Issue 133 - April 2020

From contributing editor Leo Hsu:

We hope that you are all doing your best to keep yourselves and one another safe, healthy, and sane, and supporting one another. If you are sick, we wish you a smooth recovery. We are in unprecedented times and fighting the spread of the coronavirus has taken a toll on us all.

This month’s issue was planned before COVID-19 took hold in the United States, but I hope that the four portfolios here will provide some material for reflection in our present awareness of historical change. Each project deals with history –personal, political, and social, all inter-connected– and how the past lives in the present. Individual and collective memories are re-assessed and given new form in these projects by Claudia Ruiz Gustafson, Ross Mantle, Priya Kambli, and Tomoya Imamura. By evaluating the legacies of the past we create possible futures.

Also in this issue, and aptly, Managing Editor Bree Lamb reviews Keeper of the Hearth: Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph by Odette England.

As a reminder we have two very exciting calls for online exhibitions that will be featured in our May issue. The first seeks your finest, most dynamic chemical experimentation for Better Living Through Chemistry, which will be curated by Michael Kirchoff, Editor-in-Chief of Analog Forever Magazine - see details below. The second call is for our 12th Anniversary Issue group exhibition - any process, content, style is welcome. Show us what you’ve been working on! Both calls are free, and must be submitted to fractionsubmissions@gmail.com with the appropriate subject line by April 20th. Details for each can be found on the links below. We also want to share a call for exhibition proposals for our friends at PHOTO IS:RAEL, the theme is Transformations and the deadline is soon: April 6th - link below. Charcoal Book Club’s April book is August Song by Martin Bogren.

Take care of yourselves and one another!

Leo Hsu