Latest posts
7 Life-Affirming Restaurants in Kuala Lumpur
“Makan makan makan!” is a rallying cry that booms across Malaysia, meaning “let’s eat, let’s eat, let’s eat” — a Malay phrase nowhere more fittingly celebrated than in the country’s capital and largest metropolis, Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s complex history, which spans large scale migrations, colonisation and its geographic location sandwiched between multiple Southeast Asian countries,…
Vibram Five Fingers: the Barefoot Shoes on Everyone’s Feet in 2025?
In fashion, the concept of the ugly shoe has had a good run. Over the last decade or so, there’s been the Dad sandal, the heeled Croc, and even, in 2024, a proper Frankenshoe: the loafer sneaker, aka the ‘snoafer’. So, as our eyes become accustomed to these clunky shapes, as they become the norm,…
London Short Film Festival 2025: Six Must-See Films Screening Over the Coming Week
Opening this weekend, 17th January, the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) returns for its 22nd edition to celebrate emerging filmmakers and the art of short filmmaking. The eclectic programme will run across London’s most iconic screens and venues, including the BFI Southbank, ICA, Curzon Soho, Rio Cinema, and Rich Mix, and a free 1960s Mobile…
Inside the World of Trần Lương, Vietnam’s Performance Art Pioneer
Dubai’s Jameel Arts Centre hosts the first international retrospective of the prolific Vietnamese artist, Trần Lương. An influential figure in his home country, the artist’s work is lesser known outside of South East Asia—though it seems like that’s imminently going to change. Following its presentation in the United Arab Emirates, the new exhibition, titled Tầm…
Interviews
In the Studio with Steph Huang
Step into the world of Steph Huang, the London-based Taiwanese artist whose poetic practice traverses diverse techniques and media, from glass blowing and bronze casting, to filmmaking and sound. Born in 1990 in Taiwan, Huang’s work draws on autobiographical narratives and traditions of storytelling, underscoring the eccentricities of everyday life. Currently the subject of Art…
A Complicated Blend of Love, Misunderstanding, and Self-sacr...
Writer-director Pelin Keskin Liu’s debut short film Three Meals is a masterful portrait of the complexities, tensions and generational misunderstandings at the core of a relationship between a mother and daughter living very different lives. Yasmin and Suzy live apart – a metaphor for their having grown apart – but in the film they come together. Three…
How Vietnamese New Wave Empowered a Displaced Generation
When the filmmaker Elizabeth Ai was pregnant, she found herself scouring through old family albums, looking for something from her own childhood which she could share with her daughter in a couple of years. That’s when she chanced upon photographs of her uncles and aunts in Orange County, listening to New Wave in the ‘80s…
Between Form and Spirit: In Conversation with Reginald Sylvester II
Ahead of Reginald Sylvester II’s exhibition at CANADA gallery in New York, opening on 16 January 2025, Something Curated’s Keshav Anand spoke with the Hudson-based artist to learn more about his inspirations and the evolving language of his practice. Sylvester creates large-scale paintings and sculptures that trace the generative threshold between the two mediums, utilising…
Five Lessons Ayurveda Taught Me
Ayurveda is a holistic healing system that originated in India over 3,000 years ago. Offering a wealth of wisdom that remains—certainly in part—relevant today, it is extensively practiced throughout India and Nepal, among other parts of the world. Derived from the Sanskrit words āyus (life) and veda (knowledge), ayurveda seeks to address the intersection of…
Five Great Books to Open Up This New Year
December is one of those downtimes in terms of new releases. Everyone’s attention is focused on presents, and the best books of the year are the ones which tend to get a big boost (for our own list of the standouts in 2024, see here). But this doesn’t mean one can’t find gems if they…
Meet the ‘Camera Girl’ Who Chronicled the Pulsating Hedonism of 80s New York
Yellow cap paired with a blue satin shirt, Grace Jones has arrived at The Savoy. Her thumbnail has a tiny red crown stamped on it. It is 1981 and Sharon Smith is doing her rounds as a camera girl in the Midtown Manhattan club, when she approaches Grace with her Polaroid. It was not the…
Guides
Taiwanese Artist Cole Lu’s Guide to Taipei
By fusing historical and literary references with lived experiences, Taipei-born New York-based artist Cole Lu’s work tells stories of dissonance and longing through winding odysseys—rendered in burnt wood, linen, engraved metal, and concrete. Following a conversation between the artist and Something Curated’s Keshav Anand, discussing Lu’s practice and latest show, The Engineers, Lu shares with…
The Something Curated 2024 Holiday Gift Guide
Welcome to the Something Curated holiday gift guide for 2024 — a varied list of items, objects, and experiences for loved ones, all selected by friends of the SC community. Happy shopping and happy holidays. The Substance Candle — Slime Recommended by fashion and culture writer Lauren Cochrane. Anyone who saw The Substance has the last…
FNT Comes to Brooklyn’s 99 Scott for an Unforgettable Night ...
What do you get when you mix the grit of underground fight clubs, the glamour of New York’s arts scene, and the energy of a late-night party? The answer is FNT, the brainchild of Bekim Trenova. Seeking to rekindle the spirit of “old New York,” FNT began as an illegal fight party, evolving into one…
Takuro Kuwata’s Ceramics Reimagine Wabi-Sabi in Technicolour
Born in Japan’s Hiroshima Prefecture in 1981, Takuro Kuwata has earned a reputation for pushing the boundaries of ceramics, blending traditional Japanese techniques with modern experimentation for nearly two decades. Opening on 10 January 2025, New York gallery Salon 94 will present an exhibition of new works by the Japanese artist, showcasing his largest body…
In the Studio with Tasneem Sarkez
New York-based artist Tasneem Sarkez’s works amalgamate the personal with the universal, informed by an aesthetic she describes as “Arab kitsch.” Her multidisciplinary practice weaves together symbols from pop culture with historical traditions, forming a visual tapestry that speaks to her lived experience as an Arab woman existing in the diaspora. Through her investigations, Sarkez…
6 Masterpieces of Iranian New Wave Cinema
Cinema-ye Motafavet—also known as Iranian New Wave—emerged in the 1960s and 70s as an artistic response to the rapid modernisation and underlying paradoxes of Iranian society during the reign of the last Shah. These films, crafted by a small, passionate group of mostly self-taught filmmakers, combined documentary realism with poetic allegory, illuminating the complexities of…
How Artists Through History Transformed the Shop Window
Well now, what can a poor artist do? This is the question for almost every art school graduate; how can they earn a living, just turn an honest penny, make a meagre buck, having been cast out into the cold and callous real world? One possibility has long proffered itself over the centuries, namely designing…
From The Archive
Meet Harris Dickinson, the Compelling Lead Actor of ‘B...
British actor Harris Dickinson plays the lead role in Eliza Hittman’s critically acclaimed Beach Rats, which chronicles a young man’s struggle with his sexuality over the course of a summer, amid the stultifying machismo of outer Brooklyn. Opening in select theatres on 24 November, the film follows Frankie, portrayed by Dickinson, as he roams the…
Interview: Ernesto Neto On Gravity, Togetherness & The ...
Since the 1990s, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto has produced an inimitable body of work that is in equal parts informed by sensuality and spirituality. Inspired by the Brazilian Conceptualists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, as well as biomorphism, Minimalism and Arte Povera, Neto’s works engage all of our senses while asserting the human body as…
SC Exclusive: Notes on a Siren — a Film Essay by Justice Jam...
Director Justice Jamal Jones joins myth with modern themes of Black queerness and trans identity in their latest film, Notes on a Siren. Presented by Something Curated, and exclusively premiering on the site, the film was shot on location at Palm Heights in Grand Cayman. Jones expands on the thinking behind their mesmerising work below….