Cultural identity…is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.

Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora

Serratifusus virginiae. Mémoires du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. 1991. Internet Archive

X-radiograph(s) of “Jupiter and Callisto”, Harvard Art Museums: Photographs

The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism. Here one is reminded of a somewhat modified expression of Proudhon’s: whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat.

Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political

Gio Ponti - Casa Laporte

Milano (1935-36)

“The Globe Thistle (Echinops) develops irregularly, the stages of action taking place chiefly at night...” 

Seeds and Seed Dispersal.