Guadagnino on Crying, Cumming and Cannibalism
Writing by Scarlett Smyth. Artwork by Cally Buxton. Me and Jessie went to go see Bones and All last night. We bought grapes and popcorn...
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Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 25
- 4 min
Money can’t buy happiness - don’t let capitalism fool you
Writing by Tasha Stewart. Artwork by Kate Granholm. In a metropolitan, modern world, pure and ethical catharsis feels very difficult to...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 25
- 5 min
The Disempowerment Fantasy: a short study on the catharsis that apocalypse media provides
Writing by Susannah Lee. Artwork by Heather Baillie I can’t wait to see which of my favourite characters got their skull caved in!’. As...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 19, 2022
- 4 min
‘Revolt of the Mother’ and the Subversiveness of Female Comedy
Writing by Saskia Marrett. Artwork by Paola Valentina. I am old-fashioned, and I think it right That man should know, by Nature’s laws...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 19, 2022
- 5 min
Fighting humanity’s death sentence: civil resistance, art, and the climate catastrophe
Writing by Zoe Nayani. Artwork by Kate Granholm (@katesartthings on Instagram) A year ago, the phrase ‘Van Gogh tomato soup’ seemed like...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 19, 2022
- 4 min
Tradwives: A Revolt Against Feminism or Capitalism?
Writing by Katie O'Connor. Artwork by Cilla Sullivan. One day while scrolling through TikTok I came across a pretty unsettling video. It...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 19, 2022
- 3 min
Let Them Eat Cake: The Shift in our Cultural Perception of ‘Revolt’
Writing by Zoe Milton. Artwork by Yury Aleksanyan When one thinks of revolting, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it some...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 19, 2022
- 3 min
Paula Rego’s The Untitled: Abortion Pastels: challenging the ‘male gaze’ and giving women power back
Writing by Emma Brennan. Artwork by Alexandra Golds. CW: abortion White cisgender men have forever had a tight grip on the art world....
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 5 min
Horny Holy Cohen
Writing by Scarlett Smyth. Artwork by Antonia Popescu. I watched a documentary about the making of Hallelujah, the Leonard Cohen song, a...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 4 min
The Vices of Oscar Wilde
Writing by Katie O'Connor. Artwork from Upsplash. We all have our favorite morally gray characters. The ones you can’t think about too...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 2 min
What Damien Hirst's Artwork 'For the Love of God' Tells us About Greed
Writing by Liv Bertani-Green. Damien Hirst’s artwork For the Love of God (2007) shows a human skull encrusted in diamonds – with a...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 4 min
Do Artists Have an Ethical Responsibility to Society?
Writing by Elizabeth Armitage. Artwork by Berenika Murray. I don’t think I am being controversial or radical when I say that art is very...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 6 min
B-Movies, True Crime, and the Fetishization of Violent Crimes
Writing by Lucy Scalzo. Artwork by Berenika Murray. TW: discussions of sexual assault and rape Demi Moore is covered head-to-toe in blood...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 4 min
The Arts V.s. the Artist: Should We Consume Art by Immoral Artists?
Writing by Rose Fox. Artwork by Kate Granholm (@katesartthings). Art, perhaps at its most fundamental form, is an exercise in the...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 6 min
Sex, Drugs, and Other Vices in Fashion
Writing by Orane Bloch. Artwork by Sara Pocher. Fashion shocks, fashion takes a stand and fashion constantly evolves, morphing from one...
Rattlecap Writers
- Oct 22, 2022
- 6 min
Artists and Their Substances
Writing by Orane Bloch. Artwork by Yury Aleksanyan. When doing research for this piece, most of the articles I stumbled upon were on the...
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 4 min
We Live in an Endemic Chaos on a Dying Planet: Let’s Watch Michael McIntyre’s 'The Wheel'
Writing by Jamie McDonald. Illustration by Berenika Murray. BBC One’s The Wheel is relatively simplistic. Seven celebrities encircle a...
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 2 min
Not a Goth
Writing by Amelia Morgan. Illustration by Cat Easeman. I first wanted to be a goth when I was 8 years old. I am now 23 and have failed....
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 4 min
Slut, Virgin or Somewhere In-Between
How female sexuality is still being controlled by the patriarchy in 2022. Writing by Anonymous. I always imagined that I’d grown up in a...
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 4 min
Peaceful Resistance Through the Arts
How the Harlem Renaissance was a fundamental step in improving the rights and lives of African Americans. Writing by Ayesha Dawson....
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 2 min
Is being a ‘tortured soul’ a necessary prerequisit for creating good art?
On the romanticisation of trauma and bad mental health in literature. Trigger warning: suicide, mental health. Writing by Maina Flintham...
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 3 min
A Chaos of Masculinity: The Relationship between Dominant and Subordinate Masculinities
Writing by Emily Tennant. Illustration by Paola Lindo Valentina. What is masculinity? Who is allowed to express it, and why are some...
Rattlecap Writers
- Mar 3, 2022
- 3 min
A post-lockdown conversation with myself
Writing by Anonymous. Illustration by Sara Pocher. Like many people, I had a lot of time to think during the pandemic. One question I...
Rattlecap Writers
- Jan 25, 2022
- 3 min
NFTs: the latest species in the digital art ecosystem
Writing by Isabella Yeo Frank. Illustration by Berenika Murray (@photograberry_). On the last day of 2021, Eminem spent $462,000 on an...
Rattlecap Writers
- Jan 25, 2022
- 8 min
The Evolution of the Period Drama Genre
Writing by Aria Tsvetanova. Illustration artist unknown - titled "Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies, English School" and dated to the...
Rattlecap Writers
- Jan 25, 2022
- 4 min
From Asian Faces to Asian Aesthetics: the Legacy of James Bond’s Anti-Asian Racism
Writing by Juules Bare. Illustration via Unsplash. To say that the James Bond franchise has a complicated legacy would be an...
Rattlecap Writers
- Nov 25, 2021
- 6 min
Cottagecore, or why the pandemic made us embrace rural fantasy
Writing by Aria Tsvetanova. Illustration by Berenika Murray (@photograberry_) Thatched roof cottages, pies and loaves of bread cooling on...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 6 min
Finding Sexual Freedom Being Trapped by my Own Body
Writing by Ellie Bye. Illustration by Lana Fawaz. At the centre of all life is sex. It is, possibly, the most natural thing on our...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 3 min
Sober, queer, and finally free
Writing by T. Elliot. Illustration by Berenika Murray. TW: contains mentions of alcohol abuse. If you are worried about your own or...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 3 min
Edinburgh and Disability: How accessible is the city now that we have “freedom” again?
Writing by Bella Henricks. Illustration by Berenika Murray. August 2021 saw the vast majority of Covid restrictions lifted in Scotland....
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 6 min
Limbo: Waiting to be Free
Writing by Ali Gavin. To be trapped every day in anxious anticipation is not to be free. To be forced into this after a period of...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 5 min
“It is okay to dance alone”
How The Roop’s 2021 Eurovision Entry might encourage us to practice self love and find comfort in isolation. Writing and illustration by...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 5 min
The Feminine Mystique: Is it a textbook for female liberation?
Writing by Sylvie Dulson. Illustration by Dafne de Fine Licht. Betty Friedan’s powerful book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963 is...
Rattlecap Writers
- Sep 23, 2021
- 3 min
How Gender Impacts Freedom in Black Bear
Writing by Georgia Bennett. Illustration by Heather Baillie Samuel Beckett’s two-act absurdist play, Waiting for Godot was famously...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 27, 2021
- 6 min
The Art of Letters: Works by Zarina Hashmi and Sophie Calle
Writing and Illustration by Selin Genc. Unfurling on sand-coloured Japanese Kozo paper are swift strokes of handwritten Urdu script. The...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 27, 2021
- 5 min
The Image in a Network
Writing by Laura Baliman. Illustration by Sarah Phelan. All art exists within a network – a series of connections to other pieces, to...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 27, 2021
- 6 min
You're Invited to AFTERS
Writing by Rhiannon Auriol. Illustration by Miriam Craddock. The afterlife is the after party: a choreography of mangled bodies -...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 27, 2021
- 8 min
Voglio che tu mi tocchi - love and longing from Dante Alighieri to Christine and the Queens
Writing by Ruby Kellman. Illustration by Antonia Popescu. What do Dante Alighieri and Christine and the Queens have in common? At first...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 27, 2021
- 3 min
Flowers, Sticks and Blood: The Legacy of Ana Mendieta
Writing by Rebecca Scherer. Illustration by Orla Chambers. Born into a politically prominent family and raised in Havana, Cuba during the...
Rattlecap Writers
- Apr 26, 2021
- 4 min
Annette Messager’s Artful Communitas
Writing and Illustration by Selin Genc. A flock of taxidermy sparrows lie like sleeping little children, cosily tucked, wrapped in tiny...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 26, 2021
- 6 min
It's (not) A Sin: why the world has yet to recover from the AIDS crisis
Writing by Rhiannon Auriol. Illustration by Heather Baillie. Quick flex: I met the writer Russell T Davies once. It was 2015 and I was...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 26, 2021
- 7 min
Art as an Antidote to Uncertainty and Isolation
Writing by Emma Lake. Illustration from Rattlecap Painting Session. 2020 was a year characterised by uncertainty and isolation, feelings...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 26, 2021
- 6 min
Art and Addiction: An Interview with Artists in Recovery
Writing by Ali Gavin. Illustration by Antonia Popescu. Mark Anderson founded Artists in Recovery (AiR) in 2018 after coming to a...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 26, 2021
- 4 min
Recovering From the Grip of Productivity and Purpose
Writing by Amy Life. Illustration by Bethany Morton. Enticing both visually and emotionally, Disney’s Soul seeks to question a deep...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 26, 2021
- 3 min
Did Covid-19 redefine art?
Writing by Antonina Dolecka. Illustration by Bethany Morton. Do you still remember museums? That mesmerising feeling of wandering through...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 6, 2021
- 7 min
I May Destroy You Being Snubbed by the Golden Globes Says Everything About the World We Live In
Writing by Claire Shankie. Illustration by Paola Valentina. Content Warning: sexual assault, racism The reactions to the exclusion of I...
Rattlecap Writers
- Feb 1, 2021
- 3 min
songs for your horoscope alignment
Writing and Illustration by Paola Valentina. Many reading this will have had, most likely, ample time for introspection and...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 18, 2020
- 6 min
country bumpkin
Writing by Levi Mitchell. Illustration by Caitlin Osfield. The Cairngorm scenery makes me ache. It’s so stunningly still, filled with...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 18, 2020
- 4 min
Solitude in New Mexico: Female Artists who found themselves in the Desert
Writing and Illustration by Isi Williams. Lockdown has been a difficult time for pretty much all of us. But as isolation took over many...
Rattlecap Writers
- Dec 18, 2020
- 4 min
An Isolation Soundtrack
Writing by Jessie Irvin Rose. Illustration by Polly Burnay. ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that...
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