Louise Bourgeois, I Did Everything I Could Every Day of My Life I

British-Somali songwriter, feminist, and musician Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, also known by her stage name Poly Styrene, is most notably known for being the founder of punk rock band X-Ray Spex.

She was born in Bromley, London, and ran away from home at the age of 15 with just £3 in her pocket, hitchhiking from one music festival to another. This adventure ended when she stepped on a rusty nail while bathing in a stream and had to be treated for septicaemia.

After seeing the Sex Pistols performance at the Pier Pavillion Hastings on her 19th birthday she thought that anyone could do what they were doing and so decided to form her own Punk Rock band, putting an ad in the paper calling for ‘young punx who want to stick it together’, and that was the beginning of X-Ray Spex. She eventually became a passionate feminist and posted a blog dedicated to women’s rights and defense of women.

She was described by Billboard as the “archetype for the modern-day feminist punk”; because she wore dental braces, stood against the typical sex object female of 1970’s rock star, sported a gaudy Dayglo wardrobe, and was of mixed race. She was “one of the least conventional front-persons in rock history, male or female”.

VIDEO: Living Under Israel’s Missiles

Four boys of the Bakr family were killed by a missile strike during last year’s incursion. Their surviving family members are still scarred from the attack.

More than anyone, children bear the brunt of regular Israeli military assaults on the Gaza Strip. During the 51-day war in the summer of 2014, 551 children were killed and 3,436 were injured. But these gruesome figures say little about the psychological state of the nearly 800,000 children who have survived the periodic bombing campaigns. After the final cease-fire that ended Israel’s Operation Protective Edge on August 26 of last year, UNICEF estimated that at least 425,000 Palestinian children in the besieged Gaza Strip require “immediate psychosocial and child protection support.”

Cai Guo-Quiang, ‘Sky Ladder’, 2015

“Behind Sky Ladder lies a clear childhood dream of mine. Despite all life’s twists and turns, I have always been determined to realize it. My earlier proposals were either more abstract or ceremonial. Sky Ladder today is tender, and touches my heart deeply: it carries affection for my hometown, my relatives and my friends. In contrast to my other attempts, which set the ignition time at dusk, this time the ladder rose toward the morning sun, carrying hope. For me, this not only means a return but also the start of a new journey.”