#African female architects

[africanfemalearchitects]

ADIDAS Flagship Store by Ọshinówò Studio

Located in the sought-after Victoria Island area, Oshinowo Studio won the project following a design competition held by ONL Estates with a brief to draw together Nigerian art, culture, and aesthetics with the global brand’s style and personality.

Oshinowo Studio’s design draws inspiration from Lagos itself, the home of urban culture in Nigeria and a global centre of creativity. The two-floor, 380 square metre project is a retrofit of an existing 1970s building and is conceived as a combination of clean lines overlaid with a façade that adds a layered texture, reflecting the depth and complexity of the upcycling, reuse, and regeneration that can be found throughout the city.

Tosin Oshinowo, Founder, Oshinowo Studio, said: “Our design is inspired by the city’s resilient, adaptable, and go-getter resolve, building a place of convergence for sports and culture.”

Constructed using a combination of solid and perforated corrugated aluminium sheets traditionally used as roofing in Lagos’s mass housing projects, the striking façade also features LED linear lighting to illuminate the ridged surface, creating a dynamic and unexpected visual effect. In this way, simple and functional materials are elevated to create an optical illusion in which the level of transparency depends on the viewer’s distance from the building. This ingenious façade configuration means that the store has a visible shop window, as well as ample natural sunlight that is sufficiently diffuse to prevent the interior from overheating.

The project also represents an opportunity for adidas, which also carried out the interior design and fit-out of the store, to collaborate with contemporary Nigerian artists Chinelo Ezewudo, Osa Okunkpolor, Dennis Osadebe, and Ayoola Gbolahan.

Words & Image Courtesy of Oshinowo Studio.

For more visit the project website here.

[pixies-love-envy]

Too Sweet: Cricket

Character Intro

Name: Cricket St. James

Nickname: Jiminy

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Role in story: Female main character

bio/summary/description: Cricket is a high school dropout going nowhere fast. She lives with her high school friend, Harlow Knight, in a tiny apartment but at least it’s better than the trailer parks she grew up in. Her toxic ex, Jude Fox, won't leave her alone, and she's deeply unhappy with her job as a bartender at a tavern frequented by Dungeons and Dragons larpers. She is the love interest of March Starling.

DOB: January 2, 2000 (Capricorn)

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Ethnicity: Mixed race (African American/Caucasian)

MBTI: INTJ-T (Architect)

Occupation: Bar wench at The Chipped Tea Cup Tavern and Inn

Appearance

Height: 5 feet 3 inches

Hair: Long platinum blonde dreads with matching eyebrows and armpit hair

Eye: Hazel

Build/physique: Slender build

Notable features: Tattoos- a padlock in the shape of a heart on her right wrist, futurama’s bender on her left thigh and the tower tarot card on the inside of her right arm

Clothing style: Y2K Streetwear (essentially baggy pants or cargo pants w/ crop tops and t-shirts. Very low effort)

Extras

TRAGIC BACKSTORY!

Quote: “I do, however, feel that if you’re 24 and own a van, you ought to be either a mother or a hippie with that fantastic Volkswagen.”

Traits/quirks:

She likes words and language and is always peppering obscure vocabulary into sentences and trying to revive ancient outdated phrases

She leaves notes in library books for future readers.

She has at least 2 shots of fire ball on a daily basis.

She loves to watch “bad” movies.

She always walks with purpose.

She speaks very directly.

She is very pessimistic.

Fun facts/headcanons:

She likes to name everything she owns. Her car is named Gideon, Her lighter is called Zelda, and her phone is Bodhi.

Her favorite book is Stephen King’s Carrie and she reads it every six months and annotates new connections she’s found.

She drives with her left foot up on the dashboard because it’s comfortable and that what her mommy used to do.

She has a specific order for every respective restaurant because it’s more efficient than looking through the menu every time.

All of her tattoos have been done by her friend for free in his living room because she would never spend money on something as frivolous as a tattoo.

She keeps a flask of fireball in her car at all times.

Hobbies/skills: Reading, collecting vinyl records, organizing EVERYTHING, making spreadsheets

Likes: Fireball, Marijuana, Mosh pits, The Beatles, the sims, card games, her favorite lighter, sociology, and philosophy

Dislikes: Underwear, astrology and all that crystals and manifestation business, organized religion, capitalism, business majors

Too Sweet Masterlist

IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED IN TOO SWEET CONTENT PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!

[lboogie1906]

Georgia Blanche Douglas Camp Johnson (September 10, 1880 - May 15, 1966) known as Georgia Douglas Johnson was a poet, lyricist, short story writer, and playwright she was born to George and Laura Douglas Camp in Atlanta. She graduated from Atlanta University, attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and married Henry Lincoln Johnson, a prominent attorney. She moved with her husband and two sons to DC when her husband was appointed Recorder of Deeds for DC by President William Howard Taft. She lived a multifaceted and complex life as a mother, housewife, music teacher, civil service clerk, writer, and social hostess. After her husband’s death, she worked as Commissioner of Immigration Conciliation for the Department of Labor.

She was one of the architects of DC’s version of the “New Negro Movement.” Her home became the site of Saturday literary salons.

Her volumes of poetry made her the most important female poet of the Harlem Renaissance. She published four volumes of poetry: The Heart of a Woman, Bronze, An Autumn Love Cycle, and Share My World. She wrote at least twenty-eight plays, including A Sunday Morning in the South, Blue Blood, Safe, and Blue Eyed Black Boy.

She focused on feminist themes, including motherhood, love, loneliness, and imagination in her first collection of poems. She began to examine racial themes including the impact of lynching on African American families and communities, miscegenation, passing, and race-based oppression.

Perhaps the most anthologized woman poet of the Renaissance was interested in exploring and emphasizing female sexuality, intense sensuality, and passion in her poetry suggesting the influence of traditional, romantic, and Victorian femininity. Her poems resisted patriarchal sexuality that designated women as male property and that condemned homoeroticism as immoral. She surrounded herself with and her poetry was influenced by lesbian and gay women and men.

Her reputation as a contributor to the Harlem Renaissance faded by the time of her death. She is experiencing her renaissance as a new generation of scholars and the public has rediscovered her work. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[myhauntedsalem]

The Monroe County Courthouse

The Monroe County Courthouse in Clarendon, Arkansas is a beautiful monument to turn of the century architecture, built on the White River in 1911 as the judicial base camp for the eastern county of Arkansas. It’s undergone more than its fair share of hardships over the years, but it was one particularly dreadful incident that led to the haunting of the Monroe County Courthouse.

Clarendon, AR was incorporated in 1859, long before the courthouse was built. It was county seat of Monroe County some years longer than that, but it wasn’t until 1911 that the Monroe County Courthouse was finally completed.

The magnificent structure was designed by Charles L. Thompson, a notable architect of the area, and cost a grand total of $118,000 to build – quite the expense in those days. A few months shy of its one hundredth anniversary, the judicial shrine is easily the most remarkable of all landmarks in Clarendon. In 1976, it was honored with an official listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

For all intents and purposes, the Monroe County Courthouse is the same as any other. It is the hub of judicial business for county, where locals visit almost every day for their legal documents, notaries, property registration, titles and of course criminal hearings. It was one such scandalously unlawful incident that led to the Monroe County Courthouse haunting.

The courthouse, and more specifically the basement, is said to be haunted by the ghost of Ernze Mabel Orr, better known as “Mabel”. It all started quite a few years before the courthouse was even built, when Mabel and her husband John Orr made their first trip to Clarendon, Arkansas.

The Orr’s were a husband and wife duo of comedy and opera performances. In 1893, John and Mabel Orr visited the small town of Clarendon to take stage at the local opera house, they fell in love with the quaint nature of the town and decided to make it their permanent home.

The Orr’s soon returned and purchased a large home in Monroe County. They took in a number of servants, all of African-American descent, and it wasn’t long before the servants discovered the dark secret of the Orr family.

John Orr was a cruel husband who often abused his wife. Whenever his temper flared, he would lash out, beating her relentlessly. Mabel was terribly distraught by her husband’s behavior, but in those days, it was almost unheard of to seek legal aid for an abusive relationship, and doing so was likely fruitless anyhow. Instead, Mabel joined forces with the servants.

One of her female servants helped Mabel to mix up a ‘hoodoo’ potion or spell of some sort intended to kill the brutal Mr. Orr. It did not work, and the abusive treatment continued, but Mabel was not ready to give up yet.

This time, Mabel was receiving the assistance of four servants; three men and one woman. Together, they conceived a plot that involved the murder of John Orr by gunshot. It is not exactly proven whether they actually went through with the plan, but a short time later, John Orr was shot and killed under mysterious circumstances.

It wasn’t long before word of the plot got out. A lynch mob stormed the home, taking Mabel Orr and her four conspiring servants to jail. They were all sentenced to hang on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn.

The night before the hanging was to take place, the sheriff took mercy on Mabel Orr, proffering an overdose of morphine. Mabel accepted the escape from a publicly humiliating execution and died that night in her basement jail cell. The other four conspirators were hung the next morning on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn.

Legend has it that Mabel’s mournful cries can still be heard emanating from the basement of the courthouse, haunting all who are unlucky enough to hear them. The ghosts of her conspirators are said to haunt the Monroe County Courthouse via inexplicable lights that appear near the levee, where their bodies were carried from the lawn to the river for burial.

[hausofsunflowersexplores]

Embracing Our Heritage: The Journey of Black Women in America and Our Right to Luxury

The history of Black women in America is a narrative rich in resilience, strength, and unyielding spirit. From the brutal realities of slavery to the complexities of contemporary systemic oppression, Black women have endured and thrived against overwhelming odds. This article seeks to provide a scholarly exploration of this history, emphasizing the necessity for reparations—not merely as financial compensation but as a holistic restoration of dignity, equity, and luxury.

The Early Struggles: Slavery and Survival

Black women’s journey in America began under the harshest conditions imaginable. Arriving as enslaved individuals, they were subjected to brutal physical labor, sexual exploitation, and family separations. Despite these dehumanizing conditions, enslaved Black women created covert networks of support and resistance. They preserved African cultural traditions through oral histories, religious practices, and communal care, thereby maintaining a sense of identity and solidarity.

Scholars like Deborah Gray White in "Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South" have documented the unique challenges faced by enslaved women. Their dual burden of race and gender placed them in a precarious position, yet they played crucial roles in the survival and resistance of their communities.

Reconstruction and the Fight for Freedom

The Reconstruction era (1865-1877) presented both opportunities and significant challenges for Black women. Although legally freed, they encountered pervasive racial hostility and economic instability. Reconstruction policies often failed to protect Black women from violence and exploitation.

Historians such as Elsa Barkley Brown have highlighted the active roles Black women took in shaping the post-emancipation landscape. They were instrumental in establishing schools, churches, and civic organizations. Despite limited resources and relentless opposition, figures like Mary McLeod Bethune emerged, advocating for education and social upliftment.

Jim Crow Era: Resilience in the Face of Racism

The Jim Crow era (late 19th century to mid-20th century) entrenched systemic racism through segregation laws and practices. Black women were confined to low-wage jobs, often as domestic workers, and were subjected to severe social and economic disenfranchisement.

Despite these oppressive conditions, Black women fostered communities of resistance and self-help. The rise of organizations like the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) exemplified their commitment to social justice and community improvement. Scholars like Darlene Clark Hine have documented how these organizations provided crucial support and advocacy, challenging the pervasive racism of the era.

Civil Rights Movement: The Unseen Architects

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is often characterized by its male leaders, yet Black women were the backbone of this transformative period. Activists such as Ella Baker, Septima Clark, and Diane Nash played pivotal roles in organizing, strategizing, and mobilizing communities.

Their contributions extended beyond frontline activism. Black women were essential in grassroots organizing, voter registration drives, and educational initiatives. Historian Barbara Ransby’s work on Ella Baker underscores the importance of Black women’s leadership in sustaining the movement’s momentum and achieving its successes.

Modern Struggles: From Poverty to the Prison Pipeline

In contemporary America, Black women continue to navigate systemic inequities. They are disproportionately affected by poverty, health disparities, and mass incarceration. The school-to-prison pipeline, a term coined to describe the policies and practices that push students, particularly those of color, from schools into the criminal justice system, disproportionately impacts Black girls.

Angela Davis’s scholarship highlights the intersections of race, gender, and incarceration, emphasizing the need for comprehensive reforms. Black women’s overrepresentation in low-wage work, coupled with systemic barriers to education and healthcare, perpetuates cycles of disadvantage.

The Case for Reparations: A Right, Not a Privilege

The call for reparations for Black women extends beyond monetary compensation. It encompasses a holistic approach to addressing historical injustices and systemic inequities. Reparations should include educational opportunities, healthcare access, housing, and investment in Black communities.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s landmark essay "The Case for Reparations" argues for a multi-faceted approach to rectifying the enduring legacy of slavery and segregation. For Black women, reparations would acknowledge the compounded effects of racial and gender discrimination, providing a foundation for equitable advancement.

Living in Luxury: A New Standard

Reparations should enable Black women to live in environments that promote their well-being and security. This includes access to safe and thriving neighborhoods, quality education, and healthcare that addresses their specific needs. The concept of luxury, in this context, is redefined as the right to live without the constant burden of systemic oppression and economic instability.

The history of Black women in America is a testament to enduring strength and relentless pursuit of justice. From the brutalities of slavery to the ongoing struggles against systemic inequities, Black women have consistently demonstrated resilience and leadership. The call for reparations is not a plea for charity but a demand for justice—a recognition of the invaluable contributions Black women have made and continue to make to society. It’s time for Black women to reclaim their right to luxury and equity, ensuring that future generations can inherit a legacy of dignity and prosperity.

This perspective aligns with the scholarship of sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, who emphasizes the importance of intersectionality in understanding Black women’s experiences. By addressing these intersecting oppressions, reparations can foster environments where Black women not only survive but thrive.

Conclusion

The history of Black women in America is a testament to enduring strength and relentless pursuit of justice. From the brutalities of slavery to the ongoing struggles against systemic inequities, Black women have consistently demonstrated resilience and leadership. The call for reparations is not a plea for charity but a demand for justice—a recognition of the invaluable contributions Black women have made and continue to make to society. It’s time for Black women to reclaim their right to luxury and equity, ensuring that future generations can inherit a legacy of dignity and prosperity.

[sharingstories]

Mothers Who Shaped the World: Celebrating Strength, Resilience, and Legacy

Motherhood wields an extraordinary power – a transformative force that shapes individuals, families, and ultimately, the trajectory of history. While mothers often work behind the scenes, their influence echoes across generations. This Mother's Day, let's go beyond the flowers and cards to explore the lives of some remarkable mothers of history. Their stories offer glimpses into enduring maternal love, unwavering sacrifice, and the profound impact that a mother can have on the destinies of both her children and the wider world.

Mothers as Agents of Change

History is peppered with mothers who defied expectations and became architects of significant shifts in society. One such woman was Sojourner Truth, an African American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Born into slavery, she escaped with her infant daughter in 1826, demonstrating an almost superhuman strength borne from a mother's protective instinct. Truth used her powerful voice to fearlessly challenge prejudice and inequality, leaving an enduring legacy of courage and resilience.

Another woman who transformed the political landscape was Indira Gandhi, the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India. Nicknamed the "Iron Lady of India," Indira Gandhi was a complex, controversial, and often ruthless leader. Yet, she possessed a fierce determination to uplift India, leading the nation through war and economic reforms. She was also deeply devoted to her sons, raising them as responsible citizens and preparing them to be forces in shaping India's future.

In the realm of science, we find the phenomenal Marie Curie, a physicist and chemist known as the "Mother of Modern Physics." Twice a Nobel Prize winner, Curie's pioneering research into radioactivity revolutionized our understanding of the universe. But her path was never easy. She became a single mother after her husband's tragic death, navigating both her illustrious career and raising her two daughters. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, followed in her mother's footsteps, eventually winning a Nobel Prize of her own.

The Everyday Heroes

It's important to remember that not all influential mothers make history books. Their stories might unfold quietly within the confines of their homes and communities, but their impact is no less potent. Their sacrifices go unnoticed, their triumphs often unacknowledged, yet they provide the foundation for families and societies to thrive. These are the mothers who somehow make ends meet, who comfort nightmares away, who believe in their children's potential more fiercely than anyone else in the world.

I'm reminded of a short story entitled "On Mother's Day 2022", a poignant work by Jean McGavin. This story captures the bittersweet complexities of motherhood as seen through the eyes of an aging mother. As her children visit her on Mother's Day, she reflects on the joys and sacrifices that motherhood entails. McGavin's piece reminds us that even seemingly ordinary mothers possess a profound capacity for love and selflessness.

The Timeless Legacy of Mothers

Whether celebrated historical figures or the unsung heroes in our own lives, mothers mold us in countless ways. They are our first teachers, our protectors, and often our most ardent supporters. Their influence extends beyond individual lives, rippling outward to shape societies and cultures. If you wish to gain deeper insights into life and history, I encourage you to read stories about mothers, as their narratives offer a unique lens through which to view the human experience.

This Mother's Day, let's go beyond gestures of appreciation and truly honor mothers everywhere. Let's strive to understand their struggles, celebrate their triumphs, and recognize the profound and lasting imprint they leave on the world.

[sarokat]

Just learning to care for myself on a daily basis, and you?

[coochiequeens]

MAXXI Museum celebrates women in architecture in a new exhibition that documents the transformative role of female architects in the profession's evolution over the last century. Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Elena Motisi, Elena Tinacci, and with exhibition design by Matilde Cassani, Good News. Women in Architecture weaves together in four thematic sections the history of women in architecture, with the work of contemporary practitioners and the voices of young collectives, telling the stories of over eighty female architects.

The exhibition aims to document "the anthropological change of the architectural profession from the twentieth-century stereotype of the charismatic grandmaster to the growing presence of women, collectives and studio couples." From Signe Hornborg, the first woman who graduated in architecture in 1890, to Norma Merrick Sklarek, the first African American architect, to Zaha Hadid, the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize in 2004, the Stories section of the exhibition acknowledges the pivotal characters in the history of women in architecture.

Through drawings, models, and site-specific installations, the Practice section presents the work of 11 distinguished contemporary architects: Elizabeth Diller, Dorte Mandrup, Mariam Kamara, Anupama Kundoo, Yvonne Farrel and Shelley McNamara, Lina Ghotmeh, Jeanne Gang, Kazuyo Sejima, Benedetta Tagliabue, Lu Wenyu and the multidisciplinary collective Assemble. Together, they showcase the increasing presence and mark of women in architecture.

A series of interviews with scholars, curators and young designers make up the Narrations section, while the Visions part features five videos made by young authors within the Future Architecture Platform, exploring gender identity and space. Good News: Women in Architecture is on display at MAXXI Museum until 16 September 2022.

[hunterastrid]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT → ASTRID HUNTER

biography / pinterest / musings / tasks / timeline

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Astrid Beatrice Hunter

NICKNAME(S): N/A

DATE OF BIRTH: December 23, 1991

AGE: Twenty-nine (29)

ZODIAC: Capricorn sun, Cancer moon, Libra rising

GENDER: Cis female

PRONOUNS: She/her

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual

NATIONALITY: British

ETHNICITY: Black (unknown African origin), German

RANKING: Angel

AFFILIATION: War

BACKGROUND

PLACE OF BIRTH: London, England

HOMETOWN: Highmoor, Oxfordshire, England

SOCIAL CLASS: Raised middle class, currently upper class

EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS: 1st class honors degree in international relations from Cambridge University

FATHER: Christopher hunter, doctor

MOTHER: Anja hunter, secretary

SIBLING(S): None

PETS: Julius (doberman, initially shared with Juno Warden)

PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: A handful of flings and/or relationships that ended rather quickly; three years with Juno Warden

ARRESTS: None (so far)

PRISON TIME: None (so far)

OCCUPATION & INCOME

CURRENT OCCUPATION: Member of Parliament, Angel of War

DREAM OCCUPATION: Secretary-General of the United Nations

PAST JOB(S): Some tutoring throughout school and a waitressing gig during university

SPENDING HABITS: Usually buys things out of necessity rather than desire or impulse. Leans towards luxury when she does need to buy something, claiming it’s for the quality.

DEBT: None at the moment

SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: Average

SPEED: Average

INTELLIGENCE: Above average

ACCURACY: Below average

AGILITY: Above average

STAMINA: Average

TEAMWORK: Prefers to work alone, but is able to work in a team when necessary

TALENTS: Talking until she gets her way, channeling her negative feelings into being productive, surprisingly decent at karaoke

SHORTCOMINGS: Struggles to talk about emotions (her own or others), tendency to become a hermit when overwhelmed

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, German, French, Spanish

DRIVE?: She knows how, but prefers to avoid driving at all costs and doesn’t own a car to add another way to avoid it.

JUMP-START A CAR?: Yes

CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: No, she’s always had somebody else do it for her. Will lie and claim that she can just to seem like a Strong, Capable, Independent Woman.

RIDE A BICYCLE?: Yes

SWIM?: Yes

PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: She took piano lessons when she was younger, but hasn’t played in a long time

PLAY CHESS?: Yes, though not super well

BRAID HAIR?: Yes

TIE A TIE?: Yes

PICK A LOCK?: No, though she helped a friend look it up on youtube once when they got locked out in high school

COOK?: Basic stuff, nothing too fancy

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: Laura Harrier

EYE COLOR: Brown

HAIR COLOR: Dark brown (nearly black)

HAIR TYPE: Curly but usually straightened into looser curls

GLASSES/CONTACTS?: Has had glasses since she was a child, but has worn almost exclusively contacts since she was 12. Only wears glasses if she’s run out of contacts or if there’s something wrong with her eyes and she can’t wear her contacts for medical reasons.

DOMINANT HAND: Right hand

HEIGHT: 5'9"

WEIGHT: 125 lbs

BUILD: Slim and lithe, ex-dancer’s body

EXERCISE HABITS: Sporadic, usually focused on cardio

SKIN TONE: Brown

TATTOOS: None

PIERCINGS: Ears (once per lobe)

MARKS/SCARS: Nothing noticeable

CLOTHING STYLE: Dark academia-esque; tailored pantsuits, silk blouses, pearls, houndstooth and plaid, black and white and grey and brown

JEWELRY: Mostly vintage gold with diamonds or pearls

ALLERGIES: Strawberries

DIET: An attempt at a healthy diet is made, though she is partial to takeaway from just about anywhere

PSYCHOLOGY

MBTI TYPE: INTJ, The Architect

ENNEAGRAM TYPE: Type 3, The Achiever

MORAL ALIGNMENT: True Neutral

TEMPERAMENT: Melancholic

ELEMENT: Fire

EMOTIONAL STABILITY: Solid 8/10, tends to shut down and withdraw when having intense feelings rather than seeking support

INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT?: Introvert with extroverted tendencies

OBSESSION: Revenge on Death for Juno

PHOBIAS: Heights

DRUG USE: None

ALCOHOL USE: Regular, but in small doses with occasional social drinking in larger quantities

PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: No

PRONE TO CRYING?: Would rather die than have somebody see her cry

BELIEVES IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?: No

MANNERISMS

ACCENT: Rather posh because she makes it that way, but turns into more of a standard Oxfordshire accent when she isn’t paying attention

HOBBIES: Making fun of saint’s exes to make herself feel better

HABITS: Drinking at least four large cups of coffee per day

NERVOUS TICKS: Fidgeting with whatever is in front of her, refusing to make eye contact, biting the inside of her cheek

DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: To be the best at whatever she’s doing

FEARS: Loss of control, being abandoned

SENSE OF HUMOR?: Very sarcastic and dry, often comes at the expense of others

DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: Depends on who she’s around; very much so when she’s angry

FAVORITES

ANIMAL: Hummingbird

BEVERAGE: Dry cappuccino 

BOOK: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

COLOR: Sky blue

FOOD: Pad Thai 

FLOWER: Hydrangea

GEM: Diamond

MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: Having somebody else drive her

SCENT: Juno’s perfume

SPORT: She literally only watches other people play, refuses to participate herself

WEATHER: Sunny with a cool breeze

VACATION DESTINATION: Venice, Italy

ATTITUDES

GREATEST DREAM: Becoming secretary-general of the united nations

GREATEST FEAR: Not being good enough for those she loves and being left behind as a result

MOST AT EASE WHEN: Surrounded by people she loves

LEAST AT EASE WHEN: Given an important task to complete in front of a stranger

BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: Being elected as a Member of Parliament

BIGGEST REGRET: Not going with Juno to the warehouse on the night she was kidnapped

ADDITIONAL

INSPIRATION: Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), Paris Geller (Gilmore Girls), Michaela Pratt (How to Get Away with Murder), Margaery Tyrell (Game of Thrones), Georgia Miller (Ginny & Georgia), Addison Montgomery (Grey’s Anatomy), Jackie Burkhart (That 70′s Show)

POSITIVE TRAITS: Ambitious, resourceful, patient, assertive, courteous

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Manipulative, opportunistic, obsessive, ruthless, pretentious

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin (with some Gryffindor tendencies)

[africanfemalearchitects]

Lesley Lokko - the 2024 RIBA Royal Gold Medal Recipient

© Murdo McLeod. Image Courtesy of La Biennale Architettura 2021

Professor Lesley Lokko OBE is a renowned Ghanaian-Scottish architect, educator, and best-selling novelist. She is the Founder and Director of the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, which is an independent postgraduate school of architecture and public events platform. In December 2021, she was appointed as the Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. In December 2022, she was awarded an OBE in the first New Year's Honors List by King Charles III, for her exceptional contributions to architecture and education. As an author, she has published 13 bestsellers.

She is the recipient of the 2020 RIBA Annie Spink Award and currently serves as a Visiting Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and a Visiting Full Professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin. She is also a Trustee of the London-based Architecture Foundation and a Founding Member of the Council on Urban Initiatives, co-founded by LSE Cities, UN-Habitat, and UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

On the 18th of January 2024, the Royal Institute of British Architects announced that Professor Lesley Lokko had become the first African female to receive the prestigious Royal Gold Medal, which was established in 1848. She joins the ranks of Zaha Hadid and Yasmeen Lari, as the only women to have been awarded the medal since its inception.

 “I hope that this award will also make it clear that the divisions that we inherit, that we construct, that we put upon ourselves between different aspects of our lives not that they don't matter but perhaps they're not the first place that we should be looking when we're thinking about change and about moving forward.  So, I very much hope that this medal demonstrates that it's worth it to think differently. It’s worth it to go off piste or to go off the beaten track”. - Prof. Lesley

We at the AFA network hope that her final submission in the announcement video will inspire you on your path towards architecture.

Article written by Otie Pokua Yankyera on 23 January 2024.

[dwellordream]

Your book recs are a gold mine but I was wondering if you had any more non-fiction ones that have a special place in your heart? On any topics I don’t mind

Warning some of these are about real world atrocities and almost all of them are intended for an adult audience.

Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog - a white South African journalist comes face to face with the horrific history of Apartheid during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which lasted from 1996 to 2003 to bear witness to and record the human rights violations the South African state inflicted on its people. I read this book for a paper I wrote on necropolitics aka how the state decides who lives, who dies, and how they die.

Elizabeth I, A Study in Insecurity by Helen Castor - a very short but very thoughtful biography of Elizabeth I, focusing on her reign as queen and how the events of her childhood shaped the way she conducted her political and personal life as a ruler, especially her decision to remain unwed.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson - a true crime account of famous architect Daniel Hudson Burnham’s work in constructed the World Fair in Chicago in 1893, while at the same time infamous serial killer H.H. Holmes constructed a hotel in which to murder and dispose of his victims. One of those ‘so weird it must be true’ stories, plays out like a Victorian thriller.

Women in Mongol Iran by Bruno De Nicola - History of Mongol rule over Iran from 1206 to 1335. Focused on the female leaders of the time period and an in depth look at Mongol culture and politicking as well as trade between empires. Lots of interesting tidbits and definitely challenges a lot of assumptions made about Steppe nomads and the ‘near East’.

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor - while Mary I and Elizabeth I are recognized as England’s first queens in their own right, many famous (and infamous) women fought for control over England in the centuries before them. Covers Matilda/Maud, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou and challenges many of the sexist and stereotypical depictions of them in history and pop culture, which often portray these women as scheming vixens or hysterical victims.

A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes - difficult to sum up but basically an examination of the cultural discourse and philosophy surrounding love and romance in western cultures. Would recommend it to anyone interested in writing and examining romantic relationships.

Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of England by Michelle Beer - everyone sending me questions asking about how queens maintain power or use ‘soft power’ to get things done needs to read this book. It goes into the whole discussion of what queens actually did during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and how they were viewed by their courts and people.

[lboogie1906]

Princess Offiong Ekanem Ejindu (May 21, 1962) is a Nigerian architect, philanthropist, and businesswoman born in Ibadan, Nigeria to Professor Sylvester Joseph Una and Obonganwan Ekpa Una. She is an influential philanthropist, “ranked as one of the African female pioneers in the fields of Architecture and Business,” as well as the great-granddaughter of King James Ekpo Bassey.

She attended the Senior Staff Primary School of the University of Ibadan and continued at Queens College, Yaba in Lagos. She attended UNC Charlotte. She graduated from Pratt Institute School of Architecture, becoming the first African woman awarded the institution’s Bachelor of Architecture. She took courses at MIT before working at Grant Associates. She received her MS in Urban Planning from Pratt Institute.

She founded numerous now-prominent businesses including StarCrest. These businesses specialize in real estate, business construction, oil, gas, and investments across Nigeria. She founded Building Support Systems and Hope Centres. She established the African Arts and Fashion Initiative which has provided a platform for showcasing the vibrant culture of Africa as well as providing support and opportunities to African youth.

Her professional success has resulted in numerous honors and awards including the title, Her Highness Obonganwan King James. She received the Patriotic Women of Integrity International Award, African Female Economic Champion Award, African Achievers African Arts and Fashion Lifetime Achievement Award, African Child Nobel Prize, Diaspora Excellence Award, Nigerian Golden Book Professional Icon Award, and the African International Achievers Merit Award for Excellence.

She is the Grand Patron of the Prestigious Icons Club of Dubai and a member of the Nigerian National Heritage Council. She was inducted into the Global Women Leaders Hall of Fame – African Charter, as one of Africa’s top 20 Women of Influence and she was featured in the Famous African Women Architect Magazine. She is married to Amechi Ejindu, who is her business partner. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[pcgamepure09]

Extraordinary and Bad in Gaming

Gaming is most likely the best diversion and even livelihoods in the world. People wreck around for amusement just or learning while others record accounts about the games. In this article, I will focus in extra on gaming itself and less the side of how to make gaming accounts. Gamers come in each exceptional age, genders, religions, regions and shapes. The establishments of people who are gamers make gaming extensively more fun.

Establishments of gamers can have an effect in the sort of games that people play. There are a wide scope of blends for different arrangements relating to the sort of games and kind of gamers. You really need to look at the game's site to get every one of the proper information prior to buying PC Game Pure .

There are various online stages where you can buy games from like Steam or Humble Bundle. Those districts will give you the portrayal, accounts by the association, pictures, customer and non-customer marks, reviews, site, association and their social account(s). Realize the game's site likely will not show you all that you require to know. As a base, a gaming association will show a short endeavor to make it happen depiction, restricted amount of pictures (5, most ideal situation, several accounts by them and their social records. The most they will give is an illuminating portrayal, their social records, customer studies and accounts by them.

We should make a dive straightforwardly into what is viewed as negative with respect to gaming. The greater part of the cynical things about games come from the certifiable people on those games, the kind of games and the sorts of games for some unsuitable person. A game can be bad quality yet it's not by and large the circumstance where the real game is horrendous. It might be where it was some unsuitable kind of game for some inadmissible person. This is where the classes come in. Perhaps a game has a bit of mercilessness. That doesn't make it horrendous; it basically makes it some inadmissible kind of game for a seven year old. Of course maybe you bought a conundrum game for a person who loves movement type games. So the movement loving individual won't see the value in it, yet that doesn't make the conundrum game terrible!

The sorts of games are ceaseless from bareness, meds and alcohol, detestability, wagering with money to say the very least. These different sorts aren't ideal for youth gamers similarly as misguided for people who could do without seeing such things.

Gaming has incredible and awful sides really like the wide range of various things. The key is the means by which extraordinary and dreadful are those sides. For example, a couple of games have an awful side with players that like to fight a ton. This is typical in games. Appreciate for a huge load of gamers this is surely not a big deal; in any case, for youth who are new to the game or regardless, gaming in general this can be disillusioning. There are times when you need to avoid the awful sides all together. There are times when the incredible balances the awful. Accepting this happens and there are no issues with the real game; the awful side is just that one insignificant fly in your room which is no big deal. Alert: If the horrendous balances the incomparable, I would unequivocally recommend avoiding that game.

Another viewpoint that people will disturb a game architect or creator about is depiction. Should I say, a shortfall of depiction which isn't confined to race, body type and message in the game. Accepting you can change your individual, clearly you will not dislike depiction. There is an issue in specific games where they don't address strong and sharp females, minority females and folks, immense, little, tall, and short females and folks. Notice how I didn't put "folks" after female for strong? That is because folks in games are ALWAYS tended to as strong and insightful.

In games that show a male strong and quick, he will generally likely be white, tall, unstable, superstar looking and buff. You will inconsistently see him be a minority, short, stout, not buff, quirky looking, while at this point being strong and sharp. You see this even LESS for females. A couple of females in games are also white, tall, feeble and strong while showing skin like no tomorrow. You simply see THESE females in MMORPG games (Massively Multiplayer online Role Playing Game) be that as it may. RPG games are planned for lala lands where you for the most part fight people and monsters. Clearly the females' subtleties will be strong anyway they won't look strong.

In many games, when they add an individual for you to play they for the most part add a white male first, then a white female, then a dim male, and a short time later a dim female. They don't even really add people who are mixes of races or in the center. With respect to the dull characters they simply add one shade of "dim" or "African American" and not many out of each odd person of shading on earth is that shade.

In games, the vast majority of the characters are for each situation unstable and tall. You don't really see characters that are short and feeble, tall and tubby, short and stout, etc There are a numerous people who aren't unstable and who aren't tall.

Then at long last, there is the mental message that goes with the sexual direction, race, and body type. What do I mean by the mental message? A couple of games send a roundabout message in regards to that character being strong and sharp or something else. While for various games it will in general be a mental message either purposefully or not. For example, in the game you play and you see a minority female who is short, full, nerdy looking and her ascribes are to be a dolt, guiltless, and moronic. It could send a mental message to you that people that seem like her are actually similar to her. They're not sharp, they aren't thin, and are not tall. They did incapably in school, et cetera So you start thinking those things subject to not simply seeing this in that game over and over, anyway when it happens in various games also.

The most really terrible part is NONE of these things are legitimate. Without a doubt, certain people aren't shaky, tall, and maybe not unreasonably splendid; but instead not EVERYONE is like this! You do have short stout minorities who are shrewd as anyone might imagine! You have a wide scope of mixes of people who ARE astute! Clearly, this heap of things about sexual direction, race, body type, and messages aren't just in gaming; they're in films, TV shows, advancements, etc Intriguing that a piece of the producers who make the games, movies, TV shows, advancements, etc, are minorities themselves and they make up the quantity of occupants in the earth. (Search "all out people by race 2016" and click the underlying three associations if you don't confide in me.)

Fast disclaimer: I AM NOT BASHING ANYONE! Without a doubt, I was hollering that. This section of the article is referencing to you what I know, read, hear and experience in gaming.

If you don't believe me go gander at the current TV shows, movies, commercials, and games. A show to look at for extraordinary depiction is Milo Murphy's Law. Two games to look at as a wellspring of viewpoint for extraordinary depiction are OverWatch and Atlas Reactor. By and by in these fields it has improved for depiction unequivocally sex, race and as of late starting body type (expressly in a particular request). A couple of games even add robots and creatures as playable characters to do whatever it takes not to have issues with depiction. This kills the issue of customers requiring an individual to address their genuine or supported sexual direction, race, or body type since now there is an individual most customers can yield to. In light of everything, it's impractical to fulfill everyone.

OK, since I ranted and moved the awful stuff; we ought to get into the incredible bits of gaming! You have gamers as energetic as three years old and as old as 90+! Despite your age, race, sex, religion, culture, or region gaming can be valuable for anyone. Gaming can not solely be fun, yet productive and enlightening.

A benefit with gaming is it can help youth with having more confidence in themselves and be all the more cordial. If they play an online multiplayer game and talk with various players all through the planet, this can help then with becoming familiar with bantering with others other than family and they procure trust in what they're saying. They can go from a smart individual to a social fan! It can happen fast or progressively. Whether or not it's everything except a game anyway a spot for gamers, trained professionals, style originators, vehicle darling, etc to talk; it will regardless help them with being all the more well disposed. Recollect in any case, creating to someone and thereafter voice visiting to someone are two novel experiences. Youth can be incredibly amicable when creating yet especially meek when voice visiting.

[d-criss-news]

Ryan Murphy’s (Kinda) True ‘Hollywood’ Story: 1940s Meets Gay Stars, Interracial Romance and (Gasp!) a Female Studio Chief

The prolific TV creator and Netflix unveil a revisionist take on the golden age of movies, showing how much (and how little) has shifted in entertainment and beyond: “'Hollywood’ can change the world.”

On an abnormally cold January evening, on the steps of Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, history was being rewritten.

Two actors, one playing Rock Hudson, the other Hudson’s African American screenwriter boyfriend, Archie, were tucked inside a teal blue Packard Club Sedan, awaiting their cue. Outside, it was Oscar night, 1948, and despite warnings of grave backlash, the pair was prepared to step out as a couple for the first time.

Archie exited first, his eyes wide with trepidation, then Rock. In matching white tuxedos, they grabbed for each other’s hands and shuffled nervously down the red carpet.

The press box erupted in hisses, then boos.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Archie whispered.

“Absolutely we are,” Rock replied.

The two exchanged smiles, exhaled and made their way into the theater. Then they stopped and did it again. And again.

Ryan Murphy, the scene’s chief architect, was a few miles east, buried in one of his dozen other projects, but his fingerprints could be detected everywhere. The reimagining — part of his new Netflix anthology series, Hollywood — offers a world in which Hudson (played by Jake Picking) walked openly as a gay man, as opposed to the real-life heartthrob who remained closeted until his death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere in Murphy’s revision of history, an African American actress, played by Laura Harrier, is cast as the star of a major studio picture, written by Hudson’s black boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), helmed by a half-Asian director (Darren Criss) and greenlit by a female studio chief (Patti LuPone) and her gay head of production (Joe Mantello).

If Pose was Murphy’s effort to champion the marginalized, Hollywood’s his shot at imagining such marginalization was undone decades ago. The series, his first without his longtime collaborators at 20th Century Fox Television, drops in its entirety May 1, with a sprawling ensemble of real and fictional characters. It was supposed to feel timely, its period backdrop a reminder of how much and how little has changed in 70-plus years; now, landing in a world grappling with a global pandemic, its 1940s setting could be the escape so many are seeking.

“I’ve always been interested in this kind of buried history, and I wanted to create a universe where these icons got the endings that they deserved,” says Murphy, 55, who’s been waiting out the virus at his home in Los Angeles, with his husband and two young sons, who now require homeschooling. “It’s this beautiful fantasy, and in these times, it could be a sort of balm in some way.”

The Netflix executives who shelled out roughly $300 million for Murphy’s services in 2018 can only hope so. Already, they’ve had to cancel influencer screenings, scrap subway ads and punt on potential plans for a premiere benefit for the now hard-hit Motion Picture Television Fund, which houses several stars of the era in its L.A. retirement facility. As for the show itself, it’s certainly not the broad-sweeping, four-quadrant fare that Netflix is widely thought to prefer. The pilot episode alone features six sex scenes — a mix of gay and straight — and nearly all involve some sort of financial transaction. By episode three, which the show’s writers have nicknamed “night of a thousand dicks,” the characters have found their way to one of director George Cukor’s infamous pool parties.

Still, Netflix head of originals Cindy Holland says that Hollywood is exactly the kind of elevated, inclusive and ultimately hopeful programming that the company wants from Murphy, and the seven-episode limited series was fast-tracked as a result. “What I love,” she says, “is that Ryan is creating a world that he wants to will into existence.”

***

Murphy’s first inkling for Hollywood came over a celebratory dinner with Criss following their fruitful awards run for the Versace installment of American Crime Story. With rosé flowing, the two began discussing a next possible collaboration. Murphy wanted to do something young and hopeful; Criss proposed 1940s Hollywood. The 33-year-old actor had been fascinated by the lore surrounding characters like Scotty Bowers, the L.A. hustler who operated out of a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, along with golden age stars like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and he was eager to explore the era with Murphy.

“There’s a blinking red light on it that says, ‘Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy,’ ” says Criss, “because it’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s glamorous, it’s dangerous and it has resonance now.”

Murphy didn’t disagree. As a student of Hollywood history, he’d already gone down the road with his FX series Feud, which centered its first season on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This would simply allow him to dig deeper on figures who’d long captured his attention, from Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, who was effectively run out of Hollywood, to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar and not be allowed to sit with her cast in the theater. “I’m always moved by these characters who weren’t fully seen or didn’t get their moment,” says Murphy in an interview on the Paramount lot earlier this year, where he was directing Meryl Streep in The Prom, another Netflix production. At one point, he’d even toyed with the idea of doing a Biography-style anthology series with an episode devoted to each.  

Not long after that dinner, Criss was at a bachelor party when his phone rang. It was Murphy. “He says, 'Do you mind if I just do my thing on this?’ ” says Criss. “And I’m like, 'You’re Ryan fucking Murphy. Do whatever you want!’ ”

So, Murphy picked a collaborator, Ian Brennan, with whom he’d worked on Glee, Scream Queens and The Politician, and the two began quietly tossing around ideas. With the help of a few researchers, they landed on a story that revolved around a Bowers-esque service station, with a staff full of actors and directors looking to be stars. “It was super fun and sexy and salacious,” says Brennan, “but it was also about the #MeToo underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, which felt very, very contemporary.”

The men found it exhilarating to depict sex so explicitly and in every possible combination. “To be able to describe exactly what is happening is really, really cool,” says Brennan. And despite the appetite for such racy content varying dramatically around the globe, Netflix brass was passionate about its inclusion — a marked difference from his and Murphy’s experience on previous shows, where they fought tooth and nail over the mere mention of sexual terms. “I hope this isn’t speaking out of school,” he adds, “but the one thing [Netflix’s vp original series] Brian Wright said to me, was, like, 'Thumbs-up on the sex. If anything, dial that up.’”

From the Pose writers room, producer Janet Mock would see Murphy and Brennan huddled in a nearby room and wonder what the latest “secret Ryan Murphy project” was all about. At one point, Mock found herself pumping intel out of a writers’ assistant, who told her, “It’s a thing called Hollywood, it’s about this gas station.” Having seen the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, she figured, “OK, there’s no place for me in that. I’ll continue with Pose.”

But that would soon change, beginning with an eye-opening discussion in the writers room about which of the ensemble’s contract players would be picked to star in the film at the center of Hollywood. The role was that of real-life actress Peg Entwistle, a blonde Brit who jumped to her death from the famed Hollywood sign. “At first, we were like, “Well, it can’t be the black girl [Harrier’s Camille], they wouldn’t have done it. …’ And then it was like, 'Well, wait a second, what if it actually was? What if Peg becomes Meg,’ ” says Brennan. One what-if led to another and then another, and before long they’d decided to go back in and start revising history — this time, with Mock as a credited writer.

Now, rather than use the series to, say, showcase the powerlessness of a studio head’s aging housewife, in this case LuPone’s Avis, they tweaked the story so that suddenly it explores what would happen if Avis gained control of her husband’s studio. It was the same for several others, including Rock Hudson, says Murphy’s co-creator. Instead of telling the tragic tale of a person forced to hide, they allowed themselves to explore what would happen if he refused to do so. “Once we began asking, 'What if?’ it became a different show,” says Brennan, with Mantello adding: “It became a fable of what could have been.”

With Netflix execs eager to get the series up on the service, Murphy began loading the cast with his usual mix of familiar names — from Jim Parsons, as Hudson’s real-life closeted agent Henry Wilson, to Rob Reiner, as the head of the fictional Ace Studios — and newer discoveries, like Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Reiner’s daughter, or Picking as Hudson and Pope as his fictional boyfriend. As with other recent ensembles, he listed all of them not in order of importance or seniority but rather alphabetically on the call sheet. The message was clear: “The star of the show is the show,” says Murphy. Still, initial hires Criss and David Corenswet, who’d made his debut on The Politician, were given executive producer credits, along with backend points on the series. (There’s already talk of a season two, which would pick up in the late 1960s, with many of the same actors in entirely new roles.)

At some point in the production process, Murphy found himself scaling back the graphic nature of the series, too — a byproduct of his own personal recalibration, he says, having spent so much of his pre-Netflix life fighting to show so much as a woman’s nipple. “When you’re finally free, you have this tendency to go full tilt boogie, but ultimately I became much more interested in the emotion of the characters, and, frankly, I became protective of them,” he explains, suggesting every episode had an X-rated version, an R-rated version and a PG version, and, to the delight of participants like Corenswet, who plays an actor-cum-sex worker, Murphy would almost always select the R one.

“I think Ryan realized as we were shooting that the best part of the sex was the romance — and that’s always great to hear as an actor, especially when it applies to your five-page sex scene with Patti LuPone,” says the 26-year-old Corenswet. LuPone, for her part, was just thrilled she was still asked to do a sex scene at age 71. “Finally!” she bellows, praising Murphy for having both the vision and the courage to take the risks he does: “Ryan’s fearless,” says the Tony winner, who also popped up in Pose, “and I’m so happy to be in his world." 

***

Long before Murphy was a household name, with a big fat Netflix deal to ostensibly take all the risks he wants, he was a frustrated former journalist fighting to change a system that wasn’t built for him. His own secret had been revealed at just 15, when his mother found a drawer full of love letters from his then-22-year-old boyfriend at their home in Indiana. Horrified, she and Murphy’s father threw their son into counseling, hoping he could be "fixed.”

A decade or two later, after his first career as an entertainment writer, Murphy carved out a place for himself in television, where he could exist comfortably as a gay man — so long as he didn’t try to write anyone like himself into scripts. “There were lots of words that they’d use to discriminate against you,” he says, “too flamboyant, too camp, too theatrical, and they were all code.”

By the mid-1990s, he’d joined forces with 10 or so other out or soon-to-be-out creatives, a group that included Nina Jacobson, Greg Berlanti and A Beautiful Mind’s Bruce Cohen. Giving themselves the name “Out There,” they’d meet in courtyards and living rooms to swap horror stories and try to plot a path forward. “We were young and didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of energy and a need to connect with and support each other as gay people working in a straight environment,” says Jacobson, who’d later collaborate with Murphy on American Crime Story and Pose. “And for a lot of us, it was, for the first time, that feeling of community.”

In time, Murphy, like the others, found a way to “monetize [his] pain.” His first creation, Popular, debuted in 1999, and other opportunities followed. Popular begat Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck begat Glee, and before he knew it, Murphy had moved from TV’s fringes to its red-hot center. As The New Yorker once wrote, “He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry.” In early 2018, he signaled that power by signing a nine-figure deal, among the most lucrative in the medium’s history.

So it is perhaps fitting that Murphy’s first project wholly for and from the service includes a scene that trumpets what he calls “the thesis statement” of his career. It begins with Criss’ character, Raymond, being regaled by the story of Anna May Wong’s awe-inspiring screen test for the lead role in the 1937 adaptation of The Good Earth, a part that ultimately went to a far less deserving Caucasian actress. Suggesting it was one of the saddest stories Raymond had ever heard, a film executive played by Mantello responds:

“What’s so sad about it? The picture was a hit. [They] were right. You can’t open a picture with a Chinese lead or a colored one, a number of theaters won’t run it.”

Raymond: “But you said she deserved the part?”

Exec: “Yes, but the hard fact is, had she gotten it, the picture is not a hit.”

Raymond: “How do you know that? You never made the movie, so how do you know it’s not a hit?”

Criss’ character continues with a monologue that is so perfectly Murphy you can almost close your eyes and picture him saying it.  

“Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made — you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

Criss himself would argue that Murphy already has. “His dial is always in extremes. So, if he’s doing Glee or Scream Queens or this, it’s at an 11, almost as a middle finger to reality,” says the actor. “It’s like he turned the dial over to say, 'This is how I’d like to see the world in my wildest dreams. Ain’t it fun?’ ”

In the past two years, since he moved his creative hub from 20th Century Fox TV, where he still maintains a considerable roster, Murphy been responsible for producing roughly 200 LGBTQ characters, many featured as leads. At least a third of his Hollywood cast is older than 70 (“Seventy is the new 40,” he teases), and nearly every project he launches is fronted by a woman — and that’s just in front of the camera. “If you see it, you can be it,” Murphy says often.

It’s a worldview that appeals to Netflix’s Holland, for whom he’s already prepped two films (Prom, The Boys in the Band), two docuseries (Circus of Books, Secret Love) and five seasons of inclusive television, including a Halston miniseries that, along with his 20th programs Pose, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, shut down care of COVID-19 in March. In the weeks since, when he isn’t toggling between Tiger King and MSNBC, Murphy’s kept busy writing two new decidedly hopeful series, each with the express purpose of providing viewers and himself an escape. “Ryan’s the rare creator who speaks to many audiences,” says Holland. “It’s not just gay people or straight people or older people or younger people, it’s really all people who are interested in the human condition.”

To date, Murphy claims he has yet to hear the word “no” from his Netflix bosses, though he’s definitely been nudged in certain directions. “They don’t want me to do small, niche things,” he says, acknowledging that not too long ago a project like Hollywood would have been deemed just that. “But they know how to market this,” he explains, noting that Netflix will push his latest series on viewers who also like love stories, young adult series and LGBTQ fare.

For those who worried the ultra-competitive producer would chafe in a system that doesn’t provide a public report card (aka ratings), he argues that that’s been liberating. Brennan backs him up, revealing how they received initial numbers for The Politician a week or two after it premiered late last summer and then another trove of data a month or so later; and though the latter could effectively game out how many people would watch the series over time, Brennan says, “We were sort of like, 'I don’t think that’s helpful.’ ”

Murphy takes it a step further, insisting he’s no longer interested in the old metrics, like how many people are watching or how many awards a series has generated. “All the things that people tell you will make you feel successful … I have those things, they don’t,” he says. What matters to him now is being able to tell stories that he wishes he or others could have seen. To that end, he can’t help but wonder what his own life would have been had he witnessed Rock Hudson walking the Oscars red carpet as an openly gay man — and though it’s too late to change his own experience, Murphy would like to be able to improve the experience of others. So, he took a chance and made a different kind of story. “Hollywood,” he says, “can change the world.”

[gagosiangallery]

Bustes de Femmes at Gagosian Paris

October 3, 2020

BUSTES DE FEMMES Paris 10th Anniversary Exhibition Opening reception: Saturday, October 10, 3–7pm October 10–December 19, 2020 __________ Gagosian is pleased to present Bustes de Femmes, a group exhibition focused on female portraiture to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the gallery’s central Paris location. Spanning a breadth of stylistic and conceptual approaches, the paintings, sculptures, and photographs on view demonstrate how the female figure has been reimagined and reconfigured by modern and contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds and traditions. Expanding upon the theme and format of the gallery’s first booth at FIAC, in 2010, Bustes de Femmes will be presented in environments both real and virtual designed by India Mahdavi, an architect known for her vibrant interiors that combine free forms with unexpected bursts of color. For this exhibition, Mahdavi will juxtapose each work on view with a fresh and joyful hue from her 2019 color collection Flowers. John Currin’s erotic and enigmatic depictions of women populate scenes suffused with tongue-in-cheek irony, rendered in luminous brushstrokes reminiscent of the old masters. Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball (Rembrandt Lucretia) (2015) celebrates the appreciation of the achievements of others throughout human history. A hand-blown mirrored glass ball placed in front of a hand-painted re-creation of the seventeenth-century portrait transports present-day viewers into an illusory world inhabited by Rembrandt, his predecessors, and the titular ancient Roman heroine. For the past four decades, Cindy Sherman has used herself as her exclusive model—inventing an endless stream of visual identities while acting as stylist, set designer, and producer—to create photographic tableaux that address the conceit of self-representation and probe societal perceptions of women throughout history. In Untitled #552 (2010–12), Sherman, dressed in a bobbed wig and black dress with white gloves, scowls and poses with arms stiff at her sides. Harshly lit against a nocturnal treescape, her body dwarfs the scene behind her, inverting and feminizing the Romantic trope of nature overpowering the human.

Bringing together elements of religious iconography, advertising, and political propaganda from southern Africa and the United States, Meleko Mokgosi seeks to redress some of the ways in which Black subjects have become unattributed objects of empire and institution. In Mokgosi’s installation Objects of Desire 3 (2016–20), small paintings of women modeling for Afrocentric beauty advertisements are juxtaposed with text panels discussing the classification of so-called “primitive” art—a reference to the Museum of Modern Art’s controversial 1984–85 exhibition “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, in which historical African artworks were problematically framed as anonymous sources for early European modernism. To make these works available to a wider international audience during this time of limited accessibility, Bustes de Femmes will include an online presentation that continues and extends the exhibition, and Mahdavi’s scenography as well. In a group of four paintings from Adriana Varejão’s 2015 series Kindred Spirits, the artist superimposes modernist paintings over delicate monochrome renderings of her own face—a blending of personal and artistic identities from past and present. Also viewable online is Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture Reclining Figure: Umbilicus (1984). Throughout his career, the reclining female figure formed a central font of inspiration for Moore, whose biomorphic abstractions imbue the human body with both a corporeal solidity and a weightless dynamism. On the occasion of this exhibition, Gagosian Quarterly will present a filmed conversation between Jeff Koons and art historian Diana Widmaier-Picasso. Bustes de Femmes will include works by Richard Avedon, Balthus, Georg Baselitz, Huma Bhabha, Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, John Currin, Roe Ethridge, Urs Fischer, Alberto Giacometti, Romuald Hazoumè, Jia Aili, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Adam McEwen, Joan Miro, Meleko Mokgosi, Henry Moore, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Jenny Saville, Cindy Sherman, Spencer Sweeney, Cy Twombly, Adriana Varejão, and Tom Wesselmann, among others. _____ Glenn Brown, Christina of Denmark, 2008, oil on panel, 65 × 46 7/8 inches (165 × 119 cm) © Glenn Brown. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, Ltd.