Front cover: lost time Frances Castro Inside front cover: Untitled (Volcano Thoughts) Sophia Hess
MISSION STATEMENT Our aim is to collectivize and distribute the voices and creations of a diverse and progressive community – helping to curate and share the work of young, local artists, and cultivate a thriving Five College arts community. We mean specifically to uplift and promote the voices of POC and QTPOC in the Five College community, but any and all submissions are welcome.
Editor
Callie Wohlgemuth
Managing Editors Arts Editors
Dani Crespo & Zoe Fieldman Anais Quiles-Lewis & Callie Wohlgemuth
Writing Editor Layout Designers
Kate Turner Dani Crespo & Callie Wohlgemuth
Social Media Director
Ayu Suryawan
Events Coordinator
Dani Crespo
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Note from the Editors..... We would like to acknowledge the land that we inhabit and on which this magazine was produced. Mount Holyoke College stands on stolen Nonotuck land bordered by neighboring indigenous nations, including the Nipmuc and the Wampanoag to the East, the Mohegan and Pequot to the South, the Mohican to the West, and the Abenaki to the North. This issue was born out of a unanimous need to center the artwork of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). We want to acknowledge and thank activists that have been and are continuing to spearhead our collective liberation. We also would like to acknowledge this issue’s ability to traverse borders as many of our contributors were from all over the world! We hope that as you flip through the vibrant pages of this issue that you find solace and community in the sharing of solely BIPOC work. In putting together this issue, we were inspired by the breadth of talent that we received. Thanks and praise go out to all of our contributors – please keep submitting! We hope you join us in our celebration! OC
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Table of Contents
2 3 4 6
FRESH TOAST Ella Giordano
returning words to you, syllable by syllable aftan
23 24
Human Abstract Frances Castro
26 27 28
Girl and Her Cloud Frances Castro
Water is Cruel until I Float JoliAmour DuBose-Morris Tide/Moon/Blood: Seafoam Detail Sophia Hess I am the Bear pt 2 Sophia Hess
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FOR THE Poetic TRANS Getting FUCKED Jie Venus Cohen Iconic Olympia: at the klerb at the bottom of the ocean Olympia Villa invert Frances Castro
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cantaloupe seeds Callie Wohlgemuth
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: MALADY
Stills from Family Politics performance in Mary Lyon Hall Sophia Hess POUT IDENTITY Rupali Agrawal Co-existence Rupali Agrawal
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An Offering Of Heart Ishan Summer Art by AzeliA 9.12.20 Camila Blanco
kiss the cook Lexi Luckett sweet loves Lexi Luckett
MISSED CALL Icía Vázquez
8.9.20 Camila Blanco Tide/Moon/Blood: Moon Detail Sophia Hess
I’ll always have space for you AzeliA 11.3.20 Camila Blanco
Us Frances Castro
57 58 60
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12.28.20 Camila Blanco
CYBORG AS A MIRROR? Callie Wohlgemuth Time Plays Mean Poker Ishan Summer Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth
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Monsoon Season Ella Giordano Salmon Belly Callie Wohlgemuth butter dreams Frances Castro
self portrait Dewa Ayu
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FRESH TOAST Ella Giordano 2
returning words to you, syllable by syllable I.
Returning words to you, syllable by syllable .
ripples of wheat eld whistles
,dig through shards of the cracked cup we are
standing on piles of unread tea leaves letters decay eyelash by eyelash,
Everywhere. Unsipped carry the cup of salt lit
Sea the gaping sky.
what is the heart if not open like the sky?
we split our hearts
watch the seeds spill
waiting for the heart to revive: Nothing will make Leaving Easy.
aftan 3
Girl and Her Cloud Frances Castro 44
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Water is Cruel
Here are three things. When I was twelve, I went camping with my cousins in Philadelphia. To float means to be suspended in water, or to come into your mind or to simply fluctuate in value. Summer is near. My first time being taught how to float was by an older woman at the campsite who held me on the blanket of a small fear that I have, or well two that I have; water and the loss of control. She told my cousins and I how floating saved her life. When she was in her twenties, there was a large storm (or tsunami, the specifics are unprecedented) that succumbed her into the ocean and a technique she learned (the very one keeping me still) was the serendipity to her life-or-death circumference. “Learn to float and you will never drown.” The best place to practice this is in a feet by feet pool so that when you close your eyes and give your body to God, the furthest one can go is really nowhere. When water has no reckoned force against it, it runs and it runs. “Is water wet?” We ask each other in grade school, a debate to pardon with how we perceive things that will exist and have existed before us and simply after us. Everyday, we imagine that something larger than us by power structure or “it is what it is,” can take away our control. Every time I’ve tried to float, I feel this slip of relief and then I am pummeled into this fear that tells me “it is too good to be true, water is cruel.” So, I’m standing up. If a plastic water bottle gives its gravity to the sea, knowing that it is just a rejected piece of loiter yet never sinks, what does it say to the people existing on Earth with 60% of themselves being fluid? Water is a family relation. Why is it when given facts about life to ooze those anxieties that we cannot control, we choose that grain in the sand that tells us otherwise? Can’t we simply just come and go, along with our favorites and our worsts? They become us more than water.
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Tide/Moon/Blood: Seafoam Detail Sophia Hess
Is it just me or do I remember my summer’s more coherently? A blaq child’s summer, our salvation was chlorine and ninja turtle floatees. Dollar store goggles (preferably the ones that came with a cover for the nose) and floral bathing suits from TJ Maxx. The division between some of us and the rest was that either our first swimming experiences were being thrown into the deep end by Grandpa or being given floatees to manage the unknowing. It’s interesting that those floatees just sustain fears, they never solve them. Why do I feel like I grew the most during the summer than any other time that the sun occurred? It rises every day, what makes these months so different? Is it because they slip away so easily? All of my winter dreams are about sand as if I never (when the time is near) resent the feeling of it’s warmth pressed into my soles. But do I hate the sweat residing in between my toes when Summer has not happened yet? When it snows I just wish for one moment to lay my hand out the window, clutching wind and feeling it leave my palms before I even close them. We all can describe the warmth of sitting in a backseat with our shoes off and our worries low. And then that calamity becomes redundant so we wish for jackets and to see the friends we usually never see. To make snow angels as we feel untouchable against the tiny speck of water driving into the ground turning everything white. But we don’t always love that either. So then what do we love? An older woman loves to float because it saved her life, I love the memories I’ll never touch again, and some of us wish to be unhappy because happiness is temporary and disappointing. Like when the leaves finally turn brown. Or when leaving the window down during an August car ride makes the seats a bit rigid. When do we just learn to fluctuate like seasons do and love things as they come while loving things as they go? When do we learn to just be within those currents?
until I Float
cause of death: summer, control, floating JoliAmour DuBose-Morris 7
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I am the Bear pt 2
Sophia Hess
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Jie Venus Cohen 110 0
Iconic (above) Olympia: at the klerb at the bottom of the ocean (below) Olympia Villa 1 1 11
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invert Frances Castro
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cantaloupe seeds Callie Wohlgemuth Model: Sikkiim
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artist spotlight: All photos by Anna Lowry
MALADY
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If you are looking for a new band whose songs can only be described as amoody fusion of musical elements from the genres of electronic, dub, indie, then look no further! Malady is the band we’ve all been looking for. The London-based four piece was brought together after Percy Junior Cobbinah (vocals/guitar) and Charlie Clark (guitar/synth) got to know each other after turning up at the same gigs; Cobbinah and Ertan Cimen (drums) frequented all the same uni house parties; while Clark met bassist Khaleem MitchellPatterson at college. Their music is heavily influenced by things familiar to them including living in London and observations on their immediate society. When we initially set out to write this spotlight, the band had only one but very exciting track out in the world, “London, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” Inspired by LSD Sound System’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” the track is a conflicted ode to their home. They mesh together sounds familiar to them including styles from underground and rave circuits and indie guitar into a unified sound. 16
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Co-editor Zoe Fieldman and I got the chance to speak with the band’s frontman Percy Junior Cobbinah back in April. Cobbinah expressed to us how important it was for the band to find their distinct, cohesive sound. But after the COVID-19 pandemic hit our world, he said, “it was difficult to get everyone working in the same room… lots of things were happening digitally but it just wasn’t the same as working in person.” It was like a waiting game which made it difficult to keep his creative juices flowing. Once everyone was able to work together again due to ease in restrictions, they got to work solidifying their debut as Malady.
It is obvious in their newest single “Famous Last Words” that they are continuing to grow into their sound. The song is a groovy yet pensive interrogation of living and purpose. Cobbinah explains that the song as “The realisation that any notion of inherent, and/or divine, purpose is false and subsequently the futile, scrambled attempts to forge meaning in places that meaning can never really be found.” Drawing influence from synthrock dubstep, the song is sparkling with vibrating rhythms, layers of synth sounds, and heavy vocals. After spending a whole day listening to the song on repeat, I am eager to hear how Malady continues to evolve in the future. Article by Anais Quiles-Lewis
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@malady_band 18
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I’ll always have space for you AzeliA 20
11.3.20
Camila Blanco
Art by AzeliA 21 21
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Stills from Family Politics performance in Mary Lyon Hall (Nov 2019) Sophia Hess
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POUT (above) IDENTITY (below) Co-existence (right) Rupali Agrawal
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An Offering Of Heart
annot hold. out
Because I want you I make an offering of heart and skin and
annot hold
Anything that seems appetizing To a fox;
annot hold. Ishan Summer
It’s not like I was using them on my own, So now I’m Breaking the natural laws that seems small, Because I want you. There’s no park ranger in my Heart that just wants a friend in a fox Telling me not to feed the wildlife. Yes, I’m aware; I’m hoping you come back Expecting more and to a lesser desire, That you don’t bite me.
brosia
cast etal, co athic bstance. ecaf once, f elixir ial. Art by AzeliA 28
9.12.20 9.12.20 Me acuerdo más bien de la risa. Que te dije que era el vehicle de toda la risa mundial. Que me salia de vientre, De algo bien profundo Como de donde nace mi amor por ti. Me acuerdo como te miraba al lado de la ventana. Tu piel es un pomo diel, Y a eso me sabes. Te pudiera devorar hasta el infinito. We melted into eachother, And so now I still smell you on my skin. You told me you could never remember what it was like kissing me, That no matter how you stretched my lips, They’d pop right back into place. I told you kissing was a language. We decided you belong inside of me. The storm guided our immaculate copulation. Your chest was droplets on the window. Butterflies all over the body. It is always a new moment with you. Entonces aprendi a dar gracias Por aguantarte, Y por verte respirar, y comer, y pensar. Doy gracias por tus manos sagradas, Tu lengua peligrosa. Soy tuya a todas horas. No me quedan tantas palabras ya. Solo delirio. Delirio por ti y el amor que me das. Me quedo en tu cuello por siempre. Hasta ahogarme.
Camila Blanco 29
kiss the cook 30 30
sweet loves
Art by Lexi Luckett
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MISSED CALL Photo Essay by Icía Vázquez
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MISSED CALL -Hello? Michael? -Who are you? There is no Michael here, he must have changed his number. -Oh… okay, thanks. -Bye Michael and I have never met. He doesn’t know who I am, but due to this funny anecdote I was able to gather some information about him. A few months ago, I had to get an american phone number. One day, I suddenly appeared in a group chat full of strangers that thought that I was someone named Michael. Since then, I have been receiving calls and texts addressed to him and with this information I have been able to imagine how Michael life is on a day to day basis. Michael Hayes, the mysterious man whose face I don’t know, with whom I share a weird relationship that he is unaware of. I have heard his name so many times and I have been given so much information through his friends and family that he has become a part of my life. This is my gift to Michael, for all the time that we haven’t spent together, all the funny moments that I haven’t spent with him, this portrait about his personality, that he will never see, just as I will never see his face.
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8.9.20 8.9.20 Me encanta fornicar con el sol Y cada gota que escapa mi cuerpo es un beso. Días enteros en la playa. Siempre al lado del mar. Cubierta en arena, Enredada en olas. Pensando en tus dientes Porque me las yerbitas del mar Me pican las piernas. La boca me sabe a sal Y quiero que la pruebes.
Tide/Moon/Blood: Moon Detail Sophia Hess
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12.28.20 12.28.20 Came to the ocean to feel myself again. Never touching the water, But moving through waves--nonetheless. Smoking so much my lungs are sticky. I want to let you roll me all in sand. Bread me like a chicken And fry me in the sun. Eat me with a waffle. Drench me in syrup. I am your delectable; Suck on my bones.
Poems by Camila Blanco 57
CYBORG AS A MIRROR
Time Plays Mean Poker Tonight, reticence is mutual. Time has dealt you the hand you cannot hold. Reach into the months and pluck out a well polished stone; hold it tenderly, put it back. Time has dealt you the hand you cannot hold and the phantom limb of someone else’s heart that now beats for other ears. Put it back, for now, it hurts. Hold up the therapy mirror That reflects the empty space Where they no longer are. Time has dealt you the hand you cannot hold. Do you wait for the river? Ishan Summer 58
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Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth 59 59
Photo by Callie Wohlgemuth
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Monsoon Season This morning my dad taught me the word “technically”. I can handle big kid words though because yesterday was my 10th birthday. Well, technically, my birthday was 3 months ago (April 18th) but it was too rainy to have a party till now. I don’t like the rain much. Thunderstorms make me jumpy, and I get sad seeing all the dead worms the next day. My parents say that somewhere in my DNA are the instructions to weather Vietnamese monsoons. I don’t really know what they mean but it makes me feel braver. I guess, technically, my birthday was made up by the orphanage anyways. People who aren’t adopted always think that’s very sad. Adults are worse than kids because they try to be polite by pretending they don’t notice I’m not white like my mom and dad. It feels rude to tell them that I know I’m Asian– like telling a little kid that Santa isn’t real. Anyways, I guess technically, today could be my birthday for all I know– I think I’m going to pretend it is, and maybe tomorrow too. July seems like a pretty good month to have been born, except that it’s way too hot. I grab a pirate hat out of my dress-up chest. It’s the only hat small enough to stay on my head, and big enough to keep the sun out of my eyes. I skip and cartwheel through my front yard, and then I find a shady spot under a tree. The boy across the street is selling toast. Most kids have lemonade stands in the summer, but not Carter. 61
There are 5 boys on my street, all older than me, and all white. It’s always 4 of them ganging up on Carter because he does things his own way, and that makes them mad. It doesn’t make them mad when I do things my own way, cause I’m already different. I can wear a pirate hat, or a sparkly purple cape anytime I want. I can sit on my front lawn and practice my harmonica solos to my stuffed animals and they don’t care. But sometimes I think I would rather get teased than be different. Sometimes I get annoyed at Carter because he was made like them and he’s blowing it. I am a girl (only technically though– not really in most other ways) in all the ways that they care about. I see the 4 boys at the end of the street. They are looking at Carter, and I know that there’s about to be trouble. They are kicking rocks and stomping on sidewalk cracks. Punching mailboxes and shoving each other around. Pointing, laughing, coming closer. Carter sees the storm coming, but it’s too late. They are already in front of his toast stand. They are much taller and stronger than me or Carter, and we are outnumbered anyways. I think to myself, “They are all mean and angry on their turf, but technically, they wouldn’t stand a chance in a Vietnamese monsoon.” I don’t really know what I mean but it makes me feel braver. Ella Giordano
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Salmon Belly Callie Wohlgemuth
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butter dreams Frances Castro
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Artist Statements
aftan Delhi, India
aftan is a south asian non binary poet and organizer planting seeds in western massachusetts. their work has appeared in Eunoia review, L’Ephemere Review, kitaab and elsewhere.
Rupali Agrawal New Delhi, India
Rupali Agrawal is currently pursuing Masters in Fine Arts, Sculpture at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi India. Rupali is highly inspired by Indian traditional and tribal art of India and is currently experimenting with a fusion of contemporary and traditional art. Rupali’s work attempts to express the general ideas surrounding us yet those we choose to ignore. For example, IDENTITY shows how every single circumstance of our life changes or shapes our identity but we don’t notice them or question them yet we recognize ourselves after so many changes. POUT shows the expression of the decade. This one expression has changed the way we look and click photographs. Lastly, Co-existence shows how two people live together or are at least meant to like the branches and leaves of a tree. They might cross each other but are a vital part of each other’s existence.
AzeliA Brooklyn, New York Dewa Ayu Camila Blanco Frances Castro
Frances Castro is a 21 years old content creator, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the South Bronx. The majority of Frances’ looks are done with oil face paints and makeup taken using a DSLR Camera (Nikon D3500). They then transfer it over to Pic Art, or Photoshop/Lightroom for finishing touches. Frances uses photography and undertakes a variety of what they call, “bizarre” projects, not only as a way to fill their time and cope with quarantine during the pandemic, but also to create a name for themselves as an emerging artist and makeup artist of color. Frances’ social media handles are: Instagram: @ElizerSkylight1401 // Twitter: @Francesc7689
JoliAmour DuBose-Morris Queens, New York
JoliAmour’s piece is called ‘Water is Cruel until I Float.” It is about what we hope to never lose. In simpler words, cause of death: summer, control, floating.
Ella Giordano Northampton, Massachusetts Sophia Hess
Sophia Hess (she/they) is a queer artist with a multinational heritage living on Tonvga territory, also known as Los Angeles, CA. They’re an undergraduate student studying visual art and work primarily with multimedia sculpture involving textiles and digital collage. She centers her artwork around themes of identity, nature, migration, while critiquing modern 66
manifestations of settler-colonialism as they try to untangle their own participation within these systems.
Lexi Jean Northampton, Massachusetts / Mesa, Arizona
Lexi Jean is a black artist and student from Smith College (‘23) who wants to showcase intimacy between people of color with their art, hoping to emanate how special queer people of color and their love are through their work.
Jie Venus Cohen Springfield, Massachusetts
Venus Cohen is a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mount Holyoke College, and a mixed, transgender creator. Their body of work explores the intersections of surrealism and identity. Their writing and visual art has been published or is forthcoming in Serotonin Poetry, ENBY Magazine, Fahmidan Journal, Wrongdoing Journal, The Hungry Ghost Project, The B’K, and Nat-Brut. They are the founding editor of LUPERCALIApress and assistant editor at Smoke and Mold Journal.
Olympia Villa Rio Grande Valley / San Marcos, Texas
As a proud trans woman, Olympia Villa is humbled by this opportunity of representation of her artistic work. Both pieces were originally a birthday gift for Nicolis Cantu (“Iconic” being the main birthday present). Olympia (re)presented the character “Ursula” in the second piece.
Ishan Summer Icía Vázquez
Icía Vázquez is a Spanish fashion designer from A Coruña who graduated from the University of Vigo. In 2015 she started actively collaborating as a volunteer in several ecologist organizations. From that activism, she got in touch with sustainable fashion and started applying this perspective to her work as a creative and also as a consumer. In 2019 interns for Rochambeau, a fashion brand located in New York and finalist at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and winner of the US Woolmark Prize. Taking inspiration from designers like Yulia Yefimtchuck or Vivienne Westwood, her work is characterized for the importance of its narrative, focusing on expressing the designer’s concern about the actual issues of modern society and becoming a political statement whose relevance is emphasized on a visual level. This is noticed in her thesis, being a critic of the consumerist system of the actual economies. In 2020 she won a Fulbright scholarship and travels to New York, where she is currently studying a One Year Conservatory Program in Photography at the New York Film Academy.
Callie Wohlgemuth Rockaway, New Jersey / Shutesbury, Massachusetts
Callie’s work in this edition of Open Call explores the human relationship to technology, food, animal and media.
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Back cover: AzeliA Inside back cover: Untitled (Volcano Thoughts) Sophia Hess
Contact Mail: opencallmag@gmail.com Instagram: @opencallmag Facebook: @opencallmag Venmo: @opencallmag Now accepting submissions for our next issue. 68
