December 17, 2015
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the Winter 2015 issue of Please Hold Magazine, Home. A year has gone by since the release of So It Begins, which makes Home our first anniversary* issue. The editorial process for this issue has been immense, as we had a larger submission pool and jury than ever before. Meanwhile, and completely coincidentally, Please Hold's home base was in transition as we were putting this issue together, which only made the process more challenging. Nevertheless, we made it.
It has been enlightening and inspiring to see, watch, read, and hear the endless ways one might consider the notion of home. I am proud to have put together this issue, which features the work of 13 artists living in 6 countries and 3 U.S. states. Most contributors to this issue have lived in multiple countries, and each has a unique history of homes.
The works you will see in the following web pages approach the concept of home from many angles and through many media including video, audio recordings, photography, collage, illustration, poetry, and flash fiction.
Some interpretations are quite literal, focusing on the physical structure that protects us from the elements: where we live, where we grow, where we settle in; a space we fill with our belongings to bring our interior worlds out, to serve as an extension of our selves.
Others are more abstract, as we see in the pieces responding to the interconnectivity between family and the idea of home. Extending beyond the individuals that make up a family, these pieces approach the notion from a distance, recognizing patterns in familial experiences across multiple families over time. Literal recordings of intimate family moments, via audio recordings and photographs, effectively lock this interpretation of home in a concrete time and place. Family, as it is addressed in this issue, evokes nostalgia, as though a home exists in past-tense. These pieces are immediately relatable, or at least recognizable, as each refers to a specific example of a fairly universal experience.
As we move through life, our most constant home may be the physical body we occupy. Some works in this issue address the way our understanding of who we are is linked to the environment around us. Perhaps these things are not so disparate: our body, the life inside of it, and the space surrounding it. An impulse, such as one that calls us to another place, a spiritual, intangible source of comfort, may be as intrinsic to our being as our physicality.
Our identity is also connected to a larger sort of home: the country we inhabit. In light of recent events and current U.S. political debates, the subject of nationality, immigration, and asylum is being heavily discussed around the world. A few pieces in this issue deal with nationality and displacement. When seeking refuge, is home the place you feel safest or the place most familiar? What happens to your relationship to home when you lose all ties to everything you have known in search of asylum? If home is a place where you feel like you belong, a place where you feel safe, a place tied to your self-identity, and a place where you have a family (however you might define family), then where does home go when all of these places cannot coexist?
However we define home, it is a highly personal yet universal concept. I hope that, as you make your way through this issue, you will consider how the notions of home within it relate to your own perspective on the term.
Thank you for viewing our fifth issue, Home!
Warmly,
Kristie Wickwire
Editor-in-Chief
Welcome to the Winter 2015 issue of Please Hold Magazine, Home. A year has gone by since the release of So It Begins, which makes Home our first anniversary* issue. The editorial process for this issue has been immense, as we had a larger submission pool and jury than ever before. Meanwhile, and completely coincidentally, Please Hold's home base was in transition as we were putting this issue together, which only made the process more challenging. Nevertheless, we made it.
It has been enlightening and inspiring to see, watch, read, and hear the endless ways one might consider the notion of home. I am proud to have put together this issue, which features the work of 13 artists living in 6 countries and 3 U.S. states. Most contributors to this issue have lived in multiple countries, and each has a unique history of homes.
The works you will see in the following web pages approach the concept of home from many angles and through many media including video, audio recordings, photography, collage, illustration, poetry, and flash fiction.
Some interpretations are quite literal, focusing on the physical structure that protects us from the elements: where we live, where we grow, where we settle in; a space we fill with our belongings to bring our interior worlds out, to serve as an extension of our selves.
Others are more abstract, as we see in the pieces responding to the interconnectivity between family and the idea of home. Extending beyond the individuals that make up a family, these pieces approach the notion from a distance, recognizing patterns in familial experiences across multiple families over time. Literal recordings of intimate family moments, via audio recordings and photographs, effectively lock this interpretation of home in a concrete time and place. Family, as it is addressed in this issue, evokes nostalgia, as though a home exists in past-tense. These pieces are immediately relatable, or at least recognizable, as each refers to a specific example of a fairly universal experience.
As we move through life, our most constant home may be the physical body we occupy. Some works in this issue address the way our understanding of who we are is linked to the environment around us. Perhaps these things are not so disparate: our body, the life inside of it, and the space surrounding it. An impulse, such as one that calls us to another place, a spiritual, intangible source of comfort, may be as intrinsic to our being as our physicality.
Our identity is also connected to a larger sort of home: the country we inhabit. In light of recent events and current U.S. political debates, the subject of nationality, immigration, and asylum is being heavily discussed around the world. A few pieces in this issue deal with nationality and displacement. When seeking refuge, is home the place you feel safest or the place most familiar? What happens to your relationship to home when you lose all ties to everything you have known in search of asylum? If home is a place where you feel like you belong, a place where you feel safe, a place tied to your self-identity, and a place where you have a family (however you might define family), then where does home go when all of these places cannot coexist?
However we define home, it is a highly personal yet universal concept. I hope that, as you make your way through this issue, you will consider how the notions of home within it relate to your own perspective on the term.
Thank you for viewing our fifth issue, Home!
Warmly,
Kristie Wickwire
Editor-in-Chief
*If you feel inclined to celebrate our first anniversary with the traditional paper gift, we will welcome your donation!