Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2024 - Issue 17 från KOL Social

As I sit down to reflect on the concept of “fuel,” it’s clear that this word has evolved beyond its original meaning. In today’s world, fuel is more than just the petrol that powers our vehicles or the energy that keeps our homes running. It has become a metaphor for survival and how we sustain our daily existence in the face of environmental, economic, and societal pressures. Fuel powers every aspect of our modern lives. With skyrocketing energy prices and a growing sense of uncertainty, we are feeling the pressure. It’s not just about how we travel or the energy we use—it’s about how families keep warm, businesses keep their doors open, and entire communities continue to function amidst rising costs. Beyond the financial strain, the ever-present environmental concern reminds…

Jonathan Lethem, a singular force in American literature, has made a name by blending genre fiction with literary depth, pushing boundaries with narratives that resist convention. Brooklyn-born in 1964, the once aspiring artist draws from his urban roots, early fascination with comic books, and his father’s artistic influence, creating stories where pop culture and philosophy collide. From Motherless Brooklyn to The Fortress of Solitude, his novels don’t just inhabit genres—they elevate them, probing identity, memory, and cultural fragmentation with a painter’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s boldness. In The Cellophane Bricks, Lethem plunges into new narrative terrain, blending visual culture with literary form in what feels like his rawest, most introspective work yet. I DON’T SEE GENRES AS PURE FORMS NEEDING TO BE CLEANED UP OR LEGITIMISED Part memoir,…

CULTURE Anders Sunna’s art is a searing indictment, challenging the entrenched colonial and systemic forces that have relentlessly oppressed the Sámi people for generations. Born in 1985 in Kieksiäisvaara, Sweden, Anders comes from a family deeply rooted in the struggles of the Indigenous community, whose history is marked by displacement, exploitation, and cultural erasure at the hands of various colonial forces. His work goes beyond conventional protest art, offering multilayered narratives that delve into the intersections of identity, politics, and historical trauma. Drawing from personal experiences of oppression, his art delivers a fierce commentary on the ongoing marginalisation faced by the Sámi people. Much of Anders’ oeuvre directly addresses the colonial legacy in Sápmi, the traditional Sámi homeland that spans northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. His paintings often feature…

In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. crossed into communist East Berlin without a passport—just his American Express card, a smile, and a sermon. It was a headline-grabbing moment of moral audacity, with King preaching on both sides of the Wall as if divisions were just details. Three years later, Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi had his own dream: having escaped Nazi Germany’s brutal racism, he became editor of Ebony magazine. Decades later, the city witnessed a spectacle of a different kind: Michael Jackson, with all the subtlety of a pop legend, dangling his baby over the balcony of the Hotel Adlon. Moments like these form the tangled narrative of a city where history rarely stays within the lines. And that’s its allure. Berlin doesn’t roll out the red carpet. It’s jagged and unapologetic—a…

Sara Kingdom Travel writer, mountain guide, yoga teacher, trail runner and mother, Sarah Kingdom was born and brought up in Sydney, Australia. Travelling around Africa at 21, she fell in love with the continent and stayed. Sarah guides on Kilimanjaro several times a year and has lost count of how many times she has stood on the roof of Africa. She has climbed and guided around the world and now spends most of her time visiting remote places in Africa. When she is not traveling, she runs a cattle ranch in Zambia with her husband. Sara investigates bushmeat hunting in Africa from the ground up in Is This Game? on page 94 Chen Yun Based in Shanghai, Chen is the publisher of 51 Personae, an independent art publishing initiative exploring…

ORAL HISTORIES ARE EMBEDDED IN MY BLOODLINE, CARRYING STORIES AND SECRETS THAT SHAPE MY ART. Art that demands your attention, that confronts you without asking permission—that’s what you’ll find in February Jones’s work. Rooted in a D.C. upbringing, every piece is an unfiltered look at identity and memory, charged with intensity and stripped of any pretence. Though often spare in their features, Jones’ portraits carry an emotional resonance that defies simple description. “I just make the work. The face is in the page, and I happen to bring it out. The emotion comes from where I sit in life,” she reveals. One of the most striking aspects of her portraits is the gaze of her subjects, who’s intense and directed gazes hold a powerful presence within the work, drawing the…

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Steward Siapalala and Charles Kayembo weren’t born poachers, but hunger has a way of rewriting lives. With fields failing and empty cupboards, Kafue National Park became their hunting ground—a desperate, dangerous choice. “I could shoot down a buffalo with just one bullet,” Siapalala admits, revealing not pride, but a reality shaped by few options. Communities living adjacent to protected wildlife areas are often some of the most economically deprived. Hampered by a lack of infrastructure and limited economic opportunities, the appeal of illegal hunting is easy to see. A Zambian poacher can earn around US$50 a month in areas where the average household monthly income is just US$15. Like others in the village, 50-year-old Siapalala wasn’t managing to grow sufficient food to sustain his wife and nine children. He was…

Himali Singh Soin stands at the crossroads of temporali-ties, intertwining South Asian futurism with the layered histories of colonialism, climate change, and ecological futures. Known for defying linear history in favour of speculative approaches, she explores how distinct cultural environments shape our sense of time. She explains: “When I travel to India, I always cite the whirl of the fan above me. I leave London, and it’s cold and dark. Suddenly, the fan circles above me and reminds me of two sounds—the fan itself and the pressure cooker. It’s very Indian - you can hear it in the kitchen. As soon as I go home, it feels like all these emotions are interconnected.” In her work Out There In Here, she maps a human body onto a mountain, creating an…