Film shot in Vernon premiers at Okanagan Arts Festival - Vernon Morning Star

Among Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s favorite activities since he took office is pooh-poohing climate change initiatives while, almost surreptitiously, working to conserve swathes of the state he represents. Now, a group of environmental activists has found a way to make him sweat. A life-size statue of the Republican governor was unveiled in Tallahassee last week, only to begin melting in the Florida sunshine. As DeSantis’s silver-colored face slowly slipped away, a dastardly-looking skull appeared underneath. According to The Guardian, it was all part of the plan.

Earlier this month, the publisher Faber & Faber announced that it was pulling the books of Sally Rooney from UK shops due to the Irish novelist’s support for Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian group designated as a terrorist organization by the UK government. Now, dozens of artists and writers have signed an open letter that appeared in the New Statesman on Wednesday in protest of the UK government’s policy. Among the signatories are artists John Akomfrah and Ben Rivers, art historian William Dalrymple, writer and Joyland magazine editor Stephanie Wambugu, and novelist and critic Kate Zambreno. Other prominent signatories include film director Jonathan Glazer; novelists Patricia Lockwood, Ben Lerner, and Zadie Smith; philosopher Slavoj Žižek; and actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, who starred in the television adaptation of Rooney’s Normal People.

cosima von bonin’s plush animals arrive at paris’ petit palaisParis’ Petit Palais has acquired some unusual residents for Art Basel Paris 2026. A velvet St. Bernard has joined the figures in its historic sculpture gallery, while leather octopuses and mohair whales occupy the same grand setting. The animals belong to Dollys & Beaux, an installation by Cologne-based artist Cosima von Bonin, whose oversized fabric creatures, created first for LOEWE, bring a peculiar sense of humor to the museum’s collection of classical sculpture. The gathering includes a bulldog and a pair of scallops, along with hermit crabs that extend the artist’s strange little animal kingdom. Some have been dressed in silk scarves, while others sport tartan textiles added especially for their appearance in Paris. Their soft, exaggerated bodies seem perfectly comfortable sharing the gallery with their more solemn neighbors. It’s an amusing encounter between materials, with floppy fabric creatures taking their place among figures traditionally carved to endure.

Chanel is deepening its relationship with Hong Kong’s M+ museum, signing on as its lead partner for the next three years and expanding its support beyond film to exhibitions, artist programs, and other projects. The French luxury house has backed M+, the contemporary visual culture museum in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, since 2023. The partnership has until now mostly focused on experimental cinema, film restoration, and building the museum’s moving-image collection. The new agreement, announced Wednesday, will bring Chanel into a much broader range of the museum’s activities.

Yesterday, visitors to the fifth edition of Art Basel Paris had the chance to preview its “Hors les murs” program, which spreads monumental artworks across nine exceptional cultural and heritage sites in the French capital. Among the highlights are works by Niki de Saint Phalle and Alicja Kwade, displayed along Avenue Winston Churchill, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. Yet these encounters also serve as reminders of what the program has lost. Kwade and Saint Phalle were previously featured on Place Vendôme and in the Tuileries, respectively, but both of those venues are now absent from the itinerary, as are the Institut de France, the Musée Eugène-Delacroix, and the courtyard of the Hôtel de la Marine.

The Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Walker Youngbird Foundation will jointly launch a new residency program for Native artists beginning next spring. Called the Walker Youngbird Native Artist Residency, the initiative will bring a Native artist to FAWC for four weeks (May 23–June 19). The Walker Youngbird Foundation will provide $10,000 for the inaugural year, $2,500 of which will go to the artist as a stipend. The chosen artist will also receive a private apartment and a 400-square-foot studio during their stay, as well as access to FAWC’s broader creative community and a closing public program.