CULTURE Archives - STREETTROTTER

Category: CULTURE

February 19, 2025

Opera for a New Generation: Experiencing Madama Butterfly and Rethinking Its Legacy

It was a snowy Sunday when I experienced opera for the first time - stepping into a world of grand music and storytelling. Madama Butterfly was stunning in its production and orchestration, but its story felt outdated for a modern audience. While the opera remains a classic, its themes spark important conversations about art’s role in society. Should this masterpiece be reimagined for today’s world?

January 26, 2025

Immersive Experiences: Transforming Art, Sound, and Technology

Over the past five years, I’ve explored how immersive experiences have evolved from digital art exhibits to multi-sensory journeys using AR and VR. From stepping inside Van Gogh’s world to standing on glass ledges above city skylines, these experiences have transformed the way we engage with art, culture, and storytelling. This blog captures my journey through this exciting evolution.

March 27, 2021

Deconstructing the Ravana Effigy Making Craft of Tatarpur, Delhi and meeting the Ravanwalas

A line of effigies shaped in bamboo in the form of humongous heads, giant mustaches, and fearsome eyes, lie around on an open road. Some are ready to be painted, some are getting their finishing touches, while others are all decked up to be assembled. Besides the heads are huge structures of limbs and torsos that range from a few feet to about three or four storeys high. These effigy parts lying around are of the mythical demon king of Lanka, ‘Ravana’ in Hindu mythology. And the place we are describing is popularly known as the “Lanka of Delhi'', ‘Tatarpur’.

March 8, 2021

Inside the Amazon’s Spheres: A link between nature and the human workspace

In the center of the Amazon office towers in Seattle, three connected glass-domes have become one of a kind structures in the world, used as office space for most of Amazon’s Seattle-based employees. It is without a doubt, an architectural marvel of our times and a botanical conservatory - built on the foundations of extensive research and innovation. The Spheres are a fully functioning, self-contained ecosystem - a greenhouse with more than 40,000 different varieties of plants collected and curated from universities and botanical gardens all over the world.

February 15, 2021

Untangling the threads of the Toda Tribe

Historically an ancient tribal community of the upper Nilgiri plateau, today the Todas may be popularly associated with their art of creating distinctive, geometric red and black embroideries of the Poothukuli craft. But the more we probe into understanding their culture, the less we are led to stereotyping them as only expert craft weavers from the South of India. What makes them truly distinguishable is their unique outlook, customs and age-old traditions - all of which have gone down the books of history as a fascinating subject.

December 13, 2020

Life of FRIDA: A Walkthrough La Casa Azul

Frida Kahlo is more than a legend, but one who has left an indelible mark in the realm of art, fashion and culture around the world. One of the most iconic artists of all time, and today even a celebrated fashion icon, when I first read about a woman wearing pantsuits and creating ground-breaking art in the 1930s, it immediately ignited my curiosity about her background and the kind of life she must have lived. Having set foot in Mexico City became the perfect reason to get to know her more as I booked myself for a tour at the famous ‘La Casa Azul’ (The blue house) - Frida’s residence which has now become a museum open to tourists to get a glimpse of her memorabilia throughout her life.

October 12, 2020

Tattoo Culture: From Ritual to Revolution

Tattoos have been marks of our uniqueness since 3300 B.C. Humans have turned to altering their physical appearances and ways of body modifications ever since the dawn of civilization. Within the realms of body piercings, esoteric branding and scarification - tattooing became a common practice amongst various cultures and tribes as tangible signs of identity. From prehistoric rituals, to carefully carved sub-cultures and today an important art form in our popular culture - the evolution of tattooing as a practice is intriguing.

October 6, 2020

Spotting Student Talent: 5 inspiring think tanks of art and design

The pandemic gave us much to ponder over, especially it gave us the time to stop, sit back and look at things and activities that truly inspire us. As students we often get buried in coursebook assignments and are left with no time to pursue a skill we are truly passionate about. However the quarantine nurtured some unique creative talent and we spotted a few budding think tanks of art and design who bloomed into magnificent masterpieces. Sharing their art / illustrations through a social platform like Instagram, students from various fields pursued art in various forms and started to get noticed for their artistic techniques.

CULTURE

September 30, 2020

Top 10 PANDEMIC & VIRUS OUTBREAK Movies

When a pandemic outbreak in 2020 made our worst sci-fi fears come true - who can now not believe that a life in quarantine is indeed the reality of our times. Over the past three decades there have been many pandemic and virus outbreak movies that have warned us of such a future. They indicated of technological conspiracies, political agendas, medical experiments that can go dramatically wrong, and a limitless greed for power and scientific innovation. However until 2019 we never saw such cinema beyond the scope of entertainment, did we?

July 3, 2020

Pride 101: A Starter Guide to Understanding PRIDE

The PRIDE month of June 2020 recently concluded with much progress and celebration. The world today is seeing the LGBTQ+ community in more ways than ever before, but yet there is so much left to be understood and accepted. To bring further change the Pride season is a great time to educate oneself about the community’s past, and what it means today - historically, culturally and globally. Through this post, team StreetTrotter wishes to educate those about PRIDE who might not identify themselves as a member of the community, but still can be a part of it with acceptance and support.

April 2, 2020

Meet KWOHTATIONS, celebrating life and identities that remain underrepresented in greeting card aisles

Meet Janine Kwoh, often found in an apron - letter pressing a greeting card on an antique printing press, and then hand painting each one of it to make it truly one-of-a-kind. Commercially known for her brand name KWOHTATIONS, she is the owner / artist / one-person assembly line behind a handmade stationery company and letterpress print & design studio, based in Brooklyn, NY.

March 16, 2020

How can a Travel Blogger Reinvent Content during the Age of Coronavirus?

Amid this chaotic age of coronavirus, is also the "travel blogger" who will face halts in travel plans and will have to relook at content differently. No more can you run a blog on itineraries published post travel; be on the road for sponsored trips; and earn through collaborations without travel. It is obvious that generating content will slow down too. But on the brighter side, as a community we ask, can we finally reinvent through "quality over quantity"?

March 4, 2020

13 Best Reads of 2019 from my library: books from happiness, to climate, innovation, fashion & more

After spending hours in bookstores during endless airport layovers, and going through pages and pages of many good recommendations that could not hook me on, here is my list of must read books in the last two years that one should definitely not miss out on!

January 17, 2020

Saudi Arabia tourism is booming: Things you should know before you visit

In a recent list by Forbes on the 20 people to watch out for in 2020, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was rooted for his signature reforms, including the fact that Saudi Arabia has now opened its gates to tourism. A new visa regime for 49 countries was launched in late 2019, which allow multiple entries and stays of up to 3 months, with a one year validity. Intrigued with this new destination to explore, here is all you need to know about Saudi Arabia tourism to add it to your bucket list.

October 16, 2019

Stories from KUTCH: The people & their legends

India is known for its rich and vivid craft culture. 'Kutch', a district of Gujarat state in western India proudly tops the list of the craft development of the country with its world famous embroideries and patchwork. Boasting of an aesthetic between traditional and the modern hippie, this post talks about the people of Kutch and the legends that are attached to their communities.

There is NO Planet B.

How can a Travel Blogger Reinvent Content during the Age of Coronavirus?

Sustainability is NOT Sustainable. So what does it really mean?

Let’s start simple. You thought you packed a bag of old clothes for goodwill. But did you know that “only 20% of what you donated, are actually reused or recycled". The rest 80% that ends up in landfills can sit there for 200-plus years, and as it decomposes, it emits methane - a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon”. That is the sorry state of our sustainable actions today. And in reality, sustainability is NOT really sustainable.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The case of rapidly DYING BEES in the NILGIRIS in INDIA. And how is Amsterdam saving its bees?

The last one year that I lived in Bangalore, I have seen multiple hives of honey bees growing wild on high rise buildings, and then being subsequently destroyed by the maintenance authorities. At first I didn't notice the pattern here, but later when I saw honey bees dying around the college campus too where I work, it suddenly struck me. Honey bees dying in the Nilgiris is not a coincidence. Infact it is an issue we all need to know about and take action on. This post is just an attempt to educate you about the crisis of our honey bees dying in the Nilgiris, and how we can save them studying the successful case of Amsterdam.

CLIMATE CHANGE

HONEY BEES are DYING faster than we imagined. Why should we care?

Honey Bees have been a source of honey, wax and trade for human beings from times immemorial. They are an extremely social and cooperative species of insects that are also our key pollinators. The last one decade has however been challenging for the bees. They are disappearing at an alarming rate and have entered the category of endangered species. Here is everything there is to know about the bee apocalypse and how we can stop it.

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