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3 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
On time and curiosity and death and mediaThe countdown begins when the striker refuses food for the first time. Because this is what hunger strikes are: a macabre countdown that turns the body into a stage and a weapon.
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4 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
The Uluru Statement From the Heart, 8 Years LaterMonday 26 May 2025 marked eight years since the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart. Eight years ago, in May 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, a group of 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders gathered at Uluṟu, the reddish sandstone monolith rising abruptly from the vast expanse of red sand known as the Red Centre, at the heart of the Australian continent, on lands sacred to the Aṉangu.
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1 month ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
And the ever-evolving questions it raisesControlling artworks — how they are displayed and explained — equates to controlling the story surrounding them. And controlling the story means controlling the past, and purifying it of any unwelcome details surrounding the acquisition of such artworks. “He who controls the objects controls the story,” Kiwara-Wilson writes.
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1 month ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
And what they tell us about the nature of imperialism and human greedIn the propaganda campaign preceding the British destruction of Benin City, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, the city was labelled the “City of Blood”. The King of Benin, Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, “the Rising Sun which spreads over all”, was described as primitive, bloodthirsty, a worshipper of pagan gods and human sacrifices.
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1 month ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
How a West African city became one of the world’s wealthiest and best-governed capitalsBefore the British arrived in Benin City in 1897, before they looted its streets and houses, before they set fire to the royal palace and stripped the city of its wealth, autonomy, and prestige, Benin City was one of the world’s wealthiest and best-governed capitals.
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2 months ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
And what their stories tell us about the complexity of human relationships in New Zealand and elsewhereThe spiral motifs, curvilinear rays, and deeply grooved scars of moko, the traditional Māori facial tattoo, have mythical origins, rooted in the Eastern Polynesian culture and aesthetics that the ancestors of the men and women who became Māori brought with them when they landed on the shores of New Zealand’s North Island.
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2 months ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
A brief history of New Zealand’s “war” on Chinese and Indian immigrantsThe year was 1881, and New Zealand, a white nation for white citizens, a nation more British than Britain, was about to pass its first law restricting — and therefore discriminating against — the entry of a particular group of people. That group was the Chinese. But the Chinese were not the only group to be discriminated against. They were just the first.
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2 months ago | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
And how culture shines through language67.8% of the population in New Zealand today is pākehā, at least according to the 2023 census, while 17.8% of the population are tangata whenua.
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Mar 28, 2025 | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
Member-only storyOr: crumbling empires clinging to a dying world viewSara Relli·FollowPublished inThought Thinkers·8 min read·--Children working in mines in Congo, 2007, photograph by Julien Harneis, via Wikimedia CommonsOn the night of 30 August 1957, as the royal anthem God Save the Queen resonated in the Royal Selangor Club in Kuala Lumpur, the British flag was lowered from Merdeka Square. In its place, the new flag of Malaya, the Stripes of Glory, was raised.
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Mar 13, 2025 | 
medium.com | Sara Relli |Ben Ulansey
Starting with the controversy surrounding the Benin BronzesSara Relli·FollowPublished inThought Thinkers·8 min read·--Benin Bronze in the Bode Museum in Berlin, via Wikimedia CommonsIn February 1897, 1200 British troops marched into Benin City — Edo as it was also known. At the time, Benin City was one of the oldest and best-planned cities in West Africa.
