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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
An early morning view across an old bridge towards the spires of a historic medieval city partially obscured by fog
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Return of the descendants

I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging

Jessica Buchleitner

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Love and friendship

Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment

11 minutes

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Nature and landscape

What it’s like to care for Yellowstone during its quietest – and coldest – months

13 minutes

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Personality

Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile

7 minutes

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Home

Whether above a pub or in a castle, our childhood homes leave an indelible mark

15 minutes

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Teaching and learning

Ronald grew up in a New York City library. It was as strange and wondrous as it sounds

3 minutes

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Subcultures

Living off-grid on a remote Scottish island is a mix of rejection and acceptance

13 minutes

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Rituals and celebrations

From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual

13 minutes

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Art

An ageing artist’s unguarded thoughts on what it takes to be great – and why he lacks it

12 minutes

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essay

History

Slavery en famille

The story of Marie Aymard and five generations of her family tells an intimate history of slavery in a small French town

Emma Rothschild

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video

Anthropology

On the run from COVID-19, an Indigenous family treks deep into the Amazon rainforest

17 minutes

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Human rights and justice

The buzzes, clanks and whirrs of prison life form a meditation on freedom

17 minutes

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Home

The rhythms of rural Thailand, where both food and music are sourced from the ground

15 minutes

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Architecture

Cultural wisdom begets cozy temporary homes for the Nenets of the Siberian Arctic

32 minutes

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Home

Eccentrics, artists and Luddites find community on a remote Scottish peninsula

26 minutes

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Home

How our rooms shape our world, and vice versa

3 minutes

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Love and friendship

Can you find ‘home’ in another person? What it’s like to follow love across borders

5 minutes

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Architecture

A world of shacks and shanties is a place of makeshift beauty on England’s margins

12 minutes

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essay

Gender

Angels in the market

The heart-tug tactics of 1950s ads steered white American women away from activism into domesticity. They’re still there

Ellen Wayland-Smith

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video

Cities

Sketches from a Barcelona square offer an elegant celebration of people-watching

5 minutes

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Home

A street-level view of homelessness from a woman living through it

11 minutes

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video

Architecture

The best home is a joyfully inhabited one – doubly so if its residents are design legends

11 minutes

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idea

Nature and landscape

How pottering about in the garden creates a time warp

Harriet Gross

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essay

Art

Ways of living

John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ exploded a discipline. But his greatest legacy might be a quieter project of re-enchantment

Joshua Sperling