Choosing to publish a magazine is choosing to expand. Six years ago, the BUSH collective formed around the creation of an art fanzine, and since then we have aspired to create more spaces that can sustain the fluidity necessary to discuss our lives. At times, the space shapes a limited, binary language that doesn’t leave room for our full existence. In the collective’s work, we sought to hold on to the fluidity that our stories require – in fanzines, exhibitions, parties – and never ceased to ask ourselves how we can create a platform that holds our and our communities’ lived experiences in full.
This is the first issue of the magazine for queer-feminist art by BUSH. For us, it is another way to expand that platform and give the stage to more voices. The choice to publish online allows us to use media that don’t translate well in print; the choice to deal with queer and academic research alongside art feels to us like casting new material into the foundations we sought to build.
The theme for the first issue, “In the absence of a familiar space,” was practically a given. We could talk about two years of a pandemic and how our lives disintegrated into something new, but the truth is queer or feminist lives are by essence “in the absence of a familiar space.” They are the understanding that this feeling we have, of being a misfit in spaces, at home and outside of it, is in many ways the core of our existence. “In the absence of a familiar space” is whenever the normal turns out to be the foreign; whenever mechanisms of oppression were hidden, and the ways we’ve learnt to expose, open the blinds, look directly at it, and hurt that absence; the moments we rediscovered how beautiful it is – because whenever the familiar space goes missing again, we are reborn, pushed into recreating ourselves. A part of the charm in queer life is exactly that: saying yes to liminal spaces, to the understanding that change can’t be measured by getting from A to B, but from a vantage point that overlooks the whole process, realizes just how non-linear it is, and sees how all the axes consolidate into a complex, interwoven system.
This magazine, this issue, is all a celebration of the spaces you can find right when the familiar space is missing. It is also a celebration of grief, of anger and of this unique aesthetic. It celebrates us, who couldn’t follow the outline and stopped trying long ago. It celebrates this world, where there are no definitions, but essence.
We hope you discover spaces here you didn’t know you were looking for,
Enjoy the exploration,
Yours,
BUSH
Editorial team
Editor: Chen Amran
Curator and producer: Noga Or Yam
Producer: Hile Razon
Website design: Faina Feigin
UX: Shir Hakim
Collective members: Michal Shomer, Shir Newman
English translation: Amit Meyer
Arabic translation: Aia Khalaily
This magazine was produced with the support of Mifal HaPais.
