Why We Must Decolonise the Environment

Written by Jonas Jungwoo Lim

Edited by Jess Hannah

Illustration by C.L. Gamble

Ecology in the DMZ

Growing up in the borderlands of South Korea, I was trained by ecologists before I came to be trained by historians at university. In my town of Paju—which is closer to the border than to the capital—I had the privilege of being able to spend time acquainting myself with the ecology of the streams, the vegetation, and the rice fields nearby. This was the case even, at times, in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea and South Korea.

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A tintype of an African sculpture from the artists home

‘Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time’: Mark Sealy’s decolonial perspective on photography

By Maya Campbell

Artwork by Maya Campbell

Edited by Ketaki Zodgekar

In comparison to older visual languages such as painting, the relative newness of photography as a creative medium and the vast quantity of images it generates for consumption can be disorientating, especially when we want to evaluate the history of photography. As a tool, the image is highly flexible: historically, images have been digested by the public as a representation of social realities, despite their highly subjective and malleable nature. During my second year studying BA Photography at London College of Communication (UAL), we started to delve into theory surrounding contemporary photographic issues and practices. However, there was a noticeable vacuum in our lectures and recommended reading lists when it came to post-colonial critiques of images depicting the ‘Other’ throughout history. Though fascinating, all of the main thinkers whose theories our curriculum centred were greatly limited, their concepts produced through the prism of whiteness, masculinity and economic agency. 

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A UTOPIAN CURRICULUM PART TWO: BLACK PANTHER

PART TWO: BLACK PANTHER (2018)

Ibtisam Ahmed

Edited by Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevedo

Illustration by Iara Silva

Welcome back to the Utopian Curriculum series with Project Myopia! In this post, I will look at the first case study on the curriculum, the 2018 Marvel film Black Panther. Directed by Ryan Coogler, it has received a renewed level of attention and love since the tragic passing of actor Chadwick Boseman.

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Is It About Time We Just Stop Stop-and-Search?

Elly Shaw

Edited by Veronica Vivi

Artwork by Anonymous

As the Black Lives Matter movement has recently dominated news media outlets and social media feeds since the murder of George Floyd, I have noticed that some fellow Brits seem to believe that whilst rampant inequality and racially motivated police brutality rage on in the US,  “at least we have it better here in the UK”. This is an insidious thought process. We may not have widespread legalised gun use in this country, but just because we do not have that, it does not mean we do not still have a severe problem of systemic racism at the core of UK society.

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Project Myopia April Workshop Roundup

We held a workshop on liberating and decolonising the academy and curriculum two weeks ago at King’s College London – thanks to everyone who was able to attend! Here’s some of the feedback our co-founder Toby Sharpe collated from the event and some photos too… and make sure you read to the end of the post for information on some exciting events coming up soon!

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Project Myopia Events April 2019

Hello from the Project Myopia team! We hope March has been a good month for you – many of you will be hard at work writing essays or putting the finishing touches to dissertations. We are so excited to announce some amazing free events we’ve got planned for the coming month – read on to find out more…

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March 2018 UPDATE

The Project Myopia team has some announcements to make!

We’ve had a wonderful year. Since our launch in 2017, funded by the University of Edinburgh’s Innovative Initiative Grant, we’ve uploaded a legion of essays, and have amassed tens of thousands of clicks from around the world, as more and more people become interested in diversifying their university curricula. We’ve been shortlisted for and have won several awards. We’ve run numerous educational events in Scotland. We have afforded opportunities to numerous fantastic artists. We’re incredibly proud of the site.

We can now announce that Project Myopia has successfully applied for – and received – arts funding to keep the site running, and to grow bigger and better than ever! Thanks to the London Arts & Humanities Partnership, Project Myopia will continue to challenge overly pale, male, and stale curricula the world over.

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