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Letter from the Editor
It turns out that the act of creating, regardless of medium, is always a moment where we enter into a relationship with power. What does it mean to contend with power? How can we know it, name it, dismantle it, reimagine it, come into it, and who do we become on this journey?
The critically creative questions I come back to again and again are,
for what, and with who?
LooseLeaf 9 – Power was conceived before 2020, but is about to make its way into the world in the early part of 2021. This volume is a strange and evolving artifact amidst a time of upheaval and change that didn’t begin in 2020 and will also not end any time soon. We are always moving through, in and toward change.
When I consider LooseLeaf’s own narrative, beginning as a literary and visual arts magazine in 2015, and growing and changing through the years, I recognize the ways in which we have challenged, and taken up power, small and mighty. As a masthead we have tried to always be honest and reflexive, to be in imaginative and informed relationships with power, and sought to imagine and dream for the communities we come from and that we care about.
As we move in shifting presents toward dreamed and built futures, I hope we move in power that is tender and loving, sharp and precise, expansive and warm, fierce and firm, wise and affirming. May the creative questions and explorations of the artists in Volume 9 become crucial landscapes that show us the kinds of worlds we all need to survive and thrive together.
Thank you to those who entrust us with their creative dreams.
Thank you also to those who steward these dreams.
Lastly, thank you to those who will bear witness to these dreams.
This is a precious present and future.
Jasmine Gui, managing editor
