Society
essay
Consciousness and altered states
Acid media
How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD
Erik Davis
video
Art
From a pencil sketch to cherubs dancing in stone – recreating a Donatello work
7 minutes
video
Dance and theatre
How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood
16 minutes
video
Design and fashion
Refined towards imperfection – a ceramic artist recreates a rare Korean treasure
15 minutes
video
Making
From log to Go board – the world’s oldest game, made the old-fashioned way
20 minutes
video
Design and fashion
From sheep to sea – an ode to the iconic sweater that warms Cornish sailors
4 minutes
video
Food and drink
From set-up to close, a day at the farmers market is a whirlwind sensory feast
10 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
video
Making
Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery
9 minutes
video
Architecture
How the Dorze in Ethiopia make ‘beehive’ houses from bamboo that last a lifetime
35 minutes
video
Technology and the self
‘Perfection is for the gods,’ and this sculptor gets to a thousandth of an inch of it
14 minutes
video
Information and communication
There are many ways to make a flat map of the world – each of them a unique distortion
10 minutes
video
Making
How sky-high dreams launched one man’s audacious life in homemade rocketry
5 minutes
video
Architecture
Cultural wisdom begets cozy temporary homes for the Nenets of the Siberian Arctic
32 minutes
essay
Archaeology
The clothing revolution
What if the need for fabric, not food, in the face of a changing climate is what first tipped humanity towards agriculture?
Ian Gilligan
essay
Art
Changed by art
Gazing at a painting feels like an almost magical encounter with another mind but what real effects does art have on us?
Ellen Winner
video
Design and fashion
Pre-Hispanic and colonial traditions combine in Mario’s uniquely Mexican artworks
6 minutes
video
Work
The last of her kind, Gricel regales Cuban cigar-rollers with readings and good humour
10 minutes
video
Food and drink
Making sauerkraut is a spiritual matter for the ‘fermentation fetishist’ Sandor Katz
12 minutes
video
Design and fashion
The only thing more entrancing than a marbled book cover is the process that creates it
13 minutes
video
Making
Kerala’s skilled hand-weavers struggle to survive the rising tides of modernity
12 minutes
video
Technology and the self
A curtain that twitches as people walk by creates a delightful paradox of privacy
3 minutes
video
Biology
Making dentures can be oddly riveting – a fusion of biology, craft and fun
5 minutes
essay
The future
Where did the grandeur go?
Superlative things were done in the past century by marshalling thousands of people in the service of a vision of the future
Martin Parker