© Gjertrud Hals

THE NET by Gjertrud Hals

I was born in 1948, on Finnøy, an island with two hundred inhabitants. My family was living close to the factory where my father and grandfather were mechanics, making and installing engines for the fishing boats. During my childhood, there was an abundance of herring fishing going on every winter. The herring were caught in large nets and hauled up in smaller ones. When the weather was bad, the harbor was packed with boats, and big bunches of fishnets were hanging to be dried. Every summer holiday I spent with my grandparents, living on the tiny island Notholmen (not=net) on Hustadvika.

© Daniel Derderian

A VISUAL ESSAY ON OTHERNESS by Daniel Derderian

I want to stay a little naïve and desperately in touch with my emotions rather than become anxious and angry. It’s not easy to understand society at this moment. It’s not easy to be reassured when “fake’ is a new derivative of reality. It’s not easy to trust people when power games go beyond understandable limits, and when polarization is more recognizable than union in diversity. It’s not easy to stay in touch with your own nature during a pandemic and other natural disasters… But I’m trying.

patrick-perkins-rAtADOlvcos-unsplash

GHOSTS OF OUR FORMER SELVES by Eric Chasalow

The songs comprising my October 2020 release, Ghosts of Our Former Selves, including the two presented here, were deliberately composed in a confessional mode. They form a forty-minute sonic memoir that draws on everything I have spent my six-plus decades learning as a composer of contemporary classical music (especially computer music) with deep roots in jazz and popular music traditions.

© Linda Louis

FAMLY OF HUMANS by Linda Louis

Famly of Humans seeks to illustrate how we all are equal, regardless of the color of our skin or the shape of our features. It begs acceptance of the idea that tolerance and respect without judgment can exist. By presenting a disparate population in microcosm where no one is prejudged and there is no exclusivity, Famly of Humans promotes the idea of diversity where we are all on equal footing, no one is marginalized, and social acceptance is the norm.

© Susan Luss

IN THE TIME OF NOW by Susan Luss

For a long time, I have used my body in creation of my work. The landscapes/maps on canvas are distillations of my urban wanderings, both physical and psychological. The emergence of these public performances—I’ll call them “urban en plein air interventions”—have become imperative for my survival “in the time of now.”

© Enrique Enriquez

A BIRD by Enrique Enriquez

It is important to make the distinction between the languages ​​of contemplation and those of action. The language of the birds is a contemplative language. It delivers its messages directly, the meaning of which disappears, it ceases to be understood, as soon the stimulus ends, that is, once the bird is silent. Contemplative languages ​​are languages ​​of direct experience, languages ​​of ’what is.’ The occurrence of such language is equivalent to that of dreams in the sense that it paralyzes the physical body while agitating the subtle core.

Juan Pablo Valdivieso artwork Bloom

BLOOM by Juan Pablo Valdivieso

These abstract worlds are composed of undulations and vibrations that I define as beings. The cosmic forces that come together in the scenes find their impulse in the decomposition of modern dualism, in contemporary ways of relating to the world, and in a nature that does not faint in its eternal flourishing. In this way, Bloom emerges as a body of work in development, composed of small- and large-format artwork designed for both digital and analog media.

© Sophie Sandberg. Temporary graffiti made with chalk by Sophie Sandberg in New York City for the art street action @Catcallofnyc to stop harassment

CATCALLS OF NYC by Sophie Sandberg

Catcalls of NYC is a grassroots initiative and collective that uses public chalk art to raise awareness about gender-based street harassment. We solicit stories of harassment and their locations in New York City. Then, we go to those locations, write out the comments word-for-word in sidewalk chalk alongside the hashtag #stopstreetharassment…

© Artist Patrick Webb's paint titled Red

INTIMACIES by Patrick Webb

Anna Fishzon navigates one of the most recent groups of work by Patrick Webb: Intimacies. Placing us in the hands of Punchinello — the main character in Webb’s scenes — Fishzon guides the conversation through the communion of two souls: the artist’s and his alter ego’s.

Punchinello cautiously becomes the thread linking the evolution of two worlds, neither absolute nor separate, between the realities of the artist and his character.