There’s a strange alchemy in how we preserve culture—sometimes it’s through grand monuments, other times through the smallest, most defiant acts. Take the Armenian language, for instance. It’s not just a means of communication; it’s a lifeline to a collective memory that survived genocide, displacement, and centuries of erasure. Lori Yeghiayan Friedman’s description of her alphabet poster hanging on the wall feels like a quiet rebellion. She’s not just preserving letters; she’s holding onto the ghosts of those who forged them. What makes this particularly fascinating is how language becomes a battleground for identity. When you strip away a language, you don’t just silence a people—you erase their stories, their struggles, their very existence from the historical record. And yet, here she is, framing those curvy letters like sacred relics. It’s a reminder that survival isn’t just about endurance; it’s about refusing to let the past fade into oblivion.
Now, contrast that with the absurdity of Elliott Arkin’s Salvator Mundi Museum of Art. This isn’t just a museum—it’s a performance piece, a surreal commentary on art’s commodification. The fact that he’s hosting an exhibition on orbs, inspired by a crystal sphere in da Vinci’s painting, while his building’s lobby once held umbrellas and bicycles, says volumes about how we fetishize art. In my opinion, this museum is less about celebrating the painting and more about exploiting its notoriety. The $450 million sale to the Saudi crown prince isn’t just a financial spectacle; it’s a metaphor for how art is often reduced to a symbol of power, wealth, and ego. What stands out to me is how Arkin’s absurd exhibitions—like Salvator Barbie or the beetles that ate Renaissance paintings—highlight the arbitrary nature of art’s value. It’s a satire, but also a warning: when art becomes a brand, what’s left of its soul?
Then there’s the case of Israeli restaurants in New York, which have become a subtle but insidious form of cultural erasure. Places like Miss Ada or Cafe Mogador, while technically serving food with roots in Southwest Asia and North Africa, are rebranded as “Israeli,” distancing themselves from their origins. This isn’t just semantics; it’s a strategic repositioning. By claiming a connection to Israel, these restaurants sidestep the stereotypes and prejudices that have long plagued Middle Eastern cuisine in the West. What many people don’t realize is that this rebranding is part of a broader trend: the erasure of Palestinian identity through culinary appropriation. When you rename a dish or a restaurant, you’re not just changing a label—you’re rewriting history. It’s a quiet but effective way to marginalize a culture while profiting from its cuisine.
Jamaica Kincaid’s decision to shave her eyebrows in the 1970s wasn’t just a fashion statement; it was a radical act of self-definition. She told Harper’s Bazaar that she wanted to be different, to write in a way that reflected her unfiltered thoughts. This raises a deeper question: How do we reclaim our identities in a world that constantly demands conformity? Kincaid’s choice to distance herself from societal norms mirrors the struggles of artists and writers who must navigate the tension between authenticity and acceptance. What I find especially interesting is how her aversion to romance novels reflects a broader rejection of narratives imposed by others. Her eyebrows became a symbol of resistance—a physical manifestation of her refusal to be categorized or understood through others’ lenses.
And let’s not forget the TikTok era, where culture is both preserved and distorted in real time. Deana Burke’s documentation of generative AI’s sources reveals a troubling truth: the algorithms we rely on are built on a foundation of stolen or poorly attributed data. This isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a moral one. If the slop machine—AI—loses its way, who’s to blame? The creators? The users? The system itself? It’s a paradox: we celebrate AI’s ability to mimic creativity, yet we ignore the ethical quagmire it creates. What this really suggests is that our obsession with innovation often comes at the cost of accountability. We’re building tools that reflect our biases, our greed, and our inability to credit the origins of our ideas.
In the end, these stories—of language, art, identity, and technology—are threads in a larger tapestry. They remind us that culture is fragile, often under threat, but also resilient. Whether it’s through a framed alphabet, a museum full of orbs, or a TikTok video about a dog in uniform, we’re constantly negotiating what it means to belong. The challenge isn’t just to preserve these fragments; it’s to understand why they matter. Because when we lose a language, a dish, a piece of art, or even a pair of eyebrows, we lose a part of ourselves.
