contemporary
Sensible Stillness
In 1796 Mary Wollstonecraft reflected in print on her travels in Scandinavia. One topic she addressed was quietness. She alludes to the ‘stupid stillness’ of London on a Sunday… which came to mind as I walked along the Strand on a spring morning, 17 March 2020, the day before London lock-down because of coronavirus Covid-19.…
Read MoreRepost from Courtauld Digital Media: Epstein’s Strand Statues
Editors’ note: The Strandlines editors are always scouring for news and research about the Strand area. Below we’re delighted to be sharing an extract from ‘The Strand Statues’, a piece by Leonora Monson, a Courtauld Connects Digitisation Placement student. Thank you to the Courtauld Digitisation team for allowing us to share. The Courtauld Connects Digitisation…
Read MoreRepost from Courtauld Digital Media: Visions of London
Editors’ note: The Strandlines editors are always scouring for news and research about the Strand area. Below we’re delighted to be sharing an extract of ‘Visions of London’, a piece by Hannah Wilson, a Courtauld Connects Digitisation placement student. Thank you to the Courtauld Digitisation team for allowing us to share a snippet of Hannah’s…
Read MoreKing’s College London Chapel Preservation Project
At King’s College London Archives our remit is to preserve and provide access to the material in our care. This project is an experiment in how we might apply that philosophy to digitally preserve our physical objects and spaces. The buildings of King’s have a rich history and have changed much over the years. The…
Read MoreLet’s All Go Down the Strand – For the Age of Brexit
One night half a dozen toffs met together in Westminster A severing from the continent was planned Empathy and sense were summarily banned ‘Let’s inflame irrational nationalism! It won’t hurt us when it backfires’ Decorate a bus in lies Lie some more when they ask why And then dance around the union’s funeral pyre Let’s…
Read MoreThe Mau Mau Case: Post-Colonial Justice on the Strand
“This is a historic judgement today, which will have repercussions for years to come” – Leigh Day Prosecution team. The Mau Mau insurgency, also known in Britain as the ‘Emergency Period’, was an eight year span of violence in colonial Kenya (1952-60). In 2012, the British High Court of Justice, inside the Royal Courts of…
Read MoreStreetkind UK on Southampton Street
‘For several years my sister always came out and gave out little care packages for people sleeping rough’, Ijlal explains, ‘but we had our first outreach in March and then it’s been once a month every month since’. It’s 2:30pm on what, for many visitors to the Strand, is a regular relaxed Sunday. However, for…
Read MoreThree Poems for Strandlines by Ruth O’Callaghan
Ruth O’Callaghan starred in Strandlines 1.0’s ‘Cabinet of Artists’. She is an acclaimed poet, mentor, reviewer, adjudicator and workshop leader: see ruthocallaghan.wordpress.com for further details of her published poems and poetry-related activities. Her next collection of poems will be published by Shoestring Press in 2020. We are delighted to have three of her poems written…
Read MoreFruity Wordplay and Weird Forests: Now Play This 2019
The Now Play This festival of experimental game design returned to Somerset House this weekend, bringing another smorgasbord of games and playful artworks, digital and otherwise, to the Strand. This year the theme is community. In many cases, this means works designed to spur competition and collaboration – works like Patrick LeMieux’s Octopad, in which…
Read MoreEngland’s stage
Walking down the “Hausmann-like boulevard” that is Aldwych, Alan Read points out the sweeping curve of white buildings, “it looks like it should be in Paris. I sometimes imagine is in Paris when I want to think of myself flâneuring around the city”. The red busses are a reminder, however, that this is very much…
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