In the Bird Closet universe, collage is the voice of the birds uttered from a parallel plane that is rich with possibility. Where existing modes of communication and arrangements of language fail at speaking to freedom and imagining new paradigms, collage allows us to reconfigure language and imagery to form a new language of agency. We believe it is important, now more than ever, to practice radical imagination and to exercise our voices in support of the collective call for justice that is echoing around the world. The collages featured in this special issue of Fraxinus are utterances of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. This issue was produced specifically for distribution at Bethel’s Solidarity with Black Lives Demonstration, which took place on Sunday, June 14th, 2020 in Bethel, OH. In the words of Christian Cooper, “We should be out here. The birds belong to all of us. The birds don’t care what color you are.”
