of the 31st of July 2022? Well if you were not glued to your television watching Sarina Weigman’s women take home the Euro 2022 title then you missed a moment in history. England football’s first major trophy in 56 years, bringing joy to every England fan after generations of disappointment. A moment that will live long in the memory of a country deprived of footballing success, yet, this win goes deeper. This win will fulfill the age-old cliche of inspiring little girls up and down the country, but this tournament has also changed the mindset of the country.