Lucid 3: The Worldbuilding Project

Issue 3: Cover

LUCID: art, writing, and advocacy publication for first gen students @ucirvine

Mercedes talks about the inspiration for La Casa de Los Abuelos"

Y

OU MAY WONDER in an issue with the grand-sounding theme “worldbuilding” why we chose for the cover an ordinary image of grandparents sharing a meal at a modest little kitchen table, surrounded by the familiar objects of home. The scene is intimate. And private. The grandparents don’t seem to notice anyone watching at all.

When I first saw “La Casa de Los Abuelos” in the submissions folder, the whole issue, and in truth the whole of the last two years, both of educating and living through the pandemic, came into focus. “Worldbuilding” is often associated with fiction that challenges convention and oppressive forms of life with newly imagined futures. These new worlds exist not because the past has been destroyed or denied, but because worldbuilders understand how to

perceive what is worth saving: warmth, memory, home. In her video discussing the inspiration for her piece “La Casa de los Abuelos,” the artist, first-gen Education major Mercedes Barriga, reminds us that we are all moved forward by our sense of home.

I am so grateful to Mercedes and all of the first-gen students who submitted to this multimedia “worldbuilding” issue. And I hope our readers can begin to imagine a new university built on the “home” languages of students who came of age during a season of profound trauma and loss, and are becoming empowered now through their work to shape not only their own but all of our futures.

Sincerely, Rachael Collins, editor-in-chief