Xpress Magazine | December 2020

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DECEMBER 2020

Regrowth and Resilience

SAN FRANCISCO

XPRESS

DECEMBER 2020

QUARANTINE ZINE

EDITION 001

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Editor-in-Chief Malakai Wade Art Director Eloise Kelsey Managing Editor Camille Cohen Social Media Editor Rebecca Schupp Multimedia Editor Ryce Stoughtenborough Online Editor Samantha Joson Photo Editor Saylor Nedelman Copy Chief Omar Morales

masthead Contributing Photographers shaylyn martos…06 Eloise Kelsey…09 Alexandra Levey…12 Giovanni Ricondo…15 Paige Acosta…18 Avery Wilcox…20 Dan Fenstermacher…24 Camille Cohen…26 Ashanté Ford…30 James Barcelona…32 Paula Siqueira…36 Hannah Sudaria…38 Malakai Wade…40 Alejandro Vega…44 Essi Westerman…48

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letter from the editor The December issue of Xpress Magazine is a little different this time around.

Our last edition of 2020 is the culmination of a semester of hard work, which honors our skills in virtual storytelling, all while toughening ourselves to become resilient for the new year. That is why we chose the theme of Regrowth and Resilience for our final issue. This is also my last issue as editor-in-chief, so it’s bittersweet. I’ve loved my time at Xpress. Watching my staff grow together, through hours of work, has been so rewarding. Why is this issue different? You’ll just have to flip through the pages to see how we chose to explore our theme. It is a gallery of regrowth, as well as a showcase of resilience during a difficult year.

We’re stepping into a time when we usually feel the need to reinvent ourselves. What does reinvention look like in quarantine? Our staff’s written pieces will be published online at the same time we release this issue. We want to celebrate the end of another semester with you. We will be featuring stories about resilient musicians, how to practice safe sex and pleasure, gig workers reflecting after passage of Prop 22, the success of a youth center, an aviation specialist talking about flight and travel and a pole dancer who has adapted to artistic expression online.

It has been a pleasure to carry Xpress Magazine into the virtual world. I hope that one day soon, this magazine will once again be printed, so its editors and you can pour over its pages. Until then, you can find us all continuing to create, collaborate, adapt and expand.

Forever grateful,

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On the cover: Photograph by Eloise Kelsey.

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Regrowth and Resilience, curated by the Xpress Magazine Art Director, Eloise Kelsey, features the work of 15 San Francisco photographers. As 2020 has brought uncertainty, sadness and stress to our lives, it has also inspired new artistic ventures. The pictures on display explore a dissolution of familiar structures, and the recrystallized forms that take their place. These stills offer an opportunity for reflection on a rapidly mutating world.

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SHAYLYN MAR TOS

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I felt it in my gut before I put it into words. My father was forced to leave his home during the moratorium on evictions in March 2020. He didn’t want to leave Los Angeles but I knew we needed to be together up here. A week after we arrived, my uncle passed. I said goodbye over the phone since I couldn’t be with him in the hospital.

I felt it in my gut when we moved in together in West Oakland. Once my crown, my hair felt hot and heavy. I wanted it all gone. My father shaved my head for me. He kept asking me if I wanted him to stop; I kept asking him to go shorter.

With each fallen strand we grew closer, taking the time to reconnect after our ordeal.

SHAYLYN MAR TOS

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I used to shoot primarily outdoors. Drawn by the movement of the city, I put on my matte black loafers, packed my camera, and left my front door for the day. Carefree, I roamed the streets looking for unconventional characters and landscapes to capture.

In the pandemic, my photography, like all aspects of life, has been challenged. The time for insouciance has passed.Turning my attention away from what I once adored, and onto oddly unfamiliar territory, I’ve had to adapt. With my camera pointed at my roommates, myself, and our environment, I now explore the concepts of home, friendship and uncertainty. I never thought these subjects would become so important to my work and personal growth. Having turned inwards, I have found a resilience which had previously been obscured.

ELOISE KELSEY

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ELOISE KELSEY

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ALEXANDRA LEVEY

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The time frame between these photos feels like an eternity, although only one year fills their existence. The rickety stairs of a Malibu beach house foreshadow the unprecedented pandemic that would change our comfortable lives for good. Never did we predict such a global catastrophe, nor did my friends and I on that beautiful summer beach day. But, as all things come full circle, celebrating life and its simple pleasures has become so much more important to our daily masked routine than ever before. As some let the pandemic end their artistic careers, others tenaciously carry on, proving that humans — and stairs — are more resilient than we ever believed.

ALEXANDRA LEVEY

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I had a hard time trying to figure out what would best fit into the themes of regrowth and resilience from the work I already had. I started looking through my photos trying to see more loose and abstract connections to the theme until I came across these photos of mine. I immediately saw these pictures and the literal resilience being portrayed in them. The house is struck from a falling tree but still stands almost as if nothing ever happened; as though you can still duck under the branch in front of the steps up to the door and walk in. I passed by this house everyday walking to class and saw the reconstruction as making the house strong once again.

The other photo is also of a home, but was the backyard of my grandfather’s house being completely torn apart and redone after his passing. You can see dirt, plywood, and shovels surrounding the landscape but a set of trophies sit perfectly in the window of the garage. The trophies can be interpreted as a symbol of resilience with the figures on top posing with lifted arms in the air, signifying strength through trying times. Tearing apart and rebuilding the backyard is a straight translation of regrowth and starting new again. These photos were taken roughly three years ago but I believe that they relate to the interesting year we had for 2020. All the things that happened and are still happening require resilience and now, as the year is coming to a close, it’s time for regrowth.

GIOVANNI RICONDO

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GIOVANNI RICONDO

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PAIGE ACOSTA 18

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All of these photos were taken in June and July of 2020 in Paradise Valley, Montana.

The transition from summer to fall in the American West is a time of tremendous reinvention. The region is constantly redefined by wildfire, Indian Summers and regrowth. Just as this landscape is constantly in flux, these images were taken between thunderstorms, sunsets and in that endlessly transformative space of daylight.

AVERY WILCOX

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AVERY WILCOX

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“Life is for the living. Happiness is a choice. That’s why I’m not just alive. I’m alive and happy.” — Beleida Badilla Castro These portraits aim to enhance the viewer’s understanding of mental illness by juxtaposing the realities of people living with a mental illness to societal stigmas. The photos convey an authentic and genuine perspective of their lives through depicting unique personas of individuals living with a diagnosed mental illness. The purpose of this body of work is to inspire hope in those affected by mental illness; showing that one is not defined by their mental illness and can overcome adversity.

Thus, the work humanizes the misconceived perception of mental illness giving voices to a misunderstood and misrepresented community.

I collaborated with each individual to foster a dialogue about mental illness by illustrating their experience of life with a mental illness.

Through reenacting real life moments, some chose to depict a feeling of intense anxiety that is a result of their illness. Others show triumph in overcoming their illness and resisting defeat. Each person demonstrates the fundamental nature of the human spirit by persevering through extreme adversity. Courageously sharing a window into a world which may be unfamiliar — but often acutely similar to those not affected by mental illness — we challenge the boundaries of identity that society depicts of mental illness.

DAN FENSTERMACHER

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CAMILLE COHEN

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When have I felt myself growing back?

From the cracks, the golden cracks,

A muted flash

Where I thought I saw you last.

And the time: I let it — I beg it — to pass.

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The table collects dust But I don’t even notice day by day, sorry to say,

The passing of time

will go without a fight.

CAMILLE COHEN

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Before this pandemic took place, my friends and I always found ourselves on Alex’s roof. We would eat, dance and scream at the top of our lungs from up there. We would find ourselves staring deep into our city: The city of San Francisco. Up on that roof, it felt like the world was ours. Now, we still gather on the roof. We get our COVID tests, a bottle of red wine to chase the tequila and a speaker so we can dance to Kaytranada. We don’t allow external factors to steal our joy; we adjust accordingly. We create it.

We continue to let the city inspire us from that rooftop.

ASHANTE FORD 30

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JAMES BARCELONA

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Regrowth.

Have you revisited a favorite path recently? If you’re like many others, chances are you haven’t since this spring. But one day, you decide to go for it in a way that’s as safe as possible. What you notice is how lush everything is. Paths that were trimmed and manicured now have narrowed from regrowth. Perhaps your sweater catches on a branch. It tugs and then frees itself. Perhaps your sports fabric just gets a scratch from an overgrown branch.

You notice that weeds that never grew more than a few inches are taller than you. You notice that you can no longer see the beach below. You notice that cliffs crawl with regrowth. Your soul begins to reach into the earth and feels all the places it will go when this is all over. This is the beginning of regrowth.

JAMES BARCELONA

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PAULA SIQUEIRA

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HANNAH SUDARIA 38

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MALAKAI WADE

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I always return home for rose season. My mother furtalizes and waters the beautiful flowers that sit at the front of our property. I love taking photos of them. I had moved to San Francisco four years ago, only returning home to Santa Cruz for holidays and weekends. Once shelterin-place started, I spent one month alone before I couldn’t handle it anymore and moved home. Now I get to see the roses whenever I want.

And the flowers around my neighborhood when I go for walks.

For me, this is my regrowth from a year of mental health struggles. I get to see and appreciate the floral beauty every day and remember that there is so much color and change in the world. I’m graduating this semester, and I’ve been realizing that my whole life clock has been run by the concept of semesters. Spring. Fall. Repeat. But now I get to live by the seasons. Rose season. Summer. Autumn. Winter and the New Year.

I have to get through the cold, but I’m excited for rose season again.

MALAKAI WADE

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While this year’s news media coverage has predominantly focused on the ongoing pandemic and presidential election, the more localized media of San Francisco and the Bay Area continues to tell the story of how difficult it can be to remain here in times of economic uncertainty. Two of the following images were taken during the protests against police brutality following the muder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. They highlight not only the local community’s fight for justice and criminal justice reform, but also the Black community’s resilience to continue to fight for their right to exist in the Bay Area even amongst police encroachment due to the expanding tech industry and gentrification.

The cost of living is perhaps the most striking issue to Bay Area residents and the rest of the nation. As many businesses closed their doors due to the pandemic, those who were already struggling to make ends meet received little to no assistance from the government to make their rent payments. Many now face evictions from their homes. The final picture highlights the pressures of living in a city with such a high cost of living and the willingness of its residents to continue to make this city their home.

ALEJANDRO VEGA

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ALEJANDRO VEGA

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Resilience is a theme that has been overwhelmingly present not only in my personal life but in the world as well. Despite the seemingly chaotic nature of this year, it has pushed the strong to be even stronger, which has been beautiful to witness. Spending the year in my hometown of Oakland, a city that has always been resilient, I feel as though it has rubbed off on me and I look forward to seeing how my city and myself will grow from it.

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ESSI WESTERMAN 49

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FIN Special thanks: Laura Moorhead Josh Davis Amber Wehrer Rachele Kanigel 50

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