RENA Magazine Issue 4

RENA

RE NA

We wake up, reigning in our minds and convincing ourselves that it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real.

But part of it was. Something had to be true. Our minds had to grasp onto something real to create these twisted, whimsical fantasies.

Maybe our brains are just having a little fun, exploring ideas that we won’t let them in our wake.

Ideas grasping at the last chance to be heard.

Maybe we’ll let imagination takes it course and we’ll have more fun with our nightmares than our dreams.

Rena: Nightmares

H E R ARRIVAL

Location: Old State Rd

Binghamton, New York

Model: Aminatou Diallo

Photographer: Audrey Franza

Written by Eitan Cohen

I sit on the rubble remains of a stone wall. My feet graze the tops of the wispy meadow grass as I anxiously swing them back and forth, staring into the distance. Any other time, I would find peace sitting here, my view stretching to the horizon and a gentle breeze caressing my hair. But there is a pit in my stomach, the sky is obscured by clouds and the breeze I am accustomed to is replaced by a whipping wind that has ushered in a sense of foreboding. I close my eyes and begin to breathe deeply, but soon my breaths come in shudders and my eyelids are scrunched tightly. I can’t shake the growing sense of doom that had started in my stomach but was now bubbling up, constricting my throat. My palms begin to bead with sweat, and my fingers flex in and out as if they are keeping time for a nervous melody. I can feel the jagged stone beneath digging into my fingers with each motion. My right hand slips off the stone it was pressed upon, slicing my palm open sending blood down the webbing of my hand. I gasp, clutching at my hand and feel the warm liquid quickly seep out of the wound and drip off my fingertips. My eyes flutter open and the pain in my palm is quickly overshadowed by fear. My vision focuses to reveal the figure of a women standing still a dozen paces away. No sound or scent

signaled her arrival to me, but it feels as though the clouds and the angry wind were welcoming her presence, or that she herself had brought them. The woman’s back is unnaturally straight, and her hair is wrenched violently in the gale like a marionette’s strings. She feels both frightening and familiar. I try to wipe the wind born tears from my eyes but replace them with stinging blood from my palm. My eyes begin to flood with tears. Each time I blink the woman is a pace closer. All I can do is blink and stare, until my eyelids open to reveal her looming over me. I was staring at myself. From her long brown hair to her umber skin the woman is my mirror image, naked from head to toe. All is the same except her eyes. There is no iris, her eyes are pure white as though they are suffocated by cataracts. Yet the woman’s gaze still pierces me all the same. For a moment there was nothing but the whistling of the wind. Then she reaches out and grabs my blood-soaked hand. I am paralyzed, as if an electric current keeps my spine as rigid as a board and my arm equally limp. She takes my hand and presses it into her bare chest and blood begins to drip down as if she was wringing a sponge. The pain shocks me into action and

I wrench my arm away, only to have her hand clamp down tighter keeping me in place - powerless. My blood begins to seep into her naval, but her unblinking stare remains unchanged. My head is swimming and I feel myself drifting away. My body hangs limp below her, arm still shackled in her grasp. On the verge of unconsciousness, her grip disappears, and my legs kick me to my feet and as far away as they will take me, mangled hand clutched to my heart. The woman sits where I sat, blank eyes on the horizon.

Unchecked desire is an insatiable beast. It takes what it wants and does not care for those it leaves in its wake. It only sees itself and its spoils, it is blind to all else. Her form is desire incarnate. Blood spilt from another’s veins trace her curves as it trickles down. In her eyes you see nothing, no compassion meets your gaze, no sign of humanity behind her stare. Just blankness, an opacity that blinds her to the plights of others. Her hands are stained with gore, nails caked with a crimson pigment. It is as if moments prior she had plunged her hands into the chest of another and tore their still beating heart straight from within. She seems to relish the blood, smearing it upon her naked form. The metallic smell filling her nostrils. She rubs from her thigh through her breast to her neck, and finally her fingers trace her lips leaving a trail. Desire takes it what it wants at the cost of another.

“AMidnight Watch”

Written by Amy Frankovich

In the eerie silence of the abandoned amusement park, the moon cast elongated shadows that seemed to come to life. As I wandered through the rusting rides, a chilling sense of unease settled in my chest. I suddenly realized I was not alone – an unseen presence seemed to be lurking behind me, its footsteps echoing mine. Heart pounding, I picked up my pace, the soft laughter of distant carousel music now a haunting melody. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure in tattered clothing and a porcelain mask, their eyes fixed on me with an unset-

tling intensity.

With every step, the distance between us shortened. My breath came in ragged gasps as I pushed my legs to move faster, my footsteps echoing louder in my ears. The masked pursuer’s steps grew more relentless, their footfalls sounding like a chilling whisper, a promise of impending doom.

Frantic, I stumbled into a dilapidated funhouse, its mirrors distorting my reflection into grotesque shapes. I turned, and there the figure stood, the mask’s emotionless visage now twisted into a sinister grin. A guttural chuckle escaped the masked stranger as they advanced slowly, each step amplified by the nightmare’s suffocating grip.

Cornered, my fear reached its zenith. I could feel the walls of the funhouse closing in on me as if conspiring with my pursuer. As the masked figure lunged forward, I jolted awake, drenched in cold sweat, my racing heart the only reminder of the nightmare’s intensity. The chase had ended, but the lingering sense of dread lingered, leaving me wide-eyed and shaken in the safety of my own bed.

Location: Court St

Binghamton, New York

Model: Melanie Nguyen

Luka Rizzuto

Photographer: Audrey Franza

Styled by: Cameron Wallace

Aminatou Diallo

MUA: Ashley Doherty

Bloody Mary

Written by Plamena Diulgerova

I saw her suddenly, with the corners of her mouth leaning right where mine leaned left. The mole above the deeper pores on her cheek was on the wrong side, and her eyebrows were so starkly different from each other. We were dipped candlesticks, held up by string, insides looping over to a twin.

She met my eyes and they fluttered across my face that was hers, forming the cotton candy texture of memory reserved for people doing the same things at the same time, once and not again. Our veins so blue and our elbows so sharp and our scent so warm and sweet - we did not know each other.

The Dance of Spiders

Written by Cameron Wallace

The deepest chambers of my mind, adorned with bolted doors and padded locks hide the ruins of my lives not yet lived, and of those lived too. It is here where I first discovered silence.

The familiar sensation of the frost that runs along my spine or the way my body remembers the rhythm of the echoing heartbeat or the longing for the consoling touch of nothingness that beckons the hair on my body into a stance of rigidity. No one warned me of the haunting comfort of it all.

The The

The Sound Silenceof

Location:

Sculpture Studio

Binghamton University

Model:

Photographer: Styled by: MUA:

Joe Kruszon

Audrey Franza

Cameron Wallace

Devin Barbero

The Sound Silenceof

There’s a paralysis of dread that kisses my lips, and travels to every fiber of my being when I realize this was never silence. It was isolation. It was scrutiny. It was agony.

The iridescent glow of the autumnal moon, christened with fleeting aromas of ember leaves and late harvest announce the arrival of a winter too early, and a fall gone too soon. It is here where I first learned the sound of silence.

My teacher sat in a webbed throne, crowned with eight jewels, of a color I knew was there, but one I knew was lost to my human eyes. He danced along the edge of porch casting ribbons of a silk regal enough for the keeper of Antony’s heart herself.

In the moments of his pause I found myself lost in the divine pattern of his dance. Enthralled in this web of shadows and silk, I danced until I heard the sound of silence, In this vacuum I was not friend nor foe, I was simply a student.

And so we indulged in the Dance of Spiders. Eight times we did thisone for each member. And eight times we danced until I knew the sound of silence.

The sound of the man in the moon agitating the ebbs and flows of the ocean. The sound of the angels’ tears crescendoing at a leaf’s edge. The sound of mother’s newest sapling taking its first breath after breaking the surface. The sound of my mind accepting my body, embraced in the Dance of Spiders.

This is the sound of silence, the language of stillness and peace. It is a language that rivals the familiarity and comfort of my own native tongue.

Knife Run for it....

Written by Mariya Ivanova

1908, the rusty plaque reads. One hundred and fifteen years ago, a builder and contractor, now unknown, were responsible for the existence of the iron alloy bridge that sits snugly between the sleepy banks of the Susquehanna River. Once functioning as an essential connection in the now abandoned Delaware and Hudson Railroad (D&H) system, the only visitors it draws today are dedicated historians and curious amateur explorers. At the height of its operation, this railway was nicknamed “The Bridge Line”, alluding to its purpose of creating one throughway line from New

Location: Boland Park

Johnson City, New York

Model: Jarelyn Rivas

Photographer: Audrey Franza

Styled by: Cameron Wallace

England to Canada.

It is unclear whether this bridge, the Center Village Railroad Bridge, that is, was built for the D&H company or acquired by the company at some point during its operating history. Acquisition or not, it served a clear purpose for decades until D&H was eventually absorbed by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Once upon a time, almost every movement that occurred on this rail bridge was governed by meticulously structured time tables and schedules. A perfectly intelligible reality, a conceived destiny translated into a corporeal one. It was to be and be it did. Apart from some surface-level structural adjustments, this bridge has more or less maintained its appearance for its one hundred and fifteen year old life. Its meaning, however, has lost its predictability. Whether it is archivists looking to preserve historical significance, nostalgia

enthusiasts rediscovering abandoned places, or artists devising a new language to describe an old message, this bridge is immortalized.

Does the shift from a tangible to a liminal space necessarily signify a condemnation of materials and labor? Or can it be a transformative shift that allows for a context where transient meaning exists; a space that is born over and over again depending on its interaction with the surrounding world?

Spring Summer Magazine Shoot

Spring Summer RENA Events

ScoutedatSpring Fling Spring

This past Spring Fling, we asked some students around campus what fashion advice they would give, and here are some of our favorites:

“Don’t be afraid to mix and match!”

“You don’t always have to stick to one aesthetic just match your clothes to.”

“Your vibe for that day to best embody your look.”

“Being monotone isn’t always a bad thing.”

A - Zoe H – Gael

B - Bryana I – Grady

C - Adejo J – Arielle

D - Orion K – April

E - Nathan L – Carmelo

F - Josh M – Mo

G- Schaina N – Izzy

at B D

E

Fabricof Reality

With one fashion show under our belt, RENA, as a collective, decided it was time to push the boundaries of not only ourselves creatively and an organization, but fashion and what it means for the Binghamton community. From this, our second annual fashion show, The Fabric of Reality was born.

Rod Serling, the Binghamton native and brilliant mind behind the acclaimed anthology series “The Twilight Zone”, served as direct inspiration for our show. Serling was no stranger to challenging people’s perceptions of reality, or addressing topics deemed too taboo to speak of at the dinner table, or even acknowledging the liminal space that we as humans exist in. For Serling, his medium of fostering these conversations was television. For us, it’s fashion.

Fashion is a powerful means of self-expression, and can be an individual’s most useful tool in illustrating their individuality. The beauty of fashion is that it is

imbued with the strongest motifs of a generation, making it the pulse of the world - after all, it is a way to tell time. The challenge is deciphering, on an individual level, what is fashion. It is not our place to offer you anything more than an opinion or a glimpse into a world You may not have considered.

Whether it was the unorthodox parking garage runway, the accompaniment of live DJs, the specific time of the event, or any other detail meticulously crafted, this show was made with the audience in mind. We wanted to curate an aesthetic of obscurity, depth, and desire, but most importantly, we wanted you to imagine fashion in a new light, to imagine a world in a new light.

So, take a step with us into the Fabric of Reality.

Josh Torres

Model 07

Daniel Watson

Model 09

Model 11

Model 13

Model 15

Justin Salas

Model 17

Horisia Smith

Model 19

Liyuan Wang

Model 21

Ahjanae Johnson

Model 23

Model 25

Model 27

Melissa Norman

RENA

Executive Board

Creative Director: Cameron Wallace

Editor-in-Chief: Audrey Franza

Publishing and Layout Director: Grace Moon

Marketing Director: Justin Wang

Operations Director: Mariya Ivanova

Modeling Director: Aminatou Diallo

Thank You

S/S ‘23 marks an official full two cycles of publications for RENA, marking an end of an era for many of us as we graduate from Binghamton. Words can only begin to scrape the surface of what this publication means to us. Seeing what these four issues have become, and having the ability to see our growth through each of these publications is an extremely humbling opportunity. In all of our visions of RENA in these last two years you all - contributors, models, artists, viewers, community members alike - were an integral part in helping us achieve those goals.

When we embarked on this journey we wanted to foster and create a community for people to be celebrated, celebrate their love for fashion, and to challenge society’s perception while we do it. To see that culminate in the success of our second annual fashion show was the greatest reward. There was so much that was poured into the show to make it possible, and we received support from dozens of people across campus and the community. We are forever grateful for your willingness to take a chance on us, and trust us in our vision. Our, RENA girls, don’t ever stop being the beautiful souls that you are, you brought our wildest creations to life on the runway.

It is our greatest hope that RENA can continue to offer the world an outlet for individuality and authentic creative expression, so while this past season has been full of so many lasts as many of us, one thing is definite. This will not be the last you hear from RENA at Binghamton and even beyond.

With all the love, RENA Magazine’s Executive Board

All Who Made This Possible

Binghamton Physical Facilities

Jennifer Keegin and the Convocations Committee

Frank Frear and Transportation and Parking Services

Pete Nardone and the Union

Dr. Claire Kovacs and the Binghamton University Art Museum

Marc Newton and the Visual Media Center

Ariel Thomke and Binghamton Theater Department

Wax Girl

Trevor Rosenthal

Our Interns:

Amy Frankovich

Jennifer Leonardo

Matt Kaye

Nadia Blot

Emily Do

Ellie Michaud

Hair Stylists & MUAs:

Devin Barbero

Ashley Doherty

Melissa Norman

Jarelyn Rivas

Schaina Pierre

Keanna White