Editor’s Note

As Yiara celebrates its tenth anniversary, we found it to be a crucial moment for us to reflect on the legacy of the magazine. Looking back at the history of Yiara, this publication first began as a class project and has since grown to staff over 20 students across Montreal universities. Much of the work we did this year as Volume 10 Editors-in-Chief was about honoring that legacy by investing time and resources into solidifying our institutional framework, improving our sustainability and archiving our institutional knowledge in the hopes that Yiara will celebrate another decade of publication. We alligned our mandate to be consistent with contemporary feminist and decolonial discourse. We integrated this into discussions amongst the Yiara team, and strove to prioritize publishing work that encapsulates this refreshed vision. We worked to further integrate these values by updating the language used in our constitution to more accurately reflect the diversity and breadth of our team, our values and our vision for the future. Volume 10 reflects this continued push from Yiara to carve out a path consistent with contemporary discourse.

As a feminist magazine, the topic of one’s identity is consistently woven into our publications. Yet it is unsurprising that whilst surviving a global pandemic, tensions surrounding identity, the self and our surroundings began to exacerbate as we all experienced some form of isolation, uncertainty and loss. In Quang Hai Nguyen’s In these eyes lie an endless ocean we can see the complexities of identity unfold as they explore what it means to be part of the Vietnamese Diaspora. In Nathalie SeredaBazinet’s Submergée, the relationship between one’s self and their surroundings during the pandemic is fleshed out through a series of prints.

In Reclamation and Belonging in Mixed Indigeneity, Drinalba Shérifi further deconstructs the ways in which identity and heritage is employed by Indigenous artists.

These last three years have been challenging and difficult. We missed our Volume 8 show, moved online exclusively for Volume 9, and this year has been no different. The pandemic has continued to loom over our heads and influence the production of our magazine as we entered the tenth volume of Yiara. Many of us experienced great losses this year far beyond the scope of the publication. We lost family members and loved ones, and bore the weight of these experiences on shoulders already worn down by the last two years of isolation and fear. Burnout amongst our team was and is no joking matter. At no fault to anyone, we could tell that with each year we continued into the pandemic, the lower and lower everyone’s capacities fell. So we, as CoEditors-in-Chief, decided to adjust and reduce our normal output for the year. All of this to say that the publication of the tenth volume is a small miracle. We are forever thankful to everyone who helped get us here. To our amazing team who made this possible despite facing so many obstacles. To our contributors who filled each and every page of this issue with their outstanding creativity and beautiful work. To our support systems for helping us along the way. And lastly, to the past nine years of Yiara; to the students who furthered the project, kept it alive and to the decade of team members who’ve worked together to sustain and expand it.

Yours truly,