Issue 01, 2020

Dear Reader,

You can put your damp socks on the space heater. Grab a blanket and come sit down with us. We made this launch issue a hearty casserole, got some fresh ingredients and honored day-old food. To glance at these pages would be for us alone to see personal narratives: family bonds, job applications, roommates, recipes and press releases from a few years ago. We hope you find some warmth within these discussions and if you need a break from confabulations you can just put some music on. A friend of ours made a playlist — there is a link on the bookmark.

The sun is setting now and you feel this through the changing temperature on your skin and a growing darkness against your eyelids. You look at your device and it must be tomorrow. There is always content in love and appreciation, but don’t get caught in the shiny surface of empathy — there are fire hazards everywhere.

We meant to ask you, do you know how your friends pay their bills? Do they lovingly tend to the mechanism of a clunky machine? Do they teach art? Do they pawn family heirlooms? How do you keep your home warm in the wintertime?

Not everything you’re given turns out to be a gift. We threw a wrench in our old border-policing habits. In the early hours of pagination — the temptation to endless edit. We filled some holes in the fabric of our knowledge by listening carefully as we learned to assist and accommodate, to host, to give and to receive. Would you like a drink to warm up? Summer will soon be here.

Come a little closer. Stay a little longer. There is room for you here. Our bonhomie reaches a place of distinction only if we give each other the quality of our attention. In other words, when we are forced to be apart it’s harder to ignore that we all need the work of others to sustain our autonomy. Let’s gather around the fire and celebrate our co-dependency. Let’s revel in the stickiness of our relationality. Love me love me. Just say that you need me.

Remember when I was looking for a job and then I found a job? Late at night, alone at the gallery, I used to put my nose next to vent of the old photocopier, I don’t know why but occasionally it smelled like a pizza oven.