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Articles by Zoe Rasbash
Learning from Spain’s housing uprising
On 23rd September, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from the Madrid apartment she had lived in for 70 years, after the developer who owned it more than quadrupled her rent. Maricarmen had been fighting this eviction for over seven years, organising with her local branch of the tenants union Syndicat de Inquilinas.
Olivia Belair, Author at Shado Magazine
Read all stories of Olivia Belair. Olivia Belair is an activist, researcher, and writer with a focus on migration justice. With a background in political ecology and degrowth, she currently organises with Col·lectiu Comí and El Garatge in the El Raval neighborhood of Barcelona
Why the Tech sector is Israel’s weak spot
Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Amazon – you name the tech company, they are investing heavily in Israel. But could this co-dependence on the tech sector be a chink in Israel’s nanotech armour? In September 2025, headlines broke that Google signed a $45 million contract with Netenyahu’s office to spread Israeli propaganda – describing Google as a ‘key entity’ supporting the Prime Minister’s messaging. X reportedly received another $3 million.
Can tech…
In season 1 of our podcast, shado-lite, co-hosts Zoe and Larissa kept coming back to how big tech has entrenched systems of inequality and exploitation. In a bid to feel less cynical about technology, this column will see Zoe exploring the technologies that might help us bring about a better world. How can we embrace technology as a tool to realise justice? Who is designing tech differently? Where are the experiments which centre care, justice, regeneration in technology design and construction?
Won’t somebody please think of the (AI) shareholders?
At the beginning of the year, Keir Starmer declared that AI would be “mainlined into the veins” of the nation. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, trailing around after Trump and Elon, found time to announce that Meta will dismantle its content moderation system in the name of ‘free speech’. This comes after watch dogs exposed Meta for publishing AI-generated, Islamophobic political ads that breached all of their own guidelines during the Indian election.
Is living low tech the answer?
Worrying about my phone addiction isn’t exactly groundbreaking. We all know that our little metal rectangles tether us to a brutal and complex supply chain: enslaved labour, rare Earth minerals mined by children, illegal land grabs, deforested landscapes, and ever-growing toxic e-waste dumping grounds. We seemingly accept that our dependence on these screens funnels vast amounts of wealth and power to a few reckless tech giants, who proudly meddle in democratic elections around the world.
Behind the Green Curtain: the truth about Big Tech’s carbon footprint
Last October, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed three landmark climate disclosure bills, mandating over 10,000 US companies to fully disclose carbon emissions across their value chains. Against the backdrop of increasing wildfires, unbearable heatwaves, and tropical storms across the state, heavier carbon regulation is obviously needed. However, this bill was hard won. A coalition of corporations reportedly spent more than $7 million lobbying to dilute and halt the bill.
Pipeline to genocide: BP’s oil route to Israel
By Energy Embargo for Palestine and Heedayah Lockman · September 9, 2024 Energy Embargo for Palestine, an anti-imperialist climate group based in Britain, break down the role of BP and the British state in fuelling the Zionist genocide. This investigation was carried out between shado and Energy Embargo for Palestine over a 4 month period, made possible thanks to the support of the Guerrilla Foundation. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the audio element.
Help, I feel depressed because my house is rotting. Can tech fix this?
Last winter, our broken boiler sent her to A&E with chest issues. Our pleas to the estate agents for roof repairs have been met with indifference, leaving us to contend with leaking ceilings and weakened walls.
Help, I feel depressed because my house is rotting. Can tech fix this?
Like most people I know, de-moulding is a biweekly ritual. My furniture stands two inches away from the walls and I recently had to chuck my beloved pair of cowboy boots because they got infected. But I consider myself fortunate – I won the coin toss when we moved in, meaning my room is the biggest and the airiest. My housemate’s room is half the size and getting absolutely decimated by creeping black mould. Last winter, our broken boiler sent her to A&E with chest issues.
Can tech…
In season 1 of our podcast, shado-lite, co-hosts Zoe and Larissa kept coming back to how big tech has entrenched systems of inequality and exploitation. In a bid to feel less cynical about technology, this column will see Zoe exploring the technologies that might help us bring about a better world. How can we embrace technology as a tool to realise justice? Who is designing tech differently? Where are the experiments which centre care, justice, regeneration in technology design and construction?
Can tech help us get closer to nature?
Our cities have a serious nature deprivation issue. Friends of the Earth reckon 1 in 5 of us are nature deprived. shows that in the UK if you’re white, you are three times more likely to have access to a garden than if you are Black. Almost 40% of people from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds live in the most green-space deprived areas, compared to 14% of white people.
The Scottish collectives taking the ego out of architecture
A Fragile Correspondence is the culmination of ten months of investigation into three places across Scotland, and asks what happens if architects situate their practice within socio-ecological systems. If we start with a deep understanding about the landscapes and cultures that make up a place, how might that change architects’ responses to it? Could architects better respond to the needs of people in the process? The space is calm and quiet, opening onto the canals of Venice.
Men, please listen to this Boyslut!
“I do think I’m somewhat unique – honestly my success comes from the fact I actually am a man in a rare space not dominated by men,” laughs Zachary Zane, author of the new book Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto. “I’m able to talk to men in a way that they may be more open to listening to, just because I am a man… which is fucked up,” he admits, but a reality many are dealing with.
Men, please listen to this Boyslut!
A couple of weeks ago, Larissa (my co-host of the shado-Lite podcast) and I were asking: “Where the hell are all the male love, sex and dating writers?” With the ‘male loneliness crisis’, we were struggling to understand why so few men were stepping up and addressing this clear gap in the market.
The Scottish collectives taking the ego out of architecture
“Architects should consider themselves facilitators,” says Alyesha Choudhury, co-founder of /other, a collective of POC architects that centre the marginalised individual within architectural discourse. We’re sat chatting at the exhibition they have co-curated for Scotland-Venice’s contribution to the Venice Biennale, A Fragile Correspondence.
Can we use comedy to talk about the grey areas of consent?
In our Twitterfied post #MeToo society, we’ve been trained to understand sexual assault as black or white, the villain and the victim, canceller and cancelee – and without this binary, it feels like there can be no justice. MANIC, a new show by Raina Greifer, acknowledges that many of us have experienced sex which sits in-between. When the framework is black and white, it leaves no space for us to process anything else – and a lot of us have experienced this ‘anything else’.
Venice Architecture Biennale: how radical can an architectural fair be?
When the British Council invited me to attend the opening of the British Pavilion at the 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture, I was both excited and a little dubious. The Biennale is an international exhibition of architecture held every other year in Venice. Known as the ‘olympics of architecture’, the best and brightest architects from across the world respond to a collective theme and are showcased in country pavilions and free side events throughout the city.
Beyond the buzzword: why going ‘circular’ is only as radical as we make it
Hottest buzzwords in the climate space: circular economy. It’s peppered throughout scientific debate, present in the jargon of politicians, and is increasingly visible in creative and cultural sectors. You can find it at the centre of massive policy plans like the European Green Deal, as well as touted in sustainability statements of brands like Adidas and Starbucks. But what does it mean?
Dating in a data-driven capitalist world
As an unenthusiastic but habitual and semi-successful Hinge user, I think it’s very important to keep it light. “Dating apps are fun if you treat them like a game on your phone,” I often coo to newly single friends. What I mean by this: have a scroll when you’re on the loo or waiting for a bus, never get invested, don’t take it too seriously – these people don’t exist until you meet them. Yet, I’ve become increasingly aware of how this personal gamification has affected my romantic relationships.
Activist Ayisha Siddiqa: “I’m not in the business of selling the future”
Ayisha Siddiqa – organiser, speaker and poet – was at the heart of mobilising the 2019 climate strikes in New York. You might remember the photos: over 350,000 people went on strike across the US, setting records for the largest protests since the anti-Vietnam demonstrations decades before. Ayisha, fresh from student protests on a smaller scale, was thrown into collaboratively organising this mass demonstration in the lead up to the 2019 UN New York Climate Summit.
Guerrilla Gardening: Taking back the city one seed bomb at a time
The cottage-core crime which fights land injustice, inequality, nature deprivation, environmental degradation and the mental health crisis: guerrilla gardening. I spoke with Ellen Miles AKA Octavia Chill, a TikTok sensation and founder of the Dream Green platform, bringing guerrilla gardening back in a big way. I first stumbled across “Octavia Chill” on TikTok last summer. I was mindlessly lockdown scrolling and found myself watching her demo on creating your own seed bombs.
The revolutionary artists fighting for democracy in Myanmar
The 100 Projector Project is a group of Myanmar revolutionaries using visual art to rebel against the violent military coup. Zoe Rasbash speaks to a leader of the movement – Lori* – a filmmaker putting her life on the line each day to bring hope to the movement. Since this interview, Lori has been arrested for her activities. On February 1st 2020, Myanmar’s military instigated a violent coup to seize leadership after the National League of Democracy won the general election in a landslide.
Has lockdown been good for the UK climate movement? In conversation with youth activist Dominique Palmer
2019 was an insane year for climate action. Led by frontline and youth activists, three consecutive global strikes for climate mobilised over 6 million people across 150 countries. Politicians were forced to pay attention as the sheer volume of the youth voice ensured that it could no longer go unheard. And then, the pandemic hit. Just as many climate organisers felt like they were on the cusp of real change, action was forced to a halt.
“Our vision for the future is joyful, beautiful, liberatory”: An interview with anti-capitalist art collective Autonomous Design Group
Often, artistic practice is considered as a byproduct of political organising, a mere reflection of social movements. Autonomous Design Group, the international, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian art collective, are building on the legacy of revolutionary organisers who understand that culture is integral to revolutionary politics.
Nature on Screen: The Need to Diversify Environmental Filmmaking
What we watch plays a massive role in determining our relationship with nature. As the environmental movement has gained traction over the last decade, mainstream film and TV have begun to parrot more progressive sentiments. Yet, they often centre white, corporate and patriarchal narratives that can actually be counter-productive.
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