Giovanni and Roberto in Sardinia

Photographer Giovanni Corabi and creative director Roberto Ortu spent two weeks in Sardinia capturing "the rebellious youth" living on an island where the "traditions are strong and can sometimes feel heavy" making many people decide to leave and for those who stay hard to find their own voice. Corabi and Ortu celebrate "the rebellious youth that lives on the island but is an active part of where the culture is headed, somewhere between tradition and modernity" including migration (via).

photographs via

Define Gender: Unboxing

“Gender isn't as black and white as I grew up believing. While some people are fluid and others decisive in their identification, both are of equal value. The social labels of the male and the female feel irrelevant and restrictive today. I wanted to express this through dance ...

... because, energetically, it can call upon the masculine and feminine but also exist outside those stereotypes. With the box structure of the set—and the dancer's liberation from it—I wanted to show that we do not have to exist within the binary limitations society inflicts on us. This film presents a space where gender can be more fluid than fixed definitions allow.”
Kate Cox

image via

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Some facts... There are one billion persons with disabilities, 80% of them living in developing countries, 46% of people aged 60 years and over are people with disabilities, one in five women is likely to experience disability in her life, one in ten children is a child with disability. No matter where and what gender, people with disabilities are among the hardest hit by the pandemic (via).



"I urge all countries to fully implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, increase accessibility, and dismantle legal, social, economic and other barriers with the active involvement of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations."
Antonio Guterres

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photograph via

80% Experiencing Everyday Ageism

According to a poll (n = 2.048 adults aged 50 to 80) carried out in the United States by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Poliy and Innovation shortly before the pandemic started, more than 80% commonly experience at least one form of ageism in everyday life... the usual remarks about using a smartphone, jokes about losing one's memory or hearing, magazine ads focusing on wrinkles and grey hair... a never-ending and sociall accepted list (via).

The new poll asked older adults about nine forms of everyday ageism, and analyzed the results based on respondents’ age, income, media consumption habits, residence, work status, and self-reported health and appearance.

In all, 65% said they’re commonly exposed to ageist messages in materials they watch or read, and 45% said they sometimes or often experience ageism in interactions with other people. More than one-third of older adults have internalized stereotypes to the extent that they agreed or strongly agreed that feeling lonely or depressed were inherent parts of growing older.

Older and lower income older adults were more likely to report that they commonly experienced three or more forms of everyday ageism. Women, those who had retired and those who lived in rural areas were also more likely than men to experience it, as well as those still working and those living in suburban or urban areas.

“Everyday ageism is part of American culture and one of the most common and socially condoned forms of prejudice and discrimination. There is no doubt that it harms the health and wellbeing of older adults (...). In addition to addressing everyday ageism in general, we as a society should be especially careful about how ageist prejudices and stereotypes affect our response to the massive public health challenges of the ongoing pandemic.”

Julie Ober Allen, research fellow at the Institute for Social Research

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photograph by Leon Levinstein (Fifth Avenue, 1969) via

Do Butterflies Remember Being Caterpillars?

Luca “Lazylegz” Patuelli is the breakdancing star at the heart of this film. Born with a neuromuscular disorder, he has spent decades finding new and innovative ways to participate in dance. Usually incorporating scrutches into his routines, Patuelli invents adapts breakdancing moves that harness his upper body strength.

Caraz is a rising director based in Montreal. With a background in photography, he explores striking, powerful characters set in diverse worlds. Her ability to create highly crafted aesthetics with an emotional approach gives her films not only a sense of style but also personality.

Born in Italy, Alessandro Giaquinto is this movie’s choreographer and a dancer for The Stuttgart Ballet. (literally via).

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image via

Saul Steinberg. A Genius Facing Antisemitism.

Romania is an anti-Semitic country, as Saul finds out when he moves to the capital with his family. His scholastic career in the Liceu Matei Basarab in Bucharest would be made difficult by this climate. After enrolling in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, in 1933 he decides to study architecture but is not admitted: there is a limit to the number of Jewish students. Years later he would write: "My childhood, my adoslescence in Romania were a bit like being a Negro in the State of Mississippi" (Reflections and shadows, 2001). (literally from the exhibition at the Triennale Milano currently showing Saul Steinberg's works)

Saul Steinberg was born on 15th June 1914 in Ramnicu Sarat, a small town north of Bucharest, in Romania. His parents, Moritz Steinberg and Rosa Iacobson, belonged to the Jewish middle class. In 1915 the family moved to Bucharest and Moritz set up a bookbinding shop and then began to produce decorative boxes. Some of the family had already emigrated to America in the late nineteenth century. In 1925, Saul enrolled in the Liceu Matei Basarab and three years later graduated to its upper school. Having gained his diploma in 1932, he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Bucharest. He received good grades but the university's anti-Semitic atmosphere kept him from regularly attending courses. (text from exhibition, Triennale Milano)

In 1933, he applied for admission to the Faculty of Architecture but was denied entrance because a quota system limited the number of Jewish students who could be accepted. Instead, he went to Milan and enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture of the Regio Politecnico, arriving in the city in November. (...) But in 1938 the Fascist regime promulgated racial laws and Steinberg risked expulsion from Italy. He was able, however, to complete his studies in 1940, but his efforts to leave Italy for the US failed. After various ups and downs, including being arrested and confined in an internment camp, he managed to leave for Santo Domingo, where he spent a year waiting for a US visa. He finally arrived in New Yorsk in July 1942. (...) (text from exhibition, Triennale Milano)

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photographs via and via

Quoting Gilberto Gil

"I think that the global consciousness concerning all those elements that produce tension, fractions of societies, is changing in the sense that we all tend to understand a little more the needs for harmonizing the process and integrating races and cultures and producing multiculturalism and different melting-pot situations. That affects global things, tolerating the Arab, the African, the Eastern civilizations, getting rid of this hegemonic dominance by the West. That's all comprehensive now in terms both of understanding and approaching the whole planet."

Gilberto Gil



"Sometimes, from outside, and from America especially, where the racial tension is so intense, you tend to understand Brazil as a kind of ideal situation, but it's not. There are a lot of problems. Historically, we have been in struggle, in real struggle to protect and defend the natural leaning towards absorbing the African and the Indian heritage that our society has." 

Gilberto Gil

"We are sufficiently conscious of this dimension or quality of Brazil as a melting pot, as a culture and a nation that is being subjected to an amalgamating process. More than just a mixing process, it is an amalgamation where the fragments, the parts in collision, really interact profoundly. They become another thing after the contact." 

Gilberto Gil

photographs via and via

What I am, what you force me to be is what you are. By Gordon Parks.

For I am you, staring back from a mirror of poverty and despair, of revolt and freedom. Look at me and know that to destroy me is to destroy yourself. You are weary of the long hot summers. I am tired of the long hungered winters. We are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that goes deeper than blood or black or white. It is our common search for a better life, a better world. I march now over the same ground you onced marched. I fight for the same things you still fight for. My children's needs are the same as your children's. I too am America. America is me. It gave me the only life I know - so I must share in its survival. Look at me. Listen to me. Try to understand my struggle against your racism. There is yet a chance for us to live in peace beneath these restless skies. Gordon Parks



photograph of Norman Fontenelle by Gordon Parks (1967) via

The Art World. Sharing the Same Prejudices We Face in the Real World.

"When one thinks of the art world, one thinks of a place of openness and tolerance -- yet that is hardly the case. The ‘art world’ shares the same prejudice we face in the real world. That said, the illusion of togetherness that has been constructed around the art world makes said reality even more toxic. Forms of sexism, racism, and ageism dominate art culture just under the surface -- which dictates our collective knowledge of art history. This is a topic that few gallery owners want to discuss -- because it is a topic that, more often than not, reveals a world of bigotry and unnecessary challenges placed before artists." Brian Sherwin



photograph of Silvana Mangano by Eve Arnold (1956) via

Ageism. Prevalent. Unrecognised. Unchallenged.

 ... also widespread and accepted. Ageism is there, everywhere. Age determines who receives medical procedures, treatments, lifesaving therapies, who is disadvantaged in the workplace, who has access to specialised training and education. Ageism leads to poorer health and earlier deaths, it causes social isolation, reduces quality of life and costs economies billions. Nevertheless, every second person in the world holds ageist attitudes (United Nations, 2021).

Ageism is also costly:

Ageism costs our societies billions of dollars. In the United States of America (USA), a 2020 study showed ageism in the form of negative age stereotypes and self-perceptions led to excess annual costs of US$63 billion for the eight most expensive health conditions. This amounts to US$1 in every US$7 spent on these conditions for all Americans over the age of 60 for one year (see note to editors). 

Estimates in Australia suggest that if 5 per cent more people aged 55 or older were employed, there would be a positive impact of AUD$48 billion on the national economy annually. There are currently limited data and information on the economic costs of ageism and more research is needed to better understand its economic impact, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. (United Nations, 2021)

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photograph by Diane Arbus via