Beautiful, alluring and with blue eyes that sparkle like crystals, Sian Brooke exudes star quality. And a star she certainly is. Since graduating from drama school RADA in 2002, she has been in constant demand, bringing to life the most diverse array of characters, from Sherlock Holmes’s evil little sister Eurus (opposite Benedict Cumberbatch) in BBC series Sherlock, to the queen consort of the Seven Kingdoms in HBO’s House of Dragons, to Ophelia in Hamlet at The Barbican Hall.

Her latest project is Blue Lights, a six-part BBC One police drama that sees Sian take the lead role as Grace, a rookie officer serving with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Created and written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson (The Salisbury Poisonings), Blue Lights is expected to garner the plaudits enjoyed by successful police dramas Line of Duty and Bodyguard.

Grace, a mother of a teenage boy who leaves the comfort of her steady job as a social worker to join the police, is immediately thrust into the frontline, and finds facing the many pressures and dangers that this brings anything but easy. Sian is joined in the cast by Katherine Devlin (The Dig) and newcomer Nathan Braniff. “The moment I read the script, I felt I knew Grace,” Sian shares, “because the script is simply brilliant.” Patterson and Lawn, who both hail from Belfast, have written Blue Lights with humour and compassion, making its characters profoundly human and immediately recognisable.

“As a kid, I’d sit in front of the telly with my sister watching black and white movies… I was hooked, absolutely mesmerised by this other world…”

 –  Sian Brooke

But it wasn’t police dramas or fantasy sagas that inspired Sian to become an actor. She was drawn in by the divas from Hollywood’s golden age. “I was always mesmerised by film,” she recalls. “As a kid, I’d sit in front of the telly with my sister watching black and white movies. They were all that was shown on Saturday afternoons and I was hooked, absolutely mesmerised by this other world. The total escapism of that glitz and glam.” At the age of 10, Sian watched a friend perform in a local amateur musical and from that moment she was hooked. “I thought, ‘Oh my God! I love this,’ and realised that this was what I wanted to do when I grew up; it made me feel so alive.”

Nowadays it is not just actresses from Hollywood’s golden age era that inspire Sian, but also those working now. She is particularly fond – as I am – of American actresses Susan Sarandon and Frances McDormand. “These are very strong women who have influenced other actresses and built a legacy that passes woman to woman.”

Working in theatre has also helped develop Sian’s ability to build her characters. “I believe theatre is an actor’s medium, whilst TV is more a director’s medium. In theatre, you have the luxury of four weeks of rehearsals so you can mess around with your character, make mistakes and through all that process, find out what is right. In TV, you can’t rehearse so much but on the other hand, you live with your character for nearly 12 hours every day, and you are there as the character develops with every episode.”

Sian Brooke as rookie police officer Grace in the BBC One police drama, Blue Lights.

This is how it worked for Grace working on Blue Lights. “For the four months we were filming in Belfast, I spent more time as Grace and dressed in the police uniform than out of it so, over time, you sit with that character and start to feel comfortable in their skin.” Modestly, she gives all the credit to the series’ quality to its writers and the director, Gilles Bannier. “Gilles loves working with actors, appreciates what everybody brings to the table and is a true collaborator.”

What differentiates Blue Lights from other police dramas we’ve seen on TV before is the fact that if follows the everyday life of fledgling officers. As they learn the basics of their profession, they all struggle during the probation period and start wondering about the wisdom of taking such a pressurised job. “We don’t often see them at the very start of their career on TV,” Sian comments. “We don’t realise they are just ordinary people, learning on the job. We don’t think of how nervous they may be when they make their first arrest, or how scary some situations may be, when things get heated and how they fear for their safety.” In other words, this show pulls back the curtain on what it is really like to be a police officer.

“It has become bluntly obvious that we need to do something before the worlds changes irreparably, but the whole issue may be too big for many people to comprehend.”

 –  Sian Brooke

The entire series was filmed in Belfast over a four-month period. Sian describes it as “Declan and Adam’s love letter to their city and its people”. It’s a love that Sian grew to share and she describes the experience of making Blue Lights as simply delightful. “It was such a brilliant and easy project,” she shares, “everybody knew what they had to do, we all appreciated each other’s work and the whole atmosphere was fabulous.”

But with this series completed, Sian is not resting on her laurels. She has just finished filming a superhero series for Netflix. “Unfortunately, I can’t say anymore,” she says of the project with an enigmatic smile.

When she is not working or with her family, Sian lends her time to the Glacier Trust, a charity devoted to working with locals in the Himalayan countryside to limit the damage caused by climate change on the landscape. Monitoring and sharing their research on glaciers helps mitigate the effects of landslides. The charity also supports farmers in this region and provides education and training to empower the population there.

“It has become bluntly obvious that we need to do something before the worlds changes irreparably, but I think that maybe the whole issue is too big for many people to comprehend,” says Sian, “In some parts of the world that damage has already happened, the problem is that these tragedies seem too far away from us. I come from a farming background, so I feel compelled to try to protect the lives of entire communities who are suffering for the abuse we have inflicted on the planet.”

As mother of two kids, she is very aware of the role that education has in ensuring the younger generations don’t repeat the mistakes of her own. “I grew up in the outdoors, appreciating nature, and this is what I try to pass on to my kids. And in school, it is part of their daily education.” Sian is not the only member of her family with an eco-warrior streak. Her brother works at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. “We all love the countryside. I try to go back as often as I can and sometimes, I dream of settling down there at some point in my life, grow a few vegetables, maybe even have some chickens.”

I look forward to speaking to Sian Brooke again soon. I’ve been mesmerised by her charm and her infectious energy. To me, she is as magnetic as those iconic actresses from Hollywood she admired so much as a kid.

Blue Lights Season 1 and 2 are available in BBC iPlayer and Netflix. 

This spring, the Wellcome Collection is surprising us with a ground-breaking show devote to our relationship with milk and its place in global politics, society and culture. Featuring over 100 items including historical objects, artworks and new commissions, this is the first museum survey to consider the complexity of this seemingly everyday substance and how it has come to be seen as so central to our perceptions of nutrition and good health. 

As mammals, milk is fundamental to the nutrition of humans, at least as infants. That value has translated on occasion into a tool for the manipulation of masses. For example, the exhibition displays advertising from the 1920s to present day showing how ideas of purity and safety are central to milk’s commercial identity, while a late 19th century print from the temperance movement shows how milk was drawn into the campaigns of social reform. From early 20th century formula milk sample tins supplied to doctors by companies such as Glaxo, to the first dietary guidelines produced by the British Medical Association with illustrated daily menus, visitors will be able to examine how milk has been used to exert power as well as to provide care. It will show how milk drinking was constructed as a modern practice, and why it came to be seen as essential to a healthy diet.

In fact, milk came to be considered a staple of diets in the United Kingdom. Advertising from the 1920s to present day show how ideas of purity and safety are central to milk’s commercial identity. A selection of colourful printed milk bottle tops from the 1940s show how companies conveyed their brand and messaging with almost religious zeal; Express Dairy’s glossy promotional film The Daily Round reveals how dairies sought consumer trust by emphasising the scientific rigour of their laboratories.

Artworks such as Marcel Broodthaers’ The Farm Animals (1974) hints at the ways in which cows have been industrialised for optimum efficiency, supporting the show’s exploration of the consequences of the introduction of scientific reforms into farming and motherhood that prioritized standardisation and regulation. Milk has been used as a tool of empire and nationalism due to its long-standing associations with purity and whiteness. Powerful marketing campaigns used images of white, nuclear families as the face of milk, while the abhorrent theories of well-known eugenicists, such as Herbert Hoover, sought to make connections between the purity of “natural” milk and ideas of social purity. Newly commissioned for this exhibition is Danielle Dean’s White, an animation reflecting on dairy farming as a colonising force that has reshaped indigenous landscapes in New Zealand.

Government pamphlets and propaganda from the 1910s to the early 2000s manifests how milk has played a central role in people’s diets and in national welfare and food programmes. One such example is Ronald Reagan’s “Government Cheese”assistance programme, created following the US government’s purchase of surplus dairy supplies, in which five-pound blocks of processed cheese were distributed to welfare beneficiaries. It became a marker of poverty and class, but also an infamous popular culture icon. Leo Hallam Dawson’s documentary DAIRY examines the connection between contemporary farming, food, government and sustainability, while inviting visitors to reflect on the values on which our food systems are based.

Milk also considers personal experiences of nursing and infant feeding, including Ilana Harris-Babou’s video installation, Let Down Reflex, which uses first-hand testimonies from her mother and sister’s experiences of breastfeeding to consider the complexity and intimacy of black motherhood. Julia Bornefeld’s large-scale hanging sculpture reimagines the maternal body to reflect on the fraught relationship between care and milk extraction. As human milk becomes commercially available, a new commission by Jess Dobkin will explore how we negotiate the regulation, politics and ethics of its sale.

Cow creamers, various makers, late 18^th and early 19th century. Courtesy of The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Historical materials exhibited include a terracotta model of a mule carrying cheese from the third or second century BC; a 19th century feeding bottle and a large selection of novelty cow creamers from the same era; 20th century advice booklets for mothers; and milk-related ephemera and marketing from the 1930s to today, including government nutritional campaigns and commercial advertising from the dairy industry. Artworks include Evelyn Mary Dunbar’s oil painting Milking Practice with Artificial Udders (1940).

Milk, ©Lucy + Jorge Orta / ADAGP Paris, 2022. Reproduced with permission of Lucy + Jorge Orta.

The exhibition showcases many other contemporary objects and artworks such as Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Milk, a series of 16 cast and lacquered aluminium milk containers, will show how people around the world encounter milk as part of their everyday life; and new commissions by Danielle Dean, Jess Dobkin, and Ilana Harris-Babou. It also features a 2023 iteration of Deeper in the Pyramid, Melanie Jackson and Esther Leslie’s major project exploring milk’s seepage into every aspect of our daily lives.

Milk is curated by Marianne Templeton and Honor Beddard, and it is accompanied by a programme of events and online Stories. Find out more HERE.

Milk

Wellcome Collection

30th March – 10th September 2023. Free admission.

183 Euston Rd. London NW1 2BE

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening image: The weekly ration of milk for two people, UK, 1943. © IWM (D 14667)

Books are the gate to a magical universe. Reading is one of the most enrichening activities we can engage in. Doing it with someone we love is a way to strengthen the relationship by encouraging conversation, increasing the time spent together and even discovering things about the other person that you didn’t know before. So why don’t you surprise mum this year with a good book, curl up on the sofa and flick through it with her? Here we present you with five beautiful suggestions, handpicked by our Editor Julia Pasarón.

I believe no other photographer has immortalised life in Paris the way Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) did. His images are full of romanticism and longing, inviting the viewer to get into the soul of the moments he captured with his camera and which earned him many awards during his lifetime.

Considered the pioneer of photojournalism together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau was a champion of humanist photography. He worked at the Rapho agency before and after WWII. During the war, he was drafted into the French army as both a soldier and photographer. He was in the army until 1940 and, from then until the end of the war in 1945, forged passports and identification papers for the French Resistance.

Left: page 14 – Luxembourg Gardens, 1951. Right: page 89 – Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville (The Kiss), 1950

After the war, Doisneau returned to freelance photography and sold photographs to Life and other international magazines. He even worked for Vogue for a bit in 1948 as a fashion photographer, but his heart wasn’t on it; he preferred street photography.

Since his death in 1994, Doisneau’s work experienced a revival, with major retrospectives of his work having taken place in Paris, Chicago and New York. Many of his portraits and photographs of Paris from the end of WWII through the 1950s have been turned into calendars and postcards, becoming icons of French life recognisable across the world.

This seminal volume, produced in close collaboration with his estate – managed by his daughters Annette and Francine – is the official, most comprehensive reference of his photographs of Paris. It contains more than 600 photographs taking the reader on a magic black & white tour of the City of Light. Buy the book HERE.

More than 165 years of innovation, adventure and a unique expression of Britishness come to life in this new book. The richly illustrated volume is filled with material from the Burberry archive and beyond.

Founded in 1856 by the 21-year-old Thomas Burberry, the company quickly established itself by focusing on outdoors attire. In 1879, Burberry introduced gabardine, a hardwearing, water-resistant yet breathable fabric, that was to change the outerwear industry forever. In 1901, the Burberry Equestrian Knight logo was developed containing the Latin word “Prorsum”, meaning “forwards”, and later registered it as a trademark in 1909.

In 1911, Burberry became the outfitters for Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole; and Ernest Shackleton, who led a 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. A Burberry gabardine jacket was worn by George Mallory on his attempt on Mount Everest in 1924. Image courtesy of Burberry.

The term “trench coat” with which the brand became synonymous, came to be because it was the coat worn by British officers in the trenches in WWI. After the war, it became popular with civilians. Its famous check has been in use since at least the 1920s, primarily as a lining in its trench coats.

This and much more is covered in the five chapters of this book, featuring 200 illustrations, which depict Burberry’s evolution from a family-run company to a renowned global luxury brand. Each explores a range of notable events and the emblems for which Burberry is renowned. Think inspiring explorers, signature trench coats and a distinct British identity.

Left: Men’s trench coat, 1939. Right: Courtesy of Burberry. Right: Gabardine trench gown, AW 2022 runway collection. Both images courtesy of Burberry.

“Burberry is a story of creativity, exploration, innovation and community – all of which continue to be at the heart of the brand. In unearthing a dormant treasure trove, countless gold nuggets have been revealed. This book, the only one to be endorsed by the brand in recent times, presents a panorama of the company’s extraordinary heritage, which deserves to be widely celebrated. It’s the stuff of legends.” Carly Eck, Brand Curator, Archive, Burberry. Buy the book HERE.

Historically, women have been pushed to the backstage of the artworld. Perhaps the most popular struggle is that of Artemisa Gentileschi – trained at the atelier of Caravaggio, who overcame rape and envy to become the first woman member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. Despite the success of this exceptional baroque artist, it hasn’t really been until well into the 20th century that women have achieved equal status to men in the world of art.

Hence the importance of a volume like Great Women Painters, a ground-breaking book that reveals a richer and more varied telling of the story of painting. Featuring more than 300 female artists from around the world, it includes both well-known women painters from history and today’s most exciting rising stars. The book spans the 15th century to the present day.

Left spread: Nina Chanel Abney / Tomma Abts (pages 20-21). Right spread: Emily Kame Kngwarreye / Laura Knight (pages 162-163)

Covering nearly 500 years of skill and innovation, this survey continues Phaidon’s celebrated The Art Book series, which reveals and champions a more diverse history of art, showcasing recently discovered and newly appreciated work and artists throughout its more than 300 pages and images.

A must-have volume for art lovers and an essential reference book for artists, collectors, curators, gallerists, students, and all those looking to broaden their knowledge of women artists and their stories.

Alison M. Gingeras is a curator and writer based in New York and Warsaw. She has served as curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Gingeras currently serves as an adjunct curator at Dallas Contemporary and a guest curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami as well as the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, in addition to working independently. Buy it HERE.

Made globally famous by Bruce Miller’s TV show of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale is Margaret Atwood’s portray of a chilling dystopian society in a near future, ruled by religion, gender violence, and oppression. The novel features a fundamentalist theocratic regime in what used to be the USA, now called Gilead, prompted by a fertility crisis.

The protagonist, Offred, is a Handmaid. Her role is to bear children for her Commander, whose wife is unable to conceive. Refusal would mean the death penalty or a lifetime of hard labour in the Colonies, plagued with radiation from the war that overthrew the former US government. She remembers her previous life, when she had a home, a husband, and – most agonisingly – her own child. Offred makes frequent references to the world she once knew and the freedom she took for granted – having her own bank account, wearing her hair uncovered, even something as simple as using nail varnish.

Sisters Anna and Elena Balbusso’s stunning illustrations skilfully highlight the regimented and hierarchical nature of society in Gilead. © Anna and Elena Balbusso, 2012.

Atwood skilfully dramatises the contrast between the grotesque strangeness of Gilead and ordinary life going on elsewhere. In one instance, Offred and a companion encounter a group of tourists from Japan. Forbidden to take pictures, the tourists ask if the women are happy. Offred replies that they are very happy. “I have to say something. What else can I say?”

Asked whether her book could be classed as science fiction, Atwood replied: “Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen.” First published in 1986, The Handmaid’s Tale was inspired by contemporary Western fears about falling birth-rates, as well as by religious fundamentalism both in the West and East. It was a critical and popular success, launching Atwood on the international stage and wining prizes on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Folio Society edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, introduced by the author and illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso, is exclusively available HERE. 

First opened in 1987 in Hamburg, Germany, Luna Luna became the first-ever art amusement park, with rides, games, performances, and other unexpected amusements crafted by some of the most renowned artists of the time. From Jean-Michel Basquiat to David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dalí and Keith Haring, a total of 32 artists collaborated with creator André Heller in a project that was described by Life magazine as the “most dizzying, dazzling art show on Earth”.

Now, more than three decades later, Luna Luna is back on a global tour of extravaganza, a carnival that merges avant-garde and popular culture. In addition to a selection of the 1987 attractions, the reimagined Luna Luna features an evolving collection of new rides and amusements from a growing family of contemporary artists spanning art, music, food, and more.

Left: Jean-Michel Basquiat (pages 110-11). Right: the artist’s painted Ferris wheel for Luna Luna. Picture credit: Sabina Sarnitz (pages 118-119). The music for the Ferris wheel was provided by Miles Davis.

The book that was originally published for the launch of the park in 1987, has been translated into English and updated with a fresh preface. Apart from providing unique access to rare artworks that have not been widely viewed in 35 years, the work of each of the artists who have contributed to the new Luna Luna is documented in photographs that show the artist at work, with details of the artworks, and showing the art in the context of the exhibition.

André Heller is an acclaimed international multimedia artist. He is the creator of best-selling books, largescale flying and floating sculptures, and garden artworks, and has had a platinum-selling career as a singer and songwriter. In addition to directing shows, plays, circuses, films, and operas, he has also designed fire spectacles, labyrinths, and museums. He lives and works between Vienna and Marrakech. Get your copy of Luna Luna HERE.

Words: Julia Pasarón

Opening picture by Cottonbro Studio.

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