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Philippa Snow
Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including ArtforumThe Los Angeles Review of BooksArtReviewFriezeVogueThe NationThe New Statesman, and The New Republic. Her first book, Which As You Know Means Violence, is out now with Repeater, and she is currently working on an essay collection about famous women.  

Articles Available Online


You Don’t Think God Is Sexy?

Film Review

January 2023

Philippa Snow

Film Review

January 2023

On the most literal level, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s elliptical, spiritual-cum-sensual movie Teorema (1968) is about an entire family being driven to distraction by their...

Essay

Issue No. 31

It's Terrible The Things I Have To Do To Be Me

Philippa Snow

Essay

Issue No. 31

Here was a woman who had modelled her life so closely on Marilyn Monroe’s that doing so eventually helped...

‘Grandma Why are we brown?’   The grandmother puts down the rifle she’s been cleaning Another rifle and a box of ammunition are sitting on the kitchen table in front of her   ‘What?’   ‘Why are we brown?’   ‘We’re not brown, we’re morochas Where did you hear that?’   ‘We were in gym class and Tati shouted, “Ewww!!! She has brown nipples!”’   The kettle comes to a boil and the grandmother stands up to turn off the stovetop She wraps a dishcloth around the iron handle before picking up the kettle Then she puts two bags of coffee in one mug and a teabag in the other and pours in the hot water before bringing both mugs to the table The sugar and spoons are already laid out on the cloth She unwraps the bread, which has been bundled up in cloth to keep warm It came out of the clay oven less than an hour ago   ‘How did she see your nipples?’ she asks, sitting down   ‘We were finishing gym class and had to get changed back into dry clothes So I was sweaty and took off my t-shirt and she saw my boobies Why are we brown?’   ‘We’re not brown’ The grandmother sips from her mug, which she holds in two hands Her gold wedding ring is shoved right up to the top of her finger, where it meets the palm ‘Brown is the wrong word, it’s a filthy color We’re morochas, which is different’ She sips from her mug but the coffee is burning hot and scalds her throat The grandmother grimaces in pain and tears come into her eyes Her granddaughter laughs ‘We’re not brown, we’re morochas, OK?’   ‘But that’s not an answer’ The girl puts two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into her tea, adds milk, cuts two slices of bread and dips them in too The bread swells with milky tea and she starts to scoop it up with the spoon like soup   ‘We’re morochas because the paint ran out while we were being made’   ‘What paint?’   ‘At the place where people are made they didn’t have enough paint to make us really dark We were going to be black, but they

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtReview, Frieze, Vogue, The...

Essay

January 2021

An Uneasy Girl

Philippa Snow

Essay

January 2021

Even before Lucie arrives holding a shotgun, we know that the perfect family in this huge suburban house are...

Brilliant Muscles

Essay

December 2019

Philippa Snow

Essay

December 2019

‘Lindsay Lohan’s new film,’ I told almost everyone I spoke to for about two months earlier this year, ‘is about werewolf detectives.’ Nobody seemed...
Evita Vasiljeva, POSTCRETE

Art Review

February 2019

Philippa Snow

Art Review

February 2019

Lower.Green is situated in the unlikely surroundings of a near-dead mall in Norwich. It is not just any mall, but Anglia Square Shopping Centre:...
Gabriele Beveridge, Live Dead World

Art Review

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Art Review

November 2018

Several months ago, I went to a salon so small and so identikit that I do not recall the name, and against every sane...

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poetry

January 2014

Three New Poems

Antjie Krog

poetry

January 2014

Antjie Krog was born and grew up in the Free State province of South Africa. She became editor of...

Interview

February 2016

Interview with Gerard Byrne

Izabella Scott

Interview

February 2016

I first encountered Gerard Byrne’s eerily dislocated films at Tate Britain, where 1984 and Beyond (2005–7) was shown on...

poetry

June 2013

Belly

Melissa Lee-Houghton

poetry

June 2013

When I was fifteen I took my two little cousins into town and had them wait outside the tattoo...

 

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