ATHENS, Greece -- As the world prepares for this year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, an exhibition in Greece is taking visitors on a digital journey back to the first modern Olympic Games in Athens 120 years ago.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Benaki Museum, Costa Navarino Luxury Resorts and the Athens International Airport, and features historic photos taken by German photographer Albert Mayer during the 1896 competitions. Prominent Greek visual artist Eva Nathena, who curated the exhibition, used Mayer’s archived photos in a modern-day video art installation.

The 1896 Games were a turning point in the history of athletic events as they brought together the spirit of ancient times with modern internationalism. German photographer Albert Mayer covered the event as the official photographer of the German athletic team. His photos show athletes, officials and spectators enjoying the games under the Greek sun.

"The first Olympic Games journal made up of Albert Mayer's historic photographs is one of the jewels of the Benaki Museum archives and a valuable testimony" to the games' past, the Benaki Museum director, Olivier Descotes, said in a press release. 

"The documentation of the first Olympic Games in the modern era symbolizes the restoration of the Olympic athletic ideals,” Eva Nathena added. “Visitors will get a chance to come into contact with such unique material and explore the values showcased and their importance in the shaping of modern European thought." 

The exhibition will be held at the “Art & Environment” space in the Athens International Airport from May 16 to Sept. 16, and will also run at the Symbol Hall of Costa Navarino resort, in the region of Messinia, southwest Peloponnese, from April 27 to Nov. 30.

Get a sneak peek of some of the century-old photos featured in the exhibition:

This story originally appeared on HuffPost Greece and was translated into English.

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At the end of "All This Panic," one of the central subjects, Lena, sits in the back of a cab, her dyed blue hair fluttering in the night wind, and admits, "It's hard to put [this] in a way that isn't cliched and doesn't make it seem silly. But it's not silly."

The "it" Lena refers to is a moment she and her friends shared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- an acid trip that culminated in a greater understanding of art, time and aging. But it could just as easily refer to her graduation into adulthood, captured and brewed into the moody documentary by Jenny Gage and her husband Tom Betterton, which premiered to enthusiastic reviews at Tribeca Film Festival.

While Lena's revelation could sum up "Panic," it's merely one of many "aha" moments within the film, which gently documents the lives of seven teenage women from New York City over the course of three years. In an hour and 19 minutes, their lives are bottled and magnified.

The result is empathetic and heart-wrenching. It may also be one of the most relatable films ever produced about young women, which is refreshing, but also really depressing, if you think about it. Even high school movies highlighting female protagonists that intended to be "relatable" still lack the substantial realism young women deserve. "Mean Girls" and "Ten Things I Hate About You" are funny and have reached cult status, but dudes aren't Heath Ledger and teachers aren't Tina Fey. That's why "Panic" feels revolutionary.  

“I felt like being a woman, I missed these kind of films," Gage told The Huffington Post in an interview. “I think that they really feel empowered. They see that, 'Yes, our stories are important.'"

Gage and Betterton knew there were significant stories untold in their own backyard ... literally. They first molded the premise of "All This Panic" after gaining inspiration from their own teenage daughter. Unsure about how to define "teenage girl" in today's society, they dug deeper. Shortly thereafter, they began filming sisters Dusty and Ginger, who hail from the filmmakers' South Brooklyn neighborhood. Through the sisters, the filmmaking duo connected with and ultimately chose to follow the narratives of friends and classmates Lena, Sage, Olivia, Ivy and Delia.

While their plot lines weave together at points, Gage and Betterton respectfully allow each of the young women to maintain strong, separate identities throughout the film. Even when thematic similarities arise about love, philosophy, class, race and sexuality, each woman asserts her selfhood in a way that feels more honest than most exposés on youth today, whether fictional or nonfictional. Despite their "young age," the women on screen know more about themselves than adult society ever could feebly interpret, simply because that society rarely listens. The film shows that maybe the best way to tell teenagers' stories is to ask teenagers themselves.

The styling of the documentary also allows the women to fully share their voices. Described as a cross between "high art portraiture and cinema vérité," there is no distracting narrator or interference by adults. Betterton explained that he "shot the entire film with the same lens, [which was] the type of lens if you wanted to be close up, you literally had to be close to them."

Using lens flares and warm close-ups, Gage and Betterton took advantage of a New York landscape that's not often showcased in movies and television shows today. They shot in faraway spots like the Rockaways and Coney Island, which, they explain, was where the girls often wanted to be filmed. You won't see cool brunch scenes, Starbucks cups, or hipster vintage shops in "Panic." Because of that, it encapsulates the Brooklyn (and Manhattan and Queens) that most New Yorkers know. The girls' responses to these environments only highlights their camaraderie even more.

Most remarkably, the young women recognize their placement in the greater scheme of things, too. At one point, Sage concisely reveals media's oppressive nature toward young women: "They want to see us, but they don’t want to hear us…”

Gage and Betterton mentioned that during production, the young women were not divisive on or off the screen, contrary to the narratives we often receive about high-school-aged "mean girls." They wanted their friendships to strengthen, not strain. "They had so much respect and never talked behind each others' back in a malicious way. It was important they were supporting each other," assured Gage. 

The teenagers we see in "All This Panic" come across as real and relatable. It just took a documentary like this to recognize that the actual lives of teenage women is a story worthy of the big screen.

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In the Tribeca Film Festival documentary "Reset" (also known as "Relevé"), filmmakers Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai follow the Paris Opera Ballet's new director of dance, Benjamin Millepied, as he gets ready to stage his first piece, “Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward," at the Palais Garnier. 

It's visually magnetic, swirling alongside the movements of the trained troupe of dancers as the music of composer Nico Muhly takes viewers through the ebbs and flows of pre-production, as well as the final product. Millepied, for his part, is laser-focused from the beginning, never stepping away from the preparation and pressures that have engulfed his life. His goal as the director of dance is to bring a contemporary twist to the over 300-year-old company but stay true to the art form of ballet -- nix the all-Caucasian cast of dancers, switch up the too-precise technique, and establish a new, less rigid teaching style.

A renewal was what he was after.   

It was Millepied's idea to document the creation of his ballet. Born in Bordeaux, France, the 38-year-old, a former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and choreographer on the much beloved film "Black Swan," wanted to show how he would approach the role of director by showcasing what goes into getting a stage production off the ground.

He also didn't want to focus at all on his marriage to actress Natalie Portman, who, of course, starred in (and won an Oscar for) "Black Swan." Except for a quick shot in the opening sequence, Portman is left out of the film, which was a deliberate move by the directors and Millepied. 

"He doesn’t want to be portrayed as Natalie Portman’s husband," Teurlai told The Huffington Post in an interview. "And it wasn’t our approach because we would rather do something about the process of creation and his work as a choreographer rather than gossip." 

Millepied's goal was to have "Reset" portray a more modernized take on dance, channeling the film style of a big-budget Hollywood film. The directors assured him that although they couldn't make another "Black Swan," they would present his style and the way he feels about the hierarchy in dance in a compelling way. 

"The French title is called 'Relevé,' which means that the new generation is coming to take over the old one," Teurlai explained. "[The film] is about the dancers and this new director, composer and conductor changing the landscape." 

Despite growing up around traditional dance culture in France, Millepied mentions multiple times throughout the documentary that he wants to shake things up and "shatter this racist idea" in ballet. He wants to give dancers the opportunity to express themselves and showcase their talents, despite the Opera's hierarchal structure of grading and promotion. 

"The corps de ballet was very happy when Benjamin arrived because he sort of freed them," Demaizière told HuffPost. 

Millepied chose to feature an array of dancers from all different backgrounds and skill levels in his piece, hoping to push his opinion that the company and its school not only needed to be more racially diverse, but open to non-soloists.

“Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward" went off without a hitch and Millepied wowed audiences with his compelling and contemporary ballet. But despite his success, his role at the Opera just wasn't sitting right with him. In February 2016, after a little more than a year in the position, it was announced that Millepied would be stepping down as the director of dance. He told The New York Times that although he wanted to change the social structure a bit, his ideas were not necessarily accepted. 

“It is not that I didn’t respect the traditions, but I put everything into question,” Millepied said. “I knew it was going to be complicated and I tried really hard. To face the cultural and economic issues of our time, we need new kinds of organizations, and I’ve realized that it’s too hard to turn this one into what I think is most relevant for ballet today. It’s two and a half years that I’ve worked on this, and I know it’s a short time, but it is long enough to realize this is not something I want to do.”

He added, “They need someone better suited to run this company.”

Demaizière and Teurlai shared their thoughts on Millepied's departure with HuffPost, saying they weren't surprised that he stepped down. "The incapabilities between cultures [probably affected his choice]," Demaizière said. "Benjamin is constantly in a rush and the Paris Opera institution was very slow. They couldn’t match." 

Millepied now plans to devote “100 percent [of his time and energy] to artistic and creative expression” and is looking forward to moving back to California to focus on his contemporary dance ensemble, the L.A. Dance Project. 

“I want to fully build my vision for a dance company of our time, to respond to cultural challenges, building audiences and making dance more popular,” he told The New York Times following his resignation announcement. “It’s time to redefine what a dance organization is today.”

"Reset" will hit theaters this fall with distribution by FilmRise. Watch the trailer below.

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When the Netflix comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” reintroduces viewers to Jacqueline -- or Jackie Lynn -- Voorhees (Jane Krakowski) in the first episode of Season 2, the blonde Manhattan socialite appears to have embraced her Lakota identity, which was revealed at the end of Season 1. Standing regally against the vast expanse of a cloudy sky on a wide-open plain, with a braid woven into her formerly sleek bob and a worn plaid shirt knotted around her waist, she gazes proudly over her domain.

Jackie Lynn has come home.

Then, a Lakota child pedals by on a bicycle and shouts derisively: “Hey, your house is that way, dummy!”

Yeah -- never mind.

If the romantic stereotype hasn’t been sufficiently shattered, Jackie Lynn’s response will do it: “Thank you! I’ve been standing here for hours! [Pause] Watch out, I pooped over there!” 

This plotline, in which Krakowski plays a comically exaggerated New York trophy wife who turns out to be a “surprise” Native American, already garnered a fair amount of scrutiny when the show’s first season premiered in March 2015. For one, Krakowski is white, playing a Lakota character, an inherent source of concern for many critics; what’s more, some of the jokes that accompanied Jacqueline rediscovering her true identity seemed to play into troublesome stereotypes. (In one scene, she howls at the sky like a wolf after seeing a high school’s offensive Indian mascot and becoming righteously enraged.)

To many viewers, seeing this less-than-surefooted racial plot led through in Season 2 was discomfiting and confusing, as Twitter reactions illustrated:

For some Native viewers, however, watching Jackie Lynn’s story develop mixed plenty of sweet with the bitter.

Jacqueline Keeler, a Navajo/Yankton Dakota Sioux writer, told The Huffington Post in a phone conversation that she was conflicted about Krakowski’s casting as a Lakota woman. “On the one hand it would be great to have an actual Native actress playing that role,” she said. “On the other hand, the reveal was so unexpected in the first season that it made the commentary sort of ... interesting.”

For one thing, she pointed out, the sheer surprise factor punctured popular stereotypes of Native Americans -- how they dress, where they live, what they do, whether they even still exist. “Here, with the character of Jacqueline, there are a lot of Native people who don't fit into people's stereotypes about what Indian people should be wearing on the reservation,” she explained. “And ... most Native people don't live on the reservation.” According to the last census, 78 percent of Native Americans live outside of reservations; in fact, New York City is home to more Native Americans than any other place, with over 50,000 Native residents.

Still, having a white woman playing a Native woman passing as a white woman makes for risky comedy, especially when Jackie Lynn’s once-intentional ignorance of her Lakota culture becomes the butt of the joke. She “milks” a male buffalo and puts the result in the refrigerator; she replaces a traditional pipe with a tobacco vape; she barely knows how to survive in a totally modern Lakota household. When her desperately annoyed parents, Virgil (Gil Birmingham) and Fern (Sheri Foster) teach her what they claim is a vitally important corn dance so they can get her out of their hair, she doesn’t realize it’s actually the electric slide with ridiculously cheesy lyrics addressed to a “corn god” -- until the young girl rides by on her bike again and laughs at her as she performs the “ritual” in a field. 

What’s really the joke here? Viewers might fairly wonder. “At the start of the new season there were a few moments where I cringed because it seemed like we were supposed to laugh at Native stereotypes, which really aren't that funny,” Cutcha Risling Baldy, assistant professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University, told HuffPost in an email. Even though the jokes seem to be intended to satirize clueless white people, the risk remains that they won’t land with everyone. “I know how I see it,” she wrote, “and then how it might be perceived by someone who doesn't have the same information or who is really only engaging with Natives through portrayals on TV or in the movies.”

The inclusion of Native characters, portrayed by Native actors, as the sympathetic figures, played an important role in smoothing this dynamic, however. “Really what she's doing through most of that trip ... is channeling other Americans' ideas about Native people. And rarely do you get to see Native Americans respond back,” Keeler pointed out. “Seeing Native actors being able to respond ... was actually, really, for me, a gratifying experience.” 

In an interview with Signature Reads, Sheri Foster emphasized that the show's writers were "not writing a story that’s mocking our ways — our kid is doing that, for sure, but as parents our characters are there to say that’s totally unacceptable."

Jackie Lynn’s development as a character throughout the season, both Risling Baldy and Keeler say, was encouraging. When she returns to New York City, the now-divorced socialite decides to regain her social status and wealth by marrying another billionaire, and to use that money and clout to agitate for Native American causes.

This turns out to be a bumpy process, as she struggles to find an identity without a rich husband and an effective way to fundraise for Native American causes in the face of wealthy white donors who openly applaud the purchase of Manhattan from the Lenape for $24 in the 17th century.

“What I really saw shining through was this idea that her Native culture and heritage mattered, even if she wasn't talking about it every single day, it mattered to her life,” Risling Baldy said of the activist plotline. “So when she is confronted with what she can do about it, and how much education still needs to happen, and how little respect Native people actually get, that felt very nuanced to me.” As the season progresses, it’s not Jackie Lynn’s stereotypical Indian stunts that aim for laughs, but the absurdity of the white American power structure that propagates those stereotypes, and that openly dismisses the real issues and concerns of Native people.

As the season ends, Jackie Lynn has joined forces with her new beau, Russ Snyder (David Cross) -- a social justice lawyer who, she learns at his family’s Thanksgiving, is one of the Snyders who owns the Washington Football Team -- to take down the team’s much-protested Indian mascot. “I am actually looking forward to next season,” Risling Baldy told HuffPost. “I hope they go over the top when it comes to the possible portrayal of NFL owners. I hope they bring on actual Native activists to be on the show.”

If the showrunners care as much as they seem to about portraying Jackie Lynn’s character with nuance and sensitivity, they could take a lot of meaningful steps for Season 3. “I would love to see an episode that is just full on Jacqueline's Native family,” pointed out Risling Baldy. “It sets things up for what could be a really hilarious spinoff (hint hint Netflix).” Bringing real Native activists, or even casting Native actors as existing anti-mascot activists, on the show as part of Jackie Lynn’s new mission to take down the Washington mascot would also emphasize the real work being done by Native Americans to address injustice.

Perhaps most importantly, Keeler suggests: “I think the next step would be actually to have Native writers to write about these topics, because we can handle it in a way that's very ... is very specific to our situation. I think when you are a Native person who lives in America, you already know how to blend the two.”

At a panel last year, co-creator Robert Carlock stated that the show has “a couple of writers on staff with Native American heritage ... So we felt like we had a little room to go in that direction.“ Though many outlets have quoted this offhand statement about the writing staff of “Kimmy Schmidt,” Keeler was skeptical. “One of the issues with being Native is our identity has been very shaky, of course, as the result of genocide and the attempt to cloud our political system,” she explained. “I'm a citizen of the Navajo nation. These are actual, legal ... it's like being French, or German ... Descendancy is not the same thing.”

At the time of writing this piece, Netflix had not responded to our request for further comment on the show’s staff composition. 

Foster, in her interview with Signature Reads, strongly defended the sensitivity and insight of the show's writing staff, however. "They totally respect us, they totally respect our ways," she said. "They never make fun of us. It’s a satirical comedy, that’s the funny part, you know? And if you want something different, then why don’t you produce your own thing -- and I’ll work for you, too! They’re hiring Native people, for crying out loud."

This is not to invalidate the feelings of any Native person who is offended by "Kimmy Schmidt" -- no group is a monolith -- but it's telling that most of the harshest public critiques about the show's treatment of the Lakota plotline have come from non-Native critics. If TV creators and critics aren't listening to the conversations actual Native American viewers are having about their portrayals in pop culture, and what they want to see in the future, they're bound to miss a lot of important truths.

Keeler and Risling Baldy, who have both written thoughtfully about “Kimmy Schmidt” and its treatment of Native Americans, tend to lean toward optimism when it comes to the controversial show. 

“As the season went on, I found myself more interested in Jacqueline's character as a comedic response to what it's like to figure out how little people really know or care to know about living Native people,” Risling Baldy told HuffPost. “A lot of the kind of humor that Tina Fey does is very challenging and discomforting,” Keeler said, “but I think there's more good in the character than bad.”

Part of the value simply comes from portraying Native experiences and struggles -- in addition to providing some sharp commentary, like Jackie Lynn’s flabbergasted “The Redskins? How is this still a thing?” -- on a popular TV show. This shouldn’t be such a significant victory, but to some degree, it is. For now, at least.

“We are 1.5 percent of the population,” said Keeler. “You'd think one in 100 TV writers would be actually Native American, or one in 100 TV producers. There's really no reason Native people should not be represented and be in the position to be able to tell their stories. I look at Shonda Rhimes’ work a lot ... and how she's been able to get complicated African-American women characters on primetime TV. We need that. We need our own Shonda Rhimes.”

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The New York City-centric musical "Rent" premiered in Broadway's Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996. It's been 10,512,000 minutes since then. 

And still, as the best musicals do, the story of a bunch of ragtag artists grappling with a changing urban landscape amid drug addiction, the AIDS crisis, creative urges and falling in love lingers in my mind. I was only 8 when Mark, Mimi, Maureen and co. took the stage that first night, but it felt like I came of age as the production (loosely based on "La Bohème") gained its notoriety over the years. Jump forward to 2004, where I sat in a cheap-seat row, studying the playbill in my hands before the curtain rose, ready for Jonathan Larson's creation to allow me to imagine a life bigger and more interesting than my own.

The opening numbers serve as a cheery entry point into the sometimes dangerous East Village of the late 20th century -- indeed, the same neighborhood whose alphabetical avenues were once given dubious nicknames like Alright, Bad, Crazy and Death, that now boasts tony residents and minimally decorated coffee shops. Then, the neighborhood was still a haven for artists willing to squat in old buildings and subsist on little more than inspiration. Broke filmmaker Mark sets the scene in his apartment: "December 24, 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, from here on in, I shoot without a script."

What results, as anyone who's been even half-paying attention to Broadway for the past two decades, is a romp through a year (a year!) of unpaid rent, moon-mooing performance art, and a tour de force number at the Life Cafe (R.I.P.) that, in years since, every theater major worth his chops could readily belt regardless of blood alcohol level.

Larson's script was unabashed for its time, featuring a cast of characters diverse in race, sexuality, health status and income level. Some of the more "shocking" threads -- Mark's ex, Maureen, left him for ... a woman! -- thankfully feel pat today, but at the time, they offered a window into what a more inclusive future might look like. 

Growing up in suburban Long Island meant New York was always tantalizingly close, yet just out of reach. The Long Island Railroad reaches its arms down the length of the fish-shaped land, collecting commuters and daylong tourists for its city-bound trains, then pushing them back into modestly sized homes with yard space by night. This push-and-pull between the suburbs and the city spawned two types of people, it seemed: those who did everything they could to get to NYC and those who did everything they could to avoid it. 

As a weird, shy teenager still years away from any taste of the "real world" I had been warned about, the original "Rent" soundtrack (which came in a 2-CD set, much like the pioneers) filled the hours in my bedroom, still bright pink and covered in posters from childhood. It represented everything a life in New York City could be: an exciting, emotional adventure; even better if I skipped through the scarier parts. I listened to Mimi, a drug addict who falls in love with HIV-positive guitar-player Roger, mournfully explain the specific pain of a world that moves on in spite of one's own broken heart in "Without You," imagining that I might feel so strongly about someone of my own one day. "Rent" allowed me to safely access a world where, yes, struggle and heartbreak existed, but so did acceptance, joy, creativity and romance. 

I listened to the soundtrack again recently, sitting in my new, supposedly more grown-up bedroom in Brooklyn (a borough that, fittingly, gets no mention in the musical). I realize that "Rent" wasn't the definitive New York Musical I had once believed it was, but rather a chapter for both myself and the place I now call home, mere miles -- and yet worlds -- away from that teenage bedroom. The lyrics hold up, but don't have the same emotional resonance they once did, a revelation I'd felt coming since my lackluster reception to the play's on-screen adaptation in 2005. Even with most of the original Broadway cast, this version felt glossed over, too distant, like someone making a movie of a movie. There was no breathless anticipation of what the rest of the night might have held, as I used to feel the few times I left Nederlander Theatre to reenter Times Square, with the sky dark but the town still buzzing and alive like nothing I'd ever seen before.

The show's opening electric guitar strumming stirs an earnestness that had mostly gone away with the handful of years in the city I've notched in my belt, and the inevitable stress, hustle, and vomit-stained subway cars the reality entails. Times Square, I now know, is the worst, and the city's rising rents are exiling former residents and new-to-town hopefuls into the farthest reaches of the aging subway system. Roger, Mark, Maureen, and co. might be able to snag a Bushwick share on Craigslist these days, but even that seems beyond their pay grade.

"Rent" is a relic of a different New York, as is anything about New York: how do you tie down any city, any place that's overflowing with millions and millions of stories? The best you can do, it seems, is capture your own story as truthfully as you can tell it, and that is where "Rent" succeeds. 

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"A Bigger Splash" is a movie you will probably want to pay attention to, mainly because Tilda Swinton plays a famous rock star named Marianne Lane. The Huffington Post and its parent company AOL have an exclusive clip from the movie, but sadly it does not feature Swinton. Instead, you will find Ralph Fiennes, who portrays an old friend of Marianne's who crashes her Italian vacation, and Matthias Schoenaerts, the "Danish Girl" actor who plays Marianna's photographer boyfriend. 

We know it's hard to let go of that Tilda tease, but watch the clip anyway, won't you? "A Bigger Splash," directed by Luca Guadagnino ("I Am Love"), opens nationwide on May 13.

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"It's not uncommon to use sex workers as muses in art," artist LZ explains in a description of her work. 

And she's right. For centuries, mostly male artists have modeled the nude women in their work -- from Edgar Degas' impressionist paintings to Gustave Courbet's realist depictions to Jeff Koons' shiny sculptures -- on prostitutes, courtesans and porn stars. The difference between LZ and these established icons of art, however, is that LZ's goal is to challenge the politics around power in art, not reinforce them. Her muses are not quiet models destined to disappear into the frame of a famous painter; they are real women who want to take part in a broader conversation about sex work today.

LZ's "Porn Life Drawing" project is a London-based life drawing class that employs sex workers as models for students who not only want to perfect their sketching, but also capture a nuanced image of women working in the sex work industry. The classes involve both still poses and stripteases, some re-enactments of BDSM and other performances, all guided by a life drawing tutor. LZ (who preferred not to use her real name for this piece) was motivated to start the class in part by her desire to see sex work decriminalized in the U.K., and also by her past experience working as a nude model.

"I’m trying to create an alternative space," she explained to The Huffington Post via email. "A safe space and an education space for women and LGBTQ+ to be able to learn and access a social and therapeutic space that recognizes sex workers as human, and sex work as work, and enables the understanding that just because someone is naked, or is being sexual, you do not have the right to be involved sexually with that person without their consent."

Here's what LZ -- who recently co-founded the Sex Worker Art Collective -- had to say about the power of art as therapy, the reality of sex work in London, and the kinds of conversations she hopes to spark in her class.

What inspired the "Porn Life Drawing" classes? Did the idea spring from your personal experience or was it more of a concept born of shared stories?

The concept came after I was sexually assaulted when life modeling, and the police said, "Do you not understand the nature of your job?" Many people I turned to for support said it must have been my fault because I was naked, I must have "lead him on."

I had this hanging over my head for a while, and I just really wanted to do something within my art that would address the wrongs of victim blaming and slut shaming. I ended up working with my university sex worker solidarity society for a variety of reasons, but this was one of the main reasons. When I spoke of this experience as a life model, although life modeling is not sex work, I learned that this is how authorities frequently treat sex workers. I know sex workers who are treated like this or worse by police and medical staff and it’s just something that is disgusting, degrading and is not safe.

I’m also near the end of my degree where I’m noticing the inequality of opportunity that women, working class, LGBTQ+ and people of color have compared to white men, particularly middle-class and upper-class men. The art industry is elite. I’m trying to create an alternative space; a safe space and an education space for women and LGBTQ+ to be able to learn and access a social and therapeutic space that recognizes sex workers as human, and sex work as work, and enables the understanding that just because someone is naked, or is being sexual, you do not have the right to be involved sexually with that person without their consent.

How do you find the models for your classes? And how are they paid exactly?

The models are paid out of the fee charged for the classes. I try to make the classes as affordable as possible. The last class I did I made no profit for myself, I paid my workers, and paid for resources. I didn't mind making no money for my work to experiment for the first event, but I hope if these events become popular, I will work out a way to make money for myself and my workers while also keeping them very affordable. 

Due to being a part of a sex worker solidarity network based in London, I am able to find working performers who are politically involved in this activism, as well as facing discrimination in the line of work they do. So I am able to offer a safe environment for the workers I hire as well as class participants. The classes then become quite democratic. The performers have power over their bodies and movements, and interact with the class.

What are your opinions on the decriminalization of sex work and anti-vulgarity laws? Do you discuss the realities of sex workers in the class?

I am 100 percent in favor of decriminalization.

I can’t stress enough how important decriminalized sex work is for workers. I do talk about the double standards in the pornography regulations that were enforced in 2014, and I do talk about the benefits of decriminalization. I also speak about the difference between decriminalization and legalization, and I try to speak about global politics around sex work, so I do go into how the Nordic model is bad for workers. I think its important for people to know the ins and outs of what they’re interested in.

How do you respond to students who question the difference between drawing a sex act and sexualizing a nude model? Do you get asked in these classes about the nuances of sex, sexuality and nakedness?

I’ve not been confronted with that question as I think what I am doing is quite obvious, and visually obvious, in the class. I think models are objectified, and sexualized; however within my class they are reclaiming their positions to just be "sex objects." They’re paid well, given voices, able to interact, given power. They’re not exploited. 

I offered to life model for a painter recently and asked what the pay and hours were like. To that he said, "Ha, I don’t pay, I want models to WANT to sit for me." I said, "You’re exploiting people for their labor, you’re disgusting." 

What do you think your class achieves in furthering conversations like these? Or, how does the act of making art help people better explore the issues?

I think that art is fun or therapeutic for many people, and I consider modeling also as fun and therapeutic. I have found both have tested my patience and endurance, and after a session of drawing or modeling, I feel proud of myself. I feel more in touch with my body and my movements. Because the space is aimed at being a "safe space," people do feel like they can create conversations that aren’t dominated by anyone in particular. I like that a lot about the classes.

Are you hoping to exhibit any of the drawings that have resulted from the classes?

I’m planning to set up a sex worker-run art show which will include some works from the classes!  I hosted a sex worker-run art show with Goldsmiths' Sex Worker Solidarity Society at the start of this term, as I am vice president of the society, and found that creating art was a great way to communicate the importance of decriminalization and other political issues around sex work. The outcome was incredible and was overwhelming. I want to do it again but with non-student sex workers also. Exhibiting some of the drawings will be great, as some of them, the class participants are proud of [them]. I’m also fine with people not wanting to display them -- like I said, some people use classes for therapy, socializing, safe space, not just for learning or for "producing" art.

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Empire executive producer Lee Daniels has optioned the film and television rights to Jesmyn Ward’s critically-acclaimed memoir, Men We Reaped.

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A new children's book features bedtime stories written in the form of fairy tales, but its main characters are far from damsels in distress. 

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is made up of 100 stories about real women who have changed the world. Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, a couple who met in Milan, Italy, and now live in Los Angeles, California, created the book as a way to educate readers about notable women of the past and present. Favilli told The Huffington Post she felt encouraged to start the project after she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian about being a woman and a tech start-up founder in Silicon Valley and facing abuse online. 

"I decided that my next project would be something designed to empower young women," she said.

The stories feature women like the Brontë sisters, Frida Kahlo, Serena Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Instead of waiting for their princes to come like the women in typical fairy tales, these game-changing women have influenced the world themselves. To amp up the girl power even more, each story is illustrated by a different woman from a different part of the world.

As of Friday, the project's Kickstarter campaign has 26 days left to raise money and has already received more than $54,000 in donations, exceeding its $40,000 goal. Favilli and Cavallo, who are also behind Timbuktu Labs which focuses on children's innovation, hope to help parents raise confident girls by exposing them to inspiring women at an early age. 

"Gender stereotypes permeate every aspect of our culture," Favilli said. "We constantly urge ourselves to 'lean in' and books on female empowerment proliferate on our shelves... but they come far too late."

According to Favilli, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is simply the first step in a bigger plan to combat gender stereotypes in children's products.  

"Parents are offered little resources to counter this trend and we want to do something about it," she said. 

See more of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls below.

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Have you ever checked out a sewing machine from your local library? What about a guitar or a 3D printer? If you haven't, you might soon. 

Public libraries across the country are housing so-called “libraries of things," from which people can borrow useful items for a short time instead of buying them outright. This is a largely hidden feature of the growing "sharing economy," but it may be poised to take off as many Americans become increasingly concerned about waste and environmental sustainability. 

“There is definitely a growing trend in this direction,” Saif Benjaafar, professor of engineering and director of the sharing economy initiative at the University of Minnesota, told The Huffington Post. “In the long run, I expect the ownership of many categories of products to go down, in favor of accessing these products on an on-demand basis.”

Talk of the sharing economy tends to revolve around flashy startups -- Uber and AirBnB, for example -- that disrupt markets by making existing products and services more convenient. But public libraries were sharing before sharing was cool, lending books and other goods to people who, in some sense, collectively own them. 

"We’re the original sharing economy," Rivkah Sass, executive director of the Sacramento Public Library in California, told HuffPost.

The Library of Things program at the SPL is one of the best examples of a nonprofit sharing economy springing up in a public library. The SPL launched the program after patrons began requesting decidedly non-literary items, like sewing machines and specialized cookware.

“We were looking at the generation coming up that doesn't necessarily want to own things,” Sass said. “They don’t need a pressure cooker to store on a shelf and gather dust.”

Researchers call items like pressure cookers and sewing machines “lumpy” goods. They're things that people tend to use infrequently and are inconvenient to keep around. 

Since the SPL opened its Library of Things, the number of monthly visitors has increased, and librarians are fielding more and more requests to add items to the program's inventory. Sass hopes the library will add sports and camping equipment soon. 

While Sass said she sees Sacramento’s library as a “model,” she noted that libraries of things aren’t all that new. In 1979, the city of Berkeley, California, opened its storied tool library, where residents can check out everything from a hammer to a toilet snake. There's a similar tool library in Portland, Maine. The Flinn Gallery, at the Greenwich Public Library in Connecticut, has been lending artwork to patrons for decades.

“Libraries have been doing this for a really long time -- lending art, cooking utensils, tools,” Sass said.

But Sass is now observing a new wave of enthusiasm for libraries like Sacramento’s.

“I’ve been a librarian for 35 years, and this is the most exciting time I’ve ever experienced,” Sass said. “There’s something about it right now that’s really resonating with people. I think that’s the coolest aspect.”

More and more Americans prefer to share things or own them collectively, research shows. Improvements in digital technology are helping to grow the sharing economy, as apps and social networks make it easy to connect would-be borrowers with people willing to share, Benjaafar said.

In addition, Americans, especially on the left, are increasingly committed to protecting the environment.They've also become conditioned to expect things to show up when they need them and go away when they don't. 

I’ve been a librarian for 35 years, and this is the most exciting time I’ve ever experienced.
Rivkah Sass, executive director of the Sacramento Public Library

Sass suspects people’s changing attitudes toward the environment and private ownership help explain the popularity of Sacramento's Library of Things.

“I really see this as a much bigger societal trend,” Sass said. “We’re seeing a shift in what’s important to people, and that’s where this comes from.” 

Declining ownership doesn’t necessarily mean declining consumption or waste, Benjaafar noted. That's because sharing services tend to increase the number of people using any given item -- and in some cases, having more users creates more waste. 

When it comes to cars, which spew carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere each time they're used, having fewer owners but more users can actually create more pollution, according to Benjaafar. (There is disagreement on this point, however.) 

But when you look at items stocked by libraries of things, fewer owners and more users usually cuts down on waste. When people share a sewing machine, for instance, it reduces the number of people buying a sewing machine, using it a few times and then throwing it away.

“Economy-wide, there is significant waste associated with these cheaper items, as they tend to be poorly maintained and frequently replaced,” Benjaafar said. “The concept of Library of Things has the potential of significantly reducing such waste.”

For Sass, the Library of Things is as much about sharing as it is about returning the library to a central place in American life.

“I really want people to understand that libraries are probably the most significant American institution,” Sass said. “I’m a librarian so take that with a grain of salt."

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In a terrifying turn of events, many young women are now under the impression that they need to surgically modify their labia.

In February of 2014, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reported that labiaplasty procedures had increased that year by 44 percent. “I believe the dramatic increase in both of these procedures is indicative of much larger global trends respecting body image, an ever-evolving concept of beauty, and self-confidence," Michael Edwards, who serves as President-Elect of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said in the report.  

And the desire for this operation continues to increase. On Monday, the New York Times reported that "400 girls 18 and younger had labiaplasty last year, an 80 percent increase from the 222 girls who had cosmetic genital surgery in 2014."

This month, The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released official recommendations for medical professionals about how to talk to patients who inquire about the procedure, due to the frequency of inquiries. 

Much has been written in response -- on Thursday in The Guardian, Jessica Valenti argued that the need for labiaplasty stems from deep-rooted societal pressures for women to be perfect. 

"For all the feminist progress made," she wrote, "there is still a shocking amount of disdain for women’s anatomy when it is not firm, tucked, primped and waxed."

As woman, and as a body-positive feminist, I agree. And I can't help but reflect on my own experience.

My mother gave birth to me at the Naval hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. For Navy wives like my mother, childbirth was not considered an emergency, and women were not assigned one obstetrician. I was to be delivered by whoever was working that day. Unfortunately for me and my mother, the man working that day happened to be a moron. I was his first solo birth, and, as my mother's third delivery, I was coming fast. 

As I began to crown, the young doctor asked my mother to please "STOP!" -- pro-tip: that's not how childbirth works -- and, as I was born, declared me a boy. My grandmother, who had been reeling in anticipation for this granddaughter and who made goddamn sure she was present for my birth, damn near fainted. But then he handed me to the nurse, a woman, who immediately corrected him. The moron who delivered me had, of course, gotten it wrong. My labia were swollen, that's all.

This is a story that we as a family have laughed about, one that's been repeated to me over and over on my birthday. But for years it also made me cringe, and I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence wondering if there was something wrong me -- my labia, my vulva, my vagina.

All women face an onslaught of unrealistic body expectations basically from birth, and I was no exception. Like most of my fellow adolescents, I wasted a lot of time comparing my body -- "women's anatomy" included -- to the female figures who represented "beauty" in our culture at that moment. When I could manage to sneak a look at my parents' issues of Playboy -- a glossy magazine that featured the supposed pinnacle of female attractiveness -- what I saw were women who were hairless (save for the shiny, rippling waves on their head), oiled and bronzed. I was none of those things. I was frizzy, and hairy, and certain that I was a physical disaster. (At 13, who doesn't feel like a disaster?) But even at my worst moments, it never occurred to me to have any part of my sex organs modified.

But for many young women today, this seems to be something that is occurring to them. As Roni Caryn Rabin wrote in the The New York Times on Monday:  

For adults, the procedure is marketed as “vaginal rejuvenation,” tightening the inner and outer muscles of the vagina, as well as often shaping the labia; it is geared to older women and women who have given birth. But gynecologists who care for teenage girls say they receive requests every week from patients who want surgery to trim their labia minora, mostly for cosmetic reasons, but occasionally for functional reasons, such as to relieve discomfort.

It shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise that young women are seeking this kind of procedure, and that the term "vaginal rejuvenation" even exists -- the second-most-searched-for porn videos on PornHub are under the keyword "Teen," and waxed and contoured women with neither a hair nor dimple out of place are raking in thousands by promoting slimming detox teas on their Instagram accounts -- accounts that literally millions of young women follow. 

Beauty ideals have officially transcended hair, skin, and body weight. We are at the point where even the outer parts of our vaginas need fixing. 

While recent campaigns like Dove's "Love Your Hair," and Aerie's unretouched ads certainly aim to diversify standards of beauty, it clearly isn't enough to make young women feel like their bodies -- and therefore, their very selves -- are adequate and deserving. 

In the face of this societal pressure to be "perfect," the seemingly simple act of self-acceptance can feel revolutionary. Arousing, even. We should all be trying it. 

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If you're in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this week, you might see things you didn't know were out there. You'd see Aztec dancers in vibrantly colored headdresses, rain dancers, Apache dancers, a Cherokee choir. It's the 33rd annual Gathering of Nations, a powwow that brings in, according to the organization, more than 700 tribes not just from North America, but from around the world. From April 28 to April 30, Native and indigenous peoples from around the world are celebrating their cultures, competing in dance and song, and showcasing their art -- to each other, and to the world.

It's a sad reality that many non-Native Americans know little to nothing about the Native tribes that have lived in the United States since long before the states were colonies. Pop culture imagery, like that of Pocahontas, in her clinging buckskin dress, or the mystical depiction of Indian people in J.K. Rowling's recent story "History of Magic in North America," tend to perpetuate stereotypes about almost mythical Native Americans, lost to history along with unbroken wilderness.

Writer Jacqueline Keeler, who is Navajo/Yankton Dakota Sioux, recently put this bluntly in an essay on the Native American plot of the Netflix show "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt": "No one ever expects to meet us in real life. I’m not exaggerating when I say the most common response I get from other Americans is, 'Wow, I didn’t know you still existed.'"

But exist they do -- both as citizens of sovereign nations within the United States, and spread throughout the rest of the country and world. Not only do Native Americans exist, many tribal nations have fought to keep their cultural traditions alive and cherished. 

Derek Mathews, who founded the Gathering of Nations as a college powwow at the University of Albuquerque in 1983, emphasized that the event was an opportunity to mend misconceptions and prejudices toward Native people. In an email to HuffPost, he wrote: "The intent first and foremost is to dispel the negative and inaccurate myths about Native people. We hope they are able to learn the aspects of the culture firsthand."

There's not much better opportunity to learn how truly varied and rich Native American nations' cultures are than to attend a powwow like the Gathering of Nations, which offers many tribes the platform to showcase their unique art forms and traditions. 

Though the Gathering of Nations is open to indigenous peoples from around the world, it is focused on Native American issues; one event is the Miss Indian World pageant, in which Native American women compete for the crown. Mathews told HuffPost that the global framework of the powwow actually arises "from the continued growth of the event and interest in Native American culture" around the world. 

Such interest in Native American culture is certainly long overdue, but these stunning photos (all courtesy of the Gathering of Nations) show that Native culture isn't historical or lost -- it's still here, and still breathtaking.

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If there’s one thing you can count on in a Garry Marshall film, it’s an appearance by Héctor Elizondo.

The actor has been cast in all 18 of the director’s feature films since the two first worked together in the 1982 comedy “Young Doctors In Love.” Marshall once told Entertainment Weekly that Elizondo was his “lucky charm.” And with the premiere of “Mother’s Day” on Friday, the duo’s tradition remains intact.

“We have an almost non-verbal communication now,” Elizondo told The Huffington Post Thursday.

It was Marshall who cast Elizondo as hotel manager Barney Thompson opposite Julia Roberts’ character Vivian Ward in the unforgettable 1990 classic “Pretty Woman,” which remains one of the actor’s most iconic roles. In the director’s third holiday-themed film, which interweaves several characters and motherhood storylines together, Roberts and Elizondo reunited on-screen to portray TV shopping network star Miranda Collins and her agent Lance Wallace, respectively.

"We paid an homage to ‘Pretty Woman,’ and [in] one particular scene at the diner we tipped our hat to the 25 year anniversary of that movie," Elizondo told HuffPost. "The audience loves that movie and so do we. I said we have to pay some kind of homage because our relationship in this movie, even though [my role is] a cameo, is similar. I play her friend, her agent and I give her some advice in the diner very subtly, very oblique and she takes it, concerning the relationship with her daughter."

In the scene, Elizondo's character even points to "the salad fork" -- a reference to when Barney taught Vivian dining etiquette in "Pretty Woman" -- for true die-hard fans. Elizondo described filming the scene as a moving moment on set for everyone.

"That moment, I had to repeat it two or three times because for some reason I got emotional," Elizondo said. "I was looking at [Julia] and suddenly my body realized it, and this is unconscious, 'good lord, this happened 25, 26 years ago!' And I’m there looking at this wonderful woman and we've had a life experience. So for some reason I said 'Stop! Stop! I gotta do this moment again.'"

At first, Elizondo said, Marshall and the film crew weren't sure why he couldn't run through the scene until it happened again.

"They didn’t know what happened and I excused myself, came back and tried it again," he continued. "And again I couldn't do it. I said 'I’m getting emotional.' Then they understood what was going on. They came back from video village, where they're watching the shoot from, and everybody had tears in their eyes because the same people were there. Garry and his crew were there 25 years ago and, of course, Julia. So it was a moment of great emotion and we were all hugging and crying, 'Oh my god, can you believe it!?'"

While Elizondo’s role in the film is rather brief, the Nuyorican actor says this film won't disappoint audiences.

"The movie is another Garry Marshall feel-good, makes you laugh and cry movie," Elizondo said. "He loves happy endings, he makes sure there’s something to work through in the middle and things work out OK. And I especially like the fact that it's a nod to mothers, a very contemporary nod to mothers."

"Mother's Day" opens in theaters nationwide on Friday. 

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The title subject of "Keanu" is a kitten, and why you are reading the rest of this article instead of hustling to your nearest multiplex is beyond me. I first saw the movie at its rowdy South by Southwest midnight premiere in March, and even though initial reviews were mixed, there is so much to love about Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele's first joint big-screen venture.

Key and Peele, who ended their popular Comedy Central sketch series last September, star as Clarence and Rell, cousins who infiltrate a Los Angeles drug ring that has seized their new feline friend. Clarence and Rell's ideal weekend includes seeing a Liam Neeson action movie and jamming out to George Michael. But to retrieve little Keanu, they must get through a gangster named Cheddar (Method Man) who operates out of a seedy strip club. In an effort to fit in, the tight-knit duo adopt a performative version of stereotypical, hyper-masculine blackness. "Keanu," then, becomes a rather subversive comedy about race from the same guys who gave us Obama's anger translator. 

The Huffington Post had a quick phone conversation with Key and Peele last week to discuss "Keanu," which Peele co-wrote with Alex Ruebens and Peter Atencio directed.

Now that "Key & Peele" is in the rearview mirror, do you ever regret ending the show when you did, given how much comedic fodder this presidential election has provided?

Peele: It’s funny -- it’s kind of good to be out of the political fray because having to pay attention to all of that is really draining. Some people thrive on it. I myself don’t. I find it so frustrating when there’s people that are in control, or going to be in control, who -- I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just frustrating. 

Key: You mean politically it’s frustrating for you?

Peele: Yes, it frustrates me so much and it can occupy my mind 24/7 if I don’t escape from it.

Key: Comically, you really have to dig in. You really have to analyze and observe. And in turn you’re saying, “I don’t want to do that because people are making me upset.”

Peele: This is a country where the individual has power, but it doesn’t always feel like that.

Key: No, it doesn’t. 

Are there any sketches you’ve thought of that you wish you had a platform for?

Key: I don't think so. As you just mentioned that, it’s a little bit in the rearview mirror. The focus has been so much on “Keanu” right now, but also on the projects that we’re moving forward with. Also, the interesting thing is, given the stuff that we did politically on the show, it was very focused. It mostly manifested through Obama and Luther. There are candidates at this particular moment in time that definitely don’t need an anger translator. I don’t know about you, Jordan, but there’s nothing that comes to my mind in thinking about what I would do. It’s truly stranger than fiction, in this particular case.

Peele: Even when we did our show, we would tend to try and make sketches that would still be funny in a couple of years.

Key: Or 20 years.

Peele: Or 20 years. It’s what we call evergreen things. It would be less about responding to the thing that Trump said this week, as opposed to making sure that when someone watches us in 10 years they still get it.

Key: I mean, maybe if we were going to do something, we might play a character in a sketch who was a blowhard and who was making promises just based on the whims of the public that day. You’re getting that archetypal character, but we wouldn’t call that character Donald Trump. Then hopefully you’d say, “Aha, there’s a perfect example of that type of politician who will exist ad infinitum.”

Even though neither of you directed “Keanu,” it is clearly your baby. After making this movie and running your own show for so many years, you’re also moving on to other people’s projects. Is it hard to relinquish control?

Peele: We might have slightly different responses to this. I love writing and directing, so I think ultimately the control is something that I long for more of. I’ve got a lot of stories that I’ve been sitting on and a lot of projects I feel I can realize now.

Key: And for me, because my training and my background is as an actor, I relish interpreting other people’s work. I don’t need to be the coach of the team; I just want to be the best player on the team for the coach, which might just be a people-pleasing quality that I have as a human. But, for me, it’s a sense of being able to collaborate with people, mostly Jordan because we speak the same language. When I offer advice, it’s only that I want to have clarity. To say to another producer or a director or a fellow actor, “I don’t understand this,” or, “If we did that, would this make more sense?” -- that’s kind of my modus operandi. My hope is that it’s always a dual activity. It’s for me, the actor, to clarify how to play the character better and bring the character to life better, and then also to make the project as clear as it can be. So Jordan is right. We have different desires within the industry, but we love working together. That’s the thing.

What was your familiarity with underground drug rings and seedy strip clubs before "Keanu"?

Peele: That’s a good question. You’ll notice that we wanted our characters to play in the world of underground crime and seedy strip clubs as represented in film and TV. In essence, this movie is a commentary on pop culture and how stereotypes and genre tropes have fed us.

Key: Right, you’re watching the characters, and it’s a lack of actual research. For the characters, who are very much like us, the quote-unquote research they’ve done is the movies they’ve seen. So they’re only acting within the stereotypes that they know. Peter did a brilliant thing as a director by making the reality of the movie as real as possible. That’s why you cast someone as Method Man, so that everyone was real to life and we are putting too much into it because of what our characters saw in the movies.

Did you always know George Michael would be your stereotypical white-people music?

Peele: We did bat around some other names. There are a lot of great stereotypical white artists out there.

Key: I think the reason we fell on the right one -- and George was the best possible choice -- was that as white as he may be, he has a lot of soul. He’s the one artist that you can hook your gang members with realistically. There is so much soul and rhythm to that man.

Peele: He’s a rebel.

Key: He is a rebel! Yeah!

Peele: And an outsider and a bad boy too.

Who were some of the other names you considered?

Peele: There were quite a few. We had Simon and Garfunkel.

Key: Billy Joel.

Peele: Yep, yep.

Key: Cat Stevens.

Peele: Yep, Cat Stevens. But we figured with a name like Yusuf Islam, it would be too black.

Key: George Michael was definitely the sweet spot.

Peele: We also talked about Phil Collins. We talked about Sting, even.

Who’s your favorite pop-culture cat?

Key: Well, from me being a child of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, I would probably have to say Garfield. He would be my favorite cat. He was so huge.

Peele: We’re also both fans of Jonsey, the cat from “Alien.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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The "Hamilton" obsession is real and here to stay. If you've listened to the soundtrack, you probably already know. And if you've seen the show, you definitely know (and also congratulations on being the luckiest human ever). But if you're anything like most of the Ham fam, you enter the lottery every single day because you refuse to throw away your shot at tickets. 

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Artist Naomi Dawson had a wedding to attend, but she couldn't find a card that fit her friends' sense of humor -- so she decided to make one herself. 

"I couldn't find anything that suited them and their sense of humor, so I decided to design something myself," Dawson, a freelance illustrator in the UK, told The Huffington Post. "They absolutely loved it and told me that they really liked having a card that was a bit different than the rest. This made me want to design a whole range of modern day love cards."

And that's what she did, basing her card series on her own experience being in a long-term relationship.

"I wanted to create a funny series of cards that show love not in the traditional sense, but within a modern day relationship," Dawson said.

The cards, which were especially popular around Valentine's Day, are available on Etsy.

"My favorite card says 'modern day love is saying that you will make dinner,' as I seem to never know what to make for dinner these days and always cook the same things again and again," Dawson said. "When my other half offers to cook, it makes me so happy that I don't have to do it for the evening. As he works too, I know this shows that he loves me because he probably doesn't feel like cooking either."

Check out more of Dawson's modern love cards below:

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A powerful piece of dance theater currently headed across the United States on a 20-city tour is honoring the lives and stories of those lost to HIV/AIDS epidemic.

THE MISSING GENERATION is an emotionally intense showcase that remembers a generation decimated by the AIDS crisis while hoping to offer healing to those in attendance. Performed by a company made entirely of queer- and trans- identified individuals, the program involves oral interviews with survivors of from the early days of the epidemic interweaved with the dancing of the company members.

We caught up with Sean Dorsey, the visionary behind THE MISSING GENERATION, to learn more about what inspired the tour, what he hopes audiences take away from seeing the piece and more.

The Huffington Post: What inspired you to create THE MISSING GENERATION?

Sean Dorsey: Our culture has turned its back on the early AIDS epidemic -- along with its survivors. People who lived through that horrific time have had to lock away unthinkable grief, mass death and profound loss. This show invites us all to attune ourselves to, and lovingly witness and hold, these survivors.
As a transgender artist, I am also passionate about bringing forward trans experiences of the early AIDS epidemic. Most non-trans people don't know that trans women's communities -- especially trans women of color -- were decimated by the early epidemic. These voices are especially important to me.

During my lifetime, we will see the passing of the last witnesses/survivors of the early AIDS epidemic. With their passing, we lose knowledge and information about one of the most important periods of American history. We must fight hard, work hard, love hard to embrace, acknowledge, listen to and record these stories before they are gone forever. 

We all benefit from learning from the heart, compassion, strength, resourcefulness, resilience and activism of that period.

THE MISSING GENERATION speaks as powerfully to the longtime survivors as it does to the teen who doesn't know anything about AIDS history. This is because the show is ultimately about larger themes we can all relate to: grief, loss, isolation, self-exploration, love, unity, healing. 

THE MISSING GENERATION cracks our heart open: we MUST revisit our grief in order to begin to heal from it. So there are tears and heartbreak in the show, and then there is the invitation into healing. People take away a profound sense of connection, feel inspired about how we can lift each other up and out of heartbreak.

This project has been life-changing for many who have been touched by it -- including me. I have been forever changed by this generation who fought and loved and lost in the trenches. THE MISSING GENERATION reminds us that we have ALL been changed forever by this remarkable generation.

And we are lucky enough that some of that generation survived. Come hear and see their stories, danced.

The next stop on the MISSING GENERATION tour is in San Francisco on May 5-7. For a full list of tour dates and more info about the tour, head here.

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On April 12th, 1961 Yuri Gagarin launched into space on a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, becoming the first person ever to leave the planet.

Here’s the crazy thing: today’s astronauts travel to space on a nearly identical rocket, the Soyuz, which went into operation only five years after Gagarin’s historic flight.

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To soften the gusty blow of the so-called cruelest month, the Academy of American Poets decreed April National Poetry Month, a time to read and celebrate the written and spoken word, and to participate in various poetry-related activities. 

In 2012, for example, the organization asked for submissions from student-poets, some of whom had their work published on Poets.org. To honor Poetry Month this year, Richard Blanco, the President Inaugural Poet and Education Ambassador of the Academy of American Poets, blogged about the value of poetry, especially in the classroom.

“Our teachers should be encouraged to share poems and to draw on poetry as a resource,” Blanco wrote. “Our poets are citizen journalists, activists, heroes, the narrators of our democracy-in-progress.”

It’s an urgent plea, especially amid the curriculum changes implemented by Common Core, which centers on nonfiction reading. But for those promoting engagement with poetry, it’s important to spread the word long after Poetry Month is over. As poet Charles Bernstein claims in his essay, “Against National Poetry Month As Such,” Poetry Month’s aims “have been misguided because these organizations have decided to promote not poetry but the idea of poetry, and the idea of poetry too often has meant almost no poetry at all.”

So before you sing Poetry Month’s praises, read a poem! There are so many to celebrate, including the below collections, by emerging poets and established writers.

Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

Vuong treads swiftly and softly through themes as personal as self-acceptance and as sweeping as war.

Tender Data by Monica McClure

Poetry is performative for McClure, who tries on personas to explore powerful, political lines.

Blue Laws by Kevin Young

Twenty years’ worth of poems collected in a broad anthology centered mostly on the experience of being black in the American South.

How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes

These poems are about looking and seeing. Hayes surveys art and race, uncovering what it means to be visible, and what it means to be invisible.

Absent Mindr by Tommy Pico

The title of Pico’s digital poetry collection (It’s an app! And a chapbook! With audio! And art!) is a riff on Grindr, and dives into the ways we interact with technology.

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

This small, tender collection was published five years before Shire was featured in Beyoncé’s new visual album “Lemonade,” and it’s a powerful work of art in its own right.

Rapture: Poems by Sjohnna McCray

McCray explores his father’s experiences in the Vietnam War, reeling them into personal reflections on his own identity.

Notes on the Assemblage by Juan Felipe Herrera

Herrera comments on current events, often related to hate crimes and discriminatory violence, in a voice that’s alive and urgent.

Bender by Dean Young

If you think poetry can’t compete with the undulating energy of your Twitter feed, think again: Young’s jubilant wordplay, his oscillation between topics, makes reading him a wild sensory experience.

The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa

The recent recipient of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, this collection introduces a modernist Japanese poet, whose spare imagery will move you, to the English language.

[insert] boy by Danez Smith

Smith’s poems -- which often address his queer, black identity -- ooze with imagery rich with hope, without ignoring his anger.

Snowflake / different streets by Eileen Myles

Gutsy, rapid-fire poems from the writer brave enough to follow through with a write-in presidential campaign.

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The mundane beetle is incredibly magnificent up close.

That's evident in the latest work of British photographer Levon Biss, whose intricate images of insect specimens, from the tiger beetle to the marion flightless moth, will be on display in an exhibition called "Microsculpture" at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History from May 27 to Oct. 30.

"We are surrounded by these creatures every day, yet we cannot normally see them, so one of the aims of 'Microsculpture' is to make it more accessible and palatable for us to view these stunning creatures," Biss told The Huffington Post.

To create the photos, Biss meticulously captures thousands of close-up images of one insect with a microscope lens, and then stitches those individual images together to create one portrait. (Watch his process in the video above.)

Biss photographs the insect in approximately 30 different sections, depending on the specimen's size. 

Each final portrait -- which takes two to three weeks to complete -- is a composite of about 8,000 individual photographs, New Scientist reported.

"Photographing insects gives you constant surprises, you always see something new and beautiful," Biss said. "They are so varied that they provide an endless source of visual material to photograph, with an amazing array of colors, textures and shapes. It is only with the assistance of microscope magnification can we observer this microsculpture up close."

Scroll down to see 16 insects in striking high-resolution detail.

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