hong kong fire bamboo culture

A deadly fire in Hong Kong's Tai Po district, which killed at least 159 people and left 31 missing, has sparked an online battle over the role of bamboo scaffolding in the blaze. Photographer Elaine Li and other artists, architects, and cultural historians are defending the centuries-old craft against early news reports that implicated it, fearing it may be unfairly blamed and regulated out of existence. Officials have ordered all scaffolding mesh removed and arrested 21 people on suspicion of manslaughter, but the conversation has grown into a broader fight to protect a cultural symbol of Hong Kong's identity.

barbara kruger untitled questions ice protests la

Barbara Kruger's monumental text-based mural "Untitled (Questions)" (1990/2018) at the Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles has become a backdrop for National Guard deployments during protests against ICE raids. Originally commissioned by MOCA in 1989, the 191-foot-long work asks "WHO IS BEYOND THE LAW?" and has been photographed twice with armed soldiers beneath it—first in 1992 during the Rodney King protests, and again this week as President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to quell demonstrations against immigration enforcement. Photographer Jay L. Clendenin captured the latest image, showing a calm scene that belies nearby unrest.

The documentary dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti airs on Rai Tre. Here is the video preview.

Va in onda su Rai Tre il documentario dedicato al mecenate siciliano Antonio Presti. Qui la video anteprima

On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 3:30 PM, RAI 3 will broadcast the documentary "Asteroide 20049 Antonio Presti," produced by Rai Documentari and dedicated to Sicilian patron Antonio Presti (born 1957). Written by Fedora Sasso and Francesco Castellani, curated by Giulietta Venneri, and directed by Fedora Sasso, the film explores Presti's four-decade career using art to intervene in marginalized areas of Sicily. The documentary's title references an asteroid named after Presti, symbolizing his vision linking cosmic and urban space. It opens at the Astrophysical Observatory of Isnello and focuses on the Catania neighborhood of Librino, where Presti created MAGMA, an open-air museum developed through collaboration with students, artists, and residents.

Art Lovers Movie Club: Elisabeth Brun, ‘Big Tech Blues’, 2025

ArtReview's Art Lovers Movie Club presents Elisabeth Brun's film 'Big Tech Blues' (2025), an auto-documentary that follows a small village in northern Norway as it resists the installation of a SpaceX Starlink 'Gateway' transmission site. The film blends personal essay, documentary footage, and interviews with residents who protest the hub over concerns about noise pollution, radiation, and environmental impact on the rural coastline. Brun contrasts slick Starlink promotional material with slow, intimate scenes of the landscape and community organizing on Facebook, highlighting the irony of using digital tools to fight digital infrastructure.

Emma the joke-telling robot cracks up the care home: Paula Hornickel’s best photograph

Photographer Paula Hornickel captured a moment between an elderly care home resident named Waltraud and a social robot named Emma in Albershausen, Germany. The robot, designed for companionship in settings with staff shortages, engages residents in conversation, tells jokes, and discusses topics like favorite flowers, simulating social interaction.

Inside the 19th-century Parisian club that became a safe haven for female artists

Art historian Jennifer Dasal's new book "The Club" tells the story of the American Girls' Club, a Parisian safe haven founded in 1893 by Elisabeth Mills Reid at 4 Rue de Chevreuse in Montparnasse. The club provided affordable housing and meals for aspiring female American artists who faced obstacles their male counterparts did not, including societal pressure toward marriage, financial constraints, and safety concerns. Notable residents and participants included painters Anne Goldthwaite, Florence Lundborg, and sculptors Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller and Alice Morgan Wright, whose works and lives are chronicled in Dasal's account.

Three things the Fuorisalone should do (and doesn't) to improve the quality of life in Milan

Tre cose che il Fuorisalone dovrebbe fare (e non fa) per migliorare la qualità della vita di Milano

The 2026 Milan Design Week, coinciding with the Salone del Mobile, has officially begun, bringing over 1,850 events to the city. The launch included a special breakfast-barter event in Piazza Duomo with artist Maurizio Cattelan and journalist Nicolas Ballario, kicking off a week expected to draw 300,000 visitors.

Meet the Seattle families living communally to bring down costs – in pictures

A new housing development in Seattle called Corvidae Co-op offers an affordable, communal living model. The 10-unit complex in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, designed by Allied8 and funded via a Frolic Community model, sells homes for less than half the city's median price, with units starting at $180,000. Residents, ranging from children to retirees, share kitchens, decks, laundry, and a guest unit.

An artist told the incredible story of a Calabrian village that no longer exists. The interview

Un artista ha raccontato l’incredibile storia di un borgo della Calabria che non c’è più. L’intervista

Italian artist Martin Errichiello has created [campanamuta], a six-part audio work broadcast on RAI Radio 3's Zazà program in late 2025 and now available on RaiPlay Sound. The piece tells the story of Eranova, a farming community founded in 1896 near Reggio Calabria that was destroyed by 1980 after the Christian Democratic party planned—but never built—a steel center on its land, now the site of the Port of Gioia Tauro. Errichiello weaves together interviews with former residents and his own original texts, using non-linear narration to explore the village's utopian origins and forced disappearance.

Participatory Design or Processual Formalism? Frei Otto, the Ökohaus, and the Ökohäusler by Matthew Kennedy

The Ökohaus (Eco-House) project in Berlin stands as a radical experiment in participatory architecture, born from the 1987 Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) urban renewal program. Designed by Frei Otto, the complex features three residential buildings characterized by a 'double informality' where dense foliage and a patchwork of diverse cladding materials—ranging from timber and metallic shingles to exposed concrete—create a ruin-like yet meticulously resolved aesthetic. The project challenged traditional housing models by allowing residents, or 'Ökohäusler,' to engage in a collective and individualized construction process.