Kent Monkman: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)

By Ann C. Collins

FEB 2020 | ArtSeen

It may be that history, as Winston Churchill said, is written by the victors, but a deep satisfaction can be had for those who redraft it. Cree artist Kent Monkman does just that for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s inaugural Great Hall Commission. Monkman reverses the European gaze, presenting Indigenous people as heroes who welcome and rescue invading newcomers.

The People's Demands Are Lawful: Jill Li's Lost Course

By Matt Turner

FEB 2021 | Film

Jill Li’s longitudinal documentary follows the group of activists behind the Wukan Protests of 2011 and the ever-developing interpersonal dynamics between them as they transition from protesting political corruption to governing themselves.

“They’re Not Normal People”: Azazel Jacobs’s French Exit

By Madeline Whittle

FEB 2021 | Film

An exceptional ensemble cast—including Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges—renders the absurd with singular emotional nuance (and comic timing) in Azazel Jacobs’s latest, co-written by and adapted from a novel by Patrick DeWitt.

Journey to a “People's War”

By Thomas Dai

JUL-AUG 2020 | Field Notes

Some years ago, I stopped in Wuhan on my way to somewhere else. The city looked unremarkable to me, another heavy, Chinese metropolis split in two by a dying river. I remember the owner of my hostel stopping by to take my payment and photocopy my passport. Afterwards, he left for dinner, and I did the same, walking down to the Yangtze to sit on its grassy banks.