Authentic States

Elysian • Spring 2021

Jocelyn Lee didn’t want to throw the flowers from her October wedding in the trash—the ranunculus were too gorgeous for that—so she put them in a tub of water in her backyard, not thinking about the temperature. They froze overnight then defrosted, changing shape and texture, turning, Lee remembers, into “something super beautiful and strange—part laboratory and part surreal science experiment.”

Historical Reckoning: Two Japanese Canadians who are dancing their heritage

Dance International • October 2020

Kunji Mark Ikeda spent the first 20 years of his life, in Vancouver, “trying to be as white as possible,” he says. Mayumi Lashbrook, raised on the other side of Canada, in Toronto, did the same.

Damselfrau

Elysian • Summer 2020

Magnhild Kennedy’s elaborate masks are deeply unsettling yet exhilarating: wholly unusual, wildly imaginative, and vividly colored. They seem to combine elements of high fashion (with its joyous embrace of extremes), burka- or veil-like head coverings (with their power to efface women), or tribal masks (with their spiritual force).

Alone, Together: An Armenian dancer at home and in Paris

Dance International • July 2020

“Hello, how are you doing, my beautiful peoples?” 36-year-old Armenian dancer Tsolak MLKE-Galstyan made a habit of saying in his delightfully imperfect English to his fellow artists in Paris.

The World’s Greatest Art Fair

Elysian • Summer 2019

“If you are interested in collecting contemporary art on any level, you have to visit Basel,” according to Mary Sabbatino, the Vice President and Partner of Manhattan’s prestigious Gallerie LeLong & Co.

The Power of the Lens

Elysian • Summer 2019

Six years ago, Leeh Ann Hidalgo was not exactly happy. And why should she be? In 2012, she’d moved to Hong Kong from the Philippines to take a job as a domestic worker.

Making Migration Visible in Maine

Decor Maine • September 2018

You know how sometimes an entire college campus or town will read the same book? When they do, sometimes ancillary programming addresses the issue (often there is an issue) emerging from the pages. It’s rarely “just” a literary conversation.

String Theory

New England Home/CT • Fall 2018

The class assignment was to make something woven in multiples with an inexpensive material. Susan Beallor-Snyder thought she’d trap a Barbie doll in a sphere of willow. She meant it as a metaphor for herself: at this point in her life, in 2011, she was a woman who felt artistically hampered by her outwardly enviable existence as the wife of an entertainment executive and mother of two children.