Culture Shift is a weekly newsletter curated by the HuffPost Culture writers and editors.
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This week we're talking about poet Omar Musa, the street art in Rio, the Kinsey Institute's erotic art collection, Third Culture Kids, #HarryPotter20, the history of the word "nice," and the book about girlhood that should be required reading.
This Poet Says What Every Person With Multicultural Heritage Needs To Hear
In Omar Musa's newest video -- featuring Tongan-Australian rapper Hau Latukefu, Sikh-Punjabi rapper L-Fresh the Lion, and Israeli-Australian singer Lior Attar -- visions of the musicians themselves are interspersed with clips of Malaysian, Tongan and Punjabi culture, faces that, Musa says, “often don’t get traction on television screens.”
The artists craft an epic patchwork of eras, origins, families and traditions, using language and music to transcend the boundaries that so often seem impenetrable. Also, you may nod your head to it without noticing. (Read more here.)
These 50 Images Capture The Rare Beauty Of Rio’s Street Art Scene
Behold: a virtual tour of street art around the 2016 Olympics. (Read more here.)
The Kinsey Institute Of Sex Has An Erotic Art Collection
The Kinsey Institute was founded in 1947 by controversial biologist and researcher Alfred Kinsey, widely considered to be the first major player in American sexology. In the 1930s and ‘40s, Kinsey collected thousands of individual testimonies on sexual experiences and fantasies, thereby deepening the collective scope of knowledge regarding sexual identities, proclivities and conventions. He also rather infamously engaged in research through observation and participation in performed sexual encounters.
One of Kinsey’s lesser known exploits is creating an archive of objects loosely related to sexuality ― including sculptures, drawings, ephemera, toys and antiques. When word got out that Kinsey was looking to collect articles of a sexual nature, donations flew in. Today, the Kinsey Institute houses over 100,000 items dealing with human sexuality. (Read more here.)
This Book About What It’s Like To Be A Girl In America Should Be Required Reading
If you read one book before fall briskly ushers in a new season, it should be the story of August, a black girl living in Bushwick in the 1970s, when jazz gave way to poppy, promising disco hits, and she had no outlet for her sorrow. Her story is told in Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn. (Read more here.)
Photographer Chronicles The New African Diaspora In Vibrant Portraits
Atong Atem was 6 years old when her family left her native South Sudan, migrating through Ethiopia to a refugee camp in Kenya. Soon after, they migrated to Australia. As such, from a young age, Atem identified herself as an outsider, caught somewhere between past and present, her current setting and the place she calls home.
Every young person grows up plagued with questions about who they are, where they belong and who it is they want to become. The already knotty journey to construct your identity becomes additionally complicated when issues of race, gender, sexuality and colonial history come into play, incorporating complex narratives into an already tangled sense of self.
Now an art student based in Melbourne, Atem is still viscerally aware of the way a single person can occupy many times, places and cultures at once. In her photography series “Third Culture Kids,” Atem crafts staged and stylized portraits of other such individuals, Australia’s second-generation African youth, exploring the ways race, colonialism and history play into one’s constructed sense of self. (Read more here.)
J.K. Rowling's Original Drawings Will Be The Best Part Of #HarryPotter20
Believe it or not, 2017 will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S.), the first volume in J.K. Rowling’s wildly popular book series. In honor of the occasion, London’s British Library is teaming up with the famous author to present a historically-minded Harry Potter exhibition. (Read more here.)
Why You Use The Word ‘Nice’ When You Don’t Know What Else To Say
Because it turns out “nice” has a stranger history than you’d think. (Read more here.)
Netflix recommendation of the week!
Need help figuring out what to watch on Netflix? Here's what our editors have to say about Tangerine: “Tangerine,” a devastating story of two transgender sex workers traversing L.A. by foot on Christmas Eve, was shot on iPhones and cost pennies to make. You wouldn’t know it, though, and to tout that as its key accomplishment would be a disservice."
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