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FARC settlement? Colombians must be pragmatic
Daniel Rey
After almost half a century of the FARC conflict, Colombians want peace. Unrealistically however, most of them want it dictated entirely on their terms. The Gallup Poll for the end of October signalled serious paradoxes in the nation’s hopes for the potential peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Despite 72% being ...
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Las Maestras: Tarsila do Amaral
Raquel
Tarsila do Amaral (1886 – 1973) is a prominent Brazilian painter and leader in Latin American Art. Born on a ranch in a small town near São Paulo, Brazil, Tarsila (as she is known) was fourteen when her parents moved to Europe. While in Europe, she spent time taking art classes and visiting museums. She ...
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Las Maestras: Anita Malfatti
Raquel
“If an artist is willing to float with the stream, it will carry [her/] him along quite nicely; if [s]he wants to strike out on a new course, to express the ideas that are [her/] his own and no other [wo]man’s [s]he must expect that it will take a certain time for the public ...
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Desaparecidos
Pierre-Louis Le Goff
To mark the International Day of the Disappeared, I would like to share this poem by Mario Benedetti ‘Desaparecidos’, to which I was introduced very recently by a friend and colleague. Below, I have included a translation, albeit a rather crude one, for those who would like. Here’s to the disappeared, and to those who ...
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Las Maestras del Arte Latinoamericano
Raquel
In the past decade, there has been a growing interest in Latin American Visual Culture. This growth is made clear by things such as a surge in Latin American Art programs, record auction sales in the secondary art market, the increase of museum and gallery representation, and the broad success of Latin American TV, film ...
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The Coffee Complex, Part III
Kate Fischer
In my last two posts (Part I and Part II) I began discussing the impact of quality on coffee farmers. Since coffee is grown on such tight margins, and since the price really has little to do with the actual costs of production, most farmers and exporters go to great lengths to ensure that their ...
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Rio is dead, now the real progress can start
Stephen Eisenhammer
“We need to get desperate,” screamed a thirtyish brunette in baggy jeans. Three hundred voices echoed her words. They were sitting on the dusty paving stones outside the delegate’s entrance at Rio+20, the United Nations conference on sustainable development that took place this past June. Men (there were noticeably few women) in dark suits powered ...
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The Coffee Complex, Part II
Kate Fischer
In my last post I asked whether the quality demands of the specialty coffee industry are, in fact, necessary. This demand for quality is the backbone of a $16 million dollar industry – specialty coffee’s estimated share of the roughly $80 billion per year coffee trade (statistics vary widely; these numbers are from the 2010 ...
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Global Strokes and Local Stripes: Latino Street Art in London
Rebecca
Stinkfish, 2011 We begin near Brick Lane. Striding down the streets of London’s East End, it’s easy to be blinkered by the red-brick walls and the blur of heavy traffic. On a daily trajectory from A to B, the city seems mundane; a space flattened by dull footsteps and timely routine. But beneath eye-level lie ...