Lint Magazine No. 2 by Lint Art Collective

Nº 2 / Transit

I often walk to work, when the weather in Sweden allows it. During my early morning commute, I parade with a book on tape and cherish the brief moments of sunlight contingent on the breeze sweeping over city canopies. My most recent listen was the novel, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. The main character, Santiago, goes out into the world to find some dreamy treasure and instead, he finds his legend and his ultimate truth, through love, mentorship and shared experience as well as moments of despair and solitude. Transit comes from the Latin word transire or to ‘go across’. But Santiago's story has me brooding over whether there must be some physical surface to tread across for transit to take place. The artists selected for this issue have found ways to redefine and re-evaluate our sense of transit. As always, we are elated to bring you artists who play with subject, form and genre using visionary techniques, some of which pay homage to earlier forms of their craft and those who seek to combine new methods to gain and explore untried insights. We examine the post-human era in an auspicious yet apocalyptic light in the works of Sara Piotrowska and Maciej Szczęśniak, who draw together science fiction and ontological studies in a series of performances. Leodan Morales documents the mundane along the highways of the Zacualtipán region in Mexico. The writer Sabaldashov Victor Victorovich demonstrates the perseverance required to showcase "transit" within the concrete walls of a bomb shelter. What new meanings can we derive from what has transpired in these pages? We at Lint hope you enjoy the cross-cultural conversation facilitated here, and that you can draw insights of your own. We proudly present to you, the second edition, Transit.

Letter from the editor Lillian Wyse

CHAPTERS Nº 2 / Transit EDITOR’S LETTER 2 KREIDA ART GROUP BY ELZA BERDNYK & MARK SYMKIN 8-13 ZHENIA PERUTSKA 14-19 ALISA HAVRYLCHENKO 20-21 NASTYA DIDENKO 22-27 TETYANA STRELCHENKO 23-24 SABALDASHOV VICTOR VICTOROVICH 28-31 CASPAR DE GELMINI 32-33 FIA LINNÉA EMELIE DOEPEL 34-35 SAM A. TWUMASI BOAMA 36 SALLY STÅHL 37-41 NINA OLTARZEWSKA 42-47 DANIEL SCHERMERHORN 48-51 ELIZABETH ALSTER 52-53

Lint Magazine instagram.com/lintartcollectivefacebook.com/lintartcollectiveissuu.com/lintartcollectiveThewww.lintartcollective.comlintartcollective@gmail.comContact:413Gothenburg,DjupedalsgatanSweden07issueisavailibleonlineat: Editors Lillian Wyse Miranda Rendahl StephanieZainabCoughlanArshad Contributing editor Winny Apaza Cover Art Sara Piotrowska Maciej Szczęśniak Logo desisgned by Hidaya Zia Commissions Grafizzy Antarabhava 2019-presentIlariaSponda ISSUE 2 5

AUTUMN TSAI 54-55 FLORENCE LANXUAN LIU 56-59 REBECCA STEIGHNER 60-67 AZIYA IKHTYMBAYEVA 68-71 VARDIT GOLDNER 72-81 JOSEF MARTINOVSKY 80 MARCO CASTELLI 82-83 NOMAD STUDIO 84-89 NIBERA 90-95 KAILUM GRAVES 96-99 SARA PIOTROWSKA & MACIEJ SZCZĘŚNIAK 100-111 ROGÉRIO DA SILVA 112-113 SAYOKO OSADA 114-115 MIYUKI HIRAOKA HAO BIYINGSARAHUANGWILSONLOU 116-117

ANDREA KOVACS (KURSZÁN) 118-123 ILARIA SPONDA 124-129 VOLODYMYR VIKHLIAIEV 130-131 IAN GONSHER 132-133 RITAM TALUKDAR 132-141 LEODAN MORALES 142-151 NAZLI ABBASPOUR 152-157 7

KREIDA ART GROUP BY ELZA BERDNYK & MARK SYMKIN KYIV, UKRAINE We Are Just Numbers is an ongoing series of performances and installations by the Ukrainian art duo Kreida. The duo first performed in front of the Tel Aviv Art Museum on the 100th day of the war [03/06/2022] in response to the number of civilians killed in Mariupol.

ZHENIA PERUTSKA KYIV, UKRAINE Kyiv, April 1, 2022 People in front of Saint Sophia Cathedral, a few minutes after another air alert.

The beginning of April was a period when russian troovps left the regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv after being defeated to concentrate the maximum amount of forces in Ukraine's East and South.

КОЛЬОРУ САКУРИ ЖИТТЯ СТАЛО НАМИ, А МИ СТАЛИ БІЛЬШ НІЖ KREMENCHUK,ЖИТТЯМUKRAINE Written by Alisa Havrylchenko Кольору сакури Це було в Ужгороді чи у Токіо? Чи в якомусь іншому місті? Сакура розквітла на п’ять днів раніше, ніж зазвичай, але де саме? Ганна не встигла прочитати – новина відразу зникла і замість неї на моніторі з’явилася інша. Хтось невидимий вирішив, що її, Ганну, більше зацікавить чергова бійка депутатів з Верховної Ради, а не цвітіння сакури. Дівчина вимкнула старенький комп’ютер і замріяно подивилась у вікно, за яким не було нічого, крім чергової сірої дев’ятиповерхівки. Ужгород кликав. Ужгород снився разом зі своїми сакурами, магноліями, яблунями, винами та, звичайно, річкою Уж. І, звісно, старим-старим замком, де можна було відпочити душею. А т ут, у Харкові, мусила поспішати, постійно кудись бігти, ще й вислуховувати нотації керівника. Ні, Харків Ганна любила теж, рідне місто все-таки, але Ужгород… – Ганно! А можливо, насправді вона хотіла у Токіо. А може, прагнула токайського вина, з регіону Токай. Токай-Хедьялья – саме звучання назви цього регіону вже зачаровувало. – Ганно! – повторює керівництво, з’явившись у дверях. – Стаття готова чи як? А вжеж. Готова. А ввечері, прогулюючись у Харкові, запитувала себе: чи наважиться? Ужгород кликав, УжгородВснився.ранцінаважилася. Махнула рукою на «заплатити за квартиру», «купити новий ноутбук» і «пояснити батькам». Щомісяця віддавала їм майже всю свою зарплату, аби могли жити далі в трикімнатній квартирі. Після цього Ганна мала право на розкіш. На Ужгород. УТТокіо.окай-Хедьялья.жепохапцемзбираючи валізу, поки мама й тато були на роботі, схопила ручку й аркуш з-під принтера, щоб написати їм кілька слів. Але, трохи провагавшись, так і не зробила цього. Рано чи пізно батьки самі зателефонують на мобільний, тоді й пояснить. Усе пояснить. У п лацкартному вагоні Ганна привіталася із сусідкою й лягла на своє місце, гортаючи у смартфоні новини. Сни вже уявлялися пелюстками сакури. І кружляли, й падали… – Співай, – каже сакура-жінка, обсипаючи Ганну рожевими пелюстками, цей золотокосий сон, ця нова потаємна мрія. І знову майже наказує, ласкаво, так, як уміють тільки сни: – Співай. Танцюй. Ганна відмовляється, адже зовсім не співачка, та й не збиралася нею бути. Вона журналістка! Але золоті коси й рожеві пелюстки мають свою силу, і ось вона вже стоїть на сцені, перед мікрофоном, а зала навколо виблискує тисячами облич. –ЖСпівай…одноїпісні в пам’яті – лише порожнеча. Ганна не знає, що відповісти. Вона не впорається, не зможе… Від хвилювання відбирає мову. Всі дивляться на Ганну, і вона не витримує, втікає зі сцени. Зі власного сну. Зі власного міста. Зі власного житла, хоч не було в ньому нічого жахливого. Але й сакури не було. Повернулася до Харкова за кілька днів. Батьки, хоч як дивно, не лаяли. Мати навіть зауважила, що теж поїхала б до Ужгорода відпочити. Звідки їй було знати, що Ганна їхала туди не відпочивати, а жити. Але в Ужгороді не

було рідних облич - лише сотні чужих, незнайомих. Як у залі зі сну кольору сакури. Життя стало нами, а ми стали більш ніж життям Він розгорнув книгу, найкращу за всі часи в усіх народів, і почав читати. Вже перший абзац змусив його здригнутися: і за це книгу визнано найкращою?! Він зрозумів, що не заспокоїться, доки не дочитає до останньої крапки. Дійшовши до другого розділу, він відклав книгу й потер очі. Автор тепер здавався йому не стільки знавцем людських душ, скільки вмілим маніпулятором, котрий навчився писати майже гіпнотичні тексти. Це був не той автор, якому він, читач, відкрив би свою душу. Він зазирнув у фейсбук та, не втримавшись, написав там, додавши світлину з обкладинкою: «І ця книжка найкраща?!» І сам почав сміятися з себе. Трохи заспокоївшись, він спробував зосередитися на другому розділі. Але погляд час від часу ковзав туди, у соцмережу. Ось воно: перший коментар до його допису. Останні крихти недовіри щезли. Коментар був, як передбачав перший розділ книги, від Невідомого, зі словами: «Життя стало нами, а ми стали більш ніж життям». Так, останні сумніви щезли: автор цієї книги був звичайнісіньким маніпулятором, у соцмережах відстежував усі дописи про книгу і потім під маскою Невідомого писав коментар з одними й тими ж словами: «Життя стало нами, а ми стали більш ніж життям». Вражала й та швидкість, із якою Невідомий (насправді автор, хто ж іще?) відреагував. Якою ж мала бути жадоба слави й визнання, щоб намагатися переконати читача в правдивості написаного!.. Так поступово заспокоївся і дотепно, як сам гадав, відповів на коментар: «Надто банально. Але книгу дочитаю. Просто щоб пореготати». Посміхаючись, він перегорнув сторінку книги, та щойно зробив це, посмішка стерлася з його лиця. Погляд немов застряг на перших рядках сторінки: «Надто банально, — написав він. — Але книгу я дочитаю. Просто щоб посміятися». Він заціпенів. І наступні рядки сторінки миттєво підтвердили це: «Та він заціпенів від жаху, коли усвідомив: книга була не звичайною маніпуляцією вмілого фокусника, а справді пророчою».Він не зміг продовжити читати далі. Серце шалено стукотіло у грудях. Книга випала з рук додолу. Нізащо він не хотів тепер дочитувати її до кінця. Бо це означало б… це означало б, що він дізнався би про своє майбутнє, близьке й далеке. Про свій кінець також. О т тільки як?! Я к це?! Ні, ні, автор усього лише був тонким психологом. Маніпулятором. Автор просто передбачив, як зазвичай реагуватимуть на його книгу. Стереотипи, алгоритми, хай їм грець. Автор таки знався, знався на цьому. О т тільки він, читач, проти таких ігор! Він усе ж не наважився читати далі, аби довести, що книга насправді лише показувала, наскільки передбачувані та нудні люди. Не була вона пророчою. Не була! Спересердя він навіть подумав, що добре було б спалити таку книгу, хоча раніше, вважаючи себе старим інтелектуалом, постав би проти цього варварства. Та це раніше. Тепер усе змінилося. Потроху опановуючи себе, він усе ж вирішив позбутися цієї книги, цього невдалого і несмішного фокуса Невідомого жартівника, максимально цивілізовано: подарувавши найближчій бібліотеці, яку відвідував іще з дитинства. І все ж уночі, коли він не зміг заснути, книга немов сама опинилася в його руках. Та знову він відклав її. Фейсбук став його рятівником. Занурившись у соцмережу з її недоладними дописами-вигуками, новинами, твердженнями та не менш категоричними запереченнями, читач усе ж не забув про таємничого Невідомого, спробував відшукати його коментар. Але коментар зник. Вочевидь, Невідомий (автор, хто ж іще?) видалив його, бажаючи залишитися інкогніто. Саме це урвало терпець, стало останньою краплею. За хвилину була роздерта на шматочки та горіла в комині перша сторінка першого розділу. Розділу, який відкривали слова: «Він розгорнув книгу, найкращу за всі часи в усіх народів, і почав читати».

PUSH THE SKY Nastya Didenko2022

The truth is that everything is wrong with you. You are a stranger in a second-hand sweater, oversized for your numb soul. You walk down the unknown street wearing this new reality, but it doesn’t fit you. The town is playing Noughts and Crosses where crosses are windows crossed with tape to protect them from bomb blasts, and noughts are everything left from your previous life. The town is winning. If you could, you would reset yourself to zero and start again. Even if the wind whirls around you, it won’t break you. They say it is calm and quiet in the eye of the storm. Maybe it is your silent self staring at the world from that point of stillness.

STRELCHENKO

I want to say Kyiv is surreal, but what is real anymore? Somehow, the black coffee with cardamom in Musafir tastes the same: it makes my heart beat faster and makes me believe I still have one. May the smell of cardamom be a little anchor to my previous life.

STILLNESS There is an unspeakable stillness in Kyiv these days. People are fragile and thin, like paper-cut silhouettes. No music, not much laughter and even the pets are serious and quiet. Kyiv is as silent and delicate as a toy town in a snow globe. Someone turned it upside down, and it’s snowing with apple and cherry tree blossoms. It does feel like the sky and the earth switched places, and now we are floating in zero gravity. To my surprise, I see how people around me adapt quickly to this new reality: I see those who try to fly, their hands wide open. I even see those who learned to dance in weightlessness with music only in their heads. This fearless dance is unbearably beautiful.

TETYANA NASTYA DIDENKO KYIV, UKRAINE Essay In Motion by Tetyana Strelchenko

THE EYE OF THE STORM

…and then there are days like this when of all possible feelings, only one is left. It has no name; you call it numbness. No more fear, and you are brewing hot tea when there is an air alert, and a siren is on. You are standing near the window chatting with someone you love over the phone, and at that very moment, a deadly Russian missile flies over your head. It was launched from Crimea, the land of your ancestors, and even this ultimate treachery does not hurt you anymore.

You have neither the energy nor the desire to continue online battles with former friends who have chosen to believe the enemy propaganda. It’s none of your concern any longer. You leave it to the best judgment of divine providence. The heavenly prosecutor will know better. Instead, you drink hot chamomile tea, dull and bland like your google calendar these days. It’s strange, but you feel no sorrow, no grief, nothing. Even the cruelest war images don’t make you cry. Perhaps you should give yourself a shake, or a slap in the face, and scream: “Hey, you, the heartless one, what’s wrong with you?”

Photography by Nastya Didenko

noticed that the roofs of the Pechersk skyscrapers are just like ship masts, and those airy caravels drift peacefully in the celestial waters. Clouds keep changing their shapes too. One day they are puffy as whipped cream; the following day, they are nothing but white stripes of liquid paper as if something important had been written up there but was quickly concealed from our eyes. And then people, of course, it’s always about people.

I’ve never heard a nightingale singing in Kyiv’s urban parks and cozy yards; before the war, all I could hear were strident crows hunting for their prey. Now, I listen to the nightingale’s tender melodies in the lavender twilight while drinking lavender tea on my balcony. I know it’s too much lavender in one sentence, but if you could only see the color of the sky above my neighborhood, you would kindly forgivve this

And just like that, I live in a reality where I don’t make any plans, where “future” is just a word in Webster’s dictionary, where all I do is observe and absorb and sink in the present moment. The microcosm of the universe is fascinating; suddenly, I discern the little details in Kyiv I had never suspected existed.

DETAILS

PUSH THE SKY page right Nastya Didenko2022

Older men play chess in Taras Shevchenko Park as they always did, copy-pasted right from The Queen’s Gambit's final episode. Booksellers try to seduce passers-by with mystery novels and Poe’s macabre tales, but who would read Edgar Allan Poe now when we live in one of his dark stories? Young couples eat ice cream, and for a moment, I think that time has frozen, and nothing has changed. Yet, I am wrong; the time is melting just like the ice cream, leaving white stains here and there. I see young widows; their eyes are blacker than their mourning headscarves. I see wounded soldiers and their kids whose broken smiles are like cracks in porcelain vases. I see monuments protected with piles of white sandbags as if they are pillows and the monuments are asleep.

Details, details, little dots on the fracture of our new world… They say the devil is in the details. I can’t deny he is here, but there is also God. Most certainly, God is in Ukraine too. In the end, it’s the most interesting place to be these days, isn’t it? Dnipro, March-MayKyiv2022

I’verepetition.never

PUSH THE SKY Nastya Didenko 2022 ISSUE 2 27

I went from Mykolaiv city to my native village. This is where I started writing this diary.

Translated from Ukrainian by the author and copy edited by Stephanie Coughlan

However, I am also fighting my own war. Uncle Vitya I sleep in three pairs of pants and four socks without undressing at night. I haven't shaved or washed for three days. My mobile phone is always on the charger. My favourite cat, Eva, is always sitting next to me. My backpack with money and documents is always ready. I call the same friends twenty times a day in rotation. News in the Viber group and local publications are always streaming. For the first time in my life, the shelter is not a warm bed and a greased right hand, but an old basement. And all this happened not because I finally fucked up, but because There is a WAR in my country. Today, I had to sit for an hour and a half in an old basement built by German colonists in the 19th century and listen to the sounds of sirens, and then – what is even more frightening –to the sounds of possible explosions. This is a deep basement made of shells. A long corridor leads down to it and closes with an old red wooden door. Inside, in the center, lies half a bag of potatoes in a net, a shovel, a crowbar, a hammer and an axe. On the right are three wooden chairs and a single bed. At lunch, I brought a box of twists, red peppers, salads, and bottles of water. This basement is very cold and incredibly sad. T he sadness is compounded by the fact that it is not ours, but our neighbour's seventy-year-old uncle Vitya’s. A few years ago, his mother, Zina, died. She always went to the village market at 6 a.m. and never returned emptyhanded, even though the market didn’t open until 7 a.m. No one knows how she did it.

Aunt Marusia, who on her deathbed repented to drinking vodka, left this world several dozen years ago. In the end, it was not the vodka that killed her, but cirrhosis of the liver. Uncle Vitya, who was Aunt Marusia's drinking companion, drank even more after her death. As a result, his children and grandchildren abandoned him, the yard was completely neglected, and, according to my grandmother, snakes lived in his old well. Today, I sat and looked at Uncle Vitya, who was talking to my grandmother. They gabbed about the 70s. Not the stereotypical reminiscing of rock-n-roll, drugs and how they drove drunk on "Zhiguly" and beat up the locals, instead they discussed who lives where now, whose land will belong to who, and, finally, the fact that we are not safe in this basement. Uncle Vitya said that this basement will be destroyed by the slightest wind. I put my hands on my head and such hopelessness prevailed in my soul that I dreamt of becoming a bird, a cat, staying in Europe and working for free – anything – so that I wouldn't be here. Anywhere but here. Uncle Vitya continued to talk. And I wondered –was it really like that in USSR, in 1941? Could they really sit and talk like that in besieged Leningrad, where shells blew up every day and people drank water from puddles? And when the next sirens sounded and the bells rang in the local church, I continued to listen to Uncle Vitya. On May 29, he will turn seventy years old. A nd then I thought – what if I should start talking? During these times, is there anything important? Money? Life? The world has moved on. I understand that man is the strongest creature on the planet. No one but he can withstand EVERYTHING. However, I don’t want to improve this. I don't want people to die from our bullets one day. I don't care if Putin is sentenced to three castrations in a row. I just want to keep sitting and listening to Uncle Vitya. Joe Biden A typical morning consists of coffee and a cigarette. T hen the usual several-hour news marathon, nerves and stress. I decided to dilute them by offering my younger brother, Sasha, the opportunity to do DDoS attacks on Russian sites. But it turned out that my personal IT guy installed an incomplete version of Windows, so I couldn’t install the attack program. I got a little upset, spent half a day trying to start the flash drive through the BIOS, couldn't do it and decided to go smoke the last cigarette. When I opened the pack, I saw that there were two cigarettes – and I was indescribably happy about that!

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.

I didn't volunteer for the military, I’m not the "Ghost of Kyiv", I didn't tell a Russian warship to go fuck itself and didn't do many other things.

– Written by Sabaldashov Victor Victorovich

Basement Diary

O n Halloween, I will rise from the grave and have a whole evening to walk around the village. First, I will go to my house. Through my favorite forest. But I will see completely different people there. A young married couple will be working in the backyard while their little child runs after the dog and reaches out for mom. They will smile. Maybe one of them will remember that we gave them that smile.

Blood and suffering fall on each generation's shoulders – this is the price of freedom. Millions of victims have laid their heads on the cross before Calvary to deserve the right to live.But while my heart is still beating, I would like to ask: "Mister Putin, what the hell?" Seriously, the fuck? You are the same age as Uncle Vitya, but I don't hear ideas about world domination and nuclear war from him. I'm sure you take pills for diarrhea and hemorrhoids every day. Your great mind throws out such spontaneously evil declarations that even your assistant’s hair stands up on his testicles. A nd what are you doing all this for? Because of that young prostitute who refused to get into your car on the Kyiv highway in 2013? Vladymyr Vladymyrovych, how would you act in her place? She saw an old grandfather, realized that you could impress her with nothing, and refused you. And what did you do? Went to a club, got drunk like a pig (with your sick heart), sniffed "coco" and decided to get off in front of her? Woman is a creature, but autonomous. She will not give in to such blatant attempts to show off what you haven’t had for a long time.

News about Russia's nuclear readiness and Belarus’s invasion came in the evening. I began to get very nervous, took two sedatives and watched Nickelback's clip "Someday" ten times in a row. It calmed me down a bit, but at 9:02 p.m. the sirens sounded. I was the first to fly into that fucking basement. This time, we sat with a candle, and it was already more like besieged Leningrad. Uncle Vitya said that he would not go down here again. After fifty minutes, we returned back to our beds. Before that, I called my friend Gesha in Mykolaiv, and he entertained me with a funny story. Imagine Putin has a large instrument panel where, in addition to other red buttons, there is one with the name of my village written on it. And I imagined that right then, he is sitting with Kremlin advisers shouting at him and petitioning him not to fire. He presses the button. The rocket flies around my village, and an hour later, Zelensky calls Biden and says, "That's it, Joe, I'm going to surrender. There is no strength. This village is the last straw." " No, Volodya,” Biden replies, “this is the last straw for me as well. In the evening, I will send special NATO forces." “Thanks, Joe!”

T hen I began to think about my pets which were left in the city – Robert the rat, the birds and the turtle. They are still locked in the apartment. The poor creatures rummage around the apartment looking for food. They wait for me, but nobody comes. They are afraid and very, very lonely. We didn't need a war to realize that we are all totally alone. Our resilience is in the belief that it will all come to an end. And what then? We'll go back to our favourite routines, go clubbing, film hookers, and on weekends do laundry and buy a new Robert.T here are things that can be replaced. The only thing that should not be changed is people. People don't change. Putin In the afternoon, I made myself some coffee and went into the forest. I stood, looking at those places that I love to visit so much. There was silence all around. The birds echoed. Our cat, Marquis, ran after me all the way there. He rubbed against my legs and yearned for petting. Somewhere in these sleepy forests rests my beloved dog, Bimka. At the age of seventy, I will move here myself. Someday, I will be buried here.

Grandmother Ganya Grandma is celebrating her seventy-eighth birthday today. In this regard, she asked my mother Lena to go to the centre and buy tangerines. Mom explained that she couldn't do it because a war was going on. Instead, I went. I made coffee, finished the last cigarette and went to the shop. I wanted to get some fresh air and chill.In the evening, I went out into the backyard, grabbed a broom and started sweeping up straws, tree scraps and trash. The wind was blowing outside. I looked at the washed clothes that swayed under pressure and remembered that, as a child, I always helped my grandmother sweep the whole yard. I always hated doing it. But then I went outside, took a broom – one sweep, two sweeps – and all the grief and anger went away. This process took about two hours, including the removal, and therefore, my grandmother and I were immersed in conversations about everything. W hen I left the village to study in the city, I always returned home. Every week. Once, I decided to stay for the weekend in Mykolaiv. I had to arrange a whole lecture to my mother that everything would be fine and I wouldn't be walking late at night in the centre of Mykolaiv. But as time passed, I fell out of youthful freedoms and plunged headfirst into a worthless routine. And one time I came home and realized I’d grown old. I suddenly became an independent man, who now had to solve his own affairs, fight for saving money and curse the wasted weekend. I came to the house and sat down next to my grandmother. No one in our family had ever sat next to her like that. Now I see not her silhouette, but my mother's, going out in the morning to the summer kitchen. Grandma watched a program on the Russian TV channel, where a nineteen-yearold girl was happy that she had found her biological parents through a DNA test. Grandma kept saying something. I was looking at the screen and a visceral sadness came over me. Who knows how much time we have left? How many more times will I see my grandmother? How many more opportunities will I have to say something to her and hear the answer? Her loneliness is felt not because she sits in her room all day and watches TV, but because people who can talk to her pass her by.

ISSUE 2

Logic kicked in after a few minutes and I began to imagine how we were driving a dead "Lada" car for a thousand kilometres through the countryside, roadblocks with machinegun queues, dug-up roads, no gas stations and a fucked-up stepfather. We would have to turn back. I shared this information with my mother, who shared it with my stepfather. He took two tablets of sedative and calmed down. Apparently. Because after that, he sat and watched a USSR film. And I went to the shop with my mother. There were no cigarettes. I instructed my mother to visit our neighbor on the way back. Rumor has it that she sells cigarettes illegally. Mother returned empty-handed. I was extremely upset. As is appropriate at such moments, tunnel vision kicked in as I went on a hunt for information – googled the news, trying to find confirmation of my fears to build on my nervousness. But there was no confirmation. T hen, in our Viber village group, a man wrote: "I'm in Mykolaiv, who needs cigarettes? There's Marlboros and Rothmans". I called and asked for two packs of Rothmans. An hour later I was standing in the city centre, near the store. A white car drove up. The man took out the Rothmans. I handed over the money. We exchanged a few words about the state of affairs. Then parted ways. I would go home, happy as a lark. Happiness is in the little things. Occupant At 8:25 p.m., I was petting my cat and saw a glint of light in the window. I thought: "Must be a car." And then it dawned on me that there could be no light now. There's a curfew. I got up, opened the window and saw that it was coming from our neighbor, Krusir. The light hit the sky. I passed this information on to my mother. She went to the bathroom, looked for a long time and came to the conclusion that it should be okay. "Krusir cleans the sewers. And so no one sees that he drains all the dirt to the deceased neighbour – he does it in the evening." And I fell asleep. I n the afternoon, I saw enemy ravens had flown into our field. Their herd screeched uncontrollably, sat down on the territory of the grass and began to peck the young sprouts of the future harvest. It was clear from their crazy eyes that they are robots, and have poison – like in the third part of "Resident Evil" – and they will start attacking and biting me. I put down a cup, took a small stick and shouted "Fuck off!" and ran through the garden directly towards the enemy. Ravens immediately took off and rushed towards Russia with curses. They were overtaken by my curses: "Fly to your fucking Russia! Although you still have nothing to eat there!"

Death to enemies!!!

Finish it, Vladymyr Vladymyrovych! At least in that way... Stepfather Happiness is in the little things. At 7 a.m., my mother came into our room and said that our stepfather, Pasha, had gone crazy, stayed up all night and wanted to take us to Lviv. She said we should pack our bags right now. Our stepfather came after, began to cry and asked us once to get up again. I quickly got up, dressed, went outside and smoked a cigarette. I stood and thought that every day of the war is unique. It brings another kind of fuck: Ukrainian nuclear power plant caught fire, Belarus invasion, only two cigarettes left. The last one upset me the most.

CASPAR DE GELMINI

Video stills from several of the artist’s films Top left: Objects and Cells 1 DE 2020 | 9:10 min Bottom left: Leipzig Noir DE 2020 | 9min Top right: Leipzig Noir DE 2020 | 9min

FIA LINNÉA EMELIE DOEPEL Tentacular Worship

The Struggle by Sam A. Twumasi Boama Accra, Ghana I sought a life of glee and glamour A life comparable to that of happy fairy TheTalesones Mama read to me When it was time for slumber rest Truly, she shielded us from life's real threats We played in the soot likve happy children ObliviousWould to what awaited us in tomorrow’s HerDawnyoungest child, her daughter Burried beneath a pile of burnt wood With no one to help Her body gave up her soul As she struggled for air Mama’s tears were hidden as sweat rolled down Her Blackwoodforeheadsold to feed other heads A job that took the life of one And made her lose her tender tone We dug the ground for grains and corn But bare and barren We remained in deprivation And remorse became a norm The dream for a happy day Is one that would never see the light of day

EN GALAX I MAGEN Excerpts from a poem by SALLY STÅHL 37

Varje år sa jag sen Varje år sa jag Sen senare DetSen kommer hända förvissningen Nedräkningen mot mammas ålder mormors jämfört med deras förstfödda Nedräkningen mot min plats i släktled Det är väl inget att prata om Till och med när barnmorskan sa "Vi måste fråga alla över trettio" sa jag Sen när alla andra kör Då såklart Då lovar jag att jag också vill bli mamma När min egen mamma sa Har ni tänkt Ni har så mycket annat Avbröt jag Sa självklart argt Började gråta och bytte ämne Tänkte nu gäller det Nu rinner tiden ut Nu är det strax dags för mig Man får steppa upp Jag ska shapea upp Forma mig till en mamma en potentiell mamma Jag ska rikta alla mina ordentliga och kärleksfulla egenskaper mot en ny Kärlek En aldrig sinande brunn av jobb och tillgivenhet Ett Äntligenkall en mening Mitt enda motstånd mot kapitalismen att lämna den här meningslösa tillvaron i en koja i Minvardagsrummetkampskaföras i bebins blick på världen Mitt blod ska brinna för bebins rätt att andas luft blommor och blad ett glas MittVattenÖlMjölkenda motstånd mot det här skitsystemet är miljoners kraft av kärlek riktad mot en värnlös varelse Som ska vara i min vård Mitt parti ska vara vi Vi i universums mittpunkt Vi i stöket i fredagsrushen Du vet där vid ostdisken naturgodiset Den här meningslösa kroppen ska äntligen landa i sitt syfte den här livmodern ska tänjas det här blodet ska bli mer blod Den här ofullständiga lekamen ska tämjas och tränas av kärlek och slem som de långa långa historiska köerna av kvinnor före min

Att försöka bli gravid Mitt liv är ofullbordat och jag bär skulden men inte länge till Mitt liv är ofullbordat och jag ursäktar mig i era frågande ögon Ni blinkar härligt bröllop men du är bara tjock va Ni blinkar gullig kille tänk er honom som en pappa Ni flörtar hejvilt inte med mig men med min framtid som äntligen normalt fungerande hjärna Du känner väl doften Du känner knipet i hjärtat Du känner väl den klarvakna rädslan Att bli en mamma

Jag lovar jag jobbar på det Jag vaknar innan klockan ringer. Går upp Är svinigt kissnödig Rafsar fram en sticka ur förpackningen Den är riktigt seg att öppna förpackningen Måste använda tänderna Tänder mot folie är en speciell upplevelse Sticker in stickans fladdriga papperslapp under kisstrålen Tänker att han i sängen ännu sover djupt Sticker stickan i själva apparaten Tänker är det äckligt med mitt kiss på handfatet Tvättar händerna Är det normalt att tvätta händerna såhär länge Låtsas som det här är den mest normala väntan Vad ska skärmen visa Måste jag ha sex före frukost Undrar Stoffe var jag är i sängen? Glad gubbe! Slänger stickan Lägger apparaten i förpackningen. Gömmer undan I skåpet bakom molding paste och body butter coconut Stegar till sovrummet Pigg och lite arg Väcker honom med en kyss Runkar honom Bryr mig inte om att det inte är så skönt Det ska ju göras Rider honom Inget händer Inget händer

Jag möter en vän jag inte sett på länge Jag försöker diskret se Är där en mage AllaSjälvklartharju en mage Men putar den lite Är hon gravid Man vill ju inte stirra ÄrMenhon Är hon? Jag måste samla mig Förbereder den glada överraskningen Över det positiva beskedet Att förlora ännu JagEn provar kläder Jag har köpt en ny klänning på Tradera Den är kanske romantisk i överkant Den är vacker Det är en klassisk skärning under bysten empire Ser jag inte lite Kommer nån tro Att jag är gravid Jag menar Man kunde ju haft en slankare figur Så inte risken för missförstånd skulle vara så överhängande Det känns väldigt kvinnligt sinnligt att driva runt i en sån här fri historia av bomullstyg och Menspetsarjagvet allt om blicken som letar efter putande magar Alkoholfria drinkar Tidiga Sömnigakvällareftermiddagar Ring på fingret några år över 30. Vänner med barn en gullig man en nyköpt lägenhet med flera rum Leta leta leta leta Jag konspirerar om mina väninnor Tänker nu Är det väl dags Tänker hur ska detta chickenrace Till motherhood ÄrGå det spännande Är hon???

Är det inte spännande ÄR HON GRAVID Jag borde vara det nu Det är dags nu Är mogen nu För att bli en mogen kvinna en MerMeningsfullaOändligaKärleksfullaDetMorMammasträvsammaautomatiskt än andning och hunger En riktig morsa Det är dags. Att bli en riktig Senare straffar jag dem med frågor om syskon När jag kvalfyllt erkänt Vi försöker Det går inte Vi gick en utredning Men förresten funderar ni på syskon? Jag ser hur sömnlösheten simmar i deras ögon Hur det enformiga bebislivet skapat rynkor KärlekenDrivorKråksparkaravfåror Ligger den där i hudvecken? Det är Försökertaskigtbara vinna Drämma tillbaka Mot vad? Det kommer ändå en smash: "Mina vänner har försökt i flera år Kurerna kostar multum i Oslo" De kan inte sluta längta! Hur kan jag sluta längta Hur kan min längtan vara så svag Hur kan jag som i alla andra avseenden framstår som så oerhört kapabel vara Så svag I tron 41

NINA OLTARZEWSKA BELFAST, IRELAND Nina Oltarzewska is a French artist based in Flax Studios Belfast. She works with sound, video and performance as well as sculpture and installation.

Fernweh or Finding a Place in the Snow Untouched – A short story by Daniel Schermerhorn Stockholm, Sweden

I was living in Berlin, Germany on the edge of the Grunewald forest on a street called Wasgenstraße. It was January, and the nearby lake, Schlachtensee, was frozen over, hidden under the snow that had been falling nonstop for days. The accumulation had formed a sheet of white, giving the landscape the appearance of a painting whose creator had left a blank void nestled between the dead trees that stood like mute behemoths on the surrounding banks.

Typically, the lake served as a getaway for Berliners trying to escape the city heat during the summer; however, I found that I much preferred walking along the shores in its wintry state, bundled up from head to toe and rarely crossing paths with another soul. Those I did pass, try as I might to avoid them, were likewise cocooned in thick parkas and rarely offered so much as a grunt of acknowledgement. As it was my first extended stay outside of the United States, many back home were concerned that I would be struck with a loneliness that they believed I had never experienced before. On the contrary, I found no reason to correlate loneliness with my geographical location. There had been plenty of times when I had been surrounded by family or friends and could have sworn I didn’t exist for them. Like the time I had received a letter from my grandmother, with the following lines scribbled in her trademark cursive handwriting, “After much thought, I believe you are homosexual. You are in my prayers, and I look forward to talking to you about the ways in which the Lord can help you see the light. –Mommom.”

T he use of homosexual jumped off the page and cut into me with the cold, prescriptive glare of a physician making a diagnosis rather than an observation. Given my grandparents’ conservative political and religious views, I believed my assumption to be justified, and after several minutes running her lines through my head, I tore her note into as many little pieces as possible, summarily building a wall between us with the scraps. It was a feat executed quickly and efficiently, and to this day, we have never spoken again. However, I also believed facing this rejection was a small price to pay to protect myself. It is one of the few defense mechanisms available to those who identify with a marginalized group: escape.Many people forget, outside of Berlin that is, that Berlin was an early gay mecca in the 1920’s before the Nazis came to power. Thinkers such as Magnus Hirschfeld and his colleagues at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft promoted a sex-positive society whose influence could be seen in a flourishing gay, lesbian, and transsexual cultural scene. Queer expression thrived, culminating in 1929, when the German parliament would likely have voted to decriminalize homosexuality were it not for that year’s economic crash. However, as is more widely known, by 1933 any glimpse of equality was crushed under National Socialism, and the LGBTQ community was forced to either flee or face deportation to the camps. Yet, it’s impossible to think about escape without also acknowledging the ways in which it is historically tied to privilege. What choices exist for those who do not have the means to escape? Few, I think, other than to hide. Thus, entire minority groups, spanning over generations, have existed in the shadows—a reality made visible to me by the Denkmal für die im Nationalsozialismus verfolgten Homosexuellen. As I approached that specific memorial, a bizarre, misshapen cube of concrete, I felt a pang of disappointment. The underwhelming block could easily be mistaken for a public toilet. Then, I realized how its shape may have also been its main draw. I began to notice people approaching with quizzical expressions that grew more puzzled as they questioned whether the large block in front of them was in fact diverging ever so slightly from its seemingly perfect squareness. I walked around to the street-facing side where a small opening existed at eye-level inviting

Fernweh ISSUE 2 49

In comparison, I thought of the effort my own country was making, if any at all, in acknowledging its role in the persecution and mass genocide of minority groups. The backlash against Black Lives Matter and the rise of the alt-right was a sure sign that things were headed in the wrong direction. My move to Germany had in no way started as a purposeful attempt to escape the United States. I had simply wanted to improve my German language skills. But, several months after the move I increasingly began to feel the burden of “American-ness.” I realized it had been naïve to assume that just by moving to another country, I could shed my nationality like a second skin and try on another. It was a monumental task to tap into the mind of a different culture, especially not having the words to doBso.ut, to move abroad and learn a new language seemed the closest I could get to accomplishing it. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is famously quoted as saying, “Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt,” which I’ve always taken to mean that language has the power to create the world you live in. In other words, as a native English speaker, my thought patterns and the way I experienced the world around me were intimately tangled in the very words and phrases that taught me how to express myself. On the other hand, to learn another language required expanding your mind and accepting entirely different grammatical constructions and lexicons, including words and concepts that don’t even exist in your own language. Take, for example, the German word, Fernweh, which puts a name to the feeling of longing for somewhere else, similar to wanderlust, another German word that has found a permanent home in the English dictionary. But, rather than being a catchy word used to inspire traveling, Fernweh is, in a sense, the German antithesis to homesickness. Rather than longing for home, it is the feeling of wanting to escape to somewhere else, anywhere else, to a place that is often unreachable. Studying this word, I could acutely feel its beautiful simplicity missing from my vocabulary. What Germans could describe in one word might take me several sentences, whole paragraphs, to accurately describe, which made me wonder what this said, if anything, about Germans. I, on the other hand, was disturbed by my own “American-ness” and the mire of racism and conservative puritanism that somehow seemed inherently tied to that identity. But I also couldn’t hide that I was also running from my own community. I could handle the self-inflicted loneliness, but the loneliness incurred by the expulsion from the only community that ever felt like home was different. What had started as an oasis of acceptance had turned into a garden plagued with rot. It all started one night in the club when I was approached by an older man with a proposition. I was young and attractive, he had said, drawing me in closer. Better yet, I was new to the scene—his boyfriend would love me, and he would love to watch. I made a move to back away, but the hand he had placed on my lower back didn’t allow it. I’m a big name in these clubs, he had warned, so it’s not a good idea to pass up the offer. I resisted again, and this time he let me go. I retreated into the crowd, and made my way to the exit. The next time I returned, however, I could feel the disapproving glare of the regulars, and I wondered what awful rumors had been said about me. I couldn’t imagine why a community that had been formed by oppression could adopt the characteristics of its oppressors. It was as if, through osmosis, power structures focused on dominance had turned themselves into something to be idolized in the collective subconscious of the gay community. Somehow, the toxic masculinity of heteronormativity inflicted so much abuse that it had become normalized in the power dynamics of relationships between men. Regardless, I did not return to that club, or any other. They were no longer the safe havens I thought them to be.

a single guest at a time to approach and look inside to find a looped video of two men passionatelyTkissing.hecasual observer will seldom take anything away from most of the memorials scattered around Berlin, which require active mental participation from its viewers. The Memorial Commemorating Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism was no different. I walked away from that video more confused than anything, until some time after it struck me how the act of two men kissing was intentionally hidden in the dark recess of the concrete cube, luring in viewers of all nationalities, religions, and belief systems, and demanding that for at least one second that they look into the shadows and bring these men out into the light. Even today, I can clearly imagine those two men repetitively leaning into each other, breaking the tension at the very moment their lips touch. Their faces have changed in my mind over the years, but little else. They continue on a loop in my head just like they do in Berlin’s Tiergarten. I nfinite examples of minority persecution exist around the world. My connection to the persecution of LGBTQ individuals was, of course, a more personal one. But, as I sat in a tucked away corner in a Schöneberg bar cradling a beer, I wondered how other minority groups persecuted by the Nazis, such as the Jews or Romani, reacted to the monuments erected to pay respect to their communities. Did they accept modern-day Germany’s acknowledgement of its horrific past, or was it not enough?

The existential crisis of wanting to know where I belonged that followed was briefly suppressed when I began to seriously date a long-lost acquaintance a year later. His name was K—, and as in most new relationships, we became each other’s world. Like me, he was not intimately connected to a gay identity, so it was easy to create the illusion of a new one that incorporated only us. Like immersing into a new culture, wading into a new relationship required a fine attention to detail to make sure you were not imposing too heavily on another’s way of life. Similarly, falling in love required the same hyper-sensitive consideration to language. But instead of learning a language that had already been established, in love, two people established their own. And like a second language, full comprehension of your new love language, the one you helped create, is always just out of reach. I felt this most acutely when, after a year of dating, my boyfriend turned to me in bed and said, “I don’t think I can be loved anymore.” The construction of that sentence struck me as odd. No matter what way I broke it down and analyzed it, I was always left with a visceral sadness punctuated by nausea. As he described it, years of childhood abuse, the details of which he never fully described, morphed into selfdestructive behaviors as he grew into his teen years and tried to leave any trace of the past behind. But, vicious as the cycle of abuse is, he eventually found himself allowing the abuses of the past to manifest themselves in the form of anonymous sexual partners who mercilessly used the body from which he frequently disassociated himself. Now, in a relationship that didn’t force his mind to flee, he could feel the past catching up once and for all. It was a reality

he was not ready to face, nor one I was able to help deflect. In essence, our relationship had only been a new type of escape for him, the realization of which sucked all the air out of the world I had imagined for us, and once again replaced it with the isolation that I myself had tried so hard to escape. I n the weeks that followed, I hung on to the idea of the person I had loved. But, oftentimes, he was completely mute, and when he did speak it was frequently to lash out at a dream that had caught him unawares while he slept. In the morning, when I asked him what made him scream in the middle of the night like that, he would get fidgety and irritable as if I was intruding on an embarrassing secret. Soon, the language we had created together was completely useless, and try as I might, there was no longer a viable way in which to cross the expanding universe that grew between our two separate worlds. In the end, he made what we both felt between us permanent by running away. As I sat in my apartment on Wasgenstraße, staring out the window at the fresh snow falling in folly down from the midnight blackness above, I was forced to recall the feeling of being by myself the first night after Kris left. Kris, that was his name, and as I said it out loud, the features of his face began to forge back into my mind, until they were so clear, he could have been standing in the room. My memory grew into flesh, and suddenly, he was there approaching me. The tension pulled on my heart, as he reached out and clasped my face between both his palms, drawing my mouth to his— closer and closer. When our lips finally met, the tension in my body snapped, and my body atrophied into a pile on the floor. When I opened my eyes, he was gone again. It had only been the memory of Kris that had caught up to me. T he next morning, I went out for a walk along Schlachtensee. Despite the recent snowfall and low temperatures, the crisp air offered a much-needed refresher for my mind, and I hoped I would have the shores of the lake to myself to reflect uninterrupted. When I arrived, however, I noticed the fresh layer of snow had already been disturbed by boot tracks leading in every direction. A sudden, familiar anxiety gripped me, and I began to look around for an area of untouched snow in the hopes that I could follow it and avoid a run-in with a stranger. I was embarrassed to admit it, but since Kris’ revelation, I had developed a terrible habit of seeing an abuser in every man. I saw their faces everywhere—in teachers, cashiers, and once, even in my own father. T he only clear path I saw was out onto the lake. I was unsure if the frozen water would hold, but I had seen others do it before, so I took the risk. With tentative footsteps, my boots began to create their own paths in the snow. It struck me as ironic that in following the untouched path, I was also destroying it. Like trying to find a city in which I could settle down and feel at home, it was a useless pursuit that resulted in only temporary illusions of having found what I was looking for. I stopped and turned around. Two distinct lanes of tracks a foot apart led from the shore directly to where I stood. It was senseless, no matter where I went, I would leave a trace for the past to follow. I t hought of Kris at home, doing who knows what, but certainly facing it alone with one eye always looking back over his shoulder. Then I thought of the man at the club, and how much power I had subconsciously allowed him to have over me, and then of the pink triangle members of my community were once forced to bear. Finally, out of it all came my memory of the video of two men kissing, hidden in the concrete cube. I had escaped, only to hide myself away. But try as I might, I knew I couldn’t sustain it forever. In a way, however, I had found what I was looking for in Berlin—the words I needed to bring myself out of the darkness. I began following my footsteps back to the shore, back to America, back to my community, and, I hoped, back to myself.

ISSUE 2 51

ELIZABETH ALSTER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Video stills from the film Dance of a Shipwrecked Man, 2021 Experience the film on Vimeo. 53

⾬ (徐)五六五ㄨ上⾬⾬⾬上五六⼯五六（⾏）⾬⾬歸去也無⾵⾬也無晴。

This calligram, written in traditional Chinese characters, is largely composed of the pictogram "雨" (rain). The lines "歸去... 也無風雨也無晴" (The return in time / Shall not be affected by windswept rain or shine) and the bracketed words "徐行" (Stroll along) are extracted from a poem by the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi, who wrote metaphorically about his forced withdrawal from the politics in the royal courts.

AUTUMN YUNTING TSAI TAIPEI, TAIWAN

"五六五ㄨ上" and "上五六... 工五六" are gongche notations of a traditional melody from the Beiguan repertoire "風入松" (Wind Entering the Pines). In the poem, music attempts to enter into the time and space of the text.

Through creating objects that play with images of flesh and skin, Florence Lanxuan Liu’s work explores a therapeutic process of healing through pain. She believes that suffering is a key condition that furthers psychological transformation and growth. Therefore, she juxtaposes between order and chaos, pleasure and pain, freedom and restraint, gentleness and torture as well as bruising and healing. She treats these dualities as essential components that form the foundation of a universal human language.

Beginning with her personal journey and her own body as a creative instrument, the work is born out of solitude. Through materiality she attempts to reflect and investigate bodily processes, the work reveals the tenderness and the vulnerability of human beings. Intertwined fibers, innumerable moments of puncturing and sewing, and the act of bruising results in fragile fibers being mended into something stronger. The suggestion of shed skin and lost hair are evidence of aging and renewal that becomes a record of transformation. Flesh transfigures into an encounter of haunting beauty.

INTERTWINED No.2 bottom left abaca pulp, hair, and linen thread SHED SKIN No. 1 page lithographright 22 X 30 inches

FLORENCE LANXUAN LIU VISUAL ARTIST

ISSUE 2 57

SHED SKIN No. 2 lithograph 22 X 30 inches

PERFORMANCEMAXIMALISMGENDER

“FEMALE” BY REBECCA STEIGHNER

This ongoing body of work by Rebecca Steighner investigates gender and its performative qualities. Steighner perceives their femininity as "a form of drag." The photographs are a deferential nod to artists who’ve paved the way for selfportraiture as an exploration of ego and identity within photography. Evocative of the iconic Cindy Sherman, Steighner exposes an earnest side to turning the lens, allowing viewers to explore revived iterations of camp and identity.

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AZIYA IKHTYMBAYEVA Capitalism: A Visual Guide Prague, Czech"SlavesRepublicofCapitalism" consists of over 300 portraits of masked individuals. It portrays various masks from different industries (fashion, sports, and sex). Modern slavery can be described as institutional slavery where people voluntarily or involuntarily relinquish their freedoms to private sectors and institutions. People have to grant their informed consent to be exploited. Slaves of Capitalism Mixed media on canvas, 150 x200 cm 69

The artwork consists of over 900 pieces of Lincoln origami that are organized on chrome vinyl foil and stretched onto canvas. Particularly, the Lincoln origami is made of a 5-dollar souvenir currency and portrays Lincoln in a cap. Decentralization Mixed media on canvas, 200 x200 cm

Photographs by VARDIT GOLDNER Common cranes used to migrate from Europe and Asia to Africa in autumn and back in spring. Many of them would stop for a break at the Hula (a small lake located in the north of Israel) and resume their journey the following day. As the lake’s surroundings are replete with agriculture, the cranes used to feast on them and continue on their way. In order to save the crops, the cranes are now fed proactively every morning. As a result, the cranes stopped causing damage to nearby agriculture, but many cranes are now addicted to the food provided to them and prefer to stay throughout the winters, rather than resume their migration to Africa. This winter the cranes have been plagued by bird flu. Due to so many cranes being packed into close quarters, roughly 10,000 have already died.

On Their Way Part of the Cranes series

andCranesTrains

This editorial features a combination of the projects Cranes and Train Trip. Vardit is engaged in documenting the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, mainly its effects on the daily lives Palestinians.of

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Cookiedila Part of the Train Trip series 75

Next page Beret and Military Training Part of the Train Trip series

Top left Woman and Rollercoaster Part of the Train Trip series Bottom right Waiting for Breakfast Part of the Cranes series

Vaguely, memories of my own past came back, and thoughts of rain filled the void inside my brain, and I wished I was there in 1933, with the couple - the lovers of the shell - and their family, before the fi rst hits were taken, and the water started filling, and the walls started tilting, and the floors started sinking, and it was left to be

“Tooforsaken.long have you wept. The watchful moon can take no more. Like snow you’re due to melt: Enough have you dwelt in slumber. We long to return with our wells full of wonder; when you’re drained from the past and the canvas is drawn from wall to wall, and mast to mast, and our pens can wag free at last.”

Washed up to shore, this concrete crate of art, in sunset peach, lay slate, cold, inanimate; a worn shell of a home in a hopeful tide of foam, to be filled again with the waters of a painter’s jaraway from the man and the wife, who left long ago, far from here, still, here they are. I pulled my leg away and sat in an armchair that had been sat in countless times before me, and I thought of the noise that would have been heard here: more raging than a sea, more serine than a gull beyond the coast calling to the dewy petals of its wilting host.

HOUSE OF WATER J. MARTINOVSKY

The fi rst thing I could see were beads of water dancing out of open windows, dripping o the glass and bride’s-veil-curtains, onto hand-laid clay tiles. As I passed the arch of a smoke gray door, the cold wet tongue of a concrete floor made me leap to a rug, covered in sand, where deep I did sink like I was pulled by a hand. Into opaque thoughts of truth that unfurled: This house was not of our world. A crate had fallen from a cosmic ship engulfed in the clouds where only dreamers slept. With a hell of a gale it was battered and lost, but life found a way to creep-in as a cost. At the bottom of the heavens, in muddy earth, it lay motionless - to art giving birth. Its walls burst with life adorned with help from the fi rst child’s wife. But cracks and blisters come from age, work, sun and water; The family was outlived by its cubed forefather. Yet, soaked frail paintings that hung like hides expressed subconscious visions of surreal seasides. Alas! There is more than entropy here, and like a tear in the past of future’s fear, I could feel the black wooden ceiling dripping on my head, slowly “WhatInwhateverdrainingwasleft.growlsitsaid:oncehadlife, now lay dead.”

Girls and Banana Grove Part of the Train Trip series Aircraft Part of the Train Trip series

Who am I? What will I be? Why am I here? Where am I going? / In the language of an actor, to know is synonymous with to feel. / What is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within myself.

CASTELLIMARCO Firenze, Italy Face to PhaseMe, Myself & Nobody

/ The person you are is a thousand times more interesting than the best actor you could ever hope to be. / Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you. / Put life into the imagined circumstances and actions until you have completely satisfied your sense of truth and until you have awakened a sense of faith in the reality of your own sensations. / The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation. / Every person who is really an artist desires to create inside of himself another, deeper, more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him. / When we are on stage, we are in the here and now. / Fear your admirers! Learn in time to hear, understand, and love the cruel truth about yourselves! [Konstantin Sergeevič Stanislavskij]

This project is the materialization of a long conversation exploring the speech surrounding sustainability through concrete as a creative counterpart. Its versatility in the dialogue has maintained the attention on the tectonics of the process contributing to its chameleonic physicality. After morphing and adapting to its environment since 2019, Exculpatio stands in Switzerland as two rectangular monoliths embracing the negative of nature. This void is created by the imprint of a tree trunk fossilized within two upright monumental concrete blocks fractured into eighty pixels. In Italy, Exculpatio presents its pixels in an ever-changing impromptu arrangement, which symbolically opens the conversation to the public and invites them to take action and bring awareness about the lack of substantial action against climate change. Exhibition’s Curator. European Cultural Centre (ECC). Palazzo Rossini. S. Marco, 4013, 30122 Venezia, AlmudenaCollaborators:Italy.Cadalso, Visual Artist. Lanzarote, Spain. Dani Burés, Graphic Artist. Madrid, Spain. Carlos Comendador, Architect. Madrid, Spain. Trey Killeen, Pixels-NFT Coordinator. San Diego, United States. Katie Sciortino Peak, Writer-Artist, US-Spain. TatianaRitual: Barrero, Performance Artist. Bogotá, Colombia. Marie-Anne Favreau, Performance Artist. Paris, France. William Kingswood, Composer. London, UK.

Exculpatio Nomad Studio Exculpatio by nomad. + Global R&D Cemex is a silent demonstration and a sculptural space simultaneously hosted at Giardini della Marinaressa in Venice, Italy and Global R&D Cemex Headquarters in Biel-Bienne, Switzerland. It is part of the Exhibition “PERSONAL STRUCTURES” curated by the European Cultural Centre during the Venice Biennale 2022.

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“NIBERA” Bernarda Conic Nibera is an artist and environmentalist based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The landscapes featured are a part of their ongoing series Parallel Worlds, a rumination on the state of nature explored through a sci-fi lens. 91

Spukhafte Fernwirkung, or spooky action at a distance, is the term Einstein used to describe quantum entanglement—the phenomenon whereby if we observe a particle in one place, another particle, even if it is light-years away on the other side of the Universe, will change its properties.

Theprocessing.artist wanted to explore a different aspect of Iceland from that of the tens of thousands of photographers and videographers who travel to the same locations each year to portray Iceland as a wild, rugged, serene landscape and instead they find inspiration in exploring the disappearance of clear boundaries between culture, technology, and the environment. Documenting Route 1 (the Ring Road), which runs around the entire island, connecting most of the country’s inhabitants, as well as the most popular tourist attractions, was for the artist, territory unexplored.

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“Digital is dominated by metaphors of space, in terms like cyberspace or virtual reality time is ignored, or viewed as a frustration—the time it once took a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet, or how long it takes to download something.”

– Kailum Graves Graves was drawn to the low-resolution nature of the images on www.road.is— measuring just 640 by 480 pixels—which gave them a glitchy, painterly quality.

Graves views the work as a hybrid process between a (long durational) plein air painting and (post-capture) computer

In early 2017, the artist Kailum Graves began manually collecting every photo uploaded to www.road.is—a website that uses a vast network of webcams to show the road and driving conditions of Iceland— each day for a year during a residency in the small Icelandic town of Skagaströnd, The assembly of those images would take the artist another year to complete.

Kailum Graves

FERNWIRKUNGSPUKHAFTE

Cracow / Warsaw, Poland Sara Piotrowska (1989) and Maciej Szczęśniak (1989): visual artists, alleged cousins, academics, live and work in Krakow and Warsaw. Graduates of Cultural studies (BA, Jagiellonian University), Intermedia (BA, Cracow Art Academy), and Media Arts (MA, Warsaw Art Academy) they mostly work site-specific, conducting longterm case studies. They use object, installation, performance, text, process – rarely concluding searches with single art pieces. The subsequent projects form multi-elemental stories, and monographic – ever-evolving collections of findings or questions. They consider themselves academics – being naturally prone to partisan methodologies. They have been cooperating since 2015, after discovering the kinship of interests and blood, they have been running an artist-run-space Piotrowska / Szczęśniak Atelier in Krakow since 2019.

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SARA PIOTROWSKA MACIEJ SZCZĘŚNIAK

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A SERIES OF CAMERA PERFORMANCES AND A MANIFESTO/ CARPET REALIZED IN REFERENCE TO THE RISING SIGNS OF THE END OF THE ANTHROPOCENE AND A SLOW TRANSIT TOWARDS THE NEW POST-HUMAN ERA.

HUMANISTGREETSADAYWITHNOSMILE Video performances, carpet Piotrowska/Szczęśniak Atelier, 2020

ARTISTS HELPLESS WHILE FACING THE END

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MATTHIEW AND THE CENTAUR

The “ontological hygiene” in our culture, which aimed to effectively separate people from non-people, turned out to be fiction, because we know that we are evolutionary and functional hybrids.

Among those who are the subject of posthumanist emancipation, one should include all monsters, all others who were repressed by the process of humanization.

The figure of the vitruvian man so wonderfully sketched by Leonardo, breaks free from the surrounding circles and squares and spreads in space.

How wonderful we are, we owe to the relatives of our ancestors who were unsuccessful projects and passed away childlessly.

TRANS-HUMANISM, POST-HUMANISM AND A REMINISCENCE OF HUMANISM

Manifesto Carpet

Rogério da Silva is a Portuguese artist based in Lisbon. He works with drawing and video. His projects explore topics related to memory and aspects of time as related to images.

ROGÉRIO DA SILVA LISBON, PORTUGAL

No. 1 LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURE Pastel2022 and eraser on paper No. 2 DOG DRESSED Pastel2022 and rubber on paper No. 3 HINDENBURG Pastel2022 and rubber on paper ISSUE 2 113

Sayoko Brooklyn,OsadaNew York alter/altar

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COWBOY CAPSULE MIYUKI HIRAOKA HAO LONDON,BIYINGSARAHUANGWILSONLOUUNITEDKINGDOM

Animal agriculture is one of the most damaging industries due to the compounded effects of its environmental pollution, resource consumption, and human welfare. Also, an individual’s largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions is due to their meat So,consumption.here,we've created cowboy capsules which use gut microbiomes to make the human stomach like a cow’s stomach, which generates energy from cellulose. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on earth, but normally humans’ and most animals’ digestive systems cannot convert it into an energy source. But, how is it that cattle can convert cellulose into protein, and maintain such a large body mass, simply by eating grass? This is mainly due to the microorganisms in their digestive systems, which hydrolyse cellulose to glucose, thus providing the body with direct energy. Glucose can be further converted to pyruvate through glycolysis, to lipids for energy storage through the amino acid synthesis pathway, or to proteins as the basis of life's metabolism. Harnessing these microbes for energy production in human consumption is known as precision fermentation (PF).

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Each artist has a multidisciplinary background from engineering to science and design.

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ANDREA KOVÁCS KURSZÁN

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I have always thought that if you come and go between parallel lives, and you do it in such

THE SEASON OF IMPORTANT THINGS BUDAPEST, HUNGARY Sometimes I wake up in a place completely different from where I went to bed. It happens rarely, but more often than it should. I’ve tried to find the reason for it, polish my technique, but there’s just as much mis-awakening. My dentist appointment in Kyiv gets fucked. Here, in Casablanca, I usually wake up to the sound of birds flapping against the window. I don’t know why they do it. They fly against the glass, then stagger on the balcony in a daze, embarrassed. I can certainly share their embarrassment, I suppose, while I let the smell of coffee, wafting in from the kitchen, spread out in my nostrils. I love waking up here. Of all the lives, this is my favourite. And it is so not only because here, after breakfast, we swing a dash of Pastis into the coffee. Nor because the bar owner from downstairs, Pierre, a calming presence despite his deliriousness, stares fixedly at a spot on the wall every Wednesday, expecting it to emanate his grandfather who had gone missing in the city. I like his conversations with that spot – he only does it on Wednesdays when there’s a weather front. You open the coloured, double glass door wide open and enter. You smile and hold the flowergilded mug you so brazenly haggled for over at the market last year. You sit down and talk to me, but I can’t hear you. I can’t hear your voice. It hasn’t arrived to me yet. “Let’s go and have breakfast on the balcony,” I suggest, when your lips stop moving for a moment. And in the meantime, I wish Pereiaslav would put off calling me for a while, after all we still don’t know about the venue of the memorial event for Taras Shevchenko, and anyhow, there will be fifteen of us at most, including the cello trio, so the winter-weary Ukrainian spring can wait. By the time we settle on the balcony, I’m fully there. I can feel your lips on my neck and hear you swear in joy when the fish fry arrives. I can see the unbearably giddy retriever, Aziza, knock over the son of the fish fry seller in front of the gate and I see myself head to the kitchen to prepare something for breakfast instead of the fish that landed on the pavement. As I fry the bacon, the headline of the memorial evening for the Ukrainian polyhistor, Shevchenko, pops up in my mind, tragedy floating lightly in the air like a sandstorm disguised as a whiff: “The verdict of Nicholas I of Russia: «Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint».”

It’s the fulfilment born out of absence, and an absence provoked by fulfilment.

You’re angry about the fish, I try to calm you down, you rattle on, “come on, let’s eat something greasy,” I say, I look at you, we eat, we laugh, we get dressed, we’re almost ready to leave.

“Isn’t it nice here? Peaceful and brave. If I don’t move, it’s as if never embraced forever.

an unpredictable way, then this whole thing at least would have the advantage that while you’re in one, then you don’t think about the other, nor do you feel guilty, or miss anything from the other. But I do! What a load of bollocks! Who in their right mind would want to think about the April schedule of a cultural centre in Pereiaslav, while chilling on a balcony in Casablanca? Music comes up from the street. This music is like something that you have to savour and slowly get to because it’s too hot or too spicy, even though you’d like nothing more than gobble it up and even rub it into your clothes for it to dry into so that you can feel it for a long time.

One evening we could sit out on the balcony, you, me and time, and condense infinity into a dinner,” I say. “I’d prefer some grilled meat,” you say. You look at me. You want to understand me, but you’d rather I kept silent. You think that I always obfuscate what’s obvious and calm. You want nothing but silence, presence, cuddles and play. What you get instead is the shadow of my eyes, which tell the story of a windy, Ukrainian afternoon in that dark room, cosy but cold, where I went to bed last night before waking up beside you here. The room where I abandoned that unfortunate humanist, the cello trio and everyone who had been my life for so long. It all started two years ago. Pereiaslav suddenly turned grey, jaded and suffocating and nothing would add colour to it, not the memories, nor any plans. Then, one indifferent night, I went to bed and woke up beside you in the morning. In my Love In The Time of Covid, 2020 Digital Collage

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parallel reality. It was fantastic. It was liberating. When I opened my eyes, I saw the huge, green balcony for the first time, and the centuries-old tree which so consolingly enfolds passing. (In truth, there was a short detour for a few weeks in a tiny, Norwegian village but that must have been a glitch.) A nd now I live in two realities. But I’m not present in both. You can feel it when I’m not really here, even though you can see me. You hate it, I know. It’s the fulfilment born out of absence, and an absence provoked by fulfilment. But most of the time I have no idea where I’d be waking up the next day and why there of all places. What keeps me here and what drives me away? The place of awakening is never certain. As we run down the stairs and turn out from the square onto the wide street leading to the salty sea, I sense a thought rolling around in me, soon I have to make a decision. Couldn’t I bring Shevchenko to Pierre’s? They would stare at the spot on the wall together. Shevchenko has a 200year head start and some experience with the dead, Papa Pierre might listen to him better and emerge if this unfortunate national hero speaks to him nicely. I would give him some paper, I’d let him paint and write freely. It would be better for him than a memorial evening, no doubt. Meanwhile, we’d be grilling bloody meats on the balcony, until they are crisp, hoping the smell would lure others into this life.

Remember, this photo was taken when we almost found it, 2020

ILARIA SPONDA ANTARABHAVA (In-Betweenness)

MILAN, ITALY

The Buddhist term "antarabhava" indicates a state of transformation, in-betweenness, and blurriness. Linked to both life and death, regression and growth, it depicts the spaceless and timeless gap between the no-longer and the yet-to-be. Liminality and inbetweenness were felt at a personal and collective level – during forced isolation, we were all living in uncertainty, trying to stay in equilibrium between a frenetic past and a slow-paced present. The artist is drawn to life in death and death in life. Sponda, drawn to look at the ephemeral and witness the co-existence of the two states, that in Eastern philosophy are complementary. "At a time when death seemed to be more alive than ever, I felt the need to delve into the search for the trace of animate things, alive and dead - back and forth between the death and the living, which is what photography is about (this co-existence). These are silent pictures that break the rumour made by these daily images."

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Де тебе цілував під березами, де зливались тіла і сліди –вже ламає сусід нетверезий наші долі і наші світи. Де віночок тобі із калини я сплітав,він терновий вінець одягав на чоло України і на кожне із наших сердець. Вавилонської вежі уламки він на місці любові лишав… Та не знав – з без’язикої ранки українською ллється душа. * * * Ти входиш в мої сни: пекуча і зваблива. Хоч, знаю, ще не час для веселкових див –не янголи, ракети носять крила, а ти – військову форму серед них. Земля пашіє порохом і хлібом... Закашлялась, не навчена курить. І, як в дитинстві з рани із коліна, з застиглих душ Бог смикає нитки. Тебе я, ніби наново побачив –без сумнівів, без страху, без жалю... І перемога ближчає, неначе, коли дивлюсь на тебе і люблю. * * * Скажи, затіяв хто війну? Панує й ліс над горами… Тріщить Земля, немов кавун, між скибками-кордонами. Тут замість тисячі квартир держава танк купує. І знищує мільйон родин збагачення культура. Над Запоріжжям дим курить і Хортицею в’ється, мов палять люльки козаки, 130 VOLODYMYR VIKHLIAIEV ZAPORIZHZHIA, UKRAINE

а не заводи серце. Харчить і піниться Дніпро, знівечене й отруєне. І прикрашають «чайки» дно величністю минулого * * * В торшерах гнізд горить птахів життя –як в череві твоєму рід мій світить. Так сонячно, що ластівки летять, немов жарини із багаття світу. Ти спалахнеш – розпечене ж усе: й міських будинків нетривке каміння, і домени вечірнього шосе, що, наче дрова, спалюють країну. Я біля тебе буду грітись вік, який мені судилося з тобою. Та у червоній степовій траві ти – лиш земля, а я – колишній воїн. ПРИЗНАЧЕННЯ – ЖИТИ! Ми б із ними ще грати могли, у людини призначення – жити… По гранітних плитах могил наші діти катають машинки... - Що ж ти, татко, не хочеш удвох по зелених цих клумбах гасати… Мама каже, з тобою Бог, що у тебе вже інша хата… Я не вірю, що ти пішов добровільно від мене й матусі… Я відмінником стану, щоб неодмінно ти повернувся. Кажуть люди, ти справжній герой, та від мене ховають очі, ніби винні у чомусь… А той, хто стріляв бути братом хоче: і мені, і усім навкруг… Так вже прагне нас всіх захистити… А з учора Сашко – мій друг вже твоєї країни житель. Я такий тепер майже, як він –ти про мене частіше згадуй. Його батько вернувся живим, та життя залишилось позаду. ...По гранітних плитах могил наші діти катають машинки. Ми б із ними ще грати могли, у людини призначення – жити!

Orange traffic cones form borders and queues. They govern our behavior. They instruct us when to stop, and when to step, when to wait and when to go. Traffic cones can block a lane. Shift a lane. Add a lane. Delimit property. Establish boundaries. They can organize traffic as it moves, and render configurations of parked vehicles mute when they are at not in use. Orange traffic cones are mutable, unlike milestones, that measure in straight, consistent lines against

WORDS BY IAN GONSHER PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

VISUAL ART BY RITAM TALUKDAR, KOLHATA, INDIA UNINVITED DREAMS OF A BITTER RESPONSE

and reestablishing the mutable and fragmentary boundaries of the built Forenvironment.thesereasons and others, it’s a rather monumental little object. It’s fascinating that an object designed to summon our attention is such an inconspicuous thing. Its ubiquity renders it invisible. But if you go outside and look in any direction, you will probably see these little orange cones. There they are… always already everywhere.

Orange traffic cones edit the city. They delimit the flow of movement, in cars, on bikes, and on foot. Orange atoms of infrastructure coalesce into transient patterns that guide us towards where we should go, as they caution us away from where we should not. Sometimes there are many orange cones, arranged in compositions and configurations across roads. Sometimes they’re alone, like a sentinel protecting us from danger. Orange traffic cones make their edits upon the city, establishing

theConesTrafficOrangeEditCity

Orange traffic cones demarcate the conditions of possibility by defining and enforcing the conditions of the road. They allow for real-time modifications of the map against the territory. Therefore, their meaning must be multivalent and variable. They must be open signifiers, made legible by the shape of the context in which they operate. These open signifiers are often augmented by signs that elaborate on their meaning with texts and symbols, but these signs, unlike orange traffic cones, are strictly constrained in what they can say. Traffic cones afford much

Orange traffic cones are cousins to orange traffic barrels, with their blinky-blinky lights that are themselves the decedents of ancient lighthouses, which kept the shores free of shipwrecks. When composed and configured on the road at night, they recall the asynchronous dance of fireflies, evidencing that sometimes beauty is an accident of safety. Orange traffic cones offer affordances for detours and détournements. They are totems of the social relations manifested in the order of things. Their authority lies in their appeal to safety, their appeal to order. This authority confers these humble, yet potent, objects with significance, in part, because their appeal to safety is the non plus ultra of the design of the city and the society it serves.

Image page left Untitled No.1 Ritam Talukdar Image page right Untitled No.2 Ritam Talukdar

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more variation, like a language with one character. That single character can produce boundless adaptations of meanings. Orange traffic cones share the road with other open signifiers — other one-word languages — which are open to their own variations and elaborations. And yet, they operate unequivocally. Orange traffic cones adapt themselves to the needs at hand. Like the honk of car horns, which remind us that with one note one can express a full range of emotional valances.

Orange traffic cones delimit the explicit patterns and unconscious rhythms of a city. They edit the city. They orchestrate our behavior. They keep us safe. Orange traffic cones are everywhere, followed by more orange traffic cones, which are followed by orange traffic cones that are followed by orange traffic cones that are followed by orange traffic cones that are followed by orange traffic cones. a fixed ground. From satellites, the aggregation of orange traffic cones must appear like magnificent constellations of orange stars, multitudes, stretched against the earth, reflecting their double in heaven. Always moving. Always changing. Always temporary, as we all are. Temporary like the stars.

Orange traffic cones demarcate construction sites by signifying pending changes; local improvement to public infrastructure or personal property, which itself is a signifier of progress… evidence of a civilization moving forward, against entropy, as measured in miles, by its roads, paths, and places that one can go.

Untitled No.3 Ritam Talukdar

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Untitled No.4 Ritam Talukdar

Untitled No.5 Ritam Talukdar

Image page left Untitled No.6 Ritam Talukdar Image top right Untitled No.7 Ritam Talukdar Image bottom left Untitled No.8 Ritam Talukdar

LEODAN MORALES Road of everyday life / Carretera de lo cotidiano Estado de México, México

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NAZLI ABBASPOUR Tehran, Iran Photographs from the series: Reincarnation and Untitled Words from the work titled: The Enigmatic Fringe of Existence

Lint Magazine No. 2

Articles inside

VOLODYMYR VIKHLIAIEV

ANDREA KOVACS (KURSZÁN

KAILUM GRAVES

CASPAR DE GELMINI

SABALDASHOV VICTOR VICTOROVICH

SALLY STÅHL

NOMAD STUDIO

DANIEL SCHERMERHORN

AZIYA IKHTYMBAYEVA