For millennia, humans have navigated seas, rivers, and oceans as avenues for trade, exploration, conquest, and colonization. During the Age of Discovery—an era interwoven with what’s known as the Age of Sail—European explorers and traders embarked on journeys around the world to map previously uncharted continents, trade commodities, and establish new socio-political outposts. Imperial forces competed with one another to control as much as they could, all in the name of wealth and power, and individual landowners and traders profited immensely. But sustaining a presence in far-flung places would never have been remotely possible, nevertheless successful, without slavery.

Well into the 19th century, humans were transported through a vast slave network, with millions crammed aboard ships bound for various parts of Europe or North America. For London-based artist LR Vandy, the layered and often fraught legacies of labor, shipping, and trade undergird a distinctive sculptural practice.

Vandy’s studio is based at Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent, where the history of wooden ships is alive and well. She uses materials such as Manila rope—a thick nautical rope made from the abaca plant, which is native to The Philippines—bobbers, navigation equipment, ship’s helms, hull-shaped wooden forms, and more, to explore the tangles of maritime history.

Vandy’s exhibition titled Rise, in The Weston Gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, marks the artist’s first solo museum show. Many of the works seen here are included in the show, while others represent earlier pieces. In her most recent work, the rope is a central focus as she explores its “entanglement in human
history, its role in the development of civilisations, and its inextricable links to colonial enslavement of people,” says an exhibition statement. Everyday objects are repurposed and manipulated in an ongoing inquiry into process and materials, especially “drawing attention to the social, economic and political systems embedded within everyday objects.”

Anchoring the space at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a giant, rope-covered form evocative of a maypole, nodding to historic European folk traditions that celebrate community, ritual, and regeneration. Other objects appear to spin or sway, as if skirts are swishing or invisible players move through a series of games. “My practice centres the hidden human costs of colonialism, transportation systems and commodities, and the knotted histories of trade and power they contain,” Vandy says in a statement. “The title, Rise, references ideas of resilience, protest, liberation, and collective joy explored through rituals and dance.”

Rise continues through September 13 in Wakefield. Learn more and plan your visit on the park’s website, and follow Vandy on Instagram for updates.

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Archaeologists have long known that the ancient peoples of North America—not unlike us—played a lot of games. Going back millennia, cultures around the world developed myriad ways to keep entertained, and for a long time, it was thought that the first dice ever used could be traced to the ancient Eastern European and Near East cultures of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Caucasus. But according to a new paper by Robert Madden, published by Cambridge University Press, games of chance developed much, much earlier than originally thought—halfway around the world.

Researchers previously believed that the earliest dice originated about 5,500 years ago, but Madden shares that examples excavated in North America date back as far as the Late Pleistocene—the Ice Age. Among the oldest reported examples are a few found in modern-day Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The rich archaeological sites in these places are associated with the Folsom Culture, representing a dispersed hunter-gatherer lifeway that extended across the North American West, Southwest, and Great Plains around 12,000 years ago.

“The dice tend to show up in liminal spaces where you have a lot of high mobility,” Madden told Live Science. “It might have something to do with how separated these people are and the need to relate to people you don’t see very often.”

In the report, Madden also says that “the making and using of dice represent humans’ first known efforts to intentionally generate, observe, and record streams of controlled, random events…” He adds that, possibly for the first time, people were comprehending patterns or regularities in probability—a kind of precursor to understanding what we now call the law of large numbers. Anthropologists consider this to be “a crucial early step in humanity’s evolving discovery and understanding of randomness and the probabilistic nature of the universe.”

Madden compared hundreds of examples found across the American West with a comprehensive, several-hundred-page publication called Games of the North American Indians, published in 1907 as part of an annual report by the Bureau of American Ethnology. It’s currently available in a two-volume edition from Bison Books.

You might also enjoy seeing what may be the world’s oldest crayon.

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Censorship and book bans are on the rise worldwide, prompting growing concerns about access to information and free expression. Although this trajectory is increasingly worrisome, it isn’t new, as artist Xiaoze Xie reflects on his exhibition In the Name of the Book.

Comprising paintings and life-sized porcelain sculptures, the show encompasses works made in the early 1990s through the present day, all of which reflect on the vital role books play in cultural, political, and social life. Xie’s practice is largely informed by his upbringing in China—he was born in Guangdong the same year as the Cultural Revolution— and in 1989, he witnessed the deadly Tiananmen Square protests. After moving to the U.S. in 1993, he began to incorporate this history and concerns about such restrictions into his works as a form of protest.

Book banning, particularly in the U.S., can sometimes be framed as a novel issue, and part of Xie’s effectiveness is that he connects the rise in modern-day censorship to what occurred centuries before. The Forbidden Books Series interprets classic novels, plays, and more that were prohibited largely throughout the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). Fiction like The Golden Lotus and Water Margin, for example, were charged with being sexually explicit and obscene, while the Chinese government barred the theatrical production The Peony Pavilion from leaving Shanghai for a New York performance in 1998 because of its “feudal, superstitious, and pornographic” qualities.

While these works are well-known cases of censorship, Xie points out that they’re just a sampling of a much larger problem. He writes:

Over the last 2,000 years, the books that have disappeared in China because of prohibition are countless. There is no trace of them anymore; all I have found is a small fraction. All of these old paper stacks, these silent books, consist of thoughts and discourses. These invisible and shapeless things and the stories behind them—the complicated contexts of philosophical, religious, political, historical, social, ethical, and racial issues—are gone. The history of banning books is a process of challenging repeated oppression and control, and challenging it again. It is alongside this back-and-forth repetition, I think, that history slowly marches on.

Preserving their likeness in porcelain with pages splayed out flat is an act of defiance for the artist, as he presents these otherwise concealed texts as permanently open for public consumption.

In the Name of the Book is on view through April 17 at Sapar Contemporary. Find more from the artist on Instagram.

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In communities throughout Switzerland’s Appenzell Hinterland and Midland regions, a unique tradition with enigmatic origins unfolds around the New Year. Known as Silvesterchlausen, the custom entails a group of boys and men who don remarkable, handmade costumes with masks and headdresses that represent rural, wild, and natural scenes.

“Silvesterchlausen,” a dreamy short film by writer and director Andrew Norman Wilson, highlights this regional seasonal event, which occurs on December 31 and January 13. The first date marks the turn of the new year on the Gregorian calendar, while January 13 denotes the same on the Julian calendar. The ornately dressed mummers, in groups of six, polyphonically yodel and ring bells. “The ritual has been performed for at least 500 years, but nobody knows how or why it began,” Wilson says.

Some of the performers’ headwear resembles miniature parade floats, while otherworldly designs made from pinecones, mosses, grasses, and other organic items make some of them appear as though they have emerged directly from the earth. In small, tight-knit municipalities, the tradition is a rare instance of relative anonymity, as familiar residents disappear behind meticulously crafted garments.

The performers, known as Chläuse, practice diligently for a month or so before the event, creating something of a “Chläus fever.” Boys form the groups and “continue throughout their lives until the members are too old to withstand the physical toll of the 18-hour days,” Wilson says, sharing that the participants build significant bonds.

As New Year’s Eve arrives, the mummers connect houses with a red string, literally and figuratively stitching connections within the community. Then, as the Chläuse move through villages and visit homes, local residents provide mulled wine to keep their bodies warm and spirits high.

See the film on Vimeo, and find more of Wilson’s work on Instagram. If you’re in the Upper Midwest, you can experience a taste of this annual tradition in New Glarus, Wisconsin. You might also enjoy Ashley Suszczynski’s incredible and mysterious photographs exploring European masking rituals.

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At Windsor Castle, a one-of-a-kind architectural marvel isn’t a structural part of the building itself or even a full-size feature. Here, you’ll find Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, widely regarded as the largest and most famous in the world. Designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, the house was built between 1921 and 1924 and contains items and furnishings conceived of by hundreds of the leading craftspeople and artisans of the day.

Queen Mary, consort to King George V between 1910 and 1936, was an enthusiast of all things miniature. Her dolls’ house even contains scale versions of nearly 600 real books in its library, including works by literary giants like A.A. Milne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Commissioned from publishers around the U.K. and farther afield, many of these books are also held in the collections of the V&A, where they have been on long-term loan since 1916.

A recent video produced by the museum glimpses some of these tiny treasures with the expert guidance of National Art Library Assistant Librarian Amy McMullan and Catherine Yvard, Curator of National Art Library Collections. Examples include a red leather-bound Bible published in 1896 by Glasgow-based David Bryce & Son, in addition to a Quran, a collection of poems by Robert Burns, and more.

The National Art Library is housed within the V&A, and more than a million publications related to art, design, and performance comprise an archive that spans the 8th century to today.

Many more miniature books comprise the museum’s holdings, in addition to Queen Mary’s collection. Little almanacs in their embellished folios were published annually and included notable dates, such as sunrises and sunset times, holidays, and other practical information. Many of the titles sport gilt edges, marbled papers, and even metal cases that double as lockets so that they could be worn.

The collection includes diminutive dictionaries, a souvenir of The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, and children’s books—including a number of tunnel books, or paper peep-shows. These accordion-style tomes look at first glance like any other publication, but they expand into long tunnels through which viewers can take in a layered, dimensional scene.

The oldest object in the V&A’s collection is an early 1700s silver-bound miniature prayerbook in French that’s embellished with the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. And the tiniest is fittingly called The Smallest Book in the World, published in 2002 and measuring 2.4 by 2.9 millimeters. It was designed by a German typographer and is so tiny that it’s accompanied by a small pamphlet showing what you would see if you could page through the book. As McMullen explains, the physical size of the book begs an interesting question: “Is it really a book if you can’t read it?”

Visitors are welcome to peruse the online catalogue and interact with items in the collection in person in the V&A East Storehouse’s reading rooms. Explore more on the museum’s YouTube channel.

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In the practices of Beverly Price and Gordon Parks, photography operates on a continuum. Images, for them, are both dynamic and archival, documenting a singular moment that continues to communicate with the viewer long after that time has passed. A Language We Share, opening this month at the Center for Art and Advocacy, probes these expansive and evolving interpretations of the practice by putting Price and Parks in direct conversation.

One of the most lauded photographers of his time, Parks (1912-2006) embedded himself in American life from the 1940s onward, creating distinctive images for magazines like Ebony and Glamour and embarking on projects rooted in civil rights and social justice. He considered his work not only a way to capture the realities of what was happening in homes, offices, and the streets from New York to Washington D.C. to Chicago but also an urgent means of advocacy. “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,” he said. “I knew at that point I had to have a camera.”

When Parks died in 2006, Price was just being released after being incarcerated and wouldn’t pick up a camera for another decade. But when she did, she entered into a dialogue with the late photographer. Price, who was a 2023 fellow at the center, similarly considers her practice advocacy for those who might not otherwise be heard, particularly focusing on prevention and the children most affected by the same issues Parks had grappled with.

As Price began to create images around her Washington D.C. neighborhood of Southeast Anacostia, a geographical overlap developed between the two photographers. In A Language We Share, we witness the affinities between Price and Parks in a presentation that explores how these particular social and cultural landscapes have evolved and the people most affected by their realities.

One throughline is that both photographers frequently focus on children. In an Anacostia housing project, Parks captures an adorable troupe of young dancers and their synchronized movements. Price, too, homes in on a moment of joy and reverie in an image of two drenched boys enjoying an open fire hydrant on a presumably scorching day. Childhood, in their works, is both sacred and vulnerable, and compounding forces like police violence, poverty, and discrimination threaten its sanctity.

The wide-reaching impacts of the carceral system also permeate throughout the exhibition. In an image from 1963 Harlem, Parks captures a young boy casually leaning up against a temporary barricade, while another photo from that time documents a protest against the police state. There’s also his striking look into a Chicago jail in which a man rests his hand through the steel bars, his shadow framed by the cage on the wall nearby.

Price, too, nods to policing with a tightly cropped photo of someone showing off an Air Jordan, an electronic monitor fastened just above the sneaker. “Photography, for me, is a powerful tool for social justice—a means to document truth, challenge perceptions, and advocate for change,” Price says in her artist statement. “It is my hope that through my work, viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of the black experience and join in the collective effort to create a more just and equitable world.”

A Language We Share runs from March 20 to June 19 in Brooklyn.

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From unassuming hunks of Carrara marble and limestone, Matthew Simmonds carves realistic, miniature gothic cathedral arches, stairwells, and colonnades. Often based on architectural details of real places, such as cities around Tuscany and Germany’s Bamberg Cathedral, the sculptures portray intimate details of corners, vaulted ceilings, arcades, and stairwells that can sometimes be peeked through additional apertures. The artist’s meticulously carved marble and limestone forms reveal smooth, ornate interiors while highlighting the natural quality of the stone.

Lately, Simmonds has been working consistently on a range of commissions, and he’s taking advantage of a current quiet period to return to experimentation in the studio. He tells Colossal, “I am interested in clarifying what I want to say with various themes in the work, in particular the role space and light play and how this can express a sense of the sacred in the inner world of the sculpture.”

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There is an air of the spectral to Fiona Pardington’s recent photographs of birds. While they are actual specimens, captured in atmospheric light and exhibiting unique plumage and expressions, there’s something a little bit uncanny about them. Are they real? In a sense, yes, but they’re no longer alive. Some no longer even exist. For Pardington, who is of Māori and Scottish descent, natural history specimens provide a unique and striking look at nature. And the photos seen here, comprising part of her series Taharaki Skyside, are slated for the artist’s exhibition in the Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year.

Pardington’s bold, large-scale portraits of birds native to New Zealand—known as Aotearoa in the Māori language—are all made in natural history collections around the country. The phantom-like depictions detail unique beaks, colors, and biological variations of the Fiordland penguin, with its bright yellow crest that looks like dramatic eyebrows, the South Island Takahe, which was thought extinct for a while before it was rediscovered in 1948, or the Tūī, with its tuft of white at the throat.

Pardington’s series also develops through a literary lens, especially in relation to the poetic works of Dante, who situates Purgatory on an island-mountain in the Southern Hemisphere in the Divine Comedy. The concept of crossing over from one realm to another is mirrored in the uncanniness of preserved animals in vitrines, illustrating the diversity of life while no longer possessing it. “Some birds, like the huia and whēkau (laughing owl), are long extinct; many others remain critically vulnerable,” says a statement.

Pardington’s images, set in museums, harken back to an earlier era of collecting, when egg-hunters and birders would seek prized specimens only to kill them and “preserve” them for posterity. This controversial practice occasionally rears its head, such as in the case of a researcher who killed an elusive kingfisher in 2015 to “collect” it for further research.

“Birds can symbolise familial love, romantic attachment, and ecological warnings. They can be intimations of mortality, and in my work, they can also represent individual people in my life. The ideas I am conjuring remind us of the integral significance of manu within te ao Māori (the Māori world) as sources of food and materials and intermediaries between human and divine worlds,” Pardington says.

Many of the endemic species she highlights are rare, such as the kākā kura, which is a color morph of the more common kākā parrot. And beyond their scientific significance, birds also play a sacred role for the Māori people, who refer to them as manu, messengers between this world and the next. “The ‘captured’ birds also reveal how museums classify, describe, frame, and celebrate or hide cultural narratives, influencing our understanding of the history and cultural legacies of Indigenous communities,” says a statement.

See Taharaki Skyside at the Venice Biennale from May 9 to November 22, and find more on Pardington’s Instagram.

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Around 1897, the French director Georges Méliès made a silent short film that, until last month, hadn’t been publicly viewable for more than a century. “Gugusse et l’Automate,” or “Gugusse and the Automaton,” is a 45-second slapstick piece featuring a magician and a Pierrot-styled robot as they duke it out.

Méliès is best known for “A Trip to the Moon,” a short film from 1902 that famously features astromoners landing their capsule into the eye of the moon. The director’s work is widely regarded as some of the first within fantasy and science fiction, with “Gugusse et l’Automate” being a long-lost addition to his canon.

This film resurfaced recently when Bill McFarland drove from his Grand Rapids, Michigan-home to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, with a cache of reels that once belonged to his great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee. Passed down through the family, this collection was part of Frisbee’s traveling showbusiness, in which he packed up his horse and buggy in western Pennsylvania and traveled to nearby towns to screen these early “moving pictures” accompanied by music from a phonograph.

According to the library, McFarland’s copy of “Gugusse et l’Automate” is “a duplicate at least three times removed from the original. Library technicians spent more than a week scanning and stabilizing it onto a digital format, so that it can now be seen by anyone online—in 4K, no less.”

The collection also contained Méliès’ “The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match” and parts of Thomas Edison’s “The Burning Stable.” See more of conservators’ unraveling process on Instagram. (via Kottke)

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Before digital fonts and the ability to reproduce graphics on a large scale, there were sign painters. Today, printers can spit out countless posters and ads, but there was a time when hand-painted promotional signage was needed for retail windows, and business names were often rendered just the same. Of course, it’s a trade that virtually died out with the advent of new technologies, which made it cheaper and faster to produce public messaging. In the way of LPs and film cameras, though, just because there were new methods in daily use, it certainly doesn’t mean that the art form doesn’t live on.

A new book published by Letterform Archive, Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets, celebrates the vivacity and timelessness of French sign painting from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Compiled from lithograph portfolios, which range from 1875 to around 1932, the volume includes more than 150 full-color reproductions of these bold lettering samples. These portfolios once served as catalogue-like albums, providing inspiration for styles and motifs that could be translated onto large billboards and small signage alike.

While decorative painting had been around long before embellished lettering came into vogue, it took a while to catch on. “Only in the nineteenth century did painters make alphabets into primary decorative elements,” writes sign painter Morgane Côme in the introduction. “Indeed even then, many of the letters painted on signboards, canvas awnings, and vehicles remained simple in form, following inherited models of Roman square capitals and modern variants used in printing type. The new demand for eye-catching signs called for significant change in perspective.”

Explore more in your own copy, which you can grab from the Colossal Shop.

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