Since 2008 or thereabouts, MuseumsEtc has published more than 100 titles that fuse photography, social history and politics in a series of beautifully bespoke editions. This month sees the publication of three new books that sum up the quietly radical ethos of the Edinburgh based but avowedly internationalist independent imprint. Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings compiles transcripts of tapes made by the feminist writer and photographer that reveal an unflinching and at times painful look at Spence’s life and work as a low paid working class artist. The texts are accompanied by images taken in her cramped Islington flat that make for an intimate and unsettling self-portrait of one of the late twentieth century’s most singular of artists. The Erasure of Palestine collects more than 80 images taken over three years by photographer Ahmad Al-Bazz of what remains of the hundreds of towns and villages depopulated and destroyed during the creation and expansion of Israel from 194...
The Pavilion, Glasgow Four stars If ever an unsung Scottish heroine was crying out to be reimagined in a high-end historical drama it is the figure of Flora MacDonald. Here, after all, was a young woman living in eighteenth century Skye who stumbled into the history books after aiding and abetting the Jacobite cause when she helped smuggle Bonnie Prince Charlie out of the reach of government troops after he and his party were trounced at Culloden. Other than a 1948 film and a more recent appearance in an episode of Outlander, alas, Flora has remained an oddly neglected figure. Cue Belle Jones’ suitably heroic musical romp, which arrives in Glasgow this week to reclaim Flora and give her the due she deserves after opening in Inverness last weekend. Here we see Flora across the decades, with Karen Fishwick embodying the younger woman, while Annie Grace watches over Flora’s place in history with a wizened eye. What follows in Stasi Schaeffer’s big-hearted production for...