News, Articles and Book Reviews
An online library of education and entertainment, focused on exploring each of our themes in more depth with articles, interviews and short-films.
Behind the box insights and why the Windrush theme was difficult to curate
Imagine waking up tomorrow and being told you no longer had the right to stay and live in your home. That is exactly what befell the Windrush generation, immigrants from Caribbean commonwealth countries who were legally entitled to move to and settle in the UK. It...
Out of sight, out of mind: Australia’s offshore detention centres
“Forgive me, my bird, as I am not able to embrace you. But here I know some immigrant birds. I smile at them at the crack of dawn and I embrace them with open arms. […] The man loves you, inside a cage located between the vastest ocean and the greenest...
Best UK subscription boxes for Christmas 2020
With Christmas around the corner, a guide to gifting could be just the ticket you need to manage the present buying of those who’ve made the nice list. And in modern busy lives, what’s better than the gift of monthly post. It’s a tangible gift that lasts more than...
Best 2020 Christmas gifts for book lovers
Bookworms' shelves are stocked all year round with prizewinners, debut fiction and sequels. So when it comes to Christmas, what’s left to buy the bibliophiles when their ‘to read’ list is already backlogged into 2021. At Heady Mix HQ we’re well accustomed to...
Burnt Sugar
I wait for the fly to leave, to catch a scent from outside, a familiar breeze. But it doesn’t. It continues crossing from one side of the room to another. (p.137, Burnt Sugar)Burnt Sugar is a compelling story of daughter and mother rivalry, and the intertwined...
The New Wilderness
The heaviness in her chest inched up to her throat. She guessed it had to do with being somewhere so familiar when such familiarity wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. (p.232, The New Wilderness)Bea has relinquished life in the overcrowded City, with its toxic air...
Us, me, you, ours: a stop to the othering of refugees
When you don’t exist is Amnesty International’s campaign that sought to raise awareness of the stigma, stereotype and shameful othering of refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers arriving at European borders. The title film, shown here, pivots the crisis, making...
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
“The rifle had disappeared… Soon she will have to admit it is nowhere. It has slipped into a crevice that can swallow girls just as easily as it devours guns.” (p.24, The Shadow King)On the verge of World War Two, Italy invades Ethiopia. The year is 1935, the...
Preserving pieces of home: cultural context for a lost generation
My humanity won’t allow me to kill as retribution for my suffering. So instead, I kill the rock, to unleash the creation within it. Killing the Rock is a film that runs little over five minutes in length, yet it is one that provokes such a visceral, emotional...
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
In the dark spaces between the puddles of weak yellow light, flying insects whirl and hurl themselves against the windscreen, following their instincts for brighter places. (p.209, This Mournable Body)Like such insects, Tambudzai strives to create, or have...