Marta Bausells
Barcelona
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Articles by Marta Bausells
Fantasy home: The modernist simplicity of Josef and Anni Albers’ interiors
The appeal of a minimalist interior today is obvious, offering an antidote to the chaos and clutter of the digital age.
Citizens across Britain will be able to engage first-hand withnew plans for small and medium stations via virtual reality pop-ups in May. By Marta Bausells March 25, 2022 4:40 pm March 25, 2022 4:43 pm The Design Council and Network Rail are rolling out the next part of a plan to redesign the nations railway stations by inviting the public to experience proposed designs in virtual reality. There are about 2,000 small and medium train stations in the UK.
On Writing Through a Residency That Never Happened (But Did?)
I. “It was last week, also known as a century ago.” “It may have been three months or three decades, who knows.” I am finding it hard to process how commonplace the elasticity of time has become in conversations in 2020. “What is time anyway?” There is something absurdly funny in such a deeply metaphysical question being thrown around lightly, often with irony. I was raised by physicists.
Dorothea Lange is So Much More Than One Famous Photograph
On the Unseen Work of an American Master When Dorothea Lange found out that her famous photograph, “Migrant Mother”—the iconic image of one exhausted woman and three kids living in misery, which has come to visually represent the Great Depression—hadn’t yet been included in her upcoming career retrospective at MoMA, she simply said: “It’d be alright with me to leave her out.” Lange died three months before the show opened in January 1966, but she had full involvement in its curation, from her...
The American Prison Writing Archive
In prison, writing takes on new forms and new urgencies. Prisoners who never wrote before, or wrote very little, produce new work in innovative ways, writing their ways around the limits and prohibitions that prisons impose. Duygu Erbil, a scholar in the Remembering Activism (ReAct) program at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, found an online resource that lets those outside of prison become readers of the remarkable work produced inside.
Musician Naomi Pilgrim says it's time to ditch that racist friend
Posted Thursday 16th February 2017 / Text By Marta Bausells Photography © Main image by Patricia Reyes It's time to leave your comfort zone and confront bigots, no matter how close they are to you, says Swedish-Barbadian rising star Naomi Pilgrim. It's time to leave your comfort zone and confront bigots, no matter how close they are to you, says Swedish-Barbadian rising star Naomi Pilgrim. “If you have a racist friend, now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end.
Three Reasons Why Everyone Is Reading Lisa Taddeo's 'Three Women' This Summer
The buzz has been building around Lisa Taddeo's Three Women over the last few months. Never heard of her/the book? Hold tight, because both are about to be on everyone’s lips this summer. As it (finally) hits bookshops, here's why that fruity still life will be ubiquitous in beach bags in the coming months (0h, and here's an excellent essay by Taddeo herself if we've already piqued your interest).
The Belletrist Girls On The Books That Changed Their Lives
Literary Instagram is one of the kinder corners of the Internet, and one of the most delightful projects that have sprung up on it in recent years is Belletrist. Spearheaded by the indomitable Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss, it has grown so much bigger than a celebrity book club (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), becoming an international community of book lovers whose passion for reading and spreading the literary love transpires every post.
The UK Literary Festivals You Don't Want To Miss This Year
Edinburgh Literary Festival Spring is coming, and that means that not only we'll soon be getting long days and warm nights, but also that lit fest season is upon us – and we can't wait. Literary festivals offer the chance to meet your book idols, hear them read, get your books signed and mingle with fellow readers beer and book in hand. What's not to love? Nothing. So here are our favourite literary festivals, where our favourite authors from around the world will be hanging out.
Why photojournalism matters more than ever
Posted Tuesday 7th February 2017 / Text By Marta Bausells Photography © Lead image by Nina Berman In the era of fake news and rising authoritarianism, leading photojournalists present their images of resistance in defence of those documenting the world. In the era of fake news and rising authoritarianism, leading photojournalists present their images of resistance in defence of those documenting the facts.
Schizophrenia Terrifies: An Interview with Esmé Weijun Wang
Esmé Weijun Wang’s first book was a novel, The Border of Paradise. It was a multifaceted epic about family, migration, language, and mental illness, for which she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2017. Her second book, out this week, is a collection of essays.
Regina Hall is 12 again in the trailer for Little
With Big, a boy magicked himself into the grown-up body of Tom Hanks. 17 Again did this in reverse, transmogrifying Matthew Perry into the swishy-haired form of Zac Efron. 13 Going on 30 flipped the gender dynamic, reworking the Big template with Jennifer Garner in the lead. What these films all share in common, apart from family-friendly hijinks, is their eye-searing whiteness. Providing a course-correction of diversity is the new body-switch comedy Little, which got its first trailer this morning.
A Year in Reading: Marta Bausells
Looking back at this hectic old year, I am reminded of that Nora Ephron quote: “Whenever I read a book I love, I start to remember all the other books that have sent me into rapture, and I can remember where I was living and the couch I was sitting on when I read them.” Not many books sent me into rapture this year.
20 new writers to be excited about reading in 2019
Type keyword(s) to search The new year is jam-packed with literary debuts we can’t wait to hit the shelves. Here’s a selection of first books by authors you’ll want to get stuck into in 2019 - happy reading! 1 of 20 My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaité Set in Lagos, this is an unputdownable, darkly comic novel following Korede, whose little sister is in the habit of killing her boyfriends (three so far), and Korede has patiently helped her clean (and cover) it up.
Letter of Recommendation: Tió de Nadal (Published 2018)
Letter of Recommendation Credit...Ricardo Cases for The New York Times Dec. 20, 2018 When I was 5, I stood in my grandparents’ small, pipe-smoke-filled, well-loved apartment in Barcelona on Christmas Day, getting ready to hit a wooden log. The log wore a painted, smiling face and a red hat; its front was propped up on two legs like a sitting dog, and the rest of its body was covered with a checkered blanket.
10 Very Specific Books For Every Person On Your Christmas List
Because a book will never be the wrong size… But which one to get everyone? We’re here to help. 1 For the true-crime fan Forget Making a Murderer, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (by Michelle McNamara) has gripped readers everywhere this year. The perfect true crime tale, ittellsthe story of the Golden State killer and hooks not just because of the fantastic storytelling and the chilling real story, but also because of narrator's own voice.
'Ask Polly' Shares Her Greatest Advice: How Not to Lose Your Mind in 2018
The morning we talk, Heather Havrilesky has woken up from a nightmare in which her middle school–aged daughters were in college, having a party in a dorm room, but she hadn’t been invited. Then she saw delicious sandwiches everywhere, which she would have loved to have if she hadn’t already eaten. Then, she looked around the room and there were all these college students—oh, wait, it was full of 40-somethings, too.
20 Beautiful Coffee Table Books To Give This Christmas
Mad About The House: How To Decorate Your Home With Style
This Autumn Is Packed With Showbiz Memoirs - And We’re Here For It
She Wants It by Jill Soloway When Jill Soloway’s father, whom they’d always understood to be male, came out as transgender, Jill’s life changed. Not only did they go on to create the wonderful, award-winning show Transparent—they also eventually came out as queer and non-binary. This book charts that whole journey, as well as their incredible story of pushing through Hollywood’s male-dominated landscape and their work questioning mainstream ideas about gender, desire and power.
The kaleidoscopic world of Courtesy
But Vestbirk’s career wasn’t always this slick. In the beginning, odd jobs and flyering at local parties funded the equipment she needed to kick-start her career. “I spent my savings on a DJ setup and a friend gave me this book called How to DJ that had a guide on how to beatmatch. I didn’t know any DJs, I didn’t have a mentor at that point at all,” Vestbirk explains.
Lena Willikens: The art of staying amateur
Few people would suggest Lena Willikens is anything other than the consummate DJ. From the deep-cover mysticism of her wide-reaching selections to the fantastic narratives she stitches them together with, Willikens consistently delivers the kind of startling new dancefloor experiences that ravers’ dreams are made of.
How To Take Your Cocktails To The Next Level
Whether you’re into cocktails, want to learn to make them or are looking for a gift for a friend, the new book Free the Tipple might be what you’re after. Written by Jennifer Croll and illustrated by Kelly Shami, the book combines introductions to iconic women including Frida Kahlo, Joan Didion, Simone de Beauvoir or Hari Nef, with fresh, sometimes tongue-in-cheek (and delicious) recipes for 'tribute cocktails' inspired by their personalities and work.
Looking for Paris's Old Left Bank in the Footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir
“I’m not a writer,” Agnes Poirier quickly clarifies before we set off on a walk around Saint-Germain-des-Prés; “I’m a journalist.” It’s a distinction that is perhaps more important, more relevant in France than in America. Literature here is still considered high art, easily tainted by commercialization.
Park delights: Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion & Christo's London Mastaba
This year’s sleek Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park, designed by Frida Escobedo, aligns with the Greenwich Meridian. Floating on the nearby lake, Christo’s The London Mastaba makes a splash An elegant, black, rectangular structure has quietly settled on the lawn of London’s Serpentine Galleries. It is so sleek that one might be mistaken to think, at first glance, that it has always been there.
Park delights: Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion & Christo's London Mastaba
This year’s sleek Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park, designed by Frida Escobedo, aligns with the Greenwich Meridian. Floating on the lake nearby, Christo’s The London Mastaba makes a splash An elegant, black, rectangular structure has quietly settled on the lawn of London’s Serpentine Galleries. It is so sleek that one might be mistaken to think, at first glance, that it has always been there.
Park delights: Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion & Christo's London Mastaba
This year’s sleek Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park, designed by Frida Escobedo, aligns with the Greenwich Meridian. Floating on the lake nearby, Christo’s The London Mastaba makes a splash An elegant, black, rectangular structure has quietly settled on the lawn of London’s Serpentine Galleries. It is so sleek that one might be mistaken to think, at first glance, that it has always been there.
The Best Indoor Plant Books To Gift Your Terrarium-Obsessed Friends
Summer is a great season for gardening, but when it comes to the greenery we keep indoors, it’s also a time when houseplants risk getting neglected and even dying (hey, we’ve all been there). Chances are you have at least one friend who’s obsessed with their plants – and possibly one or two who is into accessorising them, because #plantsonpink never hurt anybody.
ELLE's Ultimate Summer Books Round-Up
This memoir by a First Nation Woman is about her coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest, having survived a dysfunctional upbringing and found herself hospitalised with post-traumatic stress and bipolar disorder.
Meet the Woman Spearheading Inclusivity in UK Publishing
Mainstream British publishing is changing—slowly—thanks to tireless individuals who continue to question the status quo, and who prove, by their actions, that just because things have been done a certain way forever it doesn’t mean they have to stay the same.
The ELLE Big Book Awards Longlist Is Here
For the inaugural Big Book Awards, ELLE celebrates the category of Women Writers with a longlist of titles that will thrill, shock, entertain, and amaze. Consider your summer reading sorted. When better to have a reading list dedicated entirely to women writers than in 2018, the Year of the Woman?
The First Great Instagram Novel?
Don’t let yourself be fooled by the Millennial-pink flower on the cover. Olivia Sudjic’s debut, Sympathy, has been dubbed “the first great Instagram novel,” and it touches on technology and intimacy and our obsession with the internet and the very dark consequences that can follow if one takes online stalking to the extreme. But Sudjic, 28, has been surprised at reviewers’ quick statements that she’s written the definitive internet book.
On Being a Trend
I’m chatting with friends at coffee hour. Ours is the kind of high Episcopalian parish that offers something stronger after the Sunday Mass, but I have stuck to tea as I complain about the headache of revising my novel — emotional, sexual, and spiritual crises at an English boys’ school — of revising said novel on deadline, amidst constant interruption by building contractors.
Novelist Brit Bennett Is Not Here to Translate Black Grief for White Audiences
Brit Bennett is having quite the week: Her debut novel has just been published to incredible hype; she's started her first tour; she's just been named one of the Five Under 35 authors by the National Book Foundation; and Gabrielle Union has tweeted about her, "which was like one of my top ten most absurd life moments," she tells me through Skype from Austin." She seems pretty unfazed, though: "I think I have a pretty laid-back demeanor, I don't convey a lot of the enthusiasm I feel.
13 Books To Read This International Women's Day
ELLE Notes - A stylish weekly newsletterThe ELLE take on everything that’s trending in your world – shopping, beauty and celebrity news, and in–depth reads – direct to your inbox every Wednesday.Sign up to ELLE Notes today.Nearly there... To complete the sign up process, please click on "YES, SIGN ME UP!" in the email we just sent to me@email.co.uk. Can't find the email? Please give it 5 - 10 minutes or check your spam folder.
The Things We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Motherhood
It seems clear by now that this is the year of motherhood. Not only are there finally spaces for women to talk about what childbirth, breastfeeding, and motherhood at all ages really are like, but there are also, naturally, literary and pop culture works adding to the conversation.
The Photographer Documenting the Imperfections of Female Adolescence
"Untitled (83), 2000" by Hellen van Meene, courtesy of National Museum of Women in the Arts Photographer Hellen van Meene's art radiates softness and quietness, so it comes as a surprise when she finally declares, "Stand up. Show your hairy balls. And mine are really big and hairy, I promise you that." We are deviating from talking about art to discuss Trump and women's rights, so perhaps nothing is off limits.
The Ghanaian-American Novelist Unpacking Slavery, Identity, and Immigration
Yaa Gyasi published Homegoing a few months before the US voted in Donald Trump, and her reflections on culture in the time of Trump are perfectly apt for her best-selling novel: "I think one of the best things that art can do is to shine a light on dark places, and to hold something up and say: 'This hasn't gone unnoticed.
Letter of Recommendation: Saturn
One night in July, my mother was looking at a star that has existed for at least 20,000 years. Her job is to study how stars die — how they expand, then implode. For a week, my phone buzzed nonstop as she flooded the family chat with pictures of the enormous Chilean telescope where she was working. I had to put her on mute. We all look at the past every day, of course. It takes sun rays eight minutes and 20 seconds to make the journey to our skin.
Beautiful Coffee Table Books To Give This Christmas
ELLE Notes - A stylish weekly newsletterThe ELLE take on everything that’s trending in your world – shopping, beauty and celebrity news, and in–depth reads – direct to your inbox every Wednesday.Sign up to ELLE Notes today.Nearly there... To complete the sign up process, please click on "YES, SIGN ME UP!" in the email we just sent to me@email.co.uk. Can't find the email? Please give it 5 - 10 minutes or check your spam folder.
Valeria Luiselli's New Book Tackles the Cruelty of Immigration Court
Valeria Luiselli. Photo by Diego Berruecos In her latest book, the brief and gut-punching Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli writes: "Telling stories doesn't solve anything, doesn't reassemble broken lives. But perhaps it is a way of understanding the unthinkable.
Yrsa Daley-Ward On Self-Love, Short Attention Spans And Making Poetry Cool Again
Warning: bone is likely to hit you like a blow in the head. Upon reading it, I found myself going from weeping to printing and posting poems as daily inspiration. Here is the rest of ELLE's conversation with Yrsa, condensed. What did you read growing up? How did you discover writing and poetry? I lived with my grandparents, they raised me.
There's no going back from this Catalonian independence vote
When I arrived at my polling station in Barcelona before 5am on Sunday morning, there were about a hundred people already there.
It’s National Poetry Day! Here Are 12 Groundbreaking Female Poets You Should Read
National Poetry Day is upon us, so we thought it a perfect chance to champion female poets we can't live without. It is never too late to go to the classics, which we highly recommend – if you haven't yet got to know Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claudia Rankine, Carol Ann Duffy, Sharon Olds, Malika Booker, Dorothy Parker, Jackie Kay or Eileen Myles – they might well change your life. In the meantime, here are 10 of our favourites from a new generation.
Mauern hoch, Tore zu
Nachdem sie ihre aus Couscous und Arroz con Leche bestehende Mahlzeit beendet haben, verschwinden sie wieder. Die unbegleiteten Jungen verlieren sich in der Nacht, so schnell wie sie aufgetaucht sind. Noch vor Minuten, auf der Fahrt über die Küstenstraße entlang der Stadt Melilla, schien es kaum vorstellbar, dass die friedlich wirkenden Klippen etwa 60 junge Menschen beherbergen. Die meisten von ihnen sind unter Fahrzeugen versteckt aus dem benachbarten Marokko hierhergekommen.
Kandy in the spotlight: war behind it, Sri Lanka's second city sees a tourist boom
On a hill directly above Kandy there is a statue of Buddha in a seated posture, palms on his lap, signifying meditation. This is far from the most important shrine in this Buddhist-majority city, or indeed an unusual sight in Sri Lanka – the country is peppered with polished white or golden statues that are visible from afar, distinctive amid vegetation. Nonetheless, its proximity to Kandy makes it a good point from which to contemplate the city – and a highly Instagrammable one.
Pamplona in the spotlight: violence mars the home of the bull run
The week-long festival of San Fermín where bulls are chased through the city’s narrow streets. The week-long festival of San Fermín where bulls are chased through the city’s narrow streets. Photograph: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images Hordes of people will descend on Pamplona this week for the annual Running of the Bulls festival.
An Inheritance of Lost Mothers
1. Observe. Akerman. In Book of Mutter, Kate Zambreno writes of how she remembers her mother always cleaning, scrubbing the floor on hands and knees, the house her domain and her garden her reprieve. At the end of her life, when time was short, her mother laments how she had slaved for her family. Was cleaning a form of exorcism for her? Perhaps.
Six great TV shows to watch now that Girls is over
It’s officially the end of an era. Now that Girls is officially over, here are six other great shows to get stuck into, all of which just so happen to have been written by funny millennials. They might not fill the Girls-shaped void in our lives, but they are damn good and were arguably made possible, at least partly, thanks to Lena Dunham’s show. And that in itself is reason to celebrate. Broad City is often compared with Girls, but the shows aren’t all that similar.
Why I’ll miss the brave, flawed brilliance of Lena Dunham’s Girls
I was a late-bloomer to HBO’s Girls and, once I finally started watching it, it took me around two seasons to decide whether I actually liked it or not. The fact that I had made it through two seasons obviously suggested that there was enough to like about the show to keep me coming back, but for the life of me I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the attraction was.
City of Tiny Lights review – ‘Riz Ahmed is wasted in this frustrating London noir’
Riz Ahmed as a gumshoe on the streets of London, how could this possibly go wrong? Riz Ahmed’s acting talents are wasted in this needlessly convoluted noir thriller. This film offers a depiction of London that looks to the past in order to teach valuable lessons about the future, with Ugandan-Indian gumshoe Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed) as our fearless guide.
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