Welcome to Issue 12 – Nomads. It is June 2020 and a strange time for so many us right now. But it’s also a time when connecting to the world around us and thinking about the ways in which we move, or don’t move, through it have become more pertinent, more challenging, and ever more in need of scrutiny.
We think our Nomads issue, inspired by the work of Quin de la Mer, has some wonderful work for you to enjoy from an international community of artists, all looking to connect with themselves and the wider world through the art that they make.
We begin with our stunning cover art by Alexia Koudigkeli bringing to live Poe’s raven, the harbinger of that liminal space between life and death, that mover of souls. Greg Edmonson returns to ‘the river as i remember it’ to breathe vibrancy into the theme with his colours and confident lines. Chella Courington shows us in ‘The Dead Don’t Write’ how sometimes objects make the journeys that people don’t or can’t, and ‘Feather’ by Yasmin Mariam Kloth considers how people can be nomads in their own lives and cultures.
And with so many of us on video calls right now, perhaps working in difficult situations, maybe caring fulltime for others at the same time, quieter moments have become just as important as that sense of connection. So, take a moment with the birds in Hibah Shabkhez’s evocative ‘Querencia’ or feel the strength of Tabatha Botti’s ‘something you should know about me’.
We set up all the sins four years ago as a place where we could celebrate artists of all varieties, all backgrounds, artists with powerful things to say. In those four years we have been constantly delighted and humbled by the work our artists have shared.
There is no doubt that we live in a complex world and we bring this issue to you at a moment where voices that have been silenced for so long aren’t just speaking up, but finally being heard. This feels like an important moment, but it has to be more than a static point in time. We believe that black lives matter and we are committed to learning and taking positive action as part of the wider publishing community to diversify the voices on all the sins and to amplifly the voices of those who have, for too long, been denied access to publishing platforms.
To quote the late Toni Morrison: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal.”
So, to return to our Nomads, below you’ll find a list of this edition’s wonderful artists for you to explore in any way that you choose. Alternatively, you can click the ‘Try this‘ button at the bottom of each page to follow the path we’ve designed through the art. We recommend you start with ‘A spell for beginnings’ by Erin Pinkham.
We hope you enjoy!
Sinéad & Lisa
Resolution – Penny Blackburn
Rosa Maria de la Luz – Tabatha Botti
something you should know about me – Tabatha Botti
A shower, an acid trip, New Year’s Eve, 2019 – J. Ian Bush
online body language – Octav Codrea
safe distance – Octav Codrea
The Dead Don’t Write – Chella Courington
The river as i remember it – Greg Edmonson
Apathy for the Devil – Howie Good
[Old books of poetry on the shelves. Rotting Ginsberg.] – Nicholas Karavatos
[We both analyse, apply and argue settled texts but only one of us works hard] – Nicholas Karavatos
Feather – Yasmin Mariam Kloth
The Raven – Alexia Koudigkeli
A Spell for Beginnings – Erin Pinkham
dark rivers of the mad alphabet spiked w/ opium – Rob Plath
The saddest nod – Rob Plath
Prime beef – Estanislao (Stan) Rodriguez-Cuevas
Querencia – Hibah Shabkhez
echochambers of my mother and i’s heart – Ellie Sharp
Purple winter – Steven Tutino
all the sins 