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Rebecca Liu
Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

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There are only girls on the internet

Book Review

August 2022

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2022

I remember the first time I saw it, like a freshly alert hare alarmed by movement in the distant grasslands. It was 2013. Model...

Book Review

September 2020

Pankaj Mishra’s ‘Bland Fanatics’

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

September 2020

The Anglo-American commentariat is full of lofty egos. Pankaj Mishra has developed a reputation as their great deflater. ‘Watch...

David Altmejd’s installation for the Canada Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale was a complex labyrinth of ferns, nests and caves littered with stuffed finches, starlings, squirrels, skunks and raccoons Imaginary animals including Homme-Oiseau, a life-sized human figure with a bird’s head in a grey business suit, and The Giant 2, a crystal-covered, mirrored, furry giant crawling with moss, birds and fungi, mingled among them   Altmejd’s enchanted forest was symptomatic of a rising interest in myth and magic among contemporary Canadian artists that we can relate to the anxieties of climate change and environmental degradation Counter to one’s expectations, the trend’s cast of monsters, mutants, fairies and witches aren’t starring in escapist fantasies, but in disturbing visions that articulate our collective sadness and fear   Artists have long turned to nature for comfort and inspiration in troubling times The Romantics resisted the dehumanising effects of the Industrial Revolution by taking a renewed interest in the landscape, and the modernists rejected venerated Enlightenment values in the wake of the First World War by exploring the aesthetic traditions of so-called ‘primitive’ cultures, which were considered to live in prehistoric communion with the land Today’s troubling blend of global conflict, civil unrest and economic collapse surely heralds another retreat to Arcadia; however, as Canadian artists have been quick to realise, nature is no longer the safe port in a storm   In 2011 Canadians have already seen record-breaking seasonal floods in Manitoba, historic firestorms in Alberta and deadly heatwaves in Ontario and Quebec In February, we held our breath as our neighbours to the south prepared for what’s now referred to as the 2011 Megastorm, and in April we mourned when a freak tornado outbreak killed more than 300 Americans These extreme weather patterns are due in large part to our changing climate The severe spring forest fires in Alberta, for example, were caused in part by the pine beetle outbreak, which was triggered by a series of unusually mild winters followed by hot, dry summers Normally the pine beetle is an integral part of the regional ecosystem, eating dead or dying trees in order to

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror’

Book Review

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2019

Talk about the fates of young professional women today and you will often alight on two themes: the anxieties that come with living in...

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fiction

September 2014

The Fringe of Reality

Antoine Volodine

TR. Jeffrey Zuckerman

fiction

September 2014

Many thanks to those who have allowed me to speak; now I’ll do so.   I’m actually not talking...

Art

March 2013

Strangely Ordinary: Ron Mueck's art of the uncanny

Anouchka Grose

Art

March 2013

Since the Stone Age, people have been concerned with the problem of how to represent life.   Cave paintings...

Interview

June 2015

Interview with Moyra Davey

Hannah Gregory

Interview

June 2015

One way to think about Moyra Davey’s way of working across photography, film and text is in terms of...

 

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