John Oliver discusses some of the world’s most prestigious museums, why they contain so many stolen goods, the market that continues to illegally trade antiq…
Give. It. Back.
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Tag: museum
Molly Enking (Smithsonian Magazine)Hélène Boyer explains that museum visits have been shown to increase levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter colloquially known as the “happy chemical” due to its mood-boosting properties…According to Boyer, the uptick in hormones associated with enjoying an afternoon of art is similar to that offered by exercise…
Also in Brussels this year
So there’s a chemical reason I like going to museums 😂
Curious if anyone has studied whether the effects hold from a virtual visit 🤔
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Re-read About Last Night
Sure, opposites attract, but in this sexy, smart, eBook original romance from RITA finalist and bestselling author Ruthie Knox, they positively combust! When a buttoned-up banker falls for a bad girl, “about last night” is just the beginning.
Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.
Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.
When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?
At least third read. Forgot how quickly the ending happens — too fast IMO, I thought I’d somehow missed a chapter — and the hero’s redemption not fully earned. I bought the heroine’s standoffishness more than another recent reread, The Soulmate Equation — though some of her self-abuse comes off uncomfortably judgmental and sex negative — probably would be updated if written today. Her ending arc was good but totally implausible.
I love it when a bunch of random pieces add together into something cool.
I was telling my husband over dinner about everyone’s Create Day projects, including Angelo’s IndieWeb.rocks, which assesses which IndieWeb components a website is doing and recommends improvements. I created a wiki page about land acknowledgement, and as I was explaining the concept he recalled that PBS Eons episodes frequently include an acknowledgement at the end that many artifacts were taken from indigenous lands without permission.
I’m also reading a book called The Art of Activism, which prompts artists to look for new ways to provide commentary and activists to go beyond the usual protest.
Put those elements together, throw in some Elgin Marbles, contrasted with the Smithsonian’s recent move to return a collection of African art, and you’ve got a recipe for some art activism:
- Pull a Banksy and place additional placards beside stolen pieces in museums noting the true ownership / origin. “Pillaged from Greece through bribery and corruption.”
- Create a website that ranks institutions by the proportion of their collection that is stolen or contested, and produce a guide like Seafood Watch does for seafood. “Ooh the British Museum is on the red list, better skip that one.” You could also allow nations and tribes to submit complaints cross-referenced with the museum’s online collections as an additional way to raise awareness and drum up public support for items to be returned to their rightful cultural owners.
Land back, and also heritage back. ✊
I don’t know if the information about objects’ origins is widely available — probably not, and especially could be obscured through purchases after the fact.