Living on less

Our author reports on a dangerous and high-adrenalin stunt show that has gripped him since childhood. The “Well of Death”, where cars race around a near-vertical track, is part of an annual religious festival  

From indigenous myths to playground games, the jaguar is iconic in Colombia. The legendary beast has proven itself adaptable through the centuries

South Africa's passion for barbecuing unites all social classes. The award-winning writer Dalmon Galgut talks us through the social gathering which has deep cultural roots

The scientist Maria Teresa Escalas lives in Mallorca, overlooking a rocky bay called Cala Santanyí. It is a modernist structure with sharp angles and clear lines but it also blends into the colour scheme of the local coastline.

The author Musa Okwonga hasn’t looked back on his decision to leave his home country Great Britain. On a life between Eton College, day-to-day life in Berlin and memories of Uganda

For half a century, activist and author Vandana Shiva has been criticising the excesses of the global economy and arguing for a simple life. A conversation about false abundance and the necessity of downsizing

Only those who already have something can settle for less. But for many people around the globe, going without things is no more than a pipe dream. A life spent living in and fleeing from the Central African Republic

In the middle of the Saloum river delta in Senegal lies the island of Diamniadio. Here people live off the sea – but every year the nets get a little emptier

What do you need in life? From Canada to South Africa to Pakistan, people around the globe explain what they can’t live without. Here Fatma Aydemir and T. C. Boyle say what is indispensable

The restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis is one of the best in the USA. Its owner Sean Sherman is both a chef and an activist. On serving food with explosive political power

What makes a building a beautiful structure? Ornamentation on the front? Or is a building beautiful if it houses as many people as possible? Can we separate the aesthetic evaluation of a building from its construction circumstances and the ecological and human price it cost?

The notion of recycling and saving resources was already an everyday reality in Japan 300 years ago. Makiko Yamaguchi reflects on the Edo era

In search of people who have had enough of big city life, the French photographer Antoine Bruy has traveled through Europe and North America. The result is the visually stunning photo series “Scrublands,” in which he documents people who opt out of society, depicting their everyday lives

In Taiwan, the digital world is displacing the physical one. Even tradition is migrating to the cloud. Our author sets out in search of a lost era

What once seemed significant for author Serhij Zhadan - irony, coolness, status symbols -  became irrelevant overnight when war broke out in his homeland. Now, collective solidarity and the fight against “evil” is what counts. How are the people in Ukraine affected by this sudden shift?

On the social media platform TikTok, #celibacy has become a global trend. Why are more and more young people voluntarily abstaining from sex?

What does it take to get to the top - and what do you have to give up? A conversation with ballerina Aurora Dickie

In music, forgoing excess often stands for minimalist innovation. Rarely has less been so much more than in the nine piano pieces that the musician Malakoff Kowalski handpicked for this playlist

The atmosphere for journalists in Cuba is increasingly tense. As a last resort, they are turning to the internet - or exile

Sweden has long stood for cosmopolitanism and tolerance. But now a shift to the right is sweeping through the country - and its colourful image is crumbling. How could this happen?

The project “Intimacy of Longing” uses interviews and mixtapes to tell the stories of Turkish women who migrated to Germany. On the link between music and homeland

Despite its difficult past with Turkey, a majority of the Armenian population wants a normalisation of Armenian-Turkish relations. How did this come about?

In a world of fast-moving news about the War in Ukraine and climate change, it is often hard to focus and take time to create art. But literature works on a different clock: It needs time to form and silence to emerge.

In his books, Abdulrazak Gurnah takes a close-up look at life under colonial rule - and probes both his East African roots and his British homeland. A conversation

Politics clashes with everyday life in Brazil, in a story of sisterhood, race and religion. Itamar Vieira Junior's debut novel thrives on this colourful mix

A new historical world atlas claims to break away from a purely Eurocentric view of the world. It almost succeeds