Category: Culture

by Lisa Ledieu

Speed has become the default condition of contemporary life. We scroll faster, watch more, and consume more; yet we retain less. In a world where attention is ceaselessly harvested and platforms are engineered to replace one thing with the next before reflection can begin, we must ask whether this relentless drive for speed actually serves us or if slowness offers a more powerful alternative. Thus, this article aims to explore how embracing slowness across different forms of culture can itself become a radical act, beginning at the intimate scale of the individual and extending outward to reshape culture and society as a whole.

Slowness on the individual scale: reclaiming attention

To slow down cultural consumption is, first and foremost, to reclaim one’s own mind. The internet’s systematic erosion of the capacity for sustained thought is well-documented: prolonged online habits rewire our reading instincts until focus drifts after barely a page; the mind restless and hungry for the next stimulus. If the act of reading has become so compromised, so too has any sustained cultural engagement. To choose a different pace is, in itself, a form of practice.

Take cinema: Edward Yang’s Yi Yi (2000) runs for nearly three hours. It does not hurry. It lingers on faces, on silences, on the slow accumulation of small events that constitute a family’s unraveling. To watch it fully is to adopt a different rhythm that rewards patience with genuine emotional depth. Film theory holds, more broadly, that the way a film is paced actively shapes how viewers feel and ultimately make sense of what they see. Choosing slower, more demanding cinema is therefore not passive. It is a refusal of the stimulation treadmill that mainstream viewing increasingly imposes.  

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Yi Yi frames by Edward Yang, 2000

In museums, the same logic applies. Studies have shown that the average visitor spends between fifteen and thirty seconds before any given work — often glancing at the label longer than the artwork itself. Against this, some practitioners and art historians have argued for what they call “deceleration”: an active, engineered slowing of the encounter, spending long stretches with a single painting rather than accumulating impressions across an entire room. Art historian Jennifer Roberts has shown that artworks hold layers of meaning that remain entirely invisible to the casual glance, only surfacing through the kind of patient, prolonged attention that most visitors never grant them. Aesthetic experience, moreover, is not purely visual: as the architect Juhani Pallasmaa argues, it is bodily, multisensory and requires time to unfold fully, rather than being exhausted in a single observation. Thus, pausing before a painting is not inactivity, but the first step toward hearing everything it has to say.

In fashion, slowness operates at the level of personal ethics. The designer Kate Fletcher frames the slow fashion movement not merely as an environmental strategy but as a rediscovery of the relationship between object and self, one that prioritises human needs, local production and the idea that caring for things over time is itself meaningful. To choose a thrifted coat or an artisanal piece implies a pause, a moment of reflection before desire and impulse. It is, in miniature, a philosophical act. 

Even in digital life, the intentional separation of “slow” from “fast” content, carving out time for longer reads or considered engagement, constitutes a meaningful assertion of inner freedom. Attention is not an infinite resource; choosing to spend it deliberately is therefore a way to reclaim it.

Slowness on the global scale: a quiet resistance

What begins as a private gesture, however, can extend to a global scale. Individual acts of slowness can accumulate into something collectively significant, forming a quiet but persistent resistance to the systems that profit from speed.

In visual culture, from cinema to art, mindful engagement challenges a world where depth is routinely sacrificed to volume. If viewers resist the binge model and refuse to let one film or episode dissolve into the next, they disrupt a logic built on rapid turnover: allowing the work to be returned to, reflected upon and truly experienced rather than merely seen. In doing so, they also push back against the industry’s constant demand for renewal, a demand that increasingly drives both creative overwork and reliance on AI to sustain such pace. As Pallasmaa suggests, speed produces a kind of collapsed present in which images circulate as disposable goods rather than objects of sustained encounter. Spending time with fewer works cultivates a deeper literacy, less drawn to the superficial or sensational. From this perspective, it is not only a form of personal growth but also a way of refusing the cultural logic that treats art as disposable content.

In fashion, the stakes are perhaps the most tangible. Fast fashion’s environmental cost is inseparable from the speed at which the system operates. Slowing down means, in Fletcher’s terms, that designers, buyers and consumers become genuinely aware of the impact of their choices on workers, communities and ecosystems. It also involves recognising that the prevailing business model of consumerist fashion is structurally incompatible with sustainability precisely because it is built on the logic of continuous replacement. To buy less and more slowly, to favour durable materials and small-scale makers, is not merely aesthetic preference. It is a material intervention in a system that depends on haste, and a structural refusal of its terms.

Finally, in the digital attention economy, platforms are not passively encountered: they are carefully designed environments engineered to make stillness feel uncomfortable and slowness feel like loss. Their mechanism is specific. Behavioral addiction research has shown that systems become compulsive when they combine small, unreachable goals with unpredictable bursts of positive feedback, a pattern that describes social media with unsettling precision (e.g. likes, notifications, new content). The imbalance is intentional: as one technology ethicist has observed, the user brings willpower, while designers and engineers on the other side of the screen work to exploit it. To resist this is — again — challenging the business model built on the exploitation of our inner time. 

A final note

This is not a guidebook, nor a pamphlet. It is not an order either. Transitioning toward a slower mode of cultural consumption does not mean immediately severing ties with everything fast, immediate, and characteristic of our global way of living. Rather, it is an invitation. Slowness, as a posture, is worth considering not because it is virtuous, but because it is enriching: it opens up dimensions of culture that speed tends to close off, and allows individual choices to extend their impact when practiced at a larger scale, contributing to a broader cultural shift. Ultimately, there is something to be gained from choosing, now and then, a different tempo: one that, in small acts multiplied across individuals, can influence culture and society as a whole. Consider this a shared reflection on what that might feel like, and what it might be worth.

by Jeanne Decamps

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of the world’s oldest medical systems, with roots dating back to over 5,000 years ago and a recorded history of about 2,500 years. It focuses on preventing and treating illness by maintaining a balance between the yin (passive) and yang (active) forces. Health is perceived as a harmony between these forces, while imbalance results in illness and disease. Key practices include acupuncture, moxibustion and cupping, as well as the use of herbal therapy to support good health. In 1578, Li Shi Zhen’s Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica) famously documented 1,892 drugs and around 11,000 prescriptions for specific ailments used in TCM.

What interests us today is the visual language found in TCM packaging. As the practice of TCM is rooted in centuries of Chinese history and culture, it is no surprise that when we take a deeper look into its graphic design, we find it draws heavily on traditional elements. From specific colour palettes to cultural symbols, the packaging highlights a unique approach to advertising, especially when contrasted with the often sterile environment found in allopathic medical packaging.

One look at the variety of TCM packaging makes it clear that the visual language relies on cultural symbols whether that be across its typography, patterns, choice of colour or layout. Symbolic graphics such as characters and traditional patterns are used to efficiently communicate to the customer the cultural heritage that the product advertises itself to embody. An example of the use of symbolic characters can be found in packaging that depicts scenes of collecting medicine or diagnosing patients, which plays into the visual language of familiarity. Furthermore, typography often utilises calligraphy fonts feeding into a sense of authenticity and further enforcing the link to cultural heritage. Some brands are also known to employ specific artistic styles, such as watercolour painting techniques, to embed regional sentiments in their design. 

One specific brand we can analyse to illustrate the usage of these tools is Beijing Tong Ren Tang, a Chinese pharmaceutical company founded in 1669 that is now the largest producer of TCM. In its packaging design, the brand has repeatedly emphasized symbols such as dragon motifs, plant illustrations and ruyi patterns. Plant patterns are often used to provide a visual representation of the relevant ingredients, while dragon patterns are more commonly used to symbolise power and the dispelling of disasters.

Many of these design elements are far less present in allopathic (contemporary conventional medicine) medical packaging as its designs tend to be flatter, with fewer visual characteristics to observe. Often, this is a result of regulations surrounding allopathic products, which place strong emphasis on clear labeling and effective communication of information; such as the name of the medicine, expiry dates and usage instructions. Such regulations restrict how pharmaceutical companies present themselves to consumers, similar to those governing cigarette packaging.

At its core, TCM medical packaging demonstrates that graphic design choices go beyond mere decoration. In medical packaging, graphic design becomes a tool that shapes how a product is perceived and how it connects with its consumer base.

by Krishiv Agarwal

Watching “The House Is Black” makes you do something awkward: you feel empathy, then you check that feeling and come to wonder whether empathy is a moral failure. Faith sits beside this confusion, the ‘victims’ are not angry at God; they pray, thank, accept. This steadiness is not a religious resignation but a dig at us: why do we imagine suffering as an external problem for God to fix rather than a politics for us to change? And if you help, with what gaze, who is looking up and who is being looked down on, on the ladder named empathy? The film attempts to resolve these questions by refusing clear answers.

“The House Is Black,” by Forugh Farrokhzad is a short documentary filmed in 1963 set in an Iranian leper colony. The film pairs stark images of daily life, children, rituals and chores with lyrical fragments that read like a diagnosis: the world looks away, and the ordinary lives of the afflicted become the measure of our moral imagination.

The film opens on a woman, hijab framing her face, staring into a mirror. The shot stays. That stare is the contract the film makes with the viewer: look with me, not at me. The mirror is literal and theological with the hijab suggesting God’s presence and concealment, as well as its inability to hide the fact of suffering. When the camera pushes in, the image is not sensationalized; you are made complicit in the act of seeing. Why does this matter? Think of global crises — refugee camps, bombed hospitals, pandemic wards — where televised images invite a burst of outrage that is soon recycled into a moral spectacle. Farrokhzad denies spectacle. The dry scene of a man walking along a wall towards us, then moving away as the audio fades in (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) is quietly savage. Time continues, the world rotates. That audio only fills the frame when distance returns. The ethical rhythm of modern life goes like: move closer, make it private; step back, give it a week; resume.

There is also an explicit moral address: “Oh Muslims, I am sad tonight” (lines from Forugh Farrokhzad’s own poetry), not just as a lament but as a commentary on faith itself. The sadness is not directed at God; it is about the unbearable strangeness of living in a world where suffering feels endless and the crescent moon hovers like a symbol of both fragility and endurance, reminding us that devotion can be inseparable from despair.

Artistically, the film is ruthless. The camera is often at household level — low angles, hands, utensils — leaving each one of us as an observer. Subtle editing stitches do not dramatize, it accumulates. When you place these formal choices parallel to current crises, some patterns emerge. First, the moral economy of pity can reproduce hierarchy. Pity often contains a quiet contempt, a desire to be relieved rather than to redistribute. Second, the film insists that structural questions like medicine, social exclusion, state neglect are not solved by feeling alone. The archives of war and pandemic now accumulate images to the point of numbness; Farrokhzad’s method counteracts this by reintroducing friction. No jingles intrude; no fundraising cutaway softens the image. Where TV would turn suffering into a charity proposition, Farrokhzad leaves you in a room with it. 

The Dove and The Politics of Hope

There is a voice in the film that wishes to become a dove, implicitly wondering whether an earth without suffering is conceivable. Distant things — moons, birds, future on Mars — become the only places where human hope can live, because they are tidy, one-dimensional and therefore palatable. When suffering is immediate and total, the mind prefers a far, digestible, horizon over an ugly, almost irresolvable, present. God, too, functions like that horizon for many: a promise so remote that injustice now feels slightly bearable.

But Farrokhzad complicates this consolation. The residents of the colony fold their suffering into ritual. They do not curse God in a way the privileged might expect. That is the moral sting: if those who suffer are not enraged, why are we? Are we compassionate because we imagine ourselves above them? Or because we are recognizing a shared humanity? 

The film refuses an easy ethic. In the end the film is deliberately, disturbingly unresolved. The director makes you sit with a confusion that feels almost criminal: you feel, you judge your feeling, you fail to act; you watch again and feel something else. That recursive discomfort is Farrokhzad’s point. Empathy here is not the end of ethics, it is the beginning of an interrogation. And that interrogation is, quietly, a little fucked up and gloriously necessary.

References and Time Stamps

The House is Black:

• https://www.aparat.com/v/d16fxd5
• Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/vimeo-136522352

Time Stamps:

• Hijab Scene: 00:45
• Person walking along the wall: 02:49
• ‘Oh Muslims I am sad today’ poem: 04:49

by Margherita Greco

We live in a world today that praises progress but trembles before crises. Heads of State invest in technological and scientific research but remain paralyzed when dealing with climate change, famine and genocide. Therefore, we should ask ourselves: “Is reality the story of human triumph or the story of our limits?”

This ambiguity in the perception of reality is not a new phenomenon. In the 19th century, two of the greatest philosophers of modern times offered two opposing  interpretations. On one hand, the German Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel viewed reality as humanity’s steady progression toward freedom, civilization and ultimate triumph. On the other hand, Søren Kierkegaard underlined how reality was the place of despair, anxiety and impossibility, in which hollow men wander aimlessly in the shadow.

Even if these clashing interpretations were expressed two centuries ago, they remain more relevant than we could ever have imagined. Today, as opulent wealth and selfishness collide with hunger and poverty, we find ourselves living in both worlds at once. This dogmatic relationship with reality mirrors the uncertainty we live in today, caught between optimism about progress and despair at seemingly insurmountable crises. 

The Hegel’s optimism remains woven into modern narratives. His idea that history tends toward triumph has shaped both liberal democracy and Marxism and persists in today’s faith in human progress. This triumphalist spirit is reflected in higher forms of social unity, specifically in the technological realm as artificial intelligence, renewable energy sources and medical advancements are developed.

In the “Phenomenology of Spirit,” Hegel argues about “the fight for life and death,” which, in symbolic terms, should be interpreted as a conflict involving all humanity, in which those who have not been afraid to die win. In contrast, those who are afraid of dying  — those who have given up — succumb.

Through this conflict, men will obtain inner freedom and gain emancipation through work. This concept becomes apparent when applied to contemporary society: the desire to prevail over others is always more disruptive, reducing social relations to mere relations of necessity and power. 

But despite this hierarchy of strength, there is always a glimmer of positivity that is evident in the necessary interdependence of the strongest with the weakest, giving all the possibility to hold power. 

If Hegel interpreted reality as the place to advance towards the best, Kierkegaard, however, cuts against this triumphalism. For the Danish thinker, reality was not a matter of rational progress but a confrontation with despair. Anxiety, failure and faith were not detours on the road to victory: they were the essence of being human. Kierkegaard would likely be anguished by the growing climate crisis, global inequality and political polarization. How can we resolve these types of issues when we are only humans trying to make our lives a bit more bearable? Our limits, which we cannot overcome, ultimately render reality a place of impossibility, clashing completely with Hegel’s optimism and trust in progress.  

Living in our modern society requires us to be light-footed, jumping between optimism and despair with ease.  In our daily lives, we face the decision to feel like Hegelians, focused on development and innovation. However, we often find ourselves in a state of anxiety and paralysis, as Kierkegaard expounded, as we confront the digital world and the fragmentation of our identity, as well as wars and biodiversity loss.

To navigate this dilemma, we need to treasure both visions: cooperating and trusting the collective progress, while accepting certain limitations and having faith in the community to make our existence more tolerable. 

2025 is composed of two intertwined essences: progress and despair. We worry about climate change but, at the same time, fall into the blindest consumerism; we fight for individuality and freedom to express our thoughts, yet we criticize others online.

Perhaps, to live today is to accept this paradoxical nature of reality. Our world cannot afford blind trust in progress, nor can it survive steeped purely in despair. It is fundamental to realize optimism and doubt are companions, not opposites — both are necessary to navigate and improve this fractured world. 

We should collectively stand in the gap between Hegel’s and Kierkegaard’s theories, recognizing that reality has a dual nature that demands both faith and carelessness. 

By embracing this duality, it is possible to act wisely: advancing with hope, yet being aware of our boundaries. Only by assimilating this equilibrium can we dream of a future where human progress goes hand-in-hand with human vulnerability, in which we act consciously about our limits for the greater good.

by Nahia Onchalo-Meynard

Image Credit: Nahia Onchalo-Meynard