3 minute read
Amrita Anand and Amal Surmawala, Introduction
from Airport Road 14
INTRODUCTION
After over two years of lockdown, closed borders, and mask mandates, the world is beginning to return to its previous normalcy. For many students at NYU Abu Dhabi, this return includes the end of mask mandates and Al Hosn green passes, the revival of Student Interest Group activities, and the renewal of impromptu mid-semester travel plans. Some veteran and new students may recognise this state of affairs as “normal” or, at least, as a return to the normal. Others are experiencing a slow shift, an opening into a version of NYUAD they have never seen before, having started university life remotely or with restrictions on gatherings, socializing, and the like. What is returning to some is a beginning to others and so we ask:
As the world emerges from the shadows of the coronavirus pandemic, how do we begin to return to normal? And what should that “normal” look like? Should it be the same as before? Or can it be better? What does it mean, in other words, to begin, possibly again?
Returning to normal doesn’t have to mean abandoning all those things that proved useful or instructive during the pandemic. Though the Fall 2022 semester marked a full return to in-person operations at NYUAD, our editorial board found Zoom, Google Jamboard, and polling websites to be indispensable tools that allowed us to connect across campuses and timezones, and discuss this issue and its contributions. The possibility of hosting hybrid meetings broadened our ability to communicate with members with far more freedom than would have been considered possible in pre-pandemic years.
Beyond the convenience of online meetings and asynchronous coordination, however, these questions of how to begin again manifested
in discussions about how to evaluate the pieces submitted to Airport Road 14. Time and time again, we asked ourselves (and each other) what it meant for a work to be “generic,” “unique,” “relatable,” or “unusual”; how these qualities should factor into our evaluation of pieces; and what the basis of a distinctive work of art should be. Over time, we developed an increasing appreciation for the way art asks us to rethink what we think we know, and for how it probes us to look at the world around us through new and/or different lenses.
The pieces in this issue do exactly that. Pivoting around the idea of changes that we have been confronted with as a society, they bring to the forefront themes such as loss, movement, and communication. Taking place in worlds both realistic and fantastical, across seasons and continents, the reader journeys from Tokyo to Abu Dhabi to Cyprus, through airports and in taxis and even the journals of loved ones, reminiscing about conversations with grandparents, and confronting the light and darkness that pervade various facets of our lives. Cycles of life, of birth, and death, growth and setbacks, unfold before our very eyes as we recognize resonances amongst work from the array of talented artists and writers featured in this issue.
Bombastic in some places and subtle in others, these works of art force us to reckon with these complicated times with honesty, without losing sight of what we have right now, and what lies ahead. Previous issues have confronted what it means to create art during times of great upheaval, and emerge during its immediate aftermath and effects—now, in Airport Road 14, we explore what it means to move forward despite it all.
Practically, beginnings are not always true starts—often, they continue what comes before. Just as the celebration of a new year does not
wipe away the 365 days that preceded it, the idea of something ending (temporarily or otherwise), so that we have something else to begin, can bring us some satisfaction or peace, or even a sense of agency or power that carries us forward. Waves of the pandemic still progress, and COVID-19 has not been rendered extinct—but we are better prepared to face it by the day, with each successive nugget of knowledge we earn. We no longer flounder in the face of the unexpected—that catalyst has passed, and left us ready for uncertainty.
Airport Road 14 is a meditation on what it means to begin not a new era, but perhaps the next arc of a large and cosmic circle, or the next verse of a song—to pick up what we have been given, and to make something transformative of it.
Amal Surmawala Amrita Anand
