Vol 4 No 2 | Spring 2023

Letters from the Editors

What would Paul Gauguin be known for if he’d never gone to Tahiti? Would there have been a Harlem Renaissance if Langston Hughes hadn’t moved to New York? What would the Red Hot Chili Peppers write songs about if they weren’t in California? Think about it. Just how much does our location shape the work we create?

Sometimes it doesn’t matter much. A photographer can move from one Orlando suburb to another without any noticeable impact on their work, but what if they moved from a poor neighborhood to a rich one? Or from a politically conservative society to a progressive one? Or from living in a majority to living in a minority? Countless artists have fled their homelands to escape racism, homophobia, and fascism. They’ve moved far away to chase professional opportunities, a higher quality of life, or a romance. And it has significantly altered their work.

Can you imagine an Icelandic Frida or a Mexican Björk?

This is on my mind as I’m preparing a move myself. After 16 years in Boston, I’m moving to the Twin Cities. Harsher winter, lower cost of living, the experience of starting over in a new place. How will such a change affect my art? Who’s to say? I’m sure there will be ways I’m aware of and ways I’m not.

That’s something to think about while looking through this collection of new work. What role does location (or better yet, a relocation) play? And what does it mean in your own creative endeavors?

The Spring is a magical, amazing time of year. Here in Boston, the flowers are blooming and birds are singing, and anything seems possible.

Back in March, I got excited about the prospect of growing vegetables, and ordered some seeds. Starting plants from seed always feels like such an act of faith. You never know if your timing is quite right, or if anything will work out the way you hoped. As a card-carrying optimist, my hopes are high. I imagine that come summer, we will have a bumper crop of cherry (and Atomic Grape) tomatoes, purple chili peppers, and red leaf lettuce. Until then, all I can do is show up, water these little green things, and tell them they look beautiful.

Actually, Springtime gardening reminds me a lot of how it feels to work on this project. We have exciting plans and big dreams for the future, but in the meantime all we can do is show up and keep tending to this glorious wild beast. The biggest difference is that the fruits of our work become clear with every amazing piece of art submitted and every wonderful conversation we get to have with an artist. These conversations are so exciting because they are a constant process of identifying patterns between works, and identifying with the people who make them.

This issue includes a lot of work that considers technology, identity, and how we identify with each other and the world at large. There are meditations on how we relate to the idea of home, relationships, the self, our bodies, the sea, and what makes something a monster. A lot of artists experimented with new ways of working, and so did we. For the first time ever, we gave one artist, Lila Wordsworth, two prompts to synthesize into one response, and the results were amazing.

I hope this Spring brings you rest when you need it, beauty in unexpected parts of your life, and all the wonder this season has to offer.

Map of Works in This Issue

Bait/Switch is an interdisciplinary exquisite corpse project. Every work is a creative response to a piece made by another artist. The project is divided into three branches- cyan, magenta and yellow. This map/diagram shows how the works in this issue fit together, and what came before. You can see the entire corpus on our maps page.