Jay Cheshes Photographs by sa SjstrmIn February 2013, the Moderna Museet, Stockholms national museum of modern art, opened a blockbuster show, Hilma af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction, heralding a then-obscure Swedish artista woman, a mysticwho painted at the turn of the 20th century. Believing her art carried spiritual messages that would benefit humankind, af Klint worked with non-figurative forms years before her male peers Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich were credited with inventing abstract art. In Stockholm, the show shattered the museums attendance records, and it eventually attracted more than a million visitors as it toured museums across Europe. Now, 81 years after her death, this once overlooked Swedish artist, her work barely shown in her lifetime, has become a posthumous global sensation and her countrys biggest art export. One should not overestimate how unbelievably unknown she was, Daniel Birnbaum, the former director of the Moderna Museet, who helped organize the show, told me in Stockholm recently.In the years since the Moderna Museet show, the booming interest in af Klints life and work has been dizzying: a feature film, Hilma, by acclaimed director Lasse Hallstrm; a comprehensive biography by the German art historian Julia Voss; a couple of operas; a childrens picture book; a historical novel, The Friday Night Club; even a comic book, The Five Lives of Hilma af Klint. An immersive af Klint virtual reality experience debuted in London three years ago, followed by a sale of unique digital reproductions known as NFTs that were backed by pop star Pharrell Williams. Cheap posters of her most recognizable works have become big sellers online. In addition to challenging the long-established story of the birth of abstract art, af Klint has become a cultural force, touted as an early feminist, a queer icon, a prophet, a witchwhatever your worldview wishes for her to be. There are millions of younger artists who adore her, Birnbaum says. You can almost say theres a Hilma af Klint school now. Johan af Klint, Hilmas great-nephew, points to Adelso, an island near Stockholm, where the artist spent parts of her childhood and grew to love the natural world. sa SjstrmAnd since 2013 her work has been perpetually on tour. The Moderna Museet show traveled to Denmark, Norway, Germany, Estonia and Spain. In 2018, af Klints work reached New York, with a large survey, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, filling the rotunda at the Guggenheim Museum, once again breaking attendance records and further cementing her status as an international art star. I very much felt that our ideas about abstraction needed to be more expansive than they were, Tracey Bashkoff, the shows lead curator, told me. Last fall, a sequel, even more comprehensive, with 220 artworks, opened at the Guggenheims outpost in Bilbao, Spain. Much of that work traveled to Japan this spring for af Klints first major show in Asia, on view at Tokyos National Museum of Modern Art through mid-June.This spring she also makes her solo debut at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers. The title is taken from a line in her notebooks, and the exhibition showcases a portfolio of 46 botanical drawings completed between 1919 and 1920, close studies of plant life mixed with diagrammatic abstractionsnever shown publiclythat were purchased from a private collection three years ago. We realized her story is an interesting one, says Jodi Hauptman, the shows chief curator, of MoMAs decision to spotlight her work. She brings up all sorts of other narratives of abstraction that have to do with interest in alternative spiritualities and the intersection of spirit and science.But af Klint might have just as easily faded into obscurity, her work forgotten, her spiritual messages dismissed as a cranks. For decades after her death, in 1944, some in the art world certainly viewed her that way. In 1986, a few of her pieces found their way into a group show called The Spiritual in ArtSubscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $19.99This article is a selection from the April/May 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazineInfinite Change, a sculpture by Oleg Nourpeissov, in Angelsberg, Sweden. The pyramid recalls af Klints monumental Altarpiece paintings. sa SjstrmNow her posthumous fame has unleashed a tangled knot of conflicting artistic, financial, cultural and personal interests that threatens to overshadow the work itself. A bitter battle is underway for control of the Hilma af Klint Foundation, which was founded 53 years ago to safeguard her legacy and possesses nearly her entire esoteric output, opening a litigious rift over who has the right to show her work, who should see it and who should benefit from what she left behind. And new materials unearthed recently about af Klints wider spiritual circle, as well as new information found sifting through her own prodigious writings, have begun to challenge established narratives about who made the work. Was Hilma af Klint a singular visionary, alone with her thoughts, as early biographers wrote? Or has she been mistakenly credited with the achievements of a collective of women, sharing ideas and creative output in search of enlightenment?Af Klint was born in 1862 into an affluent, noble Swedish family with a nautical lineageboth her father and grandfather were high-ranking officers in the Swedish Navy. Af Klint and her three siblings (a fourth had died in infancy before Hilma was born) were raised in Stockholm, and they spent their summers on the familys pastoral estate on the island of Adelso, west of the city. As a young woman she showed a natural affinity for art. After taking classes at Stockholms Technical School, at 19 she secured a spot at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, among the first art schools in Europe to admit women full time.It was a period of cultural, scientific and political upheaval as the turn of the 20th century approached. Across Sweden women were starting to chart their own path in life. And a fascination with the occult was brewing in the upper echelons of Swedish society. Af Klint began dabbling in sances even before art school, communing with the spirit world while grappling with the devastating loss of her younger sister, Hermina, who died suddenly, at 10 years old, in 1880. A 1919 nature study by af Klint showing European larch, blackthorn, Norway maple, English oak, a rivulet moth and a red-tailed bumblebee. The watercolor was part of an uncompleted project focusing on the natural world The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by Art Resource, NYAfter graduation from art school, af Klint found work painting conventional portraits and landscapes. And with her classmate Anna Cassel, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, in 1896 she joined the Edelweiss Society, a womens spiritualist group that gathered regularly to conduct sances. Af Klint, Cassel and three other membersan experienced medium, Sigrid Hedman, and sisters Mathilda Nilsson and Cornelia Cederbergsoon broke off to form their own splinter group, the Five, as they called themselves. Meeting weekly in each others homes, af Klint and her friends used a psychograph, a strange new device said to enhance psychic powers, to help them communicate with spirits. Messages arrived in words, written in collective notebooks, and in images delivered as automatic drawingstheir hands, guided by the spirits, they believed, creating jerky, jagged, non-representational forms that they all signed as a group.They heard from a regular collection of voices. The High Ones, as Voss describes them in Hilma af Klint: A Biography, first published in German five years ago, were spirits from distant times and exotic places, including Ananda, who shared the name of the Buddhas closest disciple, and a medieval priest, Gregor, who seemed locked in an eternal battle against heresy in the Catholic Church.New esoteric spiritual movements had begun sweeping across Europe. Af Klint and Cassel found their way to Theosophy, which mixed Eastern and Western spiritual thought, and later followed Austrian guru Rudolf Steiner to its more Christian offshoot, Anthroposophy, which he founded in 1912. Af Klint kept a meticulous record of her spiritual journey, in what would grow to thousands of pages of handwritten notebooks. Though the Five continued to meet as a group, af Klint also heard voices on her own. The spirits, she believed, had been reaching out to her directly since the 1890s. And they told her to paint. She recorded one such message in 1907: Take your palette and begin. Expect a surprise! Strange forms poured out of herbig looping flowers, organic spirals, cubes of contrasting primary colors. Af Klint as a student at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1885. Courtesy of Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints VerkBy 1915 she had completed a whole body of work, 193 otherworldly paintings in a mix of abstract, symbolistic and figurative forms, all done in series: Primordial Chaos, Eros, Evolution, among other cycles exploring metaphysical themes. The most monumental pieces, simply called the Ten Largest, were dramatic tempera pigment works on paper more than ten feet tall and had been completed in a frenzied nine-week period in 1907. Altogether the collection formed what came to be known as the Paintings for the Temple. She dreamed of a physical space, a temple, that would one day house her art, and she sketched plans in her notebooks, even pinpointing potential locations. In her mind the paintings were more religious icons than classic artworks, carrying sacred messages, and were commissions, she wrote, from the astral plane. Ulf Wagner, an artist and art historian who oversees the Hilma af Klint Foundations archive, told me, Not one of these paintings is signed, because from her point of view it was not art. It was something else.Every shape, every color seemed to have a secret meaning. But in her notebooks, her writing often as portentous as scripture, even af Klint didnt seem to fully understand what story they told. By the time she completed the Paintings for the Temple, she had developed a fixation with Steiner, seeking his spiritual guidance and constant approval. She hoped he might eventually help her decipher the work. And, increasingly convinced of her prophetic gifts, she eventually widened the circle of women around her to 13. The number had significance. The collective soul is a conglomeration of several souls, she wrote in her notebooks. When such a conglomeration has reached a certain stage, its task is to send the strongest of the group to Earth, the one we call the Thirteenth. Many of the women played a role in her artistic creations. They prayed, they had sances, they had love affairs, they did many things together, Birnbaum said. But she was the motor behind the painterly project. Thats what I believe. Johan af Klint, 85, inspecting a portrait of a child painted by his great-aunt that now decorates his apartment in Stockholm sa SjstrmBut operating outside the art world, af Klint struggled to find a wider audience for her work among either art lovers or spiritual believers. Upon her death in 1944, childless and never married, she left behind some 1,300 works of art and a mountain of writing26,000 notebook pages. These were bequeathed to her nephew Erik af Klint, a vice admiral in the Swedish Navy. She came to believe that future generations might one day grasp the work, and, according to Voss, she indicated in her notebooks that many of her most cherished works should be locked away until 20 years after her death.True to her wishes, this remarkable trove remained hidden for decades. The art had been collected from her last studio, on the island of Munso, just across a narrow strait from Adelso, then rolled up in crates and stored in an attic atop the apartment building in central Stockholm where Erik moved with his family after the war. One day in 1966, accompanied by his youngest son, Johan, he finally began to unspool and photograph his Aunt Hilmas work. He hoped hed find a permanent home for it in a Swedish museum. But at every institution he visited, beginning with the Moderna Museet, he was roundly dismissed.In those days it was taboo to talk about the spiritual and painting, Johan, now 85 and retired from a career in finance, told me one morning last fall, at the dining room table of his antiques-filled Stockholm apartment. Johan honed his sharp English diction living abroad in New York, California, London and Southeast Asia, where he picked up an abiding interest in Buddhism. On the walls of his apartment hung paintings of old sailing ships along with some of af Klints more conventional art: coastal landscapes, a portrait of a young boy, each painted in oils before her psychic visions began to radically reshape her work. The 1915 painting Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece, one of 193 monumental works af Klint hoped would one day decorate a temple dedicated to her esoteric faith. incamerastock / AlamyIn 1972, frustrated by museum rejections, Johans father, Erik, launched the Hilma af Klint Foundation, donating her entire oeuvre to the organization, hoping it would help keep the work safe. Johan took over as chair in 2011, when preparations for the Moderna Museet show, which would audaciously reframe af Klint as an artist of world-historical importance, were just beginning.The museum had earlier snubbed an offer of a huge af Klint bequest, but it had begun to see her work in a new light, responding to broad cultural shifts in the historically male-centered art world. Even before planning the show, the institution had been maneuvering for more gender parity in its permanent collection. In retrospect, Birnbaum told me, the af Klint shows subtitle (A Pioneer of Abstraction) was always intended to provoke. Shes not only abstract, he said. There are moments when theres no other word for it, but it was never the endgame. I mean, she invented, or at least she discovered, abstraction as a possibility in a more complex way to work.As a painter, af Klint came of age just as a rush of new artistic movements were emerging in Europe, as Post-Impressionism mixed with Art Nouveau, and Cubism and Fauvism were producing avant-garde art stars. Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch showed his work in Stockholm, rising to prominence just as af Klint began finding her own artistic voice. She was surely aware of the broader cultural context, according to Voss, her biographer, but she kept the art world at arms length, focusing her efforts on reaching a spiritual audience. (When some of the Paintings for the Temple traveled to London in 1928, it wasnt for a gallery or museum show but for the World Conference on Spiritual Science, organized by the English Anthroposophical Society.)Working in relative isolation, she produced an often-bewildering body of work, laden with symbolism, endlessly open to interpretation. Af Klints real intentions remain elusive, buried in the labyrinth of her elliptical writing. Its very hard reading, says Johan, of her notebooks. Its not a straight line, where you come to a conclusion. She writes in circles. And theres little personal context to frame her spiritual writing. Af Klint edited her own notebooks later in life, rewriting or destroying entire passages and exorcising biographical details. In 1930, she took away everything that has to do with her in the notebooks, Johan says. So, we in the later generations have a hard time finding out who she was. Anna Cassel, af Klints art school classmate, fellow spiritualist devotee and lifelong friend. Recent findings suggest she played a large role in creating af Klints celebrated art. G. HertzbergJohan said he remembers meeting his great-aunt a few times as a child. She left him a mission, he claims, two years before her death, when he was just 3 years old. She gave us a task, my brother and me, that when you grow up you should protect my work and you should also disclose unreliability around the works, people you cant rely on, he said. Hes been doing his best to honor that commitment, by working with other family members to unleash a flood of litigationand wage a public relations campaignagainst other members of the Hilma af Klint Foundation board who he feels seek to profit from his great-aunts intellectual property. For example, the af Klints allege that NFTs released by a London-based company, Acute Art, under the creative direction of Birnbaum, were commissioned without the familys consent, and, in their commercial nature, ran counter to both Hilma af Klints spiritual intent and the interests of the foundation. (The works theyre based on have been in the public domain since 2014, when copyright protections ran out.) Birnbaum, who was on the foundations board, has stepped down. They now claim that everyone else is taking advantage, he told me.Johan and his allies have also fended off attempts to sell or disperse af Klints work, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to private buyers or museums. All of a sudden, people want to come in and grab them, Johan says. And a few years ago, he helped derail plans for a Hilma af Klint museum on the Anthroposophical Society compound outside Stockholm, where the Hilma af Klint Foundation once stored her art, objecting to the design, location and mission, and alleging that the museums main champion, Anders Kumlander, the Swedish Anthroposophical Societys former secretary general, had personally profited from buying and selling af Klint works. Kumlander, who is also a member of the af Klint Foundation board, denies any wrongdoing. Its enough with fighting, Kumlander told me.And the battles continue under Johans 58-year-old nephew Erik af Klintnamed after his grandfathera medical doctor and Christian preacher who heads the board today. Johan and Erik have been allies on the legal front, but they have different views of af Klints art. Johan picks up on Buddhist symbolism in the work, as filtered through theosophys Eastern influences, while Erik sees biblical themes. (Af Klints notebooks cover a broad spectrum of spiritual thought.) If you know the Bible, you can understand her art, Erik insisted when I met him one morning, over coffee and cardamom cake in his spare, almost monastic apartment in Stockholm. A notebook page dated July 1919, when af Klint, living on the island of Munso, was engaged in her close study of the natural world. Volgi archive / AlamyErik believes af Klint never intended for her Paintings for the Temple to reach a broad audience. He says his grandfather wrote the foundation statutes to make that clear. The board shall keep the work accessible to those who seek spiritual knowledge, the provision begins. Erik argues that the many museum exhibitions in recent years all violate that intent, and he is working to block future shows. He hopes af Klints work will eventually inhabit the temple she dreamed of, open only to true believers. The foundation board should make an effort to show it to the right type of people, he said, of af Klints esoteric work. It has to be a spiritual seeker who wants to support what Hilmas spiritual guides were trying to tell her.But Erik is alone on the board in pushing to retroactively lock af Klints work down. He seems to recognize this is one battle hes not likely to win. Not even Johan supports the idea. If you dont show the paintings to everyone, how can you influence them? Johan asked me, rhetorically.The foundations legal infighting provides a sensationalist art-world dimension to af Klints sudden posthumous fame. But art historians and biographers are at least as swept up in the revelations emerging from what is essentially the brand-new field of Hilma af Klint studies, as scholars get to work digging through a mountain of previously neglected historical materials. Four years ago, for instance, Kurt Almqvist, an independent scholar and book publisher, found Anna Cassels journalssome 60 notebooksin a storage cubby on the Swedish Anthroposophical Society compound. The discovery has opened a dramatic new chapter in the hunt for insights into af Klint and her universe. Biographers have often portrayed af Klint as the lone artistic force behind her work, but Almqvist, who found Cassels notebooks in an unmarked box, has another perspective. The difference here is its a spiritual group, and its very explicit that this is a common work, he says. Almqvist heads the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit, having married into the industrial dynasty behind it. The private think tank has a broad purview and deep pockets, organizing conferences on art, culture, history and political thought. His first brush with af Klint came 12 years ago, when Birnbaum invited him to organize a series of academic seminars tied to the Moderna Museet show. He found himself drawn into the mystique surrounding af Klint and her work. The pictures are enigmatic, he says. You dont know what they mean. They contain a riddle you have to figure out. Marie Cassel, Annas great-niece, seated, with Birgit Lamke, left, and Kerstin Friberger, relatives of Mathilda Nilsson and Cornelia Cederberg, members of af Klints circle. sa SjstrmSince then, through his familys publishing house, Stolpe, Almqvist has overseen an array of books on af Klint, including a monumental seven-volume catalogue raisonn, published three years ago. And in 2023, he published Anna Cassel: The Saga of the Rose, a book, co-edited with Birnbaum, that focuses on Cassel as an independent artist and showcases her own esoteric paintings. Provocatively, the book included an essay, Who Created The Paintings for the Temple? by Hedvig Martin, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam who is completing a thesis on af Klint and the women around her. Martin argues that Cassel played a much larger role in the creation of af Klints sprawling masterpiece than previously acknowledged. Among other things, she has identified stylistic differences in some paintings attributed to af Klint that indicate they were in fact painted by Cassel. Af Klints brushstrokes tended to be more expressive and free-form, for example, while Cassels were more careful, even meticulous. And af Klint herself wrote about Cassels role in the work. The two of us will work out a full series; our efforts will complement each other, she wrote in 1914.Its not only that Anna Cassel painted some of the Paintings for the Temple, Martin told me. But in almost every series there are several women working with Hilma. We dont know if they were assistants or were working independently, because the notebooks dont reveal that much. But the narrative used to be that Hilma worked alone, against all odds. The manor house owned by Cassels family. Scion of a wealthy industrialist, Cassel helped finance af Klints career; in time, financial tensions simmered between them. sa SjstrmThe material has raised new questions about attribution in museum circles, though af Klint is still widely credited as sole author of the works. Hauptman, the curator of MoMAs upcoming show, told me, To me, it only makes it more interesting that these women were working together. It doesnt lessen the work. Of course, many celebrated artists across history, from Rembrandt to Warhol, worked collaboratively while retaining the spotlight. It doesnt feel like a conflict, really, Bashkoff, of the Guggenheim, says. It also feels a little likeif this were a man, we wouldnt really be talking about this. The lone creator is a myth that goes back a long time in art history. It doesnt shake me to the core.For his part, Johan af Klint agrees that Cassel may have played a role in creating af Klints work, but he believes Almqvists book goes too far. He argues that Cassel was not with af Klint during most of the period when the Paintings for the Temple were made. She was with Hilma the first year, Johan said. Then she came back in 1912 or 1913five or so years laterand started to try painting as Hilma did. Of course, Anna Cassel should be recognized for what she was. I have no problem with that.Almqvist is now completing a new book, based on a close reading of af Klints writing and Cassels, exploring themes found in both womens notebooks, including discussions of sexuality that were progressive for the time. (For example, af Klint wrote about gender duality, the twin soul, and feeling like a man in a womans body.) You can start to compare, he says. What is the difference in their perspectives on the same time period? A 1908 automatic drawing signed collectively by the Five, af Klints spiritual group. The women believed that spirits controlled their hands to impart messages from another realm. Drawing: The Moderna Museet, Stockholm, SwedenAf Klint and Cassel seem to have had a complicated relationship. The best of friends in their 20sperhaps more than thatthey remained close throughout their lifetimes, even after tensions and disappointments, including a dispute about financing for af Klints studio. In her notebooks, af Klint recorded conversations with Cassel and other women in her spiritual orbit that she said took place after their deaths. She refused to let them go because they are karmically tied to one another, Almqvist said.One frosty fall afternoon, I visited Marie Cassel, Annas 72-year-old great-niece, a retired teacher and social worker who is now working with two friends on researching a book about her great-aunt. Marie laid out a generous spread of pork sausages and warm potato salad in her apartment in a Stockholm suburb. Anna Cassel was my grandfathers sister, she said. She died in 1937. I was born in 1952.Marie grew up hearing little about her great-aunt, picking up only a few fragments over the years. We knew she went to a royal academy, she said over lunch. And my aunts told me she had financed Hilmas work. And maybe they were lovers.She long wondered about Cassels life as an artist, and after seeing af Klints breakout show at the Moderna Museet, Marie said, she became convinced Cassel had played a role in the work. How likely was it that Hilma painted 1,000-something paintings and Anna stood and stared? she said. As af Klints fame grew, uncovering Cassels story became an obsession. And the more Marie learned, the more she wondered about other members of their spiritual group. Their stories had vanished, too. Im not angry with Hilma af Klint, she told me. I want the truth. And isnt it more interesting if we say the work was a group work? Kurt Almqvist, an independent scholar and book publisher, who discovered Cassels journals four years ago. Hes now working on a book about af Klint and Cassel. sa SjstrmMarie enlisted her ex-husband, an especially resourceful librarian, to help track down living relatives of the other women in the Five. They reached a descendant of Hedman, the medium. She inherited a stash of journals, she said, but is too spooked to share them. We understood she was afraid of the spirits, Marie said. They also found great-nieces of the sisters Mathilda Nilsson and Cornelia CederbergKerstin Friberger, 91, and Birgit Lamke, 85, who are also sisters.After lunch at Maries place, we drove a short distance to meet the sisters at Fribergers home. When Marie first reached out to them, she hoped theyd have more details, maybe even letters or journals, to share, but Friberger and Lamke had nothing. They hadnt even known of their relatives connection to af Klint. It was you who made us aware, Friberger said, a glass of white wine in her hand, looking over at her sister. Now, in old age, theyve started reading up on their ancestors. In the central library in Stockholm, they found copies of an esoteric magazine, Afterwards: Journal of Spiritism and Related Topics, which Nilsson had run, as editor and contributor, more than 100 years ago.By 1909, the Five had dissolved. The first 111 Paintings for the Temple, including the Ten Largest, were finished by then. Of the original group, only Cassel remained. Af Klint was collecting new disciples as she dove into Steiners writing and lectures. She took a four-year break from the Paintings for the Temple before completing the cycle in 1915. A few years later, she left Stockholm for Munso.I drove west to Munso on a rain-soaked Sunday morning with Johan af Klint and his niece Hedvig Ersman. To reach the island, a sprawling expanse of horse and cattle farms, we passed the Swedish royal residence at Drottningholm Palace, but I was most interested to see the lonely spot on the waterfront where af Klint built a studio in 1917, on a patch of wooded land owned by the family of a wealthy friend named Emilia Giertta, another member of her circle. Af Klint envisioned a residential community there, a sort of commune where she and her friends might live and work. The second in af Klints 14-painting Dove series, from 1915, which explored themes of divinity and cosmic harmony. Other Dove works include planets and astrological symbols. IanDagnall Computing / AlamyOn Munso af Klint began a new project, a close study of the natural world. First I will attempt to understand the flowers of the earth, she wrote in her notebooks. Finally, I will penetrate the forest, exploring the silent mosses, the trees and the many animals that inhabit the cool, dark undergrowth.The botanical drawings purchased by MoMA in 2022 appear to be part of that project, a botanical atlas, as Hauptman, the MoMA curator, describes it, that af Klint never completed. She had planned to build on ideas from Steiner, who devised the principles of biodynamic farming, a holistic system of crop production tied to the phases of the moon. In New York, Hauptman told me that for af Klint this study was tied to her larger spiritual project. This idea that the close observation of the natural world will yield information on the human condition, that you can look at that birch tree and if you really observe it, you can learn something about your own selfSteiner talks about some of that.Beginning in 1919, drawing in the blooming months, af Klint completed a cycle of work focused on the plant life around her. But the project never went beyond that, and in 1922, when af Klint turned 60, she moved in a new artistic direction, embracing a wet-on-wet style of watercolor painting she would continue to practice through the end of her life. She also devoted considerable time and energy to finding a home for her 193 Paintings for the Temple. She began spending extended periods of time in Switzerland, visiting the Anthroposophical Society headquarters in Dornach, hoping to convince Steiner to take them. In 1924, she wrote him a curt letter. Should the paintings executed by me between 1906 and 1920, of which you, Doctor, once saw several, be destroyed, or can they be used somewhere? Hedvig Martin, an art historian at the University of Amsterdam, argues that a number of women joined af Klint in painting works attributed to her, including some of the best-known. sa SjstrmSteiner advised her to hold on to the works. She spent the next 20 years working, in vain, to find a permanent home for them, and eventually came to believe the world was not quite ready for them. (In her notebooks, she called them paintings for the future.) Finally, in 1943, she received an offer from the Sigtuna Foundation, a Protestant organization, to build her a museum. She declined. Putting the work one day in the hands of people who do not have an Anthroposophical outlook might be problematic, she wrote.The following year, in October 1944, af Klint stepped off a streetcar in Stockholm. She tried to steady herself but faltered and fell, banging her head and bruising her arm. Weeks later, just shy of her 82nd birthday, she succumbed to her injuries. Much of her art was stashed in the studio on Munso, on property now owned by Gierttas son. He gave the elder Erik af Klint three months to clear everything out before he leveled the building.This was a new generation, with new ideas, Johan said, as we drove out toward the forest clearing where af Klints wood-framed studio had stood. The building was gone, but the stone villa where af Klint slept remained. Ersman, an architect, dreams of rebuilding the studio. It looked like an American barn, she said. The site is already a stop on an af Klint-themed tour shes led through the region.Below us, the road dead-ended at the waters edge, and we joined a line of cars awaiting the ferry across the strait to neighboring Adelso, where the af Klint family once owned vast stretches of pastoral farmland. After spending childhood summers there, af Klint returned later in life with her pencils and brushes. In her naturalistic paintings you can see where she was, Johan said as we drove off the ferry and passed under a tunnel of pine trees. You recognize the views. Ersman said, Hilma was living in a city always, but she was, all her life from childhood until the last year of her life, coming out here. On these lands she developed her sensibility to life, to botany, to birds. In her art, she was carrying these places with her always and coming back to them. A cultural center in Jarna, Sweden, where for years the Anthroposophical Society stored af Klints works in the basement. Cassels journals were found there in a storage cubby. sa SjstrmFour years ago, Ersman helped a friend, Anna Maria Bernitz, an art historian, organize the first af Klint tour herea Hilma af Klint Safari, they called it. They led a caravan of cars filled with af Klint groupies from the studio site on Munso onto the ring road around Adelso, past the former af Klint family estates at Hanmora and Tofta (sold off long ago), the Viking burial mounds, and the 12th-century church with the af Klint family plot.Hilma af Klint herself is buried elsewhere, interred with her parents in a small naval graveyard behind the maritime-themed Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The modest gravestone bears not Hilmas name but her fathers: Commander Victor af Klint Family Grave, it reads. There are no markings at all to indicate that Hilma af Klint lies there. In fact, youll find no public memorials anywhere in Sweden to her life and work, no commemorative statue or plaque, neither in Stockholm nor on the islands where she found inspiration.Last spring, Ersmans tours got a permanent home, taking over a historic rectory. She plans to open the building this summer as the Hilma af Klint Center Adelsopart cultural center, part artist residency. It wont be the temple af Klint dreamed of for her art, but it will be something. A lot of people come to Stockholm and wonder, Where do I go to see Hilma af Klint? Ersman said. At the moment there is no place.Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox.Filed Under: Art, Art History, Artists, Painters, Painting,

Nintendo announces new lending feature for digital gamesDigital games will become Virtual Game Cards, can be lended to Nintendo Account family group membersImage credit: Nintendo News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on March 28, 2025 Nintendo has announced a new feature for the Switch and Switch 2 changing digital games to Virtual Game Cards.Set to launch in late April, users will be able to digitally eject and load games between two systems, and lend titles to Nintendo Account family group members as they would with physical game cards.Virtual Game Cards will be designated to a dedicated management screen, where users can load, eject, and manage which cards can be played on the system.It also allows digital games to be shared across two devices linked to the same Nintendo account.Local communication is required for the first time this feature is used, but after this step users will be able to pre-load and arrange which games are available to play on both systems.Lending games is achieved through a local wireless connection, enabling family members to play the game on their own system.Only one game can be borrowed at a time for a total of two weeks. Once that period ends, the game will automatically be sent back to the original owner.Save data will remain on the borrower's account, which can be accessed if they borrow again or purchase the game.

Nintendo launches Nintendo Today app on smart devicesFirm will use app to provide news and updates directly to consumersImage credit: Nintendo News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on March 28, 2025 Nintendo has launched a new app for smart devices focused on bringing news and updates directly to consumers.The Nintendo Today app, announced during a Nintendo Direct broadcast yesterday, features a calendar providing daily updates about the firm's games, franchises, Directs, and in-game events.These features will be personalised to users, and the app will also provide updates about the upcoming Switch 2.The app is free to download from Apple's App Store and Google Play. A Nintendo account is required for consumers to use the app.Nintendo Today can be displayed on home screens with related widgets, and will also include comics and wallpapers from featured Nintendo games.

The Ploopy Classic 2 trackball trades a USB-B port for USB-C. | Image: PloopyPloopy, a Canadian company known for its customizable open-source peripherals, has announced an upgraded version of its Classic trackball mouse. The Classic 2 has the exact same shape and ergonomics as the original but offers improved connectivity, a more accurate and reliable scroll wheel, and an upgraded design, making it easier to 3D print without the need for adding support materials.The Ploopy Classic 2 is now available as a kit youll need to assemble and solder yourself for around $101 ($144.99 CAD), or you can get it already assembled for around $147 ($209.99 CAD). Due to the design of its PCBs, the original Classic cant be upgraded to the Classic 2.The most useful improvement on the Classic 2 is a switch from USB-B that chunky USB port most often found on printers to USB-C. The company originally went with USB-B because it found the connector to be very mechanically strong, but has since found USB-C to be just as reliable after using it on other products.The Classic 2 also fixes an issue with the originals scroll wheel. If spun too quickly, it would act oddly or sometimes reverse direction unexpectedly. The problem was caused by the microcontroller in the original Classic being too slow to keep up. The solution was to upgrade the Classic 2 with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, which runs the scroll wheel algorithms fifteen times faster than the one in the original Classic.Ploopy still uses the same PMW-3360 optical sensor as the Classic, as well as D2LS-21 switches under its buttons for fantastic clicks. The Classic 2 also still runs on the open-source QMK firmware, so all the software stays on the trackball with nothing that needs to be installed on your computer. You can download all of the open-source plans for the Classic 2 on GitHub should you want to modify or alter the trackballs design for your own needs.

Plot it all out on paper, and between the first and sixth episodes ofThe White Lotusseason three, very little changes. The opener was so efficient that by the end of the first hour, we knew pretty much everything we needed to about the new characters: the Ratliffs are a rat nest of moneyed, prescription-pill-popping dysfunction; the trio of 40-something women who say theyre best friends actually hate each other; Rick is powered by poison and adorable Chelsea should run a mile; and masseuse Belinda is right to worry about Greg/GaryOver the next five episodes, all of that initial construction has only been confirmed. Thats why this season, more than the previous ones, has felt at times as though theres been little story progress, because whathashappened only deepened our well-directed first impressions. Aside from the usual guessing game of who will and wont survive the murder mystery this time, thereve been very few questions we need answered.Instead, season three has doubled down on the shows raison dtre: depicting the moral vacuum inside Western capitalist ideals.The White Lotushas always been an eat-the-rich satire populating the screen with wealthy grotesques. In season one, there was boorish Shane Patton, who couldnt be happy in paradise because his beautiful and luxurious hotel suite wasnt themostbeautiful, luxurious hotel suite in the complex. (To Shane, luxury is a zero sum game: in order for him to win, somebody else had to lose.)In season two, there was Cameron and Daphne, whose perfect marriage was revealed to be a points-scoring death match in which Daphne had played the winning shot by getting pregnant by her personal trainer so that whatever Camerons indiscretions, she could always reassure herself that shed secretly humiliated him more. In both seasons, Jennifer Coolidges Tanya McQuoid was a lonely overgrown toddler whose millions not only couldnt buy her the love she craved, but also made her a target for murder.Thats just a section ofThe White Lotus expensive patchwork of unfulfilled, unhappy and unconscionable rich folks. So far, Mike Whites show has delivered the message that while having the kind of wealth that allows you to stay in these tropical palaces looks aspirational, other misery will get ya. Theres a price to pay for these peoples luxurious lives, which leave casualties in their wake. Even being around them is dangerous, as hotel manager Armond found out in season one.Season three goes one step further. The inclusion of the Buddhist monastery next to the hotel complex is the shows clearest depiction yet of the battle between consumerism and spiritualism. More than ever before, the drama is drawing a line between the hideous rich and the spiritually content. This time around, were not just invited to laugh at a bunch of unhappy, black card-carrying millionaires, were invited to question their essential humanity.It all comes down to one of Chelseas lines in episode six. When a hungover Saxon petulantly asked why shed refused to hook up with him the night before (maybe indirectly blaming her choice for the fact that hed subsequently had an incestuous threesome with his younger brother), she told him that hooking up with him would have been an empty experience because he was soulless.Shes not wrong. Saxon Ratliff is an abomination, and designedly so. Beyond sex, money, and protein shakes, he has zero values. When his mother asked him if the new friends whod invited their family on a day cruise were decent people he looked nonplussed. Durr. They have a yacht, he assured her. Ofcoursetheyre decent people. To Saxon, wealth is the deserved reward of good people who make the right decisions.Its no surprise he thinks that; so does his Lorazepam-addicted mother Victoria. Money is so central to her value system that she told husband Timothy in episode six that she wouldnt even want to live if they didnt have it. (Not that hes told anybody, Timothy is currently facing FBI assets-seizure and a prison sentence for a fraudulent financial arrangement with LGBT+-murdering sultanate Brunei. If Victoria survives the season finale, shes going to have a choice to make.)Are the Ratliffs decent people? On no level. TheyreThe White Lotus ultimate creation a family so driven by acquisitive ideals that theyve become rot-filled husks so value and morality-free that their sons tumble into having sex with each other. TheyreGame of Thrones Lannisters, but less likeable.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Well, not all of them. Daughter Piper has recognised the hollowness of their cosseted lifestyle and is seeking to escape to the Thai monastery. Depending on how thoroughgoingThe White Lotus cynicism is, there could still be hope for Piper Ratliff. There may also be hope for youngest son Lachlan. With two episodes still to go, his potential goodness hangs in the balance, though the choice he made to share a room with Saxon instead of Piper in the season opener felt like a spiritual crossroads moment that he got wrong.Season threes other guests are less extreme but still shore up the shows thesis. Franks unforgettable monologue in that Bangkok bar was a short story about the danger of getting trapped on the hedonic treadmill, always insatiably wanting more. Model Chloe may as well be a Ratliff for all her moral-free, self-serving acquisitiveness. Her murderer boyfriend Greg/Gary literally killed for his millions (or at least planned to). Even actress Jaclyns obsession with youth so ingrained that shes married a much younger man whose fidelity she constantly doubts is shown to lead nowhere good.Its all building not just to the gunshots and the discovery of whose corpse were about to see floating face-down in the resorts crystal blue waters, but to an almighty ideological clash: Consumerism v Spiritualism, Greed v Generosity, West v East, the Soulless v the Ensouled. Dont say that nothings happening this season because this is the big one: its Armageddon in paradise.The White Lotus season three continues on Sunday nights on HBO.

Spring is here and that means its time for a little room refreshing. The weekend is just the right amount of time to do a living room makeover. Yes, its true! Were not talking about moving walls or installing hardwood floors or even painting the walls a pretty living room paint color. We mean the most instant gratification, high-impact, low-effort, and low-budget ways to refresh your living room in two days or less. And if you use your time wisely, we bet you can even mark off multiple living room makeover ideas from our list below. Once you get going in the living room, were guessing you wont stop there. Many of these living room ideas, like bringing in fresh flowers or hanging a gallery wall, work in bedrooms and kitchens, too. Styling one set of bookshelves? Might as well style them all throughout the whole house. But first, the living room: Swap Out Decorative PillowsDavid A. Land for Country LivingLets just call them what they arethrow pillows are the secret weapon to making a living room feel redecorated in a snap. Often packed with color and pattern, they deliver quite the graphic punch to sofas and chairs. If youre not in the market to replace them completely, we recommend swapping out, say, the cute lumbars on a pair of chairs for a cushier set from the sofa. Just rotating the sizes and styles around the room can make a huge impact. Pro pillow tip: Size up on your inserts! For example, a 22-inch pillow cover looks loads more luxe with a 24-inch insert. Trust us on this!MORE LIVING ROOM DECORATING IDEAS:Rearrange the FurnitureMatthew KisidayFor an instant refresh that only takes a little labor (and maybe a helping hand from a friend), consider rearranging your living room furniture. Its likely easier to move chairs, for example swapping this club chair with the pair near the French doors. Side tables and accessories (try this no-fail designer formula for styling your coffee table) are easy to move around, too. And, if you move it back in a month, no loveor moneylost (talk about a living room makeover on a budget!). Another pro tip: If you have a pair of chairs, trade positions so the wear and tear on the seats and arms is more even over time. The same goes for sofa and chair cushionsits a smart practice to vacuum, flip, and rotate sofa and chair cushions monthly.MORE LIVING ROOM FURNITURE IDEAS:Bring In Fresh FlowersRoger Davies for Country LivingNo matter the season, fresh flowers go a long way in boosting the mood in your living room. This family room coffee table features a potted houseplant, but we also love a loose arrangement of clippings from the yard or a more clustered vase full of one type of bloom from the grocery store (some of our favorite grocery store flowers are hydrangeas, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums). Pro Tip: When it comes to arranging flowers, our garden editor swears by this 3-5-8 flower arranging rule. MORE FLOWER AND PLANT IDEAS:Style Your Bookshelves ALI HARPERGet those messy bookshelves in ship-shape once and for all! Display books, collections, accessories, and mementos by following these simple bookshelf ideas and tips that make bookshelves look organized and layered at the same time. Instead of pushing books all the way back to the wall, pull them closer to the edge of the shelf for a more filled-in look. Arrange books both vertically and horizontally.Tuck in favorite accessories for visual interest and hang small artwork or photos on shelf dividers for a truly layered look.When clustering items, place them in odd numbers to create balance.MORE IDEAS FOR STYLING YOUR HOME LIKE A PRO:Hang a Gallery WallRead McKendree for Country LivingWe are huge fans of gallery walls around here! These artful, often perfectly imperfect, wall arrangements just make our hearts skip a beat. And we especially love a gallery wall in a living room, where you can really sit back and take in this clever design element that is greater than the sum of its parts. Whether its comprised of vintage paint-by-numbers or precious family portraits (or a combination of the two), plan on a long day or two to get your arrangement right with these four simple steps. Pick objects to hang. If you dont have a theme in mind, choose pieces in like frames for a cohesive look. Sprinkle in non-framed items for dimension, if desired.Trace objects on butcher paper and cut out.Tape cut-outs to the wall using blue painters tape. Move them around until you get your arrangement just right.Hang items with nails. Secure with anchors if necessary.MORE LIVING ROOM WALL IDEAS:Elevate LampshadesRead McKendree for Country LivingYouve heard the phrase, Its all in the details. And in this case, with these gorgeous little pleated sconce shades, we overwhelmingly agree. The pattern play happening in this Cape Cod beach cottage is already 100 percent, but the addition of these sweet fabric-covered shades takes the whole living room look to the next levelso tailored and special.MORE IDEAS TO COZY UP YOUR LIVING ROOM:Amy MitchellManaging EditorAmy Mitchell is the managing editor for VERANDA and Country Living, where she writes articles on a variety of topicsdecorating and design, gardens, and holidays. Amys experience in the shelter magazine category spans more than 20 years, as shes previously held positions at Coastal Living and Cottage Living. Her personal pursuits include cooking, gardening, and hunting her favorite tag sale spots for the next piece of Pyrex for her prized collection.

Mar 28, 2025Ravie LakshmananSpyware / MalwareAn Android malware family previously observed targeting Indian military personnel has been linked to a new campaign likely aimed at users in Taiwan under the guise of chat apps."PJobRAT can steal SMS messages, phone contacts, device and app information, documents, and media files from infected Android devices," Sophos security researcher Pankaj Kohli said in a Thursday analysis.PJobRAT, first documented in 2021, has a track record of being used against Indian military-related targets. Subsequent iterations of the malware have been discovered masquerading as dating and instant messaging apps to deceive prospective victims. It's known to be active since at least late 2019.In November 2021, Meta attributed a Pakistan-aligned threat actor dubbed SideCopy believed to be a sub-cluster within Transparent Tribe to the use of PJobRAT and Mayhem as part of highly-targeted attacks directed against people in Afghanistan, specifically those with ties to government, military, and law enforcement."This group created fictitious personas typically young women as romantic lures to build trust with potential targets and trick them into clicking on phishing links or downloading malicious chat applications," Meta said at the time.PJobRAT is equipped to harvest device metadata, contact lists, text messages, call logs, location information, and media files on the device or connected external storage. It's also capable of abusing its accessibility services permissions to scrape content on the device's screen.Telemetry data gathered by Sophos shows that the latest campaign trained its sights on Taiwanese Android users, using malicious chat apps named SangaalLite and CChat to activate the infection sequence. These are said to have been available for download from multiple WordPress sites, with the earliest artifact dating back to January 2023.The campaign, per the cybersecurity company, ended, or at least paused, around October 2024, meaning it had been operational for nearly two years. That said, the number of infections was relatively small, suggestive of the targeted nature of the activity. The names of the Android package names are listed below -org.complexy.hardcom.happyho.appsa.aangal.litenet.over.simpleIt's currently not known how victims were deceived into visiting these sites, although, if prior campaigns are any indication, it's likely to have an element of social engineering. Once installed, the apps request intrusive permissions that allow them to collect data and run uninterrupted in the background."The apps have a basic chat functionality built-in, allowing users to register, login, and chat with other users (so, theoretically, infected users could have messaged each other, if they knew each others' user IDs)," Kohli said. "They also check the command-and-control (C2) servers for updates at start-up, allowing the threat actor to install malware updates."Unlike previous versions of PJobRAT that harbored the ability to steal WhatsApp messages, the latest flavor takes a different approach by incorporating a new feature to run shell commands. This not only allows the attackers to likely siphon WhatsApp chats but also exercise greater control over the infected phones.Another update concerns the command-and-control (C2) mechanism, with the malware now using two different approaches, using HTTP to upload victim data and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) to send shell commands as well as exfiltrate information."While this particular campaign may be over, it's a good illustration of the fact that threat actors will often retool and retarget after an initial campaign making improvements to their malware and adjusting their approach before striking again," Kohli said.Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

This week, MIT Technology Review published a piece on bodyoidsliving bodies that cannot think or feel pain. In the piece, a trio of scientists argue that advances in biotechnology will soon allow us to create spare human bodies that could be used for research, or to provide organs for donation. If you find your skin crawling at this point, youre not the only one. Its a creepy idea, straight from the more horrible corners of science fiction. But bodyoids could be used for good. And if they are truly unaware and unable to think, the use of bodyoids wouldnt cross most peoples ethical lines, the authors argue. Im not so sure. Either way, theres no doubt that developments in science and biotechnology are bringing us closer to the potential reality of bodyoids. And the idea is already stirring plenty of ethical debate and controversy. One of the main arguments made for bodyoids is that they could provide spare human organs. Theres a huge shortage of organs for transplantation. More than 100,000 people in the US are waiting for a transplant, and 17 people on that waiting list die every day. Human bodyoids could serve as a new source. Scientists are working on other potential solutions to this problem. One approach is the use of gene-edited animal organs. Animal organs dont typically last inside human bodiesour immune systems will reject them as foreign. But a few companies are creating pigs with a series of gene edits that make their organs more acceptable to human bodies. A handful of living people have received gene-edited pig organs. David Bennett Sr. was the first person to get a gene-edited pig heart, in 2022, and Richard Slayman was the first to get a kidney, in early 2024. Unfortunately, both men died around two months after their surgery. But Towana Looney, the third living person to receive a gene-edited pig kidney, has been doing well. She had her transplant surgery in late November of last year. I am full of energy. I got an appetite Ive never had in eight years, she said at the time. I can put my hand on this kidney and feel it buzzing. She returned home in February. At least one company is taking more of a bodyoid-like approach. Renewal Bio, a biotech company based in Israel, hopes to grow embryo-stage versions of people for replacement organs. Their approach is based on advances in the development of synthetic embryos. (Im putting that term in quotation marks because, while its the simplest descriptor of what they are, a lot of scientists hate the term.) Embryos start with the union of an egg cell and a sperm cell. But scientists have been working on ways to make embryos using stem cells instead. Under the right conditions, these cells can divide into structures that look a lot like a typical embryo. Scientists dont know how far these embryo-like structures will be able to develop. But theyre already using them to try to get cows and monkeys pregnant. And no one really knows how to think about synthetic human embryos. Scientists dont even really know what to call them. Rules stipulate that typical human embryos may be grown in the lab for a maximum of 14 days. Should the same rules apply to synthetic ones? The very existence of synthetic embryos is throwing into question our understanding of what a human embryo even is. Is it the thing that is only generated from the fusion of a sperm and an egg? Naomi Moris, a developmental biologist at the Crick Institute in London, said to me a couple of years ago. Is it something to do with the cell types it possesses, or the [shape] of the structure? The authors of the new MIT Technology Review piece also point out that such bodyoids could also help speed scientific and medical research. At the moment, most drug research must be conducted in lab animals before clinical trials can start. But nonhuman animals may not respond the same way people do, and the vast majority of treatments that look super-promising in mice fail in humans. Such research can feel like a waste of both animal lives and time. Scientists have been working on solutions to these problems, too. Some are creating organs on chipsminiature collections of cells organized on a small piece of polymer that may resemble full-size organs and can be used to test the effects of drugs. Others are creating digital representations of human organs for the same purpose. Such digital twins can be extensively modeled, and can potentially be used to run clinical trials in silico. Both of these approaches seem somehow more palatable to me, personally, than running experiments on a human created without the capacity to think or feel pain. The idea reminds me of the recent novel Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, in which humans are bred for consumption. In the book, their vocal cords are removed so that others do not have to hear them scream. When it comes to real-world biotechnology, though, our feelings about what is acceptable tend to shift. In vitro fertilization was demonized when it was first developed, for instance, with opponents arguing that it was unnatural, a perilous insult, and the biggest threat since the atom bomb. It is estimated that more than 12 million people have been born through IVF since Louise Brown became the first test tube baby 46 years ago. I wonder how well all feel about bodyoids 46 years from now. This article first appeared in The Checkup,MIT Technology Reviewsweekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here.

According to reports, a strong 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Mandalay in Thailands neighbour, Myanamar, causing shockwaves which rocked the Thai capital hundreds of miles away.It is believed 320 construction workers were on site when the building near Chatuchak Park, which was set to become government offices, came down. In its latest update the National Institute of Emergency Medicine said that 70 people were missing and another 20 workers were stuck in a lift. Videos show the under-construction building collapsing within seconds.Emergency services are continuing their search for survivors among the rubble, though there has already been one confirmed death.Bangkok is not thought of as a high-risk earthquake area. BBC journalist Bui Thu told the BBC World Service that it had been a decade since Bangkok had a really strong or powerful earthquake like this.She added: Buildings in Bangkok are not engineered for earthquakes, so I think thats why I think theres going to be big damage.In my apartment I just see some cracking on the walls and water splashed out of swimming pools and people just yelling.Other videos showed high-rise buildings swaying as the aftershocks hit the city, including the 77-storey MahaNakhon skyscaper by Ole Scheeren. Earthquake 2025-03-28Richard Waitecomment and share TagsEarthquake

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves Source:&nbsp Flick / HM Treasury Network Rail will build up to 40,000 homes in the next decade via a new property company, the government has announced The new developer will become operational later this year and attract public and private investment to build homes on unused land in the UKs rail estate, the government said on Thursday (27 March).The property company will be created between Network Rail, which owns and maintains the UKs rail network, and London & Continental Railways (LCR), an existing state-owned development company.The treasury named four sites which are in the pipeline for development by the new company. These are:AdvertisementNewcastle Forth Yards: a 40.5ha site by the Tyne, to the west of Newcastles city centre, where up to 5,000 homes could be built;Manchester Mayfield: where there is an opportunity for another 1,200 homes around the disused Mayfield station, according to the government. Early plans relating to a 1.4 billion regeneration on the site have been submitted by shedkm and Studio Egret West, with plans overseen by a public-private partnership which includes LCR.An unnamed site in Cambridge: the government says a mixed-use scheme with 425 new homes could be built here. The site is probably around the under-construction new station at Cambridge Biomedical Campus.An unnamed site in Nottingham: the government says 200 homes could be built following 348 successfully delivered homes at The Barnum. The Barnum is next to Nottingham Station, was designed by Franklin Ellis Architects and developed by Bloc Group and Network Rail.The government has also said it is creating a new task force to help build homes on publicly-owned brownfield land.Unused land will be identified, developed and released by a cross-government collaboration, which will focus on getting it back into productive use as quickly as possible by removing barriers, the government said.This ambitious new partnership approach will explore new delivery models, establish collaborative agreements between the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Homes England, Network Rail and other government bodies, bring in the private sector ultimately getting spades in the ground sooner.The government said the first site to be unblocked will in Ripon, North Yorkshire. The site will be transferred from the MoD to Homes England later this year to expedite the delivery of 1,300 homes.It added that a partnership between the MoD and Homes England will also aim to unlock 1,300 homes at Chetwynd Barracks in Nottinghamshire and deliver thousands of homes at Wyton airfield in Cambridgeshire.AdvertisementChancellor Rachel Reeves said: For too long, surplus government-owned sites have gone underused, but they are a huge untapped resource that could create opportunities for the next generation of homeowners.In contrast with the failed approach of the past, we are making the best use of public land to build the homes that families and our Armed Forces need, improving opportunities for homeownership and creating jobs across the country.2025-03-28Will Ingcomment and share