editor’s note - issue n°2

Welcome, friends! Our beautiful project has continued to progress and we’ve reached the exciting, overwhelming, thrilling, exhausting, emotional milestone of presenting you with Issue 2: Artistry. The incredible support and feedback we received after our first issue, have strengthened our will to push forward with kindling & sage and ensure this platform keeps holding space for our stories. It’s necessary to continue nourishing spaces where we own our narratives and represent ourselves. 

It’s been my great privilege to speak to some remarkable humans while working on this issue. Powerhouse duo Carly Stanley and Keenan Mundine, who work tirelessly to disrupt cycles of disadvantage and injustice in their communities. Ancestress and Sara Saleh, with their ability to weave a conversation that can build a bonfire out of the smallest embers. Deena Lynch (artwork pictured opposite this note), with her incredible resilience and ability to speak vulnerably and openly about deeply personal issues, to advocate for change and challenge the status quo. I’m so humbled and grateful they shared their stories and work with us. 

Artistry is defined as the creative skill of an artist. At the heart of this issue are conversations with multidisciplinary artists who use their talents to make powerful work that moves and also advocates. Throughout, we talk about being for ourselves (and others) what we needed when we were younger, as well as breaking cycles to create a better future for generations to come. Artistry is at the service of the issues the artist cares about, and what greater gift (and responsibility) is there than using whatever we have at hand to be good ancestors?

Within the pages you now hold are the voices of more than 30 contributors. As with our first issue, our articles and interviews showcase a broad range of lived experiences, written and spoken without artifice or pretence; honest, open words we share with love for our readers. While this issue’s focal point is artistry and creativity, intersecting themes include solidarity and community, identity, and mental health. 

We’re living in tumultuous times. Sometimes I feel like I got on a roller-coaster a couple of years ago and never got off. The dips, the hills, the loops, the bends - so much, so fast. It can be overwhelming. In times like these, writing helps me make sense of things, process, find new meaning - or just shush my brain and calm myself. For many of our contributors, creative expression is used as a tool for understanding, healing, resisting. And also building: awareness, change, community. 

We’re all going through a lot. The pandemic, certainly, but our communities are also experiencing intensified racism and classism, ongoing dispossession, profound injustice and inequality, political turmoil, apartheid, genocide, persecution, exclusion. And these are only the issues we contend with outside of ourselves. This is why understanding the ways we manage our mental health has been an important part of our conversations. Throughout many of our interviews and articles, we explore the tools we use to persist, to find strength and comfort and keep making change. 

Turbulent times can also be an opportunity to reassess our priorities and refocus our energies. To show up for those who need it most, to connect with our communities and strengthen our kinship with others. While our struggles are as diverse as our identities, our liberations are interconnected and solidarity is the only way forward. May our stories be kindle to your fire and bring us closer to our shared liberation.

In solidarity,

natalia