Issue 36 | September 2025

Author

Owen Kelly
August 27, 2025

Welcome to the September 2025 edition of Miaaw Monthly, courtesy of our continually satisfactory newsletter provider Beehiiv.com.

We continue in our summer schedule with a new podcast every fortnight, and a constant buzz of behind-the-scenes research and archiving.

And, as usual, we continue to hope that you will send us something that you want to include in Miaaw Monthly, or something that you want to suggest for the podcasts, by emailing us at [email protected]. We will be happy to include your news and suggestions here and hunt down the topics you want to hear in the podcasts.

PODCASTS FOR SEPTEMBER 2025

Friday September 5

Meanwhile on an Abandoned Bookshelf | Episode 27

We finish our suggestions for summer reading this month, with a look back at Jon Savage’s lengthy book called Teenage: the creation of youth, 1875-1945.

Owen Kelly discusses the arguments he brings to the table and, argues that perhaps the importance of the book lies in the evidence he marshals in support of those arguments.

Friday September 19

A Culture of Possibility | Episode 56

Arlene Goldbard and François Matarasso continue their analysis of censorship and culture. This month they discuss their own direct experiences with these issues, including times community artists had to chose which aspects of a project to share or not, and times when establishment arts forces suppressed cultural policies because they objected to cultural democracy principles.

A THOUSAND WORDS

Maija Demitere: transition ecologies (see below)

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

Good Internet Magazine: 2nd issue

Good Internet is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit print and digital biannual magazine for personal website owners and those interested in using the internet as a means of self-expression, art, and recreation. Good Internet was founded and curated by Alexandra. The name Good Internet comes from Katie Baker's The Day the Good Internet Died, hopefully proving that headline wrong.

The second issue comes out very soon. If you subscribe, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available.

You can find full details here.

Geocities is back, apparently

We have found a website called Neocities, which looks remarkably (and not coincidentally) like the Geocities web platform from thirty odd years ago.

The site says that ”We are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. It's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again.”

Their stated goal: “to enable you to harness the creativity, beauty, and power of creating your own web site. To rebuild the web we lost to algorithms and monotony, and make it as fun and creative as it was back in the 90s”.

Their suggestion: Go make your own web site!

Artists and Cultural Workers Against Authoritarianism

Last month the US Department of Arts & Culture organised a training workshop in partnership with Beautiful Trouble.

In their latest newsletter the USDAC say that “this was more than a workshop-- it was a space to strengthen our strategy, courage, and collective power against authoritarianism”.

Materials from the training include a curated set of tools, readings and examples. You can download the pdf here.

You can also watch a recording of the workshop available via Zoom.

Caught by the River

Have we mentioned Caught by the River before? If we haven’t then we should have.

Their About page says that “Caught by the River is an arts/nature/culture clash which lives at caughtbytheriver.net. It began as an idea, a vision and a daydream shared between friends one languid bankside spring afternoon.

Conceived as an online meeting place for pursuits of a distinctly non-digital variety — walking, fishing, looking, thinking, birdsong and beer, adventure and poetry; life’s small pleasures, in all their many flavours — it was, and still is, about stepping out of daily routines to re-engage with nature. Finding new rhythms. Being.

Now in its thirteenth year, Caught by the River is ever-morphing, widening its tastes and pool of contributors. The site – and its various offshoots, including gigs, festival stages and the Rivertones record label – host work in many forms and flavours, be it of a musical, poetic, creative non-fictional, photographic or illustrative description, or otherwise”.

They also have a regular newsletter which (in our opinion) counts as well worth reading.

RIXC: Transition Ecologies

The opening of the Transition Ecologies exhibition by Maija Demitere takes place at the RIXC Gallery, Lencu iela 2, Riga, in Latvia, on Thursday, September 4, 2025. 

Maija Demitere is an artist and researcher whose work brings together ecology, sustainability, and technology. She works with an interdisciplinary approach, creating works and objects that combine art, innovation, and technological experimentation. At the core of her practice are themes of food, resources, and waste cycles, through which she explores the interrelationships between humans, the environment, and technology.

The exhibition reflects on the shifting relationship between humans and nature, as old balances collapse and the need for new ecological connections emerges. In cities, these relationships are directed by human activity. The effects of daily actions may not be immediately visible, but over time they leading to long-term damage to both the planet and human health.

It includes time-lapse video projections created, documenting human-altered aquatic ecologies and searching for ways to visualize continuously transforming landscapes. The exhibition invites viewers to consider ecology as a dynamic and fragile process, where human actions and technological solutions are constantly in dialogue with the rhythms of nature.