How The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows articulates universal feelings — It goes without saying that we can only experience life from one body, with one mind, through one set of eyes. Our view of life is ours and ours alone, and no matter how hard we may try to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else, no matter how…

Categorising the different types of rips you can find below the French capital — If a picture is worth a thousand words, a ripped picture is arguably worth even more. While wandering around the Paris metro, I’ve come across so many ripped posters in which a tear doesn’t take away from an image so much as add to it. That’s because when an image…

The story of a design icon in the City of Lights — What’s the most iconic thing in Paris? If someone asked you the question, you’d probably say the Eiffel Tower. And you’d be right. But there’s another icon in the City of Light that, in my view, should be as celebrated as Gustave Eiffel’s 1889 edifice — the famous green SENAT…

A review of Guy Deutscher's 'Through the Looking Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages' — When you study translation theory, you quickly establish a couple of things: 1) Academics can’t agree on anything; and 2) Reading articles about language can be pretty tough-going. Like many academic articles, pieces on language can often suffer from turgid prose. But thankfully, not all authors possess the gift of…

Documenting the weird and wonderful underground galleries exhibiting accidental artworks — One of the most interesting things about the Paris metro is its design — or rather, its designs. Almost every station has a unique style that distinguishes it from all the others. So just by being in a station, you pretty much always know where you are. One reason for…

When pandemonium came to Paris in 2020, I documented the chaos in a photography zine — If you’re going to do a gap year, don’t do it during a pandemic. That’s a lesson I would have heeded had I known the world was going to fall apart. But at the time, I had no inkling of just how crazy everything would get. It had been my…

Capturing the most ephemeral of seasons — If I had my way, every day would be autumn. There’s something about the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness that I find incredibly intoxicating. Whether it’s the gentler sunlight, the falling of leaves, or the mild temperatures, I would happily live every day of my life in the season…

The bewildering experience of reading made-up slang in translation — I remember someone once saying that in the world of literature, there are two kinds of books: those that attempt to explore the human condition in all its dimensions and those that just revel in the sonority of words. The writer of the article used A Clockwork Orange as an…

Eat your heart out, Monet. — For almost two years, I’ve been haunted by a desire to do something arguably pretty pointless: take impressionist-style photos of impressionist paintings. I’ve been interested in Impressionism ever since I briefly studied art history back in high school. There’s something revolutionary about a style characterised by broad brush strokes, varied…