Typography-led brand identity for North of Normal Studio, built on a grid-based system for instant recognition and modular applications.

The incoming cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, worked under the notoriously woke David Cameron and Theresa May. Maybe she was a double agent?

Antonia Romeo is expected to become the first female cabinet secretary shortly, an appointment that is “controversial”, according to conservative commentators, since the mandarin is the “queen of woke”. But how did she come by that title? What are her woke credentials – and how did she rise to preeminence?

The civil service itself often sets off the woke tripwire, owing to workplace conventions such as respecting people’s pronouns and having sick leave. Often it’s even less specific, a vague but fiery opposition confected by someone who is anti-woke. So Jacob Rees-Mogg might take issue with the civil service allowing home working, and it will be a classic battle against woke (similar to Nigel Farage lumping in council employees who work from home with those working on DEI or climate). If you were asked to explain verbally why commuting to an office is conservative and working from home is liberal, you’d struggle: but nobody has to, because anti-woke warriors fight under the banner of common sense, which doesn’t have to show its workings.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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Redolent of African basketry, hairstyles, headwear, and pottery, Donté K. Hayes’ abstract ceramic sculptures may be interpreted as poetic vessels, even though they lack traditional openings. While we easily associate clay pots and round woven forms with ideas related to storage, protection, and even spiritual significance, they also nod to the human head as a holder—a kind of receptacle for culture, language, personal expression, and dreams.

For the past several years, Hayes has approached porcelain with an emphasis on mostly monochrome black forms with meticulously hand-marked surfaces with textures that appear almost strand-like. Recently, he’s begun incorporating colored porcelain into the bulbous forms, inspired by African textiles like kente cloth and a kind of hat called ashetu, or prestige hats, worn by high-status Bamileke people of Cameroon. “The head is more than the center of the brain and thought; it is the place where the soul lives and must be protected,” the artist says.

In addition to Indigenous adornment traditions of Western and Central Africa, Hayes often references his interest in hip-hop culture. “Sweater,” for example, nods to the late rap star Biggie Smalls—a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G.—and his penchant for wearing colorful knits, such as COOGI, a brand hugely popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

In addition to other vibrant new works, this piece “speaks to the African Diaspora’s freedom to be bold, unapologetic, and fully at ease in their own skin,” Hayes says. “Through experimenting with colored porcelain and by combining porcelain with mason stains to create distinct colored tones, like a DJ, I remix inherited materials into new forms, challenging ceramic hierarchies and cultural assumptions tied to color.”

Hayes’ motifs and forms draw from an array of sources, such as pottery made in Ghana and Burkina Faso, which often have ceremonial purposes. “Garner” takes these often bulbous, heavily textured vessels as a starting point, which Hayes also considers within the context of everyday use and popular culture.

“In ‘Garner,’ these traditional pottery forms visually evoked for me both bubble wrap—a material designed to safeguard fragile objects—and the Daleks from Doctor Who, a protagonist authoritarian race who destroy and exterminate other worlds and cultures through time and space,” Hayes says. “By merging these divergent ideas, I create a ‘future artifact’—a work that preserves ancestral knowledge and reclaims what was lost or erased due to the historic Atlantic slave trade and systemic racism, while also opening new possibilities for healing, care, and empowerment in the present and future.”

Hayes currently has work on view through February 18 in Ancestral Objects: Holders of Memory, Space and Time at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s UT Downtown Gallery. Forthcoming exhibitions this spring include his solo show, Ancestral Tomorrows, at the Sarah Moody Galley of Art at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, plus inclusion in the group exhibition Remix to Motown 45: Side A, Side B at The Carr Center in Detroit. Another solo show, Ancestral Remix at Peter Anthony Fine Art in Charleston, opens in April. Follow updates on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Traditional African Baskets and Pottery Meet Pop Culture in Donté K. Hayes’ Sculptures appeared first on Colossal.

Het aanstaande kabinet wil het één-op-één-verband tussen de levensverwachting en de pensioenleeftijd herstellen. Het is beter daar nog even over na te denken.

Alarm in de techsector: start-ups groeien niet door, durfkapitaal komt niet los. Op de State of Dutch Tech-conferentie verklaren aanstaand premier Jetten en de techindustrie elkaar de liefde, hoewel Jetten amper aan het woord komt.

Hey gang. I took a couple of days off at the beginning of the week to visit some colleges with my daughter. She found a potential contender, one that was just fine, and a school that isn’t going to work for her — we both independently zoned out listening to the presentation about 10 minutes in. 😂 It was a last-minute trip and I’m so glad we got to go do this together. Standout food of the trip was from All’Antico Vinaio — best sandwich I’ve had in months. Anyway, I’m back now and focused on the site because what else is there to do when it’s -5° outside? Some of you have noticed that the comments have been turned off for the last few weeks. There was a rise in casual negativity that felt too close to how social media feels, i.e. a place where even well-meaning folks are not incentivized to think “this isn’t for me” and move on without comment. I understand that the pull of treating this social space just like other social spaces is strong, but we’re trying to do something different here, as outlined in the community guidelines. So, I took comments offline to regroup. They will be back soon; I miss them. Thanks for your patience. I have been busy the last couple of months and have lots of things in the pipeline, including a new t-shirt (and store), new site features, and a bunch of behind-the-scenes things that (hopefully) you won’t even notice. I’ve been kinda stuck on finishing them up and rolling them out because of *waves hands around wildly at all the things happening in the world* — it feels like a tough time to be anything but laser-focused on fascism, even though that’s what they want. The bastards, they’ve ground me down some, I can’t lie. Striking any sort of balance between normalcy and alarm, personally, has been challenging. Hardly a unique situation — everyone I talk to these days is in the same boat to some degree (and some are in more challenging & dangerous boats) — and sometimes that solidarity is a comfort but sometimes it ain’t and I just feel stuck and aimless and wrong for not caring or for caring too much. But I’ll figure it out — we all will. I hope. ✌️

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Daria Yegereva, an Indigenous Selkup woman from the city of Tomsk, was arrested on Dec. 17 after police searched her home.