All posts tagged: cultural

Venice election turns into test of Meloni’s right-wing cultural revolution – POLITICO

Venice election turns into test of Meloni’s right-wing cultural revolution – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Promoted by sections of the right as the symbol of a new generation ready to challenge Italy’s progressive cultural establishment, Venezi instead became a lightning rod in a broader debate over whether the government’s cultural agenda relied too heavily on political symbolism. Andrea Martella, the center-left candidate for mayor and currently an MP for the Democratic Party, argued the controversies surrounding both La Fenice and the Biennale had damaged the city’s standing. “With both, there was a short circuit between Rome and Venice which ended up humiliating the institutions,” Martella said. “In a city like Venice, this carries enormous weight, because culture is not only part of the past but also the present and future of this extraordinary community: its identity, work, prestige and capacity to attract talent.” Simone Venturini, now the center-right’s candidate for mayor, talks to the press outside Santa Lucia train station in April 2024. | Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images) While Venice has become symbolically important in national politics, the center-right’s candidate for mayor and current councilor for tourism, Simone Venturini, …

Cannes, Canal+, Bolloré, blacklists: Is France’s cultural diversity under threat? – Entre Nous

Cannes, Canal+, Bolloré, blacklists: Is France’s cultural diversity under threat? – Entre Nous

Published by Sam Flores

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again ENTRE NOUS © FRANCE 24 Issued on: 21/05/2026 – 16:07Modified: 21/05/2026 – 16:08 06:23 min From the show Reading time 1 min Is France’s cultural diversity under threat? As the UN celebrates cultural diversity, and as the Cannes Film Festival weathers a fight over a possible blacklist at film producer Canal+, we take a look at what happened in Cannes. We dive into the concerns over the conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s influence in the French cultural landscape and explore whether France’s diverse offering of culture is under threat.    By: Source link

Art and Cultural Engagement Can Slow the Pace of Aging: Report

Art and Cultural Engagement Can Slow the Pace of Aging: Report

Published by José Betancourt

A new study published in the journal Innovation in Aging suggests that engaging with art and culture can help slow down the biological clock and improve overall health. As reported in the Guardian, the UK-based study’s “results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level.” That’s according to Daisy Fancourt, lead author of the study and the head of the social biobehavioral research group at University College London, who added: “They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognised as a health-promoting behaviour in a similar way to exercise.” Related Articles The paper accompanying the study reads, “Arts and cultural engagement (ACEng) is increasingly recognised as a health behaviour in its own right, comprising diverse ‘active ingredients’ that are beneficial to health (e.g., social interaction, cognitive stimulation, multi-sensory stimulation, creativity, etc.) and activating complex psychological, biological, social and behavioural mechanisms of action that relate to mental and physical health outcomes.” So-called ACEng was assessed by measuring participation in four kinds of activities: “1) participatory arts (e.g., singing, dancing, painting, photographing, …

Intense crying in East-Asian infants may reflect cultural norms, not insecure attachment, study suggests

Intense crying in East-Asian infants may reflect cultural norms, not insecure attachment, study suggests

Published by José Betancourt

A study examining cultural characteristics of infants’ behavior found that Korean and Japanese infants cry more when separated from their mothers and left alone in an unfamiliar room, compared to U.S. and Czech children. The paper was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development. The main theoretical framework in psychology used to explain emotional bonds between humans and their importance throughout life is attachment theory, proposed by John Bowlby in the mid-20th century. According to this theory, emotional attachment patterns begin developing in infancy through interactions between the infant and its caregiver(s). One of the main research procedures for assessing the quality of infants’ attachment to their caregivers is the Strange Situation Procedure. This procedure was developed by Mary Ainsworth, a famous 20th-century attachment researcher, and her colleagues to observe how children use a caregiver as a secure base and how they react to separation and reunion. In this procedure, a child is placed in an unfamiliar room with toys, first with the caregiver present. Then a stranger enters, the caregiver leaves, the child …

Tax It, and Use the Resulting Billions of Dollars to Fund Cultural Institutions, Artists, and Researchers

Tax It, and Use the Resulting Billions of Dollars to Fund Cultural Institutions, Artists, and Researchers

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech If you can’t beat ’em, tax ’em.  AI slop is as certain as government levies these days, infecting every corner of the internet and increasingly intruding on real life. It’s not going away, and surely any attempts to ban the stuff will be futile. So what should we do about it? Well, why not institute a “slop tax?” proposes technologist Mike Pepi in an essay for The Guardian. Such a tax would “restore balance to what has heretofore been a one-way extraction,” and “ensure robust institutional support structures for human creativity forced to compete in a sea of meaningless content,” Pepi writes. Essentially, you shave off a little of the AI industry’s bottom line to fund the arts, sciences, and other cultural institutions that they mined for free. AI slop is more than just an ugly annoyance. In Pepi’s view, it’s a “malicious manipulation of human cognitive labor and the institutions that support it.” These billions of “facsimiles of …

Prada launches limited-edition £650 Indian sandals after being accused of cultural appropriation

Prada launches limited-edition £650 Indian sandals after being accused of cultural appropriation

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Luxury fashion house Prada is launching a limited-edition range of Indian-made sandals, inspired by traditional Kolhapuri footwear. This comes less than a year after the Italian luxury group faced a backlash for showcasing similar designs without crediting their origins. Each pair will be priced at about €750 (about £650), according to Prada’s website. The launch comes after controversy erupted in June 2025, when Prada showed sandals resembling centuries-old Indian Kolhapuri chappals at Milan Fashion Week. The designs sparked outrage among Indian artisans and politicians, who accused the brand of cultural appropriation. Prada later acknowledged the influence of ancient Indian styles and said it had begun talks with artisan groups about a collaboration. A model wears a creation from the Prada Spring-Summer 2026 menswear collection …

Ian Katz’s Channel 4 Legacy: Cultural Impact vs. Scale

Ian Katz’s Channel 4 Legacy: Cultural Impact vs. Scale

Published by Daniella Wilson

For much of the past eight years, Channel 4, the British free-to-air public broadcaster, has felt louder than ever. More confrontational. More willing to step into contested territory. More determined to provoke a reaction rather than quietly earn one. Behind that noise, a quieter and more complicated conversation has been playing out among the people who actually make its programs. That tension defines Ian Katz’s tenure more than any single commission. When Katz arrived in 2017, he was not the obvious candidate. His background was in journalism, not television production. He had edited Newsnight, not built formats or sustained returning series. He brought a sharp instinct for narrative and public debate. What he did not bring was a track record of delivering repeatable hits at scale. That distinction shaped both his strengths and his limitations. Inside Channel 4, Katz pushed hard on what the broadcaster should say. The slate leaned into difficult subjects, from dramas like It’s a Sin, to fast-moving stories designed to land in the middle of national conversations, including investigations such as …

Paid Period Leave Needs Broader Cultural Change To Work Well

Paid Period Leave Needs Broader Cultural Change To Work Well

Published by Sam Flores

Expert comment from Dr Amanda Shea, who holds a PhD in molecular biology and has contributed to ovarian cancer research and is the fractional chief science officer at period and cycle tracker app Clue. This January, a menstrual leave petition asking the government to “introduce statutory paid menstrual leave of up to three days per month for people with conditions such as endometriosis and adenomyosis” was launched. It has since passed 100,000 signatures, and so has met the threshold for parliamentary debate. The topic will be debated in Westminster Hall. Menstrual leave already exists in countries like Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, Zambia, and Vietnam. But in, e.g., Spain, the law has “hardly been used”, The Guardian reports. HuffPost UK spoke to Dr Amanda Shea, who holds a PhD in molecular biology and has contributed to ovarian cancer research, about how to make laws like these more effective. The broader culture needs to change Menstrual leave policies like those introduced in Spain and Portugal “appear progressive” and “mark an important step in acknowledging menstrual and reproductive health …

The Books Briefing: The First Draft of Cultural History

The Books Briefing: The First Draft of Cultural History

Published by Daniella Wilson

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Newspapers publish the rough draft of history, as the saying goes. And what’s the rough draft of the news? I would argue that it’s gossip, as filtered by good reporters. Which means that gossip is the very rough first version of what ends up in the history books. I first thought of this syllogism while reading primary sources for my book of cultural history, and it came to mind recently as I dove into Lena Dunham’s highly entertaining new memoir, Famesick. “God bless a memoir that drops names—the more bold-faced and braggadocious the better,” my colleague Sophie Gilbert wrote this week in an essay about the book. Gilbert also laments that Dunham’s second memoir fails at what her groundbreaking HBO series, Girls, managed to do: “make broader meaning out of her experiences.” It’s true that the book cannot compete with the show’s ability to explain members of a generation to themselves. And yet, …

Sabrina Carpenter breaks silence after calling cultural fan chant ‘weird’

Sabrina Carpenter breaks silence after calling cultural fan chant ‘weird’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sabrina Carpenter has apologized after she called a fan’s cultural chant “weird” and told the Coachella audience: “I don’t like it.” “My apologies I didn’t see this person with my eyes and couldn’t hear clearly,” Sabrina wrote via X on Saturday, April 11, as the backlash increased. “My reaction was pure confusion, sarcasm and not ill intended. Could have handled it better! Now I know what a Zaghrouta is! I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out.” © Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagSabrina Carpenter performs at the Coachella Stage Her message came in response to a tweet which read: “Sabrina saying that she doesn’t like a cultural arabic cheer… this is so insensitive and islamophobic. I am very disappointed in her.” Sabrina was headlining the 2026 Coachella Music & Arts Festival on April 10, 2026 when one fan let out what was a Zaghrouta chant. A high-pitched, loud, and wavering cheer, the Zaghrouta is commonly used by Arab-speaking women to express overwhelming joy and is often used at events such as weddings and parties, …