a note from the editor 07

by Ishan Benegal, Editor-in-Chief

Volume 07

direction | dimension | drive

A note from the editor

“Maybe I’m from everywhere and nowhere
No man’s land, between the trenches
Nothing grows there
But it’s fertilised by the brown bodies
Fought for you in the war
So when I spit a poppy grows there”
– Riz Ahmed

This is one of the questions and passages that lingers on as I revisit Riz Ahmed’s debut  album. I write debut because it is his first body of work stripped of his rap moniker Riz MC. A taking off of his mask, his persona, and leaving himself bare and open. It is something that feels even more relevant today than it did before.

For imprint, it prompts questions of “where are we going?” and “how are we getting there?”. Who are we taking along and, by that definition, who and what are we leaving behind? As we prepare for Season 2022-23, we also begin the second half of our second year of the magazine. We’re already looking to the second print edition and the third year. All the while, cognisant of where we began. Somedays that feels like yesterday; other days it feels like a lifetime and many performances, concerts, conversations ago.

Our focus has remained clear and in fact we have worked regularly to clarify it further. Our direction, perhaps unaffected by the reopening and reemergence of the world, but alas, I can’t say the same for what would be termed our drive. The quiet and contemplative time when we started the magazine feels a distant memory and the frenetic and electric nature of live shows has admittedly taken over. That was always going to happen. It was always going to affect the way we operated and the way our contributors worked and we as editors were able to function.

I use the words ‘editors’ and ‘edit’ with a bit of hesitation. Today, its weight feels a little bit darker and more ominous. To edit the past; to edit out voices that built what we see around us; to edit the past so we can create a new future; an edited dimension. So eerily the same and yet entirely different.

How does a small publication like ours working towards opposing ends survive past this national edit?
Or perhaps exactly for that reason?
Quietly; quixotically.

Presenting
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Volume 7.

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Related Pieces

editor's note

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.