Polarisation in America: Neighbours in suburbia with completely opposed political views.
U.S. journalist, Danielle Maisano, who has been living in London for 11 years, shares her views on the build-up that led to the fallout of Trump winning his second term.
The last time I voted in a U.S. presidential election on …
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Mangled metal bars jut out onto the pavement, as if a wild animal had ripped open its cage. The creature responsible, however, is a mechanical beast.
This is the view of guardrails I encounter on one of my regular cycling routes through the borough of Brent.
I witness the evolution of them as they appear more twisted and destroyed, then are removed, and replaced entirely, only for the new rails to be disfigured again a few days later.
As the moonlight shines through these bars, their distorted transformation is mesmerising, making my routine journey a little more interesting.
The form of these guardrails reminds me of the work by Abstract artists and sculptors—David Smith, Nancy Rubins, John Chamberlain, Sarah Sze to Günther Uecker—who work with metal and give it new meaning.
However, unlike their work that is found and transported to studios and galleries, these guardrails remain fixed to the same spot, resorting back to their original form in an almost magical process by unseen hands.
In 2018, London introduced the Vision Zero Action plan, which “sets ambitious targets for operating safe speeds” in the capital. This meant lowering speeds to 20mph to reduce road danger.
Yet, on this particular stretch of road, the speed limit remains at 30mph. Perhaps when that changes, these guardrails will stay in their natural form and fulfil their original purpose of protecting us from danger.
All photos by Mark A. Silberstein for Synchronicity Magazine.
Post truth Trump who is vying to get a second term as president of America in 2025.
“Cat-eating Haitians” – the most recent buzzworthy but baseless claim amplified by the Trump campaign, sparked hyper-salivation amongst MAGA fans, and disbelief in the rest of us. While researching this latest xenophobic rumour, a …
“Not a pretty picture: A Tory legacy of divide and rule” The Illegal Migration Bill highlights a party that has a history of xenophobic policies.
The UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s controversial Illegal Migration Bill has caused a lot of concern with protests and open letters condemning its harshness, even exposing …
“He sits at his table long as a fable planning a banquet of death too sharp are his claws too aglow are his eyes Putin of the great war cry dragging his carcass of history.”
The war in Ukraine has brought together a unified international stance that is saying no to conflict, …
Disturbed by the number of masks of varying types that I have seen since the pandemic when walking around London I decided to do a small experiment.
I wanted to see just how many I could find within 15 minutes. Without barely even looking I found six. This is a disturbing …
The effect of the pandemic must be combatted not just through medicinal but monetary means.
Benjamin Maslow who created his hierarchy of needs stated in his book The farther reaches of human nature that “The need for ‘dignity, for example, can be seen as a fundamental human right in the …
A rare sighting of the hallowed sky octopus, the harbinger of spring.
The March budget presented free ports as the remedy to economic uncertainty in the face of Brexit and COVID, but are they a good solution?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s budget speech hailed free ports, where imported goods are exempt from tariffs, as a silver bullet to fix the economic …
One year ago today, I received a work email saying that someone had tested positive for COVID, and that they would be decontaminating the whole building that weekend, but no need to worry, we should be able to return to work next week.
Now, up until this point in 2020, I …
The new year continues with the pandemic being used by some authoritarian African leaders as a way to cling to power.
Saturday saw Yoweri Musevini win his sixth term in office after the election was postponed in 2020 due to the risk of Covid, with Mr Musevini telling Ugandan NBS Television …
The first time that the Tory Party finally mentioned the housing crisis, since the snap election, was during Hammond’s November budget. However unlike these elitists, who clearly only care about their influential wealthy friends, most of us deal with the problem of affordable housing in this city and country on an every day …
For over 20 years activists within the intersex community have been calling for changes to how operations are performed on those born with the condition and last year a United Nations convention condemned the practice that it describes as “Intersex Genital Mutilation” within 15 countries including the UK.
No sooner had China put a ban on ICOs, Initial Coin Offerings, than the following week the FCA issued a statement on their website about how to use them. Should UK companies who use this fundraising system be worried?
Initial Coin Offerings are a means for cryptocurrency companies and Blockchain industries …
Donald Trump’s policy towards Europe is like a glaring white avalanche careering down a hill. The US is on a path to an isolationist freeze, set in motion by Trump’s nationalist rhetoric in which the president is considering changing long-standing foreign policy and this is starting to have a powerful …
The room that I currently write this in will probably no longer be here in a few weeks. The building is going to be torn down. I am a property guardian in a school in central Hackney. What was meant to be six months of accommodation turned out to last …
Even though some Eurosceptic parties in Europe have seen an ebb within support from voters recently, the changing political landscape could mean that their political presence and influence within the union might be irreversible.
The 2008 recession formed a catalyst for Eurosceptic parties across the political spectrum on the continent. Support …
Putting personal political perspectives aside, I hate to say that I was right in my prediction that Ed Milliband would not win the last election. But his influence certainly left his mark on the party with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters, yet I still feel that it is not …
I laughed myself silly on this Telegraph piece on how people have resorted to make money or to prove the existence of a supernatural being. Try photoshop, vinegar art, and just plain coincidence.
So I tried an experiment and found my own faces without trick photography or fabrication, problem was I …
It was a cold Tuesday and high above the hustle and bustle of Mare Street people reclined in couches in the Hackney Picture House Cinema to watch the young and the old showcase their films at the LSFF. The festival, which this year ran from 9 to18 January, had been …
It was while reading the salmon coloured pages of the Financial Times that I came across an excellent piece by Tony Barber in the Global Insight section entitled:“Baltic states fear Kremlin concern for their ethnic Russians”.
This FT piece sparked a memory of a point that I had raised to a Goldsmith’s lecturer, when I …
Brett Bailey’s planned Barbican installation, Exhibit B has come under fire from criticisms that it is racist as it shows black models in poses as slaves.
Yet to see is one thing and to understand is quite another. Bailey has been known for his other work that confronts racism and colonialism.
I …
It all started with a brown trench coat, a tuft of ginger hair and a white dog. Yep it was while growing up reading Tintin annuals that I became enthralled with the concept of reporting and the world of journalism. Here was a character who did not just travel the world …
Journalist James Foley’s death highlights a bigger problem for freelancers out there desperate to put themselves in harms way to make a living for what they love!
Read the Guardian piece by Martin Chulov, it illustrates the lack of care and of training by news organisations as they quite happily take the stories of …
Press, smut peddlers have their whole operation opened and dissected by Rich Peppiatt, former tabloid reporter, in a new documentary called One Rogue Reporter. Shown as part of the films of the East End Film Festival at the Rio Cinema in Dalston last weekend.
Peppiatt worked for the Daily Star tabloid until …
Daniel Ginns expresses his artistic versatility through continuous line drawings and Mark Rothko wall photos. Recent work was for the Tate Britain as part of a project created by Scottish artist Alan Johnston called Tactile Geometry.
Ginns and I went for a cup of tea to talk about nature over nurture, chance, …
One of London’s last independent cinemas, the Rio in Dalston, hosted shorts by two visionary women filmmakers at a private screening on Sunday 21 July.
The two directors portrayed gang life in the city through different approaches. Dionne Edwards, 27, from Bristol, who moved to London when she was 18, took …
In Israel, everyone goes to the military service at the age of 18. But living in military bases before reaching 18 might be quite odd for some people. Nitzan Regev-Sanders, 25, an International Politics and Sociology student at City University, London talks about her extraordinary experience of growing up in …
Our adventures in Amsterdam documented in this video as well as an interview with Slavko Martinov director of the documenatry Propaganda which you can also read about in this review.
Video: Christian Jensen, Text: Mark A. Silberstein, Edit: Jenya Vyaltseva
It has been two years since the start of the uprising in Bahrain. Back then in 2011, thousands of Bahraini went into the streets of the small island kingdom demanding political reforms and civil rights following similar protests in other Arab countries like Tunisia and Egypt.
Since then, demonstrations in Bahrain …
Dr Benedetta Brevini, responsible for communication in the Media Reform Coalition (MRC), a coalition consisting of 20 different organisations from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) to the Hacked Off group headed by actor Hugh Grant, says the outcome of a Royal Charter as the new press regulatory body wasn’t quite what …
Dr Benedetta Brevini is coauthor of a book on Wikileaks and its aftermath and is writing a new one on Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) online and media regulation. She worked as a journalist in Milan, London and New York and contributes to The Guardian‘s Comment is Free. She is also a lecturer in Media …
Taught by volunteers and inclusive to all, squat schools provide an alternative to Cameron’s Big Society free schools, without cost to the taxpayer.
Talia Rose, 28, who has been an English Foreign Language (EFL) teacher for the last nine years, volunteered as a facilitator in free schools in squats. She passionately …
Flat Earth believers have been around since biblical times and even photos of Earth taken from space have not deterred them.
Michael N Wilmore, 27, was born in London and moved to Ireland in his teens. He is the vice president of the Flat Earth Society, which he joined in 2006. …
London smog.
In 1952 an estimated 4,000 people died as a result of severe air pollution in London. Today the same number are estimated to die early each year because of poor air quality in the Capital.
Dr Benjamin Barratt, of the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London, measures air quality …
A skeleton leans sideways on a park bench, the essence of where life once was now just bare bones remain. As you look up a spectacular chandelier made of 3000 plaster cast bones by British artist Jodie Carey hangs eerily from the high exhibition ceiling and strikes you as you …
The UK is one of the richest countries in the world, but there are still massive issues of food waste and poverty. According to FoodCycle an estimated four million people are affected by food poverty in the UK.
Inspired by an American campus kitchen project, Foodcycle is a charity tackles food waste, …
Illegal street art has been plastered on the walls of London’s East End for many years. The formerly known working class district is slowly transforming into a street art Mecca.
You only have to take a turn into a side street along Old Street to find a piece from the movement. …
Two Americans have launched a project that uses public art to share recipes, which are painted across walls in South East London.
Gourmandizing London is an artwork and community project that aims to celebrate the diversity of people, through a series of recipes collected for residents living in the nearby communities.
Jason …
Out of great hardship comes great art. From the heart of a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, a defiant voice is crying for freedom and justice.
In the narrow alleyways of Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, a Palestinian Hip Hop band was born in 2007. Three young rappers who …
Mary Stevens, 21, from North Carolina studies at City University and speaks about the recently passed changes to marijuana laws.
I personally think that it can be useful for medical reasons and is less dangerous than cigarette smoking; it can be fun as well. I believe that the US have taken …
Dave Ryan doesn’t just deliver mail around one of London’s toughest neighbourhoods he has spent most of his life and spare time trying to improve it.
Having been a community volunteer and local postman for over 42 years he has put blood, sweat and tears into his local boxing club where he …
It’s a year since Occupy London left the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, but many of the group are still campaigning for change.
George Barda was one of the most recognisable faces of Occupy London. With his long dark hair and wiry beard he often appeared as a spokesperson for the …
Cycle hire scheme in London “Boris Bikes”.
Cycling is a great way to exercise and a form of travel environmentalists will always favour. To them, the more who choose to cycle rather than travel using vehicles that emit harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the better.
Last week Green party member Jenny …
Catrine Gangstø leading a Peacepainting workshop.
Peacepainting is an organisation that exists to remind the adult world what it means to think like a child. Using the same format, same frames and same canvas’s children across the world are taking part in painting workshops to express themselves.
“Children think what they say …
Seeing the world through Stjepan Sedlar’s eyes requires a lot of patience and having no fear of the dark. His parents are from Croatia and this Hamburg born photographer, who lives in Berlin, would stray into parks at night taking colour photos without lighting.
It is late afternoon on a cold Sunday in …
In the last two decades, the dive tourism industry has exploded into a global giant and has become a welcome source of income in less economically developed countries.
According to The Professional Association of Diving Instructors statistics, its membership numbers have increased by almost 70 per cent since 1993. Experts believe …
Bulgarian newspapers.
Bulgaria has the lowest level of press freedom of any European country according to this year’s Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.
This widely accepted measure of how free the world’s media are, described the small Balkan state as a country “whose promise of reform came to nothing and where the …
When Burkina Faso’s Paralympic team arrived in London with nowhere to stay, nowhere to train and not enough money to salvage the situation in a strange country, 24 year old Liam Conlon decided to take matters into his own hands.
The Cambridge graduate put some of the athletes up in his …
Investments in Islamic finance are increasing at a rapid rate globally. According to Ernst and Young global Islamic banking assets held by commercial banks are set to reach almost two trillion this year, up from the US$1.3 trillion of assets held in 2011. The sector has seen a 150% increase …
As immigration and tourism soars in Bali, locals are clamping down more than ever to preserve their unique Hindu culture and island beauty.
Made Dedik, Balinese local and owner of Double D Surf School at Seminyak Beach is no exception, and vehemently believes in protecting the island he grew up on. …
In 2010 plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport was dropped by the new coalition government. Now, in response to other European countries’ growing aviation capacity, the issue has resurfaced.
The Howard Davies aviation commission will spend 2013 determining the future need for expansions and deliver their report to the …
Co-authored with Christian Jensen.
A new campaign will try and make squatting completely illegal. In September 2012, squatting in a residential location, the act of living in a building without paying rent, was made illegal. But now the government is considering extending this to all squatting.
Mike Weatherly, Conservative MP, is one …
Voina, a Russian artivist collective specalising in provocative street art against state control, has released a documentary which recently screened at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA).
The film, Tomorrow, chronicles the history of the group from their early beginnings as shoplifting squatters to their biggest and most controversial piece, …
Ben Goldacre, medical doctor and Guardian journalist is the father of Bad Science a collection of books, hundreds of articles and videos with one goal: challenging myths, rumours and shady businesses in the medical world.
Goldacre’s work is rife with aggression and challenges against other “experts”, with his book Bad Science …
Propaganda is a documentary purported to have been made in North Korea with images of decadent western lifestyle, capitalist culture and a message of salvation. A couple claiming to be North Korean dissidents approached a translator in Seoul handing her a DVD on condition that she translate and disseminate it.
All the …
Ruggero Galtarossa is from a small city in Northern Italy called Padova. He is 22 years old he has been living in London for two and a half years. He is in his third year studying journalism and sociology for a BA joint honours degree.
The Italians have an exceptionally high …
Moorfields Eye Hospital shows the world’s only collection of art for the blind. The unique exhibition consists of more than 20 pieces that appeal to the tactile sense and makes a bold statement that sight is not essential for enjoying art.
The artists used different materials but also vivid colours to …
Bahaa Milhem, a 3rd year journalism student at City University, talks about the difference in culture when it comes to sex in Palestine and here in the UK.
First sex in general and particularly for young people; sex outside marriage?
It’s not illegal but it is looked heavily down upon, especially for …
“I was doing my shopping in the beauty aisle in Sainsbury’s,” Liz*, an undergrad student at City University recalls, “and a middle-aged man, maybe 50 or 60, comes up to me and asks me with this disgusting smirk on his face: ‘Do you know where the Vaseline is?’ It completely …
The Paralympics brought with them a positive change in attitudes towards disabled people, yet there is still a long way to go.
The French company Atos, contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to reasess the situation of 2.6 million people on incapacity benefits by 2014, was one of …
In the 80s the artists group Guerrilla Girls scattered New York with posters claiming that only 5 per cent of artists in the Metropolitan Museum were women but 83% of all nudes were female.
The number of female artists has increased since then but most nudes in modern art are still …
Two years after his hard-hitting crime drama A Prophet, Jacques Audiard is back with a moving love story that unites against all odds a recent amputee and an underground street fighter.
It starts off like an American road-movie: Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a hefty Belgian bloke and his five-year-old son are standing …
Most people have some idea of what an addiction is, but sex doesn’t seem to be one that first comes to mind.
When Steve McQueen’s Shame, a film about a sex addict living in New York, hit the cinema earlier this year, it provoked a lot of controversy. It seems that …
A senior Muslim cleric from the UK was threatened with arrest by an extremist in Saudi Arabia last month.
Dr Usama Hasan, a physics lecturer at Middlesex University and Senior Researcher of the Quilliam Foundation, a Muslim counter-extremism group, was on a pilgrimage in Mecca, when a former president of the …
Amy Hanson, director of the organisation Big Steps talks about her new documentary about the street children in Nicaragua.
Before instruments there was nature, and Ebe Oke is an artist who lets certain elements of this world resound through his music.
It was this unique sound and his voice that caught the attention of Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade Records, who offered the US musician a development deal. Travis introduced …
A study by Harvard University released this month reveals that China’s Internet Censor’s new focus is on topics that might incite protest in the country.
Citing examples that two of the most censored topics concerned protests in China’s Inner Mongolia region and in Zengcheng. The study showed that in both cases …
The old tale of Huckleberry Finn will be released as a new film next year but the best-loved story has had a very unpopular past.
The film currently in production, Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, directed by Jo Kastner, combines the stories of the two books by the author Mark Twain. Huckleberry …
Reporters Without Borders stated that a journalist from Radio Liberté and two journalists from Kisangani News were released from prison in the last few weeks.Their crimes were that they asked too many questions about the government… But at least they are still alive.
According to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) between …
Nobody knows what they are. Or where they came from.
I’m feeling strangely calm. I guess people who have just arrived in the trenches feel the same. One day its all routine and the usual pint on Fridays and the next death surrounds you so closely. Your sense of time is …
Occupy Hong Kong has secured itself a most ironic location, inside the Asia headquarters of HSCB. While the bank has stated they are happy for them to be there and support everyone’s right to protest, the camp state it’s just a hypocritical way of avoiding bad publicity.
While protests in Hong …
According to Eric Wishart, Agence France-Presse Asia region chief, China is a still a difficult country to work in, but things are looking up.
So how is the current situation in China, do you have any presence there?
We have bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taiwan. But in China it’s …
What does it mean to be a young woman in Iran? The Omid Foundation explores this question through enabling disadvantaged women in Iran to use photography as a means of therapy. “Voices of the other half” is the product of a workshop with eleven girls led by Shandi Ghadirian, an …
Ric O’Barry, known from the documentary “The Cove”, recognises the film has done a lot of good, yet publicity is only a first step in saving marine life.
O’Barry visited Hong Kong Baptist University for a screening of the film and to debate against Allan Zeman, chairman of Ocean Park, a Hong …
Donnacha De Long is president of the NUJ and last week he chaired a debate on the topical Leveson inquiry for the Benn Lectures. He became President in April 2011 after being a National Union of Journalists (NUJ) member since he was 19. As his role as president is coming …
The demonstration takes off.
Has a communist come into power?
So what is going on?
Anonymous makes an appearance.
Optimism?
On Sunday the first of April 2012 Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy will for the first time have a chance to challenge the current military-backed civilian government head-on. But even if she should win every seat it will only be a first small step in solving Burma’s problems …
Headless, armless and feetless mannequins, painted in bold colours and adorned with gem stones and colourful paintings inspired by Pop Art – the first impression of Laila Shawa’s exhibition „The other Side of paradise“ is beautiful, indeed. But a closer look reveals chains and belts of munitions and dynamite on …
March 15 marked the one year anniversary of the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al Assad’s regime, which has shown no signs of slowing its offensive in the cities that have been key hubs of the opposition.
The pro-Assad forces overran most of the northern city of Idlib, while the military …
An information bill that is being debated in the next few months in South Africa could put democracy to the most extreme test.
Nelson Mandela came out of prison in the 90s at the end of apartheid, which was a state led separation and oppression of non-whites, and assumed power in …
“People’s aspirations has galvanised a yearning for democracy” says CK Lau, lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University and Vice-Chairman of the Journalism Education Foundation.
Yet the upcoming Hong Kong Chief Executive election seems to be anything but. Three candidates, but the media has already written off the only non-Beijing supporter Albert Ho.
C. Y. …
It was a busy leap year for Mr François Hollande, the frontrunner in the French presidential elections. For someone who incarnates the 35-hour working week in France he was exceptionally busy. For breakfast he appeared on French radio station RTL being interviewed by well-known journalists such as Jean-Michel Apathie, Alain …
Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg popped by the renowned Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences Po” for the French-speaking) in Paris last week for a light-hearted “conversation with students about current events”.
Among the few highlights of the conference was Mr. Clegg’s unexpected response to a British student who, as he …
In January 2012, a small organisation called Allt åt Alla (Everything for Everyone), organised an event to highlight the issues surrounding inequalities in Sweden. It did this by organising what they called an “upperclass safari” and for 50kr (£4.70) members could go on a bus-ride to a wealthy suburb called …
The sound of a brass band greeted me as I walked into Queen Mary University’s Library Square for the Anarchist Book Fair. This is the fifth year running that this event has been held at the campus in Bethnal Green.
The book fair was started in 1983 by a group of …
Dynamite comes in small packages and Stéphane Hessel’s book Time for Outrage! is a testament to this, delivering an exceptionally powerful political punch in just 37 pages.
The metaphor of explosions are extremely fitting here as the author survived world war two as a resistance fighter in France amongst other things blowing …
Wikileaks has lost its capital and possibly its founder, yet a few months ago at the Frontline club Assange seemed untouchable. The talk was between Julian Assange and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and was hosted by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on 2 July 2011 at the Troxy, a beautiful …
Thirty two Smith Square, in the heart of London was the home of the Conservative party until 2004. Now it houses one of the Thatcher era’s biggest enemies, the European Commission. Representing Europe is no easy task says 63-year-old Jonathan Scheele especially in the middle of the current economic crisis.
The …
Julien Rath, a second year journalism student with a personal passion for everything Europe, has given Synchronicity an insight into the financial pinch Germany currently finds itself in.
Born in Duisburg, Germany, Julien moved to America when he was five and returned to his native country as a teenager. After spending …
When We Walk on Ice start playing their captivating tight sound, it is hard to believe that only two souls are creating it.
Their unique Indie sound reminds me of at least two bands that I love: Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star. We Walk on Ice have a similar ethereal feel to …
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