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The London borough of Camden is known for its music scene, its market, and the canals that run through it, but in just a few years, a new addition to the Camden area will be a highlight that’s quite literally high up in the air. Plans are in the works for what has been dubbed the Camden Highline, which will link Camden to King’s Cross.

The name and concept no doubt bring to mind the New York City Highline, a stretch of park created on disused railway viaducts, but those things won’t be the only commonality between the two elevated parks. The Camden Highline recently announced that James Corner and his firm (James Corner Field Operations), who were behind the design of the NYC High Line, have been selected to be the lead landscape architect for the London project.

In all, 76 bids were made to lead the design team, but James Corner Field Operations, who were also behind the South Park of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, was chosen by a jury. Corner’s firm will lead an international team that will include vPPR Architects (a firm based in nearby Kentish Town) and London artist Hew Locke, to create plans for the stretch of Camden.

The Camden Highline is a unique, grassroots charity that has been in the works for a few years and is largely community-led. It started with a University College London geography researcher, Oliver O’Brien, who was scouring London for places that would work for a new linear park. O’Brien found such a location on a three-quarters of a mile stretch of railway viaducts that runs from Camden Gardens and to York Way. The idea was eventually picked up by Camden Town Unlimited and over the subsequent years, work has progressed on the idea.

The original intent behind the project was to rejuvenate the London borough, offer new green space to the area, stimulate businesses, and help mitigate the amount of footfall that travels along the narrow footpaths of Regent’s Canal, which already connect King’s Cross and Camden. However, between the tolls of the pandemic and Brexit, the Camden Highline will offer a “positive feelgood investment to help London come out of all the negative vibes of the past couple of years,” according to Corner.

While similar in approach to the High Line in New York City, the overall feel of the Camden Highline will be quite different. The viaduct will be shared with railways still used for the Northern Line, one of the Underground lines, and the cityscape around the viaducts consists of relatively low buildings in comparison to NYC.

“Camden has its own dishevelled, edgy, eclectic feel,” Corner continued. “It has its own vibe and own context that we want to leverage and play on. It’s not New York, so this elevated walk should be unique to Camden.”

It is estimated that the project will cost around £35 million and take roughly three years to complete. First designs will take a number of months to complete and in the meantime, locals will have the opportunity to give their input. To offer more information on the project, on March 11^th, the Camden Highline charity will be hosting an online Q&A with James Corner Field Operations, vPPR Architects, Camden Highline Chair and Jury member Richard Terry, CEO Simon Pitkeathley and Caroline Cole from Colander Associates.

A year ago, you might not have been aware of a man by the name of Mwazulu Diyabanza. But that all changed last summer when Diyabanza made a name for himself as a repatriation activist with one singular protest.

By now, you’re probably familiar with the story. On June 12th, 2020, Diyabanza and four friends bought tickets and entered the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. Soon after entering the museum, Diyabanza was making an impassioned speech on repatriation and the need to return the thousands of cultural objects held in European institutions. He then pried a funerary post free from its mount and headed for the door. The entire event was filmed by his friend and when the police arrived, Diyabanza said “well that’s good, I want to report a theft.”

This story has been widely circulated by news outlets, but Resistance, a Gimlet podcast, recently released an interview Diyabanza, giving him the opportunity to tell the story in his own words.

Hosted by Sierra Leonean poet, producer, and storyteller Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr, Resistance “is a show about refusing to accept things as they are.” Diyabanza, without a doubt, is someone who fits that brief.

Diyabanza spoke with reporter Bethel Habte for a new episode of the podcast, fittingly titled “I Want To Report A Theft,” and it’s a must-listen, even if podcasts aren’t your usual thing.

Habte’s story on Diyabanza allows the activist to add context to his protests, which he’s now carried out a number of museums including the Louvre, and why he’s doing what he’s doing.

“We are not waiting for Emmanuel Macron’s ‘good faith,’” Diyabanza said in the interview, referencing the French president’s commitment to return stolen cultural objects to their homes in Africa. Macron’s promises, and the lack of fulfilling those promises, became a catalyst for Diyabanza’s actions.

During the interview, listeners gain insight into Diyabanza’s family and the bloody colonialist history of King Leopold II of Belgium. Diyabanza recounts the June day that catapulted him into the headlines with details that, until now, haven’t made their way into the press. Although a translator speaks over much of his words, Diyabanza’s passion comes through. He is direct with his words and leaves no room for interpretation.

The podcast, itself, is an excellently produced show. Through a perfect blend of narrative, information, and music, Diyabanza’s story is well accentuated, making it accessible to listeners everywhere.

Diyabanza’s work is undeniably changing the game for repatriation. However, it’s not the work of one man to single-handedly change the landscape of repatriation, but a fight that will require everyone in all parts of the world. Resistance’s episode is rooted in Diyabanza’s efforts, but it’s a call to join him, in any way you can, to recognise and fight the lingering issues of colonialism.

Nearly a year into lockdown, Edvard Munch’s The Scream is a painting that has become more and more relatable. However, on the original version of the painting, there is a an eerie sentence written in pencil that has been more or less ignored until now. Ahead of the opening of the new National Museum of Norway, researchers examined the sentence and have determined that Munch indeed wrote the short inscription.

Four versions of the painting exist depicting a lonely figure cupping its face in what could be read as anguish. Swathes of colour sweep and pool around the figure offering Munch’s interpretation of a seascape with a looming red sunset. According to the artist, the painting was inspired by a blood-red sunset he once observed that felt like an “infinite scream passing through nature.”

The Scream has become synonymous with anguish and disbelief and was even transformed into an emoji. But, it’s the top left corner of the original 1893 version that’s creating a lot of buzz. There, a sentence scribbled in pencil reads “Can only have been painted by a madman.”

The inscription was first clocked by a Danish critic in 1904 who observed the writing on the surface of the painting. Since its discovery, it has been unclear if the graffiti was by the hand of Munch or a cruel review left by a spectator. The National Museum of Norway, though, has settled that debate, announcing that the sentence was written by Munch around 1895.

Using infrared scanning, researchers were able to analyse the writing and compare it with notes and letters written by Munch during his life. That analysis, coupled with one particular event in Munch’s life, led researchers to believe that the words were definitely written by the artist.

In 1895, Munch exhibited The Scream for the first time in his hometown of Kristiania (now Oslo) where it was met with fierce criticism. The painting also sparked speculation over the artist’s mental state, which led to the incident thought to be behind inscription. At a discussion night held at the Students Association, a medical student remarked that the painting proved that Munch was not of sound mind. It is believed that Munch was present at the discussion, heard the remark, and soon after wrote the sentence on the painting. The 1895 incident would also become a recurring theme in his letters.

“It’s a combination of being ironic, but also showing his vulnerability,” Mai Britt Guleng, curator of the museum and a Munch expert, told The Guardian. “He is actually taking this very seriously and he is hurt because there is a history of illness in his family, and he was very anxious, but he showed himself be marked by it.”

His life was punctuated by illness and death. Munch’s father and sister suffered from depression and were eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. He watched his sister pass from tuberculosis as a child and later his mother also died of the illness, contributing to his obsession with disease.

In 1908, Munch was hospitalised following a nervous breakdown exacerbated by alcoholism.

The 1893 version of The Scream will go on view at the new National Museum of Norway expected to open in Oslo in 2022.

The recently released documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, simultaneously explores the challenges Black Artists continue to face in reaching mainstream audiences and the importance of their artwork in the narrative of American (United States) art history. The film takes a hard look at the significant role exhibitions, curators, and collectors play in perpetuating biases and breaking boundaries by underlining historical moments. 

Directed by Sam Pollard, the film introduces the foremost black artists working today and the artists that preceded them. The film begins with historical footage from the event that inspired the documentary, the landmark 1976 exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black American Art.” According to the late artist and curator, David Driskell, this exhibition hosted by the Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA) was “the first major modern exhibition which brought the black subject, period, to the American Public.”

The film’s central theme is the black figure’s significance as a subject in artworks and black artists’ representation in museum collections/exhibitions. In a 1976 interview, Driskell warns against those critics and historians that group all artwork by black artists together under the label of “Black Art” because it isolates the black artists from the canon of American Art. The director and producer perhaps chose to underscore the stigma behind this label by using it as the title of the documentary.

Artist, Kehinde Wiley describes the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1994 exhibition “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” curated by Thelma Golden, as life-changing. “Here, for the first time, you are seeing black masculinity, not as something on television that’s menacing, that arm’s length, but rather artists embracing it as subject matter, another color on their palette. It was mind-blowing, an exhibition that really tore down the meaning of the black body itself.” 

While spaced sixteen years apart and on opposite coasts of the United States, what Driskell and Goldman’s exhibitions have in common is that they were controversial, provocative, and pushed the white envelope. Critics had a hard time digesting the content and taking an honest look back at the marginalization of artists of color in traditional art exhibitions.  

The documentary also explores the monumental importance of President Barak Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s portraits. Art Historian Maurice Berger describes the official paintings hanging in the National Portrait Gallery as a beautiful challenge and a dramatic departure from the past presidents’ boring or traditional portraits. “The stakes were different. When you have two centuries of straight, white men who were president, and then you have Barak Obama–that portrait better be different.” In painting the presidential couple, Artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald wanted to portray them individually as the people they were, as private citizens–a man, and woman of color, who continue to inspire people worldwide. 

While groundbreaking milestones punctuate the documentary, it also highlights all the work that still needs to be done. Berger reveals that in a survey of major American Museums, it was determined that 85% of their collections are made up of white artists. “If you break down the remaining artists of color in those collections (15%), it’s 1.2% black. If the people sitting around the curatorial table are all white, you are going to have a problem.” Clearly, having exhibitions that feature black artists is not enough. Their artworks also need to be acquired by these cultural institutions. 

The role of universities also requires fundamental change. As an art history student in the mid-2000s, I experienced how a limited scope can be damaging to our understanding of art history as humanity’s collective creative experience. The slides running through our art history survey classes’ projectors reinforced the interest in white male artists. This reigning group of people even dominated our photography, modern, and contemporary art classes. I hope that this academic approach has shifted across the United States, given the cultural reckoning we now find ourselves in. Students from across disciplines can also have agency in asking themselves critical questions around whose voices and work are missing from the narrative they’re being taught. They can challenge professors. 

The historical footage, expert interviews, and vignettes of artists at work merge to effectively and beautifully communicate how vital the representation of artists of color is in cultural institutions and the importance of enabling them to tell their own stories while also elevating their history. Black Art: In the Absence of Light will stream on HBO until March 17, 2021. You can also visit the website to experience a thoughtful curriculum and art activities inspired by the film.