FW Edition: Welcome Home

WELCOME SEPTEMBER 2021 GLASGOW UNIVERSITY UNION’S MAGAZINE

G-YOU MAGAZINE

H O M E LIBRARIES COMMITTEE 2021

HOME

FRESHER’S WEEK, BROKEN UNIVERSITY ENROLMENT, MOVING FLATS. IT’S BEEN OVER A YEAR AND A HALF AND ALL THE SEEMINGLY NORMAL THINGS WE TOOK FOR GRANTED, BOTH GOOD AND BAD, ARE BACK. IT FEELS LIKE THE OBVIOUS THING TO DO IS TO DIVE INTO THE STANDARD SONG AND DANCE OF TALKING ABOUT WHAT WE’VE MISSED THROUGHOUT THE PANDEMIC. BUT HONESTLY, WHO ISN’T BORED OF ALL THAT? INSTEAD, THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE IS FOCUSED ON THE IDEA OF HOME. BOTH CONCEPTUALLY AND LITERALLY. FROM WHAT “HOME” MEANS IN A GLOBALISED WORLD TO FAMOUS FOOTBALL SONGS THAT WE ASSOCIATE WITH OUR HOME CLUB. LET THIS ISSUE BE A WELCOME BACK TO THOSE FAMILIAR FACES WHO WE HAVEN’T SEEN IN A WHILE. AND TO THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE YET TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN GLASGOW, WE WANT TO BE THE FIRST TO SAY “WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME!” BIG THANK YOU TO ANA NEGUT FOR PRODUCING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE ISSUE. AND ANOTHER THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR WONDERFUL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS, WITHOUT WHICH, WE COULDN’T HAVE PRODUCED THIS ISSUE! WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE ISSUE!

EDITORIAL

TEAM

CONTRIBUTORS

FUAD KEHINDE// CONVENOR/ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ANASTASIJA ŠĻAPINA

CATHERINE BOUCHARD// CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ANA

NEGUT//

PRODUCTION

NINA

MUNRO//

EVENTS

OFFICER

COORDINATOR

ZOË

GEMMELL

ABI

WHELAN

OLIVIA SWARTHOUT//GRAPHICS COORDINATOR DUNCAN ERIN

HENDERSON// GRAHAM//

RADOSLAV

CAMPUS

LIFESTYLE

SERAFIMOV//

SCIENCE

EDITOR EDITOR EDITOR

SAMUYKTA VIDYASHANKAR// POLITICS EDITOR LINA

LEONHARD//

EVAN

COLLEY//

ARTS SHOWCASE

EDITOR EDITOR

LAURA MACDONALD ALEX

PALMER

KATARINA ZIVKOVIC SIOBHAN MELDRUM

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21 G-YOU SEPTEMBER 2021 G-YOU SEPTEMBER 2021 G-YOU SEP-

WELCOME

CONTENTS Science

The Comfort of Familiarity - Anastasija Šļapina Smells of Home - Zoë Gemmell In the Age of the Internet, Where is Home? - Abi Whelan

Campus

An Ode to Student Flats - Laura MacDonald

Arts and Culture

Nostalgia Bait - Radoslav Serafimov People Make Glasgow - Erin Graham Not Coming Home - Alex Palmer

Lifestyle

Bringing/Bring back the good times! - Samyukta Vidyashankar Byres Road: Home of the cosmopolitan - Erin Graham

Politics

Queer politics at home - Katarina Zivkovic

Showcase

Poem Home (where you find it) - Catherine Bouchard Photo Definition - Siobhan Meldrum

Misc.

Estrangement - Ana Negut A Place to Call One’s Own Duncan Henderson

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Football Fandom and Violence: Why Football Cannot ‘Come Home’ Until Changes Are Made - Nina Munro

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The Comfort of Familiarity

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by Anastasija Šļapina In psychology, our preference for familiar things can be described by the mere-exposure effect or familiarity principle. The mere-exposure effect is when we develop a preference for familiar people, words, music, shapes and more, merely through exposure to them. The liking develops with repeated interaction, even if the first reaction is neutral. The mere-exposure effect works differently on things that we dislike - familiarity does not breed liking in this case.

The familiarity principle was first described by Zajonc in the 1970s. He studied how living beings fear or resist something new. With repeated exposure this fear reduced and the

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In times full of uncertainty and unease, we always come back to familiarity. We try to grasp everything that gives us some sense of control and comfort, and familiarity is a source of it. You feel at home somewhere because it’s familiar to you. Your favourites stem from familiarity - you prefer certain music, cuisine, clothes, even a way of taking notes. You are most comfortable speaking a specific language if you have used it more than any other. You even build relationships based on familiarity; repeatedly meeting somebody increases your closeness to that person. Studies have shown that we are more attracted to people who we consider familiar. And, if a person has familiar features or behaviour, we feel more at ease around them as well. At the same time, we find unfamiliarity alarming things that are different from what we know seem disturbing or just not right.

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Familiarity is also associated with a concept called perceptual fluency – it’s easier to understand objects we have seen before. Our brains generally look for paths of least resistance and effort, so we prefer familiar things.

Yet, more exposure does not always equal more liking - nothing is that simple. Everybody has at least one song which they have listened to again and again. Suddenly they can’t even stand the first seconds of it. Does this mean that familiarity works only to some extent? Well, one theory suggests a U-shaped perception of familiarity and novelty. We prefer familiar things when we are not overexposed to them, as at that point the scales tip towards favouring novelty.

From an evolutionary perspective, identification of our surroundings is an important ability for any living being. Every day we unconsciously and continuously distinguish and recognize people and objects around us. Familiar things seem safer and more unlikely to cause harm, because they are predictable. Our brains recognize that we have experienced or come across the thing before and stayed alive. Thus, we feel more comfortable facing the same thing again.

But how does it actually work? When encountering objects, we involve various sensory systems and contextual information to evaluate their features and identify them.

Recognition memory (part of declarative memory) allows us to decide if the thing or person has been encountered before. This type of memory consists of familiarity and recollection. Here, familiarity refers to the feeling of knowing without recalling any specific details, while recollection is based on identifying those details and providing additional information on the recognised object. The pre-existing knowledge from declarative memory is then matched with sensory information processing and results in identity recognition. Context is also a significant part of familiarity, as we associate clues with objects which helps with successful recall. Meeting your barista in another setting than a coffee shop will give you a feeling of familiarity, but without the comfort that comes with it. It just makes you confused because of the missing contextual clues.

However, one cannot pinpoint the exact pieces of the brain that encode familiarity. In recognition memory tests, the familiarity brain network spans multiple areas of the brain, which are not necessarily familiarity-specific, but are most probably parts of a general executive control system. A good example of the interconnected nature of familiarity is the way that the medial prefrontal cortex mediates the recognition of familiar songs, which can trigger relevant autobiographical memories and result in more usage of the ‘rewards’ centres of the brain.

We can take advantage of the familiarity effect in our everyday lives. We can’t control it, but we can make it work for us. Familiarity should be a stepping stone for all of us. We need to use this intrinsic tool to see the beauty in the unfamiliar, to challenge our beliefs, and to grow. There is no reason for us to restrict ourselves to the things we like at this exact moment. Enjoying life comes from deriving comfort, and comfort comes from familiarity. So why not make more things familiar to us?

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W H A T D O E S I T T A K E T O M A K E

F E E L L I K E H O M E ?

Barn Quilt is a stunning work of Fidencio Fifield-Perez. The art piece is composed of rather delicate paper cuttings, cut out from used maps collected over time. Although structural aspects of the work evoke the homely, protective comfort of a barn quilt, the shadow that is cast by the paper cuttings creates a border-fencing-like image behind it. The imagery is reminiscent of hostile wired fences and clear physical borders. The artist manages to capture this contrast in a visual retelling of his experience as an immigrant in the US, thus exploring the debate over borders. What struck me is the duality of such a beautiful piece of art, the idea that the same object can both offer protection and signal estrangement.

I started thinking about the importance of such objects in my life: my passport, my debit card, my tenancy agreement, my plug adapter. All of these flimsy pieces of paper or plastic hold such significance for my experience outside of my birth country.

As I’ve been travelling across borders, a passport, for example, has become a symbol of both familiarity and estrangement.

‘the same object can both offer protection and signal estrangement’ My passport is a way to return to both of my homes. It holds a portrait of myself from a few years back when my dad drove me to the city centre to get my picture taken and then had ice cream with me on a typical summer day. My passport is also what keeps me outside of the UK arrivals line at the airport. It is the oddity that I need to carry with me on my nights out, when my national ID card won’t help me get in. So many objects serve as a reminder of who I am and who I am not, a reminder of what I call home and what home is supposed to be. They capture a subtle feeling of alienation that is hard to explain and even harder to overcome. I’ve been wondering if this makes me a tourist in somebody else’s home, but I wish to reject this hypothesis.

The fact that I find myself in a place that I love, with people I’m deeply connected to, in a city that loves me back, is what makes me call the place home. Where there is a strong connection, I believe a passing feeling of estrangement is a reminder that the bond can grow stronger.

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S O M W H E R E

ESTRANGEMENT

Is there even a standard for what it takes to call a place home? Is there any way to explain the feeling of belonging that fills my heart when I’m having a picnic in Kelvingrove park on the first sunny day of spring? Is it dangerous to fall in love with the way a city smells after it rains when you know you will eventually have to leave? Is it wrong to feel familiar someplace just because a stronger foreign accent slips out of my mouth at times? During the last few years, as I was contemplating these questions, a strange new feeling arose.

Suddenly, I became a stranger in two cities.

Every time I travel back home, I find myself experiencing just a hint of unfamiliarity.

I was taken aback by landscape changes, I was unaccustomed to the public transportation system and I started forgetting the trivial details of my high school experience that my friends were still talking about. I couldn’t use a foreign student card for price reductions. Unanticipatedly, I was stranded in a universe that felt parallel to the one I had left years ago and I was unable to navigate it.

I once even found myself accidentally replying to customer service workers in English.

When feelings of estrangement start creeping in, I start questioning if I do belong anywhere after all. If the years of history in a city count for nothing during my return, calling a place your home has to mean more than that.

A perfect relationship with the city you live in is as hard to cultivate as a perfect relationship with yourself. I write this as I’m packing up my entire life and getting ready to return to Glasgow for the fall semester. Inside my bag, there are many objects which at times have made me feel out of place. Next to those, there are worn-out sneakers I’ve danced in during the best nights of my life, a lipgloss that was coating my smile as I met dozens of interesting people and a notebook in which I’ve sketched so many city-centre buildings. “That’s what the world is, after all”, in the words of Haruki Murakami, “an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

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As humans, I believe we are always running over the same old ground and experiencing the same old fears. I try to think of ways of overcoming them: I wander around cities, I grab drinks with older and newer friends, I look for the best lattes I can find in local coffee shops and I buy tickets to random gigs.

The inconspicuous feeling of alienation never truly leaves, but a distinct sense of belonging starts to form.

Sooner or later, the objects that made me feel out of place are just an afterthought to my appetite for discovery. I forget I have to carry around a foreign passport to get into a club because once I’ve gotten in, all that truly matters is that I’m dancing to synth-pop with my favourite people in the world. When I’m dining with people I’ve known forever in the city where I used to live and I embarrassingly let out a random English phrase, it’s just some inconsequential situation we laugh about for the next two minutes. There is a duality in the feeling of estrangement itself: its presence is agonizing, but its existence implies that your circumstances can get better. Places grow familiar.

Strange, isn’t it? How the simplest scent can stop us in our tracks and send us spiralling back in time to a forgotten or cherished place of our past; the welcoming aroma of freshly baked cookies; the combined fragrance of the salty ocean breeze with the richness of melting ice cream; the lingering scent of mildew and nicotine clinging to the curtains and wallpaper. Our sense of smell is invariably linked to our memories, much like our senses of sight, sound, and taste.

Zo­e Gemmel :

HOME

SMELLS OF

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This linkage goes far beyond flowery metaphors and instinctual feelings, however, as there is a very real science behind it. When, say, smelling a daffodil, the chemicals responsible for said smell are drawn up through the nostrils and dissolved in the mucus lining the nasal cavity. This step is crucial, as once dissolved, these chemicals are detected by olfactory receptor neurons. Essentially, these neurons are scouts, tasked with gathering information on smell and sending it to the olfactory bulb for identification.

Located just above the nasal cavity is an incredibly complex, five-layer structure called the olfactory bulb. Despite its rather small size (only measuring an average of 3mm) this section of the forebrain has direct connections to two points of interest within the brain to allow smells to influence emotions and memory more efficiently. The first point of interest being the Amygdala, which is often referred to as the brain’s emotional centre; primarily tasked with handling emotions, processing memory, making decisions, and co-ordinating fight-or-flight responses. The Amygdala closely gauges the environment surrounding us by receiving inputs from our sensory organs and other areas of the brain itself- which includes our second point of interest; the Hippocampus. This section of the brain is incredibly important as it handles both long- and short-term memory, alongside spatial awareness, and learning.

However, due to such a powerful linkage being forged between the nose and brain, it can often be troubling when this connection is severed. Losing the perception of smell (a condition known formally as “Anosmia”) can and does negatively impact our memory. Numerous groups from a variety of institutions have been conducting research into the phenomenon and have shown that a loss of smell is linked to a decreased recall in memory. Often, Anosmia is an impermanent condition, caused by inflammation or blockages within the nasal cavity. Interestingly, this condition has received notable media coverage as of late, as the most common symptom of COVID-19 is a sudden decrease in taste/smell perception.

But where the loss of the connection is a troubling sign of a weakening memory, that same link can be used to strengthen a mind as well. Aromatherapy is an excellent supplementary treatment, acting as a viable option in easing the symptoms of “Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia” (BPSD) for patients in later stages. Scents such as Lavender and Lemon Balm are commonly utilised in soothing the aggression and confusion commonplace within these stages.

A n o s m i a noun

the condition of having no sense of smell or being unable to smell certain things

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The sudden onset of Anosmia can be a troubling sign, specifically in older patients, as the loss of smell has been identified as a developmental indicator of both Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. With Alzheimer’s Disease in particular, the perception of smell (alongside other tactile senses) deteriorates as the disease progresses.

As a West Coaster born and raised, I consider Glasgow to be my city and I defend it with (probably too much) honour. The people of Glasgow have a sense of community like no other, coming together in the best and the worst of times to celebrate and support one another. Like any city, there are people that certainly don’t fit into the mould of a hearty Glaswegian, but the majority of us gie it enough laldy (give it our all) for the slackers twice over.

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A lot of people think Glaswegians are England’s big scary cousins, but that could not be further from the case; once you get to know us you’ll realise that we are so passionate about our city that it hurts, in a good way. The official slogan for our city has been ‘People Make Glasgow’ since 2013 – chosen from over 1500 ideas suggested by 42 countries across the world. Politician Gordon Matheson said that the slogan ‘reflects the Glaswegian character’ and that the spirit of the city lies in the people who inhabit it. He’s got that right. People make Glasgow in several ways but all of the events I have witnessed provoke the same emotion: pride. Every citizen is proud to live here and every one of them wears it on their chest.

Glasgow has an impressive list of born performers and artists up its sleeve: Billy Connelly, Gerrard Butler, Primal Scream, and Kevin Bridges among a few have shaped the city and its culture for decades.So much so that in 1990 Glasgow was crowned the city of culture.

The ever-evolving, ever-accepting culture of Glasgow makes it a hub for live music of all genres; one of the best examples I can think of to demonstrate this ‘People Make Glasgow’ moment people speak of and reflect this sense of identity and pride is be live music events – a Glasgow crowd is simply unmatched.

Artists such as Billie Eilish and Harry Styles have recently said to the BBC that there is simply nothing like a rowdy Glasgow crowd. I myself am an avid concert goer and get pretty emotional around the same time at every single gig: the encore. The ‘Here we, here we, here we f*****g go’ chant that I hope you will get to know well if you don’t already, erupts from the arena while we beg the artist to come back for one last song. So much so that my English boyfriend almost had a heart attack when we went to Kasabian in 2018

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and he was immediately outed as a non-native due to his response to 20,000 thick, echoing Scottish accents chanting in unison. Never have I been at a concert in Glasgow where my videos haven’t been destroyed by the crowd singing louder than the artist themselves, and I don’t mind at all. It’s one of my favourite places to be and it really personifies ‘People Make Glasgow’. We chant and we chant to get that last song and savour the moment and the sense of community we feel when an artist expresses their gratitude for our humble but crazy city.

Another striking example of the size of the Glaswegian heart is how we act in moments of crisis. On Friday the 29th of October 2013, a police helicopter left base in Glasgow on a routine surveillance flight – 100 minutes into the flight, the helicopter crashed into the roof of the Clutha pub in Glasgow, and 10 people were killed. The entire city was shocked and mourned the 10 victims, and the 199-year-old pub at the side of the iconic River Clyde. It was considered a loss to the city as well. In true Glaswegian style, every person in the city wore the ‘People Make Glasgow’ badge like they never had before. The Glasgow Taxi firm provided free transport for victims’ families to and from hospitals and funerals, a benefit weekend of music was organised in a matter of days in order to raise money for those affected, and local breweries offered financial support and advice to the Clutha after the tragedy. People were taping flowers and offerings to the lampposts at the crash site and around the city, and there is not a person who walks past the pub today without a deep sense of loss in their heart. This overwhelming response to a tragedy is probably the most important example of the People Make Glasgow spirit, and the personification of the slogan.

These events only give you a glimpse into life in Glasgow, but it’s who we really are underneath the hard exterior. We are caring, kind, and courageous and we will never apologise for it. If you are new to Glasgow or have been here since birth, we consider you Glaswegian and hope you uphold the values, welcome home.

many years are often spent on making the decision to come out. But coming out is also sometimes a simple ‘her wife/his husband’, a ‘I’m X, my pronouns are they/them!’ Why do people’s coming out experiences lie on such a broad spectrum between daunting, sometimes even dangerous, and completely casual?

Unlike common media portrayals of the subject, to many members of the LGBTQ+ community, coming out is not a oneoff thing, and the only two options are not merely to be entirely in the closet, or to be fully out. While some social circles might be safe, others might react negatively, and LGBTQ+ individuals often need to carefully weigh to whom they should come out. I have found that among my friends, a popular strategy to find out someone’s feelings towards the LGBTQ+ community is to figure out what they think of a mutual acquaintance that has come out. But not everyone has a family acquaintance that is openly part of the LGBTQ+ community, and people belonging to less accepting communities are more likely to struggle with thinking of personal acquaintances that are also a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals in the public and political sphere contributes to the normalisation of LGBTQ+ identities and to norms of acceptance, support and respect.

Particularly for people who are coming out for the first time, a lack of representation of LGBTQ+ individual can contribute to feelings of loneliness and isolation even in cases where the individual’s environment is not bigoted against LGBTQ+ people. And environments that are, in fact, homophobic or transphobic, often breed internalised homophobia and transphobia on top of discrimination from the surroundings. Knowing other LGBTQ+ people who can relate to and understand the particular difficulties faced by a newly ‘out’ member of the community, can be hugely beneficial for their mental health.

queer at

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there’s a day dedicated to celebrating it (October 11 is the National Coming Out Day in many countries);

it’s a movie and book genre;

‘COMING OUT’-

politics home

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Important to consider is that the LGBTQ+ rights movement, like any other social justice movement, consists of many subgroups, which are connected by a common nonconformity with cis, heterosexual norms, but also face struggles unique to the interplay between their specific sexual orientation or gender identity, and other facets of their identity.

The movement has been deeply intertwined since the 1960s with the US civil rights movement, with a Black drag queen, Marsha P. Johnson, and a Venezuelan and Puerto Rican drag queen, Sylvia Rivera, being seen as pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Diversity in LGBTQ+ representation is as necessary today as it was then for members of the community that are also part of other underrepresented and marginalised groups.

As a queer biracial second-generation-immigrant woman with atheist parents from China and Serbia, my experience is shaped by each part of my identity and might look very different if even just one of those labels was changed.

is necessary to advocate for LGBTQ+ people outside the mainstream who often face obstacles particular to the ethnic/cultural/religious (etc.) communities they belong to.’

Representation of LGBTQ+ identities in the public and political sphere is undoubtedly increasing, with 49 openly LGBTQ+ MPs in UK Parliament (https://qz.com/1769275/new-ukparliament-has-record-number-of-femalenon-white-and-lgbtq-mps/). Even in Serbia, an openly gay woman, Ana Brnabić, is currently Prime Minister. However, when Brnabić responded to a question asked by Pride Magazine about the potential legalisation of same-sex marriages by saying there are more pressing issues, she spoke from a position of privilege; a privilege that many other LGBTQ+ people in her country, who often struggle to get justice for discrimination while many corrupt local governments turn a blind eye, do not enjoy.

While LGBTQ+ politicians have an impact on the normalisation of queer identities, this impact is often limited to mainstream society. To help LGBTQ+ people from minority communities, we need to amplify the voices of politicians, spokespeople, religious leaders etc. from diverse walks of life. The way someone chooses to come out, whether with a rainbow cake or over a text message, is a personal decision, but everyone deserves political advocacy in a way suitable to their own complex identities.

‘everyone deserves political advocacy in a way suitable to their own complex identities.’

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‘Community knowledge

Comparing my home country, Austria, to both China, where virtually no anti-discrimination policies exist to protect LGBTQ+ individuals, and to Serbia, where existing anti-discrimination laws are often disregarded by a corrupt legal system, my parents once asked me why I was so excited when same-sex marriage was legalised in Austria, a fairly accepting country. When I pointed out to my dad that among our Serbian acquaintances in Austria, there was still plenty of homophobic sentiment, I remember him replying that ‘government policies are hardly going to change that.’ To me, he unknowingly summed up so pointedly what is missing for real political change in terms of LGBTQ+ acceptance, particularly in communities outside of the mainstream culture. Community knowledge is necessary to advocate for LGBTQ+ people outside the mainstream who often face obstacles particular to the ethnic/cultural/religious (etc.) communities they belong to.

BY NINA MUNRO relationship between alcohol and abuse the sports,

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FOOTBALL FANDOM AND VIOLENCE; WHY FOOTBALL CANNOT ‘C O M E H O M E ’ UNTIL CHANGES ARE MADE

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dia without having provided identification details, so that the police can easily locate perpetrators. This would definitely reduce racist comments, but would not help change the belief behind the comment, nor would it change the alcohol-related issues football fandom can cause.

As we have seen through the Premier League ‘No to Racism’ campaign, there are efforts within football to prevent racist behaviour and penalise perpetrators. However, this is simply not enough, as we have seen throughout the Euros. On top of this, little has been done within footballing associations to deal with the problems caused by alcohol consumption, and the prevention of domestic abuse.

In fact, drinking is encouraged during football matches, with pubs running football related drinks promotions throughout big championships such as the Euros, World Cup and Champions League.

While drinking in view of the pitch is prohibited at actual football games, we cannot control what goes on in the pub or at home. This is the real risk, and this is where real change needs to occur. Already, campaigns such as Football United Against Domestic Violence and organisations such as Refuge and Women’s Aid have made clear the level of support available to victims – a great step in the right direction to raise awareness that this is an ever-growing problem. However, education must now begin at the root: young football fans must be made aware of these issues, and admonished against any such behaviour.

Of course, it would be impossible to prevent drinking while watching football without vastly infringing freedoms, but awareness of the problems could be increased, and programmes (displayed primarily online and in education) on the safe enjoyment of football must be prioritised. As a result, public funding is a necessity in addressing this problem before any other individuals are hurt. More of those involved in football must get involved and get behind campaigns such as Football United Against Domestic Violence before any real change can be made. Here, government, football clubs, football associations, and football players have power, and it is essential they use it.

Until these problems are solved, football cannot ‘come home’, as currently its home is not fit for purpose. Football should be enjoyed passionately, but primarily safely, and the behaviour of UK fans at the moment simply cannot continue.

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Football has always been special to me, from celebrations during *that* game in Istanbul, to sobbing during Liverpool’s defeat to Real in 2018, and being thrown around a Spanish pub in Madrid 2019, the rollercoaster journey of being a football fan is second to none. The enjoyment you can glean from one 90-minute match is remarkable. There are cities you can discover while travelling the world with your team, friends you can make over a nail-biting final in the pub and musicians you can uncover by singing the football versions of their song – the opportunities are endless.

It is for these reasons that we understand why football becomes so passionate, and fans become so deeply involved in the game. However, a line must be drawn. There is a huge difference between passion in the way I have described, and the kind of behaviour that we see all too often in 21st century football – behaviour wrongly mistaken as part of being a football fan. It is this kind of behaviour that ruins the reputation of football fans all over, and must be addressed.

The dark side to football is not unknown: previously, when England have lost in World Cup games, domestic violence cases rose by 38%. Football does not cause this violence, but it does aggravate it. Alcohol is seen as the fuel that causes the fire in these situations, and again it is not a surprise that watching football and heavy drinking go hand in hand. In 2018, England beat Sweden in the World Cup quarter final, and on that day, hospitals dealt with a record number of alcohol poisoning cases. A recent study by LSE also showed that non-alcohol related domestic abuse did not rise on match days, further proving that it is in fact beer that often leads to the beating. But why is it that watching football has to end this way for so many people? Why is it that the consumption of alcohol during a football match leads to such damage, disaster, and distress? Not only does domestic abuse rise during these matches, so too does racism. Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Raheem Sterling are just a few of the many individuals who throughout the Euros this summer had to deal with incessant racial abuse. Many of the perpetrators have since been identified and punished – but it still begs the question outlined above, why is this happening, and how can we stop it?

Many suggest that identification is the way forward – meaning that you cannot use social me-

Bringing/Bring back the good times! times!

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A month before university started, before I entered my third year of stress induced terror and inkling of imposter syndrome, I told myself that this would be my year and that I was going to claim it. No more sweating the small stuff, no more self-inflicted stress, no more letting the little things get to me. Moving halfway across the world to start a whole new chapter of your life has been nothing short of daunting. But in the two years that I’ve been here, it’s safe to say that Glasgow has grown on me.

Nothing screams ‘main character energy’ more than when you’re walking down Great Western Road, overpriced (but very much worth it) coffee in hand, wind in your hair and Miss Montana’s ‘Ordinary Girl’ blasting on full volume – trust me, don’t knock it till you try it. Some of us have been robbed of some major milestones at uni, some of our very important firsts. Whether that may be your first Hive night, your first sub crawl, rolling up to your lecture insanely hungover or heck ... even turning up to your first ever in-person lecture! We’ve missed these small wins, these moments of joy that bring tiny smirks to our face and make for some of the best memories! It sucks, it’s not fair and you’re allowed to moan and complain about it.

But hey! Fresh start and all that jazz.

New academic year, new you right?

Things are starting to look up, our loved ones are getting vaccinated, hugs are a thing you can do now and catching up with a friend over coffee on a rainy day can happen now!

Hit all the snazzy vintage stores in town and have a crazy photoshoot of it! Carpe Diem the heck out of your 4 years here! Surround yourself with people that radiate the best vibes – your chosen family.

Grab your polaroid and film cameras and document every single moment, you won’t regret it. Go buy that overpriced coffee at your local, or brave the Pret queue if you’d prefer. Make a playlist for every occasion, be it for the walk to the library, the barbecue’s at Kelvingrove park, the pres for a night out, or for when uni gets a bit too much and you just need a bit of a cry with your room/flat mate.

Take in the views that Glasgow has to offer, there’s really no better place to be the main character. Take it from a girl that moved from a desert country, as much I miss my beaches and the heat, and never fail to whine about the constant downpour we’re blessed with – I’ve found my second home and have carefully handpicked a group of fantastic individuals I’m grateful to call my friends. So, don’t waste another minute! Don’t settle to be the side character in the movie of your life. Reclaim the memories you’ve lost out on. It’s your world and we’re just living in it.

BY SAMYUKTA V I D Y A S H A N K A R G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 19

The attitude of a Glaswegian is that of a carefree, happy-go-lucky, que sera sera type. There are two main reasons for this: 1. We are not easily embarrassed 2. We really don’t care about the actions of others as much as you think we do. In the best way. If there is one place you can express yourself free of judgement it’s Glasgow, because no one cares, and it’s wonderful! Fashion is one of the truest forms of self-expression and the fashion of Glasgow’s students is unmatched, and truly reflects the Glasgow spirit.

For a small-town girl like myself coming from a street (one literal street) full of judgement when I tried something new, Glasgow and its cosmopolitan indifference is the perfect blank canvas.

Compliments from strangers sometimes resonate with us even more than compliments from friends because they are unexpected. I never hesitate to tell someone how much I love their bag, their boots, or their entire attitude and the reaction is always 100% worth the two seconds it takes from your day. We have all been (or are soon to be) in Hive and had THE talk with another girl at the sink, the 10-minute slur of non-stop simultaneous compliments and love. Wholesome content.

h oom e f t h e c o s m o politan

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 20

BYRES ROAD

We must give some credit to the plethora of fresher’s vintage markets and the second hand selection in Glasgow that make it possible to express ourselves on a budget. Until my freshers week in 2018, I had never shopped second hand or vintage and cannot believe I was not aware of the concept until I was 18. It has completely changed my life and that of others who I met at that first £15 kilo sale at the GUU. There is a sense of pride and extra love we have for our pre-loved garments, and I love to think of their back stories. This is something I do on the subway as well, admiring an outfit and pondering on where everything came from, and what life it had before its current one in Glasgow.

Every single garment has a story, and I like to think it’s a long and adventurous one that has led it to the university library, to the toilets at hive or to the subway station. I like to think that the person wearing their leopard print beret, or their bright pink tights feel confident as hell in what they are wearing and know they look good, because there is nothing like that feeling and the compliments it brings. Glasgow is the home of the cosmopolitan where

you can wear whatever you want, and no one cares, in the best way.

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 21

by ERIN GRAHAM

The sweetness of Glaswegians does not stop in the club, just last week I got off at Hillhead subway and a cleaner who was mopping the floor told me she loved my pink go-go boots, and naturally I said I loved her bright blue space buns. We smiled and got on with our entirely separate lives and it left me feeling confident for the rest of the day.

Fleeting encounters like that are not uncommon on the campus catwalk.

The more outrageous, the better. Something I love about fashion around campus is the level of individuality – every single person has a personal style, and it brings such an energy to the streets of the West End. There is an unspoken energy of acceptance and expressiveness in the city of Glasgow, and something I have missed ever so much over the past 2 years. Although individual, you feel part of a community that loves themselves and loves what they wear. A part of me wishes I documented some of the fashion I have seen over the past few years, and another part is glad I didn’t, leaving everyone’s individuality to the passing eye and only the passing eye forever.

An Ode to Student Flats

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 22

For many, coming to university is synonymous with coming into your own. From the new second years finding their feet out of halls, to the postgrads who couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, your student flat is your own personal space to study, party, and really just live your life in the way you so choose. There’s going to be cooking disasters, hallway photoshoots, and the extremely difficult decision of whether the fairy lights or the pretend crawling ivy belongs on the wall with the big mirror, and it’s all going to happen in this place we call home.

Now, every flat has its quirks, there’s no disputing that. Personally, my flatmate and I have had suspicious crawl spaces in the bathroom, upside down plug sockets, scary gaps in the floorboards, and a kitchen ceiling which fell in - I don’t know about you, but I think regular sprinklings of plaster dust into your food has to be great for your immune system, right? And, of course, there’s the classics; leaks, rats and mould… but despite their *interesting interior design choices*, we all love our flats.

To be honest, if you worked out how many pints of fun your monthly rent money could buy, you’d never want to make another payment, but it’s worth it because your flat houses not only you, but so many of your university memories. That weird stain on the carpet is from that particular drinking game that you are NEVER PLAYING AGAIN, the generic print of VW campervans in pseudo-Andy Warhol style will always be in the background of your keepsake polaroids, and your front door which always seems to shut with a bang to expose your flatmate for coming home at 6am after totally not spending the night with their ex again. You’ll have existential crises on the battered living room sofa, fuelled by last minute essay writing and too much coffee, and you’ll find yourself buckled with laughter on the hallway floor when your flatmate said that one thing that was so funny at the time, which will live on as an inside joke only you guys will truly understand. Your flat is the place you come home to after nights out which seem to last forever and then there’s six of you squished into your double bed. Then in the next morning, whilst a hangover shared sure as hell isn’t a hangover halved, at least you’ve got your pals around to share funny stories from the night before whilst you’ve got your head down the toilet. You and your flatmates will make your own flat traditions, quite likely give each other experimental haircuts, and you’ll all try your hand at being Mary Berry when taking turns attempting something for Bake Off each week. After living in such close proximity, there will be very little that you don’t know about your flatmates, possibly for better or worse, but you’ll make friends and memories which will last a lifetime.

Living in your student flat is also, of course, a great way to learn some important life skills, even if you still take your washing home to your parents sometimes. You learn to adult by communicating effectively with your landlord, paying your bills on time, as you really can’t do your uni work (or binge Netflix) in this technological age without electricity, and realising that sometimes you do need to skip that night out to finish a project for uni. Your student flat might also be the place which teaches you to look after yourself and your home, as you eventually figure out how many days is truly too many days in a row to eat pesto pasta, and that lighting another candle really is no substitute for taking the bin out.

Ultimately, it’s not the flat itself that really matters, but the time in your life with which it is associated. So, make the most of hosting parties, late night giggles and conversations with your flatmates, and legging it from your bed to that 9am lecture in record time. Whether you’re still at university or you completed your degree years ago, you’ll find yourself reminiscing about your old flats, the things that you did there, and what it meant to you. Make a home out of your student flat because there really is no other place like it, because there is no other time in your life like university.

[SHE/HER]

2021

MACDONALD

HOME

LAURA

WELCOME

HOME

(WHERE Catherine

YOU

FIND

IT) Bouchard

We’ve all written before on what home means to us, For some trite grade school assignment, We write about how we find it (home) In the cracks of grass through sidewalks, and the laughter of friends So this won’t be new to you How home is where we find it.

And so, We write to praise Because in this moment, the wordsI could write about how home is the flowhouse, And we think, this time, we’re real-Familiarity wrapped up in a duvet, ly onto something special here.Stale warmness after a week away, Jasmine scented essential oils and sunset hues cast onto the walls.

‘Because in this moment, the words flow And we think, this time, we’re really onto something special here.’

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 23

I could write about how home is the city, Sitting outside in Dukes on a sunny day, The blanketing humidity right before rain escapes overcast skies, I could write about how home is theLaughing ourselves into the shelter of a people,bar to the sounds of synth pop.

Dropping quips to see the hint of a smile smile break their faces, Rooting ourselves into summer dappled grass,And so you see, this is the same narHours carried away on the lilt ofcissistic pretention that bonds us, anecdote #37.Because I have written these things for you Shown that I too know what it means to find home, And that I’m just like you, reader, And so you see, this is the same narI have felt loved and accepted and cissistic pretention that bonds us, welcome.

Because I have written these things for you Shown that I too know what it means to find home, And that I’m just like you, reader, I have felt loved and accepted and welcome.

by Abi Whelan

Welcome to the Internet! I think Bo Burnham puts it best when he asked if he could “interest you in everything all of the time?”

Since its inception in 1969, the internet has boomed and become a place of increasingly divided communities. But it wasn’t always like this. Think back to just a few years ago.

Let me set the scene – the burning hellscape of Tumblr, circa 2016. A new episode of Sherlock has been released, Superwholock is everywhere, Dashcon was only two years ago and Penis Friday is (thankfully) no more. The ship ‘wars’ are in full swing, and that textpost about ‘fandom vs. hipster’ blogs forming an alliance in a coffee shop pops up on your dash at least once a week.

In my mind, nowhere is more of an online community than Tumblr in the early 2010s.

Sure, it was a lawless land – especially before the introduction of safe browsing – but once you found your community you were home. At least, in a chronically online, stealing shoelaces from the president kind of way.

It certainly was a place to be. Whether you shipped Johnlock or Phan, you had found yourself a community of likeminded people, who watched the same things as you, laughed over the same jokes, and cried when the show was really really bad (I’m looking at you and Superhell, Supernatural).

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 24

welcome to the internet welcome to the internet welcome to the internet welcome to the internet welcome to the internet welcome to the internet welcome to the

In the age of the Internet, where is home?

and even now, with our heavily compartmentalised internet communities, there are still internet-wide jokes. There are references to pronouns “being she, because I can never be her”, there are more dances than I can even imagine, and I’m sure somewhere there is a new ‘none pizza with left beef’.

Inclusion on the internet has many forms, and whilst it isn’t always a good thing, it’s certainly not a wholly bad thing. Of course, there are – and were – toxic communities that were able to do varying levels of harm, from actual Nazis to ones who encouraged and romanticised very serious mental health conditions.

But the internet is not as lawless as it once was. There are stricter content controls in place now (which some would argue are too strict on certain platforms), but their presence is certainly felt, meaning these toxic communities are harder to engage with today.

The internet is no utopia. Its scale and reach could never have been imagined twenty years ago. But in enabling us to form communities, the internet is helping us to do something so very human. I spent many of my most formative years on the hellscape of Tumblr, in found communities sharing stories with people who would go on to become lifelong friends. There are mountains of content, some better, some worse, but for many, in the valleys of these mountains there are places that feel like home.

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 25

Tumblr wasn’t always the best place to be though – you might notice I keep calling it a ‘hellscape’. That’s for many reasons. One being you were always minutes away from being ‘cancelled’. Nuance wasn’t really a thing back in 2016 apparently. People were lambasted for having certain groups in their ‘Do Not Interact’ lists, including ‘MAPs’ or ‘Minor Attracted Persons’. Yes, you heard that right.

For a brief period, Tumblr was not only was a haven for paedophiles; they were designated a protected community by teenagers on the internet. Whilst finding communities on the internet was a great thing, and people were more connected than ever before, there were many communities to be wary of.

It’s the same today, but communities can be harder to find. Now, you’re fed the content that the all-knowing algorithm wants you to see to keep you engaged. Artificially forming communities that would have probably found each other eventually, the process just happens at hyper-speed now. Of course, there’s less interaction in a lot of these communities and more content just being consumed passively in short 30 – 500 second chunks. But this doesn’t make these communities feel any less like home. Whether you’re on FoodTok, SwiftTok, or any other Tok, these are communities with inside jokes,

‘Much like how we spend incredible amounts on substances that help us forget our troubles, we are willing to pay a pretty penny for a shot of pure comfort and wistful memory straight to the heart.’

NOSTALGIA

BY

Radoslav

​​Serafimov

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 26

NOSTALGIA

Do you remember the good old days before Covid?

When you could go to the cinema with your friends, order a big bag of popcorn and a cold drink and lose yourself in a movie for a few hours? Does it feel good to reminisce on those good times? Well, I want you to ask yourself whether you really enjoyed every trip to the cinema. Did you never go with a pounding headache, or a terrible cold that distracted you from the movie? Or maybe you went expecting something bold and innovative and were rewarded with shameless nostalgia bait that made you angry (looking at you ‘Rise of Skywalker’). Reading this first paragraph will hopefully have shown you the central appeal and issue of nostalgia as a marketing technique – it’s appealing in the moment, until you stop and think and see the illusion of enjoyment vanish before your very eyes.

‘When when

under a

pressure person

the

mind felt

will return safe,

to memories of loved, and

better times, protected.’

‘ When under pressure the mind will return to memories of better times, when a person felt safe, loved, and protected.’

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 27

Using nostalgia as a marketing strategy is nothing new. Up until the 20th century nostalgia was seen as a painful affliction, but once more scientific attention was focused upon it, it was discovered that nostalgia is indeed a rather pleasant experience, despite its wistful nature, and somewhat of a coping mechanism. When under pressure the mind will return to memories of better times, when a person felt safe, loved, and protected. This is why a lot of our nostalgic memories stem from our childhoods – when we were better shielded from the horrors of the world. It’s no surprise then that nostalgia sells well. Much like how we spend incredible amounts on substances that help us forget our troubles, we are willing to pay a pretty penny for a shot of pure comfort and wistful memory straight to the heart. The use of nostalgia to sell a product isn’t even something modern – it’s been around for at least 100 years, with each generation craving a time before theirs or one from their early years. The first example of whole generations experiencing nostalgic feelings is probably the ‘Americana’ movement of the early 20th century that craved the “traditional” American lifestyle. A great example of early commercial nostalgia pandering is “Grease”, which glamourized the 50s in a way that made an entire generation who had never experienced them crave those times. Nostalgia is undeniably a powerful tool to engage an audience because everyone invariably craves comfort and safety. But much like any coping mechanism, engaging in nostalgic fancy too often carries dangers.

The most obvious issue that stems from overindulgence is the way it leaves us open to manipulation. The truth is that Disney keeps pumping out unwanted, CGI-polished remakes of its classics despite the public’s outcry because they keep selling well. To mention the horrifying mess that was ‘Rise of Skywalker’ again – that was a movie I knew I’d hate before I ever set foot in the theatre. Yet I gave our Mouse overlords the money for a ticket, because ‘Star Wars’ is such a deeply ingrained part of my childhood that I learned to read with the sole purpose of being able to follow along with the subtitles of the movies in my own native Bulgarian. I allowed my own memories to be used against me by a powerful corporation to sell me a thing I did not want. If that’s not bleak then I don’t know what is. So, is this the death sentence for genuine artistic expression and consumer satisfaction – endless reboots and remasters of our beloved childhood franchises?

I venture that it is not! While studios can rely on nostalgia for a steady profit stream, consumers do desire originality and uniqueness, and those wealthy studios now have the funds to take chances on more risky, strange projects. There are quite simply more movies now than there ever were and that is, in part, because the movie industry has managed to make itself into a machine that is at least partially propped up by our collective nostalgia for it (just think about how the start of this article made you feel – not only are some movies nostalgia triggering, the mere concept of movies is!) This abundance of movies allows for a greater breadth of products. The other benefit is giving artists the chance to work on established ideas: to build and expand upon them. To bring up ‘Star Wars’ again - I swear I’ve seen other movies, don’t bully me - without the irresistible push of nostalgia, this franchise could not have spawned a dozen movies, half as many TV shows, and countless books, all of which come together to build a single, sprawling, interweaving work of art which is unlike anything anyone could have achieved 50 years ago!

While nostalgia is being used to get our butts into theatre seats and our money out of our wallets, if we allow ourselves to engage in it critically we can contribute to creating collective works of imagination that will be cultural landmarks in the public consciousness for years to come. And quite frankly, I think that’s beautiful enough to reminisce about someday in the future.

by Duncan Henderson

A Place to Call One’s Own

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 28

‘Much like another generation major issue that will hit our harder (and then harder for subsequent generation) -each climate change it is clear what needs towill be- is done, but’ the political absent.

Our generation are no strangers to transient homes. Some of us will have moved quite a bit before we arrived at Glasgow, as parents upsize, downsize, move for work, or life takes a different turn.

Some of us will have arrived home as a newborn and still enjoy going back to that same home at Christmas. Chances are though, unless a home student, we’ve all lived (or will end up living) in a number of flats during our days at University. Of course, that can be exciting in the moment - moving into halls for the first time; finding a flat with your friends for second year; decorating your new place (even at risk of the deposit); and the obligatory house-warming celebrations. After the graduation photos are taken and University remains nought but memories however, most hope the days of flat-hunting are coming to a close. Maybe a few years in a grad flat or with the parents to save up, then - just as many of our parents and grandparents did - putting down a deposit and getting a foot on the housing ladder. In my more naive years I figured it would be as simple as that.

Unfortunately it isn’t nearly as simple. Now, you don’t need an entire article to say that young people are struggling to buy homes.

Whether it’s the hilariously tone-deaf ‘aspirational’ articles that always seem to include “and my parents gave me 50k to help”; those whose private schools cost as much as a house telling us that skimping on lattes and avocados will make up a deposit (I’ve done the maths - unless you spend ridiculous amounts on lattes and avocados, it won’t); or the countless other pieces that have been written bemoaning the subject and the earlier two examples, we all know that entering the housing market is going to a tough battle.

Now, it would be unfair to say that nothing has been done about this problem. Help to Buy, shared ownership schemes, and - most recently - government-backed 95% mortgages have all been floated as potential solutions and had wads of money thrown at home.

Yet, homeownership among under-25s is less than half what it was in 1961. Among under-30s it is down by 25% over the same period.

In fairness, some of these schemes have only recently just been launched and may yet stem the decline - but I wouldn’t bank on it.

House prices are soaring - which is fantastic news if you own your home but terrible news if you want to - and that presents the crux of the issue. Unless house prices stabilise at reasonable levels, each and every one of these schemes aiming to improve the affordability of homes for young people will merely be a small plaster over an ever growing wound. Else, they solve the problem briefly, but prices rise back into unaffordable levels (even with the support); necessitating a new scheme; and so on. This cycle is what makes the issue so difficult to solve - because it asks policymakers to incur the wrath of the existing homeowners (ie. those who typically vote, and those who typically donate to political parties) by driving down their prices with an ambitious building scheme to reduce demand and a reassessment of property taxes in order to aid young people (ie. those who vote less frequently and don’t tend to prioritise a political donation with our small paycheque). Much like another major issue that will hit our generation harder (and then harder for each subsequent generation) - climate change - it is clear what needs to be done, but the political will is absent.

for us,

that may be a

l o ng time

away.

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 29

That has big problems for generational equality. Our grandparents could normally put together a deposit within a few years. Our parents, maybe with a little help from the bank of mum and dad, most of them could manage too. Yet, for our generation the dream is out of sight unless our family can put forward a substantial sum - a luxury most of us don’t have.

That means always paying somebody else’s mortgage in rent (plus a little extra for them) instead of every payment giving us more ownership of our own home. It means no security and the threat of eviction if the landlord wants to use the property, restrictive rules on pets and decorations, and little saved for old age. Owning one’s home gives stability and security unfortunately

It wasn’t until I stood in a small Greek museum this August that I realised why cultural restitution is

so significant. Pinned to the wall on one of the explanatory notes was a table showing the number of ancient coins excavated on the island, and where they are now. Twenty-one of them are in the British Museum— a higher number than are left on the island itself. Some slightly fuzzy photo prints tried to make up for the real deal, leaving the islanders to try and piece together their historical and cultural background from some artifacts they will probably never see, locked up in a drawer some 1350 miles away.

This desire for repatriation of significant artifacts is not a new phenomenon. In 1812, Lord Byron launched a scathing attack on Lord Elgin’s earlier removal of sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. Elgin had, at the start of the 18th century, sawed and hacked the pinnacle of Classical Greek sculpture from the remains of the Temple and shipped the sculptures back to Britain, where they reside to this day in a fairly dingy gallery— the roof even leaks.

Compare this to the purpose-built Acropolis Museum— shiny and new, with state-of-the-art climate control, and, most importantly, reserved space for the Elgin Marbles. There they could be kept reunited with the remaining sculptures in Athens as they were intended to be viewed, within eyeshot of the Acropolis and where the light would fall on them much the same as it did nearly 2,500 years ago at its construction. No, says the British Museum.

It is certainly a thorny issue. No one after all likes admitting that they probably shouldn’t have those 200 metal sculptures and plaques they ‘acquired’ after the British Empire looted and sacked the city of Benin in 1897, or those two spiritually significant Moai ‘acquired’ from Rapa Nui in 1869, or the... you get the picture. Empires certainly have a large and uncomfortable role in many museum collections throughout the world, for as new nations rose and the old imperial powers fell throughout the twentieth century, the looters and the looted became (fairly) equal states on a global stage and the museums of the looters held onto what they took from nations once under their control. Now the museums, from London to Berlin, largely aren’t giving it back.

There are some legitimate reasons for this, of course. The British Museum for instance is bound legally by the British Museum Act 1963 (isn’t this a fun-filled article), which forbids it from disposing of its holdings. In 2005 a ruling regarding this act decreed that even Nazi looted art could not be repatriated to its rightful owners. What the act does not prevent the Museum from doing is lending out its collections - it could, say, send the Benin Bronzes back to Nigeria for the foreseeable future.

Loans already form an important part of interaction between museum collections and the formation of special exhibitions. It stands to reason that this could and likely would continue with repatriated items. Giving back items of cultural significance would probably not ‘empty the world’s great museums’ as the popular argument goes- instead perhaps allowing for more flexible lending structures.

There almost couldn’t be a starker difference between how recently traded artifacts with ‘uncertain’ provenances are treated when compared with items sitting in museum collections for decades or centuries. Whilst it is no great wonder that “I knew little about collecting” are not the words you want to hear from a man involved in purchasing thousands of ancient artifacts from the Middle East, David Green (the founder of the US arts & craft store Hobby Lobby and chairman of the evangelical Christian Museum of the Bible), said just that.

Alex Palmer

Not coming home.

G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 30 G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 30

Not coming home. Not coming home. Not coming home. Not

Not coming home. Not coming home. Not coming home.

. Not coming home. Not coming home. Not coming home. Not What followed was a lengthy court battle, which the museum lost- eventually leading to the return of some 15,000 papyri and cuneiform tablets to Iraq and Egypt. This is what repatriation can look like if not for the barriers and circuitous arguments thrown in its path: a comparatively simple way of returning ill-gotten and disputed objects to their cultural homelands.

The Louvre, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art may all proclaim themselves to be “universal museums”, full of collections from around the globe and visible to all throughout the world, but I am sure this comes as scant consolation to those left with precious little of their own cultural and historical heritage in their wake, despite how relatively easy it would be to give back even a few significant items.

habitand

somewhere between

hope

there is a thought word It’s not a

Siobhan Meldrum

noun G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 31 G-YOU MAGAZINE// SEPTEMBER 2021// 31

"De fini tion"

proper

thank you for reading and

welcome home.

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