Indonesia: Protests launched over fuel price increase

Fuel subsidies are a sensitive political issue in Indonesia. But with the subsidy budget tripling, the president says he must let prices rise.

People have marched across the country demanding fuel price increases be reversed

Thousands of protesters assembled in Indonesian cities on Tuesday calling for fuel price increases to be rolled back.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced over the weekend that the government would cut fuel subsidies and let prices rise 30%. It was the first price rise in eight years, and comes in the face of soaring inflation and a tripling of the budget for energy subsidies.

The move raised the price of gasoline from about 51 US dollar cents (€0.51) to 67 cents per liter and diesel from 35 cents to 46 cents.

Students and labor groups led marches in the capital Jakarta, as well as the cities of Surabaya, Makassar, Kendari, Aceh, and Yogyakarta. Police say further big crowds are likely this week.

Unions claim the price hike will impact workers and the urban poor the hardest.

"Workers are really, really suffering right now," Abdul Aris, a union official, told Reuters news agency. He vowed to keep fighting until the government caves in.

Demonstrators also demanded an increase in the minimum wage from next year.

Thousands of police officers were deployed across Jakarta, many given the duty of guarding petrol stations.

Protesters at the weekend burned tires, and blocked roads — complaining that they were already reeling from rising food costs and the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The government says it is softening the blow by bolstering welfare programs, and setting up hotlines in the country of 270 million people.

"These are very difficult conditions, but if you look at the assistance provided by the government, it is quite large," Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini told a news conference. "We hope this could help cushion the rise in prices that the people are facing."

Fuel subsidies have long been sensitive in South East Asia's largest economy. For decades now, the government has subsidized fuel, and past increases have triggered student protests.

In 1998, mass riots helped topple longtime dictator Suharto.

aw/msh (Reuters, AP)

Lufthansa: Second strike averted as pilots, airline near deal

Pilots had been planning a two-day strike over wages unless the airline came up with a "serious offer." A similar strike last week stranded some 130,000 passengers.

Germany's Lufthansa airline narrowly avoided a second round of pilot strikes on Tuesday.

"An agreement has been reached" over wages, the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union said. This was later confirmed by Lufthansa executives who added that the agreement was not final, but was sufficient to delay the most imminent threat of strikes.

The union had threatened a two-day action, set to start on Wednesday, unless a "serious offer" was made. Lufthansa then accused the union of "continuing on the path of escalation."

Pilots had already paralyzed Lufthansa's core operations on Friday last week after negotiations on a new collective agreement had failed. The all-day pilots' strike brought almost all flight operations to a halt. Around 130,000 passengers were affected by the cancellation of more than 800 flights. Lufthansa said the action cost it €32 million ($32 million).

A final new agreement has not been reached, according to Lufthansa. However, the union has agreed to call off the strike as both sides continue to negotiate ahead of revealing new proposals on Friday.

What were the pilots demanding?

Vereinigung Cockpit said last week it was demanding a 5.5% pay rise for its more than 5,000 pilots alongside automatic inflation adjustments for 2023.

Spokesperson Matthias Baier said they hadn't received a "sufficient offer" on Thursday, calling it a "sobering and missed opportunity" on side of Lufthansa.

Lufthansa published details of the offer it said the trade union had walked away from. The last offer proposed a blanket increase of €900 per employee.

The company said this would signify an increase of 15% for pilots early in their career and 5% for experienced captains, based on salaries from the latest 18 months.

The airline was arguing that VC's demands would increase staff costs in the cockpit by 40%, describing the increase as "unreasonable," as it doesn't take into account the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. During the pandemic, Lufthansa was granted a €9 billion ($8.9 billion) bailout by the German government as it narrowly avoided bankruptcy. However, it was able to pay back the bailout at the end of 2021.

dh,es/rt (dpa, Reuters)

'Not a god': Filmmakers dissect Leonard Cohen through 'Hallelujah'

'A POET, LIKE DAVID'

Author: AFP|Update: 06.09.2022 

Cohen's 'Hallelujah', ignored at first, eventually became a global hit / © AFP/File

A filmmaker duo retracing Leonard Cohen's life through his legendary anthem "Hallelujah" said they were so in awe of the Canadian singer that it took them years of preparation before tackling the documentary.

Presenting "Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song" at the American Film Festival that opened at the weekend in Deauville, France, Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine told AFP they studied Cohen's personal notebooks, rare footage and even his selfies for eight years before making the film.

"When we first thought about the project, and then even when we were first embarking upon it, my feelings about Leonard were that he was a god. You know, it was the great Leonard Cohen," Goldfine said.

"How were we possibly going to do justice to this god?"

Geller and Goldfine approached the life of the singer -- who gave his blessing to the project two years before he died aged 82 in 2016 -- through "Hallelujah", his most famous song, which has acquired cult status in the world of rock.

When Cohen first released the song, tucked away on the "Various Positions" album from 1984, it went almost unnoticed.

But then Bob Dylan performed a cover, followed by The Velvet Underground's John Cale, and Jeff Buckley, and then some 300 artists recording their own versions of "Hallelujah".

"It's looking at Leonard Cohen through the prism of his most famous song," Goldfine said.

- 'He's a human being' -

Focusing on the one song relieved the filmmakers of "the burden of having to do like a cradle to grave by a biography", she said.

Instead, they highlighted "his influences and the parts of Leonard's spiritual journey that illuminated why he was the only person in the universe who could have possibly written 'Hallelujah'", Goldfine said, adding: "The song is so much about everyone's spiritual journey."

Geller and Goldfine, based in San Francisco and whose previous work includes "Ballet Russes" and "Isadora Duncan," acknowledged that obtaining Cohen's blessing was crucial.

"Without that, we would have gotten nowhere," Geller said.

It still took the duo years to access Cohen's notebooks, now owned by his family, which contain detailed insights into the several years it took the singer to get "Hallelujah" right.

As they studied the archives, they also discovered that Cohen had developed an early knack for photographic self-portraits.

"We like to say Leonard was the first selfie taker because he was way ahead of his time, he started taking selfies of himself using this old Polaroid camera, probably going back to the 70s," Goldfine said.

The film also contains a moving scene when a young, nervous Cohen broke off a performance of his first hit "Suzanne" in 1967, choking with stage fright, only to be coaxed back onto the stage by his duet partner, US singer Judy Collins.

The incident added to the filmmakers' growing realisation that even the great Cohen was only human.

"He's a man. He's not a god," Goldfine said. "He's a human being who worked very hard on himself. Every day of his life."

Filtered ferry engines hailed for tackling air pollution

Author: AFP|Update: 06.09.2022 

The ferry will link Marseille and the French island of Corsica / © AFP

A French ferry company has launched what it claims is the first vessel that uses filters to capture almost all air pollutants from the boat's exhaust fumes, sparking praise from campaigners and local authorities.

La Meridionale, based in the southern French port of Marseille, showed off its innovative ship on Monday to the media.

"It's an unprecedented solution, a world first," company chairman Marc Reverchon told reporters on board the blue-and white Piana which sails between Marseille and the French island of Corsica.

The company said the filters captured 99 percent of sulphur oxides emitted by the ferry's four engines, as well as 99.9 percent of particulate matter created from the burning of its heavy fuel.

The filters use technology already found in power stations or incineration plants in which sodium bicarbonate is injected into the exhaust fumes, causing a chemical reaction with the tiny particles produced during the combustion process.

The pollutants can then be captured by a type of industrial air filter that has been around for more than 30 years, company technical director Christophe Seguinot told reporters.

"We didn't have to look too far. We didn't invent anything," Seguinot explained. "The challenge for us was to make it suitable for a marine setting."

The ferry group has an agreement with chemicals supplier Solvay, which will dispose of the toxic filter residue -- with a view to recycling it in the future, Seguinot said.

Heavy fuel oil, also known as bunker fuel, is one of the cheapest but most polluting transportation fuels, resulting in the thick plumes of dirty brown smoke seen above most ships.

It is also high in sulphur which can cause respiratory problems and acid rain.

- Regulation -

Regulations on the amount of sulphur authorised vary, with ultra-clean fuel mandated in areas such as the North Sea and Baltic Sea in Europe, as well as around North American ports.

Marseille, which hosts cruise and container ships as well as ferries, has struggled with increased smog in recent years and the shipping sector is thought to be responsible for a large part of the problem.

"Let's hope that the big polluters follow the example of La Meridionale," Marseille's Socialist mayor Benoit Payan tweeted on Monday after attending the company event.

He has been battling ship operators over the summer with a petition calling for the dirtiest vessels to be barred during peak pollution times.

Shipping companies are under pressure from regulators and tightening industry standards to tackle their emissions of greenhouse gases as well as atmospheric pollutants, but campaigners want faster action.

La Meridionale "is going much further than current regulations require by treating all of their particulate matter," Damien Piga from Atmosud, a regional air quality surveillance group, told AFP.

Some ship owners favour the use of so-called "scrubbing" technology which sees water sprayed into the exhaust fumes, which captures some of the pollutants.

Environmentalists point out that in many cases the water is then discharged into the sea, however.

Other groups are experimenting with engines that run on cleaner liquefied natural gas (LNG) or methanol, while electric and sail powered vessels are also being developed.

Uganda bans 'immoral' festival linked to sex, drugs, LGBTQ

Author: AFP|

Update: 06.09.2022 


The four-day festival brings together artists from across Africa / © AFP/File

Uganda's parliament on Tuesday slapped a ban on a popular music festival, the second time that authorities have taken steps against the annual event over accusations that it promotes sex, drugs and homosexuality.

The four-day Nyege Nyege festival on the banks of the Nile in the southern town of Jinja brings together artists from across Africa to entertain around 10,000 revellers and is usually held in September.

But nine days days before the event was due to resume -- following a pandemic-induced shutdown since 2020 -- parliament said on Twitter that it had "stopped the 'Nyege Nyege' festival, an annual social event scheduled to take place next week".

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister Rose Lilly Akello told reporters that the festival "promotes a lot of immorality and this immorality is something which is not wanted in our country."

Uganda's state minister for tourism, Martin Mugarura, told AFP that the ban would have a destructive impact on the economy, as the travel industry limps back to life after the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Over 8,000 foreign tourists have already booked tickets and were to stay in the country during the duration of the festival and even beyond," he said.

"We hope there is a reversal of this decision," he added.

The festival was banned in 2018 by former ethics minister Simon Lokodo, a fervent Christian and outspoken homophobe, who described it as an orgy of homosexuality, nudity and drugs akin to "devil worship".

But he was forced to lift the ban barely a day later, following outrage on social media.

Lokodo, who died in January, said at the time that the event encouraged "the celebration and recruitment of young people into homosexuality".

"The very name of the festival is provocative. It means 'sex, sex' or urge for sex," he said.

Nyege Nyege means an irresistible urge to dance in the local Luganda language, but it can have a sexual connotation in other languages in the region.

Uganda is notorious for its intolerance of homosexuality -- which is criminalised in the country -- and strict Christian views on sexuality in general.

In 2013 Ugandan lawmakers passed a bill that called for life in prison for people caught having gay sex, although a court later struck down the law.

Last month the government suspended the country's leading gay rights organisation, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), accusing it of operating illegally in the East African nation.

Roots rock: Chimpanzees drum to their own signature beats

AFP - 26m ago


The drummers puff out their chests, let out a guttural yell, then step up to their kits and furiously pound out their signature beat so that everyone within earshot can tell who is playing.


Not beating about the bush: Chimpanzees have signature styles when they drum on tree roots, researchers have found© Adrian Soldati

The drum kit is the giant gnarled root of a tree in the Ugandan rainforest -- and the drummer is a chimpanzee.

A new study published Tuesday found that not only do chimpanzees have their own styles -- some preferring straightforward rock beats while others groove to more freeform jazz -- they can also hide their signature sound if they do not want to reveal their location.

The researchers followed the Waibira chimpanzee group in western Uganda's Budongo Forest, recording the drum sessions of seven male chimps and analysing the intervals between beats.

The chimps mostly use their feet, but also their hands to make the sound, which carries more than a kilometre through the dense rainforest.

The drumming serves as a kind of social media, allowing travelling chimpanzees to communicate with each other, said Vesta Eleuteri, the lead author of the study published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The PhD student said that after just a few weeks in the rainforest she was able to recognise exactly who was drumming.

"Tristan -- the John Bonham of the forest -- makes very fast drums with many evenly separated beats," she said, referring to the legendarily hard-hitting drummer of rock band Led Zeppelin.

Tristan's drumming "is so fast that you can barely see his hands", Eleuteri said.

- Hiding their style -

But other chimps like Alf or Ila make a more syncopated rhythm using a technique in which both their feet hit a root at almost the same time, said British primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, the study's senior author.

The research team was lead by scientists from Scotland's University of St Andrews, and several of the chimpanzees are named after Scottish single malt whiskies, including Ila -- for Caol Ila -- and fellow chimp Talisker.

Hobaiter, who started the habituation of the Waibira group in 2011, said it long been known that chimpanzees drummed.

"But it wasn't until this study that we understood they're using these signature styles when they're potentially looking for other individuals -- when they're travelling, when they're on their own or in a small group," she told AFP.

The researchers also discovered that the chimps sometimes choose not to drum in their signature beat, to avoid revealing their location or identity.

"They have this wonderful flexibility to express their identity and their style, but also to sometimes keep that hidden," Hobaiter said.

- 'A sense of music' -

While plenty of animals produce sounds we think of as music -- such as birdsong -- the research could open the door to the possibility that chimpanzees enjoy music on a level generally thought to only be possible for humans.

"I do think that chimpanzees, like us, potentially have a sense of rhythmicity, a sense of music, something that touches them on an almost emotional level, in the way that we might have a sense of awe when we hear an amazing drum solo or another kind of dramatic musical sound," Hobaiter said.

Most research on the culture of chimpanzees has looked at their tools or food, she said.

"But if we think about human culture we don't think about the tools we use -- we think about how we dress, the music we listen to," she added.

Next the researchers plan to investigate how neighbouring and far-off communities of chimpanzees drum in their own differing styles.

Hobaiter has already been looking at chimpanzees in Guinea, where there are very few trees to drum in the open savannah.

"We've got early hints that they might be throwing rocks against rocks" to make sound, she said.

"Literal rock music in this case."

dl/jv

 

ALBERTA
Blood Tribe study examines impact of racism


The Blood Tribe is releasing a study addressing racism in the area.

The study was conducted by Dr. Gabrielle Lindstrom of Mount Royal University and a Kainai member. It was achieved through the tribal government application for funding from the Alberta Human Rights Commission’s Human Rights Education and Multiculturism Fund to conduct a research project examining the effects of racism on members of the Blood Tribe Community.

The study was conducted over a two-year period with Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants from southern Alberta with assistance from tribal government staff.

The project shows how the issue of racism is complex and deep-rooted, having lasting generational effects, and how steps need to be taken to address the issues many Indigenous people are facing.

“The difficulty with addressing racism is partly due to how it is defined which shapes how it is both talked about and taught about. The definition of racism has typically been controlled by the dominant settler society. However, this research defines racism from a lens of deep experience consistent with a Kainai worldview,” said Lindstrom in a news release.

The Blood Tribe will be working on an implementation plan, Kimmapiiyipitssini – Moving Forward, that will work on external and internal strategies for reaching out to the community for input. Neighbouring communities and municipalities will be provided an opportunity to participate in the work as they address the harmful effects of racism.

“With the implementation plan, hopefully people will not be reluctant. By people, I mean with our neighbours, the municipalities, cities, and the services providers,” said Dorothy First Rider, chair for tribal government and member of the Blood Tribe chief and council.

“They will be able to reflect on what has happened in the past, maybe what they themselves have contributed towards the issue of racism, beginning to address it and say we need to change our outlook on this. Because if somebody isn’t the same colour as us, doesn’t mean that they’re inferior to us. “

First Rider notes that part of the plan will work towards the future through how children are exposed to race and racism.

“One of the prominent factors that was identified in this study was the need to be able to introduce these frank discussions within the school system,” said First Rider.

“We have to quit stereotyping other people. A lot of that, unfortunately, rests on the educational system. Because if we can assist those upcoming students that are going to then transition into the institutions and become professionals, they will be able to assist in changing the worldview,”

First Rider says racism’s history within the Indigenous community has existed since the eras when treaties were signed, the whiskey traders plied their trade, and residential schools operated, and is not something that is just now emerging.

She notes the lasting effects have generational consequences to the growth of a person as a human being.

“Unfortunately, when our people continue to experience racism, that leads to a lack of self-confidence and self-motivation because they themselves will start to see themselves as being inferior,” said First Rider.

“In order to thrive in society and be successful, people need to be able to have support. Building up their confidence and being told, yes you can do this.”

Ryan Clarke, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lethbridge Herald

On Colombia’s San Andres, a historic church’s roots run deep

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO

yesterday

1 of 11

A man stands at the entrance of First Baptist Church on Colombia's San Andres Island on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. The church is a symbol of emancipation and a source of pride for the Raizals, the English-speaking, mostly Protestant inhabitants of San Andres and smaller islands that form an archipelago in the western Caribbean. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)


SAN ANDRES, Colombia (AP) — First Baptist Church was born by a tamarind tree perched on a hill overlooking the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.

Under the tree’s shade, First Baptist’s founder taught English-speaking former slaves and their descendants how to read using the Bible. The tree still stands more than 175 years later — even if crooked after surviving devastating hurricanes.

The church is so crucial to the history of the Colombian island of San Andres that detailed record of births and deaths are kept here in crumbling books that date back nearly two centuries.

The “mother church,” as it is often called, is a source of pride for the Raizals, the English-speaking, mostly Protestant inhabitants of San Andres, Providencia and the smaller islands and keys that form an archipelago in the western Caribbean near Nicaragua, about 440 miles (710 kilometers) from the Colombian mainland.

“For a young person like me, it’s finding my roots — it’s good to know where we come from,” said the Rev. Shuanon Hudgson, 26, the church’s associate pastor.

“It’s like Marcus Garvey says,” quoting the Jamaica-born, early 20th-century Black nationalist: “‘A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’ And this church has been a pillar.”

Under the tree, a stone plaque commemorates the birth of the congregation: “Baptist work was established here by Rev. Phillip Beekman Livingston (Jr.) in 1844.”

Three years later the congregation began to meet nearby under a thatched hut.

It kept growing, and a building made in the style of the large Anglican churches of Jamaica was ordered. First built in the late 19th century in Mobile, Alabama, and then moved to New York City, the white-walled church was disassembled and shipped to the island piece by piece.

Parishioners carried the foundations on their backs from the port to one of the highest points on the island, a neighborhood known as the Hill, said Lastenia Herrera May, the wife of the current lead pastor, the Rev. Ronald Hooker, and the church was dedicated on Feb. 2, 1896.

A scenic overlook more than 100 feet up in the steeple offers some of the best views of San Andres.

Over a century after being claimed by Spain, the island was first settled in the 1630s by English Puritans. It later became an outpost for pirates and today is home to many descendants of Puritans and African slaves, and also large numbers of more recent arrivals from mainland Colombia.

Sharika Crawford, a professor of history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, whose research focuses on Colombia and its African-descended peoples, said First Baptist “was the bedrock of the Raizal community” and “the most important social institution” in the archipelago.

From its founding until 1913, she said, its pastors held great authority over the community in shaping islanders’ values and behavior.

“Before the church was formed, the island population lived without a church or religious establishment. Efforts to bring a Catholic priest never materialized,” Crawford said. “Thus, First Baptist Church and its satellite churches across San Andres and Providencia Islands had the advantage over other Christian communities such as the Catholics and Seventh-day Adventists.”

“The church had glorious moments,” Herrera May said. “By the 1900s, thousands had converted.”

Livingston, the founder, first evangelized among enslaved and freed people of San Andres, Crawford said, and the church remains a symbol of the anti-slavery struggle. Each year people from congregations across the islands gather here Aug. 1 to celebrate events commemorating emancipation.

During a recent Sunday service, Lucia Barker, 83, and other women in the choir, clothed in bright pink shirts, sang hymns. Parishioners in wooden pews, illuminated by sunlight from stained-glass windows, swayed, lifted their arms and sang along to songs infused with Calypso beats.

“This church is my life,” Barker said of the sanctuary where she was baptized, married and has worshipped for more than seven decades.

In his homily, Hudgson, the associate pastor, asked congregants to remember the sacrifice of their enslaved ancestors. He called on them to be resilient against adversity, just as the tree and the church, and listed by name and year the many hurricanes that both survived.

“Here we get the knowledge about our land, our history, how we started by this tamarind tree, how we have a church,” choir member Marjeen Martínez said. “It’s very important to maintain our roots alive.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Octogenarian brothers make popular hand-drawn posters

By CLAUDIA TORRENS

September 3, 2022

1 of 8

Octogenarian brothers from Ecuador, Carlos Cevallos, left, and Miguel Cevallos, together during a press meeting, Monday Aug. 29, 2022, in New York. For years the Cevallos brothers made a living drawing posters for nightclubs, taco trucks and restaurants, attracting clients by word of mouth, but an Instagram account changed a lot of that. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)


NEW YORK (AP) — For years, Miguel and Carlos Cevallos made a living by drawing posters for neighborhood nightclubs, taco trucks and restaurants in Queens, painting in the businesses’ basements or on their tables and attracting clients by word of mouth.

Until an Instagram account changed a lot of that.

Now, hip Brooklyn ice cream shops and Manhattan retro diners wait their turn to get one of the brothers’ colorful signs. They’re in demand in San Francisco music stores, national restaurant chains, bars in Belgium and bakeries in South Korea.

It doesn’t matter that the brothers are more than 80 years old or that the two, born in Ecuador and raised in Colombia, speak limited English. They have embraced their new customers and draw all day in the Manhattan apartment they have shared for nearly 20 years.

“Destiny is like this. Sometimes one finds success later in life,” Carlos Cevallos said recently, while sipping a tea in an empty Manhattan diner. Dressed in suits and ties, as they are every day, the brothers shared a muffin.



Recent commissions have come from a bagel shop in Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood, a newsstand in Manhattan’s West Village, an Oregon-based restaurant chain and a Los Angeles pop-up veggie burger shop. NYCgo, the city’s official guide for tourists and New Yorkers, recently asked the brothers to draw Queens’ iconic Unisphere, the giant metal globe built for the 1964 World’s Fair.

“They have a special touch, so nice and colorful,” said Marina Cortes, manager of the West Village diner La Bonbonniere. The brothers’ “Breakfast All Day!” sign is displayed on the restaurant’s terrace.

“A Life Without Anything Good, Is Bad” reads a poster the brothers drew for Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. “Daily Special. Pick Any Two Sandwiches and Pay For Both!” reads another they did for Regina’s Grocery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Done with acrylic paints, the Cevallos brothers’ playful, childlike posters have big letters and a nostalgic look. Miguel does the drawings and Carlos the coloring, together crafting about six posters per week.

The brothers field five to 20 requests weekly for their work.

The family moved from Ecuador to Colombia to follow an uncle who was a Catholic priest and worked in Bogota. Used to drawing since they were kids, Carlos, Miguel and their oldest brother, Victor, opened an art studio and poster shop in Bogota’s Chapinero neighborhood.

Victor moved to New York in 1969, and Carlos joined him in 1974. For years, they worked at a studio in Times Square until rent increases prompted a shift to Queens.



In the 1980s, they drew posters that announced performances at a Queens club called La Esmeralda.

“They would pay so little per poster. It was sad,” Carlos said. The posters featured such artists as Mexican singer Armando Manzanero and Chilean Lucho Gatica.

Miguel, meanwhile, took care of their mother until she died at age 101. He moved to New York in 2005 to join his siblings. Victor, a mentor to his younger brothers, died in 2012.

Eventually, Aviram Cohen, who builds and installs audiovisual art at museums, saw the brothers’ posters in Queens and tracked them down to request one for his wife’s new yoga studio. In 2018, he opened their Instagram account, @cevallos_bros, which became a lifeline for the brothers after the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“I did it out of admiration for their work, and after meeting them, I understood that it would all disappear. Most of the businesses would throw away the posters,” said Cohen, 42. “I felt strongly that different kinds of people and subcultures could enjoy their art.”

He was right. The account now has more than 25,000 followers and has become an archive of their work, as well as a source of orders.



“I just love their story,” said Happy David, who manages the Instagram accounts of La Bonbonniere and Casa Magazines, a Manhattan newsstand for which she has also commissioned the brothers’ work. It reminds her of signs seen in her native Philippines.

In a digital world, “a lot of people are going back to craft,” David said. “We want to connect, and we want to feel that there are hands that made these.”

When asked whether they plan to retire soon, the Cevallos brothers answer with a quick “no.”

Where do they get their energy from?

“We eat healthy,” they respond with a smile.

Artist Ai Weiwei warns against hubris in ‘troublesome’ times

By COLLEEN BARRY

September 3, 2022

1 of 12

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses in front of his unveil glass body of work 'La Commedia Umana' a huge hanging glass sculpture otherwise referred to as a 'chandelier' at the San Giorgio deconsecrated church in Venice, Italy, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei lampoons the surveillance culture and social media with his first ever glass sculpture, made on the Venetian island of Murano, that stands as a warning to the world: "Memento Mori,'' or Latin for "Remember You Must Die." (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)


VENICE, Italy (AP) — Chinese dissident and artist Ai Weiwei warns against hubris in what he calls “such a troublesome time” with his first glass sculpture, made on the Venetian island of Murano, with the foreboding subtitle: “Memento Mori,” Latin for “Remember You Must Die.”

Russian bombs fall on Ukraine. China is flexing its military muscle in the Taiwan Strait. Migrants die repeatedly at sea as smugglers’ boats sink. The Earth warms, creating drought, collapsing glaciers and triggering violent storms. The pandemic lingers.

“We are talking about many, many things. We are talking about immigrants, about deaths, about the war, about many, many issues,″ Ai told The Associated Press in Venice on Friday.

He stands by his 9-meter (29.5-foot), nearly 3-ton black glass sculpture, which is suspended over the central nave of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, located opposite Venice’s St. Mark’s Square. Titled “The Human Comedy: Memento Mori,” the sculpture is the centerpiece of an Ai exhibit at the church that opens Sunday.

The huge hanging artwork is part chandelier, part ossuary, with intricately hung molded glass skeletons and skulls, both human and animal, balanced with glass-blown human organs and scattered likenesses of the Twitter bird logo and surveillance cameras, hinting at the darker side of technology.

“We see the environment completely disappearing, being destroyed by humans’ effort ... and that will create a much bigger disaster or famine. Or war, there’s a possible political struggle between China and the West″ as China asserts greater control over Hong Kong and threatens control over Taiwan, Ai said.

“We have to rethink about humans and legitimacy in the environment. Do we really deserve this planet, or are we just being so short-sighted and racist? And very, very just self-demanding, selfishness,″ the artist added.

The exhibit also features smaller glass sculptures. One depicts Ai himself as a prisoner, a reference to his months in a Chinese prison in 2011. Another imposes his distorted face on a replica of an 18th-century statue titled “Allegory of Envy.″ A wooden sculpture of a tree trunk fills a sacristy. Colored glass hard hats save places in the choir. Lego-brick portrait replicas of famous paintings and the Chinese zodiac line the walls of adjacent rooms.

Ai said he thinks Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave Chinese authorities a “potential model” to understand how such an operation might play out in Taiwan, without serving either as encouragement or warning.

“I think China is part of the global power struggle that reflects our modern understanding and the classic notion about territory and who has the right to do what,″ he said. ”What what happens in the Russian and Ukraine conflict gives China a clear maybe mental exercise about what they want to do in Taiwan, if it is needed.″

But the artist says any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a mistake and a misunderstanding of Taiwan’s history.

“The Chinese think that Taiwan belongs to China, but in reality China and Taiwan have been apart for over 70 years. They have their own social structure, which is more democratic and more peaceful than in China,″ he said. Any moves by China to claim Taiwan by force will result “in the ultimate struggle.″

He sees the struggle in China as one for legitimacy of authorities’ control, while the challenge in the West is the continual need to defend democracy and with it freedom of speech. The West’s Achille’s heel is its economic dependency on China’s cheap manufacturing, he said.

“That is why China is so confident,″ Ai said. ”They know the West cannot live without China.”

He cited instances of Western hypocrisy, including the rejection by festivals in Europe and the United States of films he made during the pandemic depicting Wuhan’s first lockdown and the struggles in Hong Kong.

After praising the films, festivals ultimately give “the last words, we cannot show it,″ out of fear of losing access to the Chinese market, Ai said.

His artworks travel more smoothly, he said, because his artistic language is harder to interpret.

“My work is about a new vocabulary, so it is difficult for somebody who has completely no knowledge. It requires study,″ Ai said. ”I don’t make some piece to please the audience. But I always want to say something that is necessary.”

Tourists wandering in from the water bus were delighted that they had stumbled into an exhibit by the renowned dissident artist.

“It is metal? When I first saw this I thought it represented hell,″ Kenneth Cheung, a Hong Kong native now living in Toronto, Canada, said as he checked out the imposing glass sculpture. “Being in a church, it is even stronger, more powerful.”

The main sculpture took three years to realize with assistance from artists at a glass studio on Murano employing three techniques: traditional Murano blown glass, wax molds and injection molds. Studio owner Adriano Berengo said he pursued Ai for years to secure a collaboration with an artist he admires for his strong political beliefs.

“He shows his face. He doesn’t hide. He is ready to risk his life, and he did in China,″ Berengo said.

The exhibit runs through Nov. 27 in Venice. From there, the hanging sculpture will go to the Design Museum in London and then, hopefully a buyer, Berengo said.

“It has to be a big museum. Otherwise, how can you keep an artwork like that?” he said.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the church of San Giorgio Maggiore is a working church, not deconsecrated.