* Mary Camille Beckman *
The obituary form is form par excellence. It’s formula—a formula that prefigures its content. Like air inside a balloon, the content of my grandmother’s life—names, dates, places, accomplishments—took the shape of its container.
A Form of Loss: On Writing an Obituary Read More »
* Jeremy Allan Hawkins *
In recent times, La Petite France has become one of the most heavily frequented tourist areas in Strasbourg, known for its unrivaled quaintness. The history of the neighborhood is, however, more colorful than any Christmas display, and many thousand times more sordid. One of the first facts a newcomer learns here is about the origins of its name. Apparently it was inspired by a hospice built in the fifteenth century to house soldiers with syphilis, known at the time as the “French disease,”
Fantasy in La Petite France Read More »
* Zoe Tuck *
To say that a literature has emerged is a useful fiction; a shorthand for a host of possibilities, which span many verb tenses and possible relations to existence…we need to be able to exist and thrive as people, in order for our literatures to fully come into their own.
Creating Our Own Lexicon Read More »
In June I traveled to Atlanta to partake in GloATL’s Process. GloATL is a contemporary dance platform that makes collaborative, multimedia works of movement. The experience reshaped my ideas about art making and as well as how I want to live my own life: awake.
* Eric McDowell *
So how to account for a first film like British director Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008), arriving fully formed, with both mastery and risk?
First Films: Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” Read More »
Indoors, examining lamps and peering through windows, I recall the James Turrell exhibition I saw last summer at the Guggenheim. I am starting to feel like I am crawling through a pinhole, so I am happy to remember my way out of the house.
“One More Part of Clarity”: James Turrell at the Guggenheim Read More »
There is no amount of being a privileged do-gooder that will do anyone any good if people can’t respectfully co-exist without entirely erasing each other—physically, geographically, economically, psychically—in the name of progress.
The Cross or The Pill Read More »
* Oksana Lutsyshyna *
Until recently, I have belonged to an invisible nation. The world saw Ukraine as part of Russia, and there was nothing to be done about it. But now, things start to change.
* Robert Sparrow Jones *
“Tim Powers: Below the Surface” is a quiet meditation on the mundane and intimate space of sleep. His source of investigation is the philosophical and existential oppositions that manifest themselves in the industrial materials he uses. The theme of the unconscious is carried through in the ethereal hues inherent to polystyrene and latex, which collectively invite the viewer into a meditative space. But what stirs this exhibit are the oppositions Powers designates in the details. They are full of physically engaging contradictions that lure you inside the work. And while dreams themselves remain nameless; a sustaining eternal question about what makes our own landscape lingers.
Tim Powers: Below the Surface Read More »
* Lillian Li *
I eat the stinky tofu on my second day in Beijing, passing up two metal carts before finally biting the bullet at a stand in Wangfujing. I hand over ten kuai and watch as the vendor first deep-fries the tofu, and then ladles the golden cubes into a grey gravy. Then he scoops the wet tofu into a cup, spoons a dollop of hot chili paste on top, and presents the nightmare sundae to me with a long toothpick as my only utensil.
