Basabaagad. To be resilient.
It feels fitting to open this letter with a word drawn from the languages of the Anishinaabe peoples that have and continue to inhabit the lands we all now live on.
Language is an important way in which we see and make sense of the world around us, opening ourselves to new ways of being; an important practice we must all take upon us in our shared learning.
This was the premise that delve was founded on, positing culture as a vessel that takes us to new worlds and understandings, making (but not holding) spaces for those voices that need to be heard against the forces that have worked to erase and subdue them.
To which we devote our inaugural issue to the intercultural practices of resilience. Amidst the raging fires of a global pandemic, social upheaval, and the collective traumas they have inflicted, artists and creatives locally and across the globe continue to thrive, embodying complex systems of knowledge and relationality within their work.
Our desire as a publication is to disengage from the tired, parochial discourses of modernity, the reification of cultural expression, and the systems of oppression they often enforce. We return to the practice of creativity as one that fosters community over individualism, presence over absence, care over indifference, visibility over erasure, and love over hate. And sometimes we’re not going to get it right. And that’s okay, we live and we learn. Making mistakes is what it means to be of this earth.
delve does not seek to be an institution of culture that encloses the voices of its contributors under a single, hegemonic mandate. We are a collective of young, passionate creators and thinkers who believe in the innate and profound ability of art to act as a discursive force for social change, whether it is in examining our contemporary existence, or narratives of the historical past. We believe these worlds intersect in ways that reject the linear concepts of time, their lessons holding weight and relevance regardless of the moments they exist in. For us, this is a journey.
More than anything, this issue celebrates the languages of resilience, and what it means to different individuals and communities. Each of the pieces in this book aims to centre the diverse epistemologies that exist outside of the normative frameworks of the modern world.
Finally, we would like to thank everyone who has made this venture possible, from our lovely contributors, editorial staff, artists, faculty, as well as the financial support of the University of Guelph’s School of Fine Art & Music (SOFAM) and the College of Arts Student Union (CASU).
May the arts teach us how to make new relations with one another.
This is for all of us.
Callie Gibson & Christopher Lim
Editors-in-Chief & Co-Founders
