#colonial-legacy

#colonial-legacy

Stretching across Pakistan's southwestern border, the mineral-rich province of Balochistan is the country's largest and poorest region, and the site of its longest-running sub-national conflict. Balochistan's relationship with the Pakistani state has been uneasy almost since Pakistan came into being in August 1947, following the partition of the subcontinent after the end of colonial rule. The province has witnessed violence since it formally became part of Pakistan a year later in 1948.

On February 8, 1977, Indianapolis businessman Tony Kiritzis (Bill Skarsgard) kidnapped Richard Hall, a mortgage company president (Stranger Things' Dacre Montgomery), claiming that Hall's company had sabotaged his real estate investment. Kiritzis rigged a 12-gauge shotgun with a hair-trigger "dead man's wire" around Hall's neck, ensuring that Hall would die if police sharpshooters tried to kill him. He held Hall for three days as police, family members, a charismatic local radio DJ (Colman Domingo) and TV reporters were drawn into the standoff.

How do you map time in three dimensions? Cannupa Hanska-Luger's new exhibition at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska asks that question in a choir of material tones, locating both harmony and discordance in Indigenous futurity. Dripping Earth (until 8 March 2026) is an ambitious undertaking, ushering viewers under water, over land and through the magma-hot center of historical turmoil.

A respected British barrister as well as an evangelical leader, he oversaw Christian camps in the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where more than 100 boys and young men were abused. He embodied the authority and social privilege that shielded him from scrutiny. When reports of his abuse first surfaced in England in the early 1980s, the Church chose silence over accountability, allowing him to carry his cruelty to Africa.

Back during SF's post-George Floyd statue tear-down spree of 2020, activists ripped down a statue of 18th century Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra. It was not replaced, as Father Junipero Serra's legacy of late-1700s of cruelty toward Indigenous peoples in establishing California's missions was forcing many cities to rethink whether they wanted those statues of him or monuments to him that were dotted across the state.

The installation echoes a historic moment—Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1968 wrap—marking the Kunsthalle Bern's transition towards a renewed institutional vision.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is offering a deal to the US: minerals in exchange for military help, illustrating a troubling return to exploitative colonial practices.