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12 results
  • Article
  • Article

How to talk to kids about race

| Pragya AgarwalJoelle Avelino

When her daughter decided blonde was best, a red flag went up for Pragya Agarwal. In this essay, the behavioural scientist discusses childhood development, race and representation.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

How wigs help children handle hair loss

| Carmel KingHelen Babbs

For young people who lose their hair during cancer treatment, a wig can make them feel normal again. Carmel King photographs some of the processes and people involved with a charity providing beautiful human-hair wigs for kids.

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Doris Day blows against

| Dodie BellamyMichael Salu

Dodie Bellamy remembers a heady summer watching Doris Day grimace and gust in vintage movies, her expressive exhalations changing her onscreen world with a puff.

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Race, religion and the Black Madonna

| Daniela Vasco

Mystery and controversy surround the dark-skinned religious icon who represents the Virgin Mary throughout the Catholic world.

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Notes upon arrival

| Bhanu KapilMaïa Walcott

In an effort to feel at home back in the country of her birth, poet Bhanu Kapil recognises the small revelations of nature in a chilly UK spring as a way to reconnect.

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Remote romance and the common cold

| Elena CarterThomas S G Farnetti

Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.

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Building resilience in a racist world

| Louisa Adjoa ParkerOlivia Twist

With the resurgence of racism in today’s UK, Louisa Adjoa Parker reflects on the trauma of growing up in a racist society and explores how victims could begin to heal.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

My body, my hair

| Farah EssetEden Rickson

To depilate or not to depilate? Farah Esset and Eden Rickson share a collection of personal pictures and stories that explore the intimate interplay between body hair and identity.

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Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

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Fleeing fear, defying prejudice

| Sedra Al-Yousef

As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.

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The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection

| Russell Dornan

With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.

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The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

| Ken Hollings

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.