Vol. 1 / Issue 1
A literary and cultural review journal
Vol. 2 / Issue 3
Émile Luminaries:
Gerburg Garmann
A native of Germany, and a professor emerita of German and French at the University of Indianapolis. Gerburg's scholarly publications appear in English, German, and French in international journals. Her poems and artwork have been showcased in various magazines and anthologies around the world.
Unmarred - 18x24; Acrylic & Charcoal
I've conceived of these poems as a kind of trilogy, exploring the interplay between the personal and the political. Each poem grapples with the terror women, in particular, experience amidst current global upheaval, such as war and famine. They journey from an initial despair, Irony's Bones, through a momentary dream-like escapism, Night's Dream Voyage, and ultimately arrive in the personal realm, The Giant and the Rose, where the struggles of intimate relationships are reframed in the context of the larger global crises women face. Zaina Alsous's words in "To a Young Poet"—"What I’m trying to say is / no one gives a fuck about your poems but write them anyway. If you’ve got a / body, a pen, a shadow that follows you like a dog, then make it / mean something. You are alive among flesh explained back to us as / furniture. Hope is a tax. Each word—say it aloud—I am here—is a coin, a / debt owed to love"—inspired me to submit these poems.
Irony’s Bones
Irony's bones, my unasked-for brittle ground.
Crow's breath, a chilling cloak. Rain bleeds
my spirit, I dance on damp threads.
Heart, a splintered crutch, crushed by the sky.
This bruise, unearned. Whispering now as new gods eclipse the old. (Their broken halos will soon
be needed again.) Silence screams. Crickets try
lulling the monsters. No more tea parties in
the parlor of the soul. Which has moved underfoot.
Truth needs good shoes,
a moon's cold gaze,
a constant eye.
Just so, a woman's story, etched in her bones,
needs - its irony un-yearned -
a constant un-shoeing.
As if the foot itself could ever be free, un-worn.
.avif)
A Woman' Grace - Acrylic & Ink; 30x40
Night's Dream Voyage
A lone moon, silver shard, rests on the sand of your soul. You, a wind-borne bird, soar above the mountain, lost in a dream beyond knowing. Is it love or resolve that pulls you forward? You fall into snow's embrace.
Yearning to trace back steps in winter's hush, you hope to leave a trail of stardust for another lost soul. The willow weeps frozen tears, its branches silent witnesses to its own dream. This tree,
like the you-bird, craves transformation. A quiet guardian, it wishes to be Rapunzel's hair, shielding you from wolves in sheep's clothing.
One foot in the boat, fear cast aside, you set sail. The sun's crimson breath, a gentle push, carries
you. You drift into a nest of song, joining the melody, its source unknown. Will you ever meet
the peacock, ask its secret concealed beneath iridescent scales?
Adrift on a sea of indigo, Venus, born of oystered dreams, returns your heart, bestowing another. Who lit the lamp with stolen starlight?
Dora Maar - 18x24: Acrylic & Charcoal - the women's resilience series.
The Giant and the Rose
No, I don’t want to sink into a heap of soft pillows tonight.
I want my body to sit upright, against a strong tree trunk,
and let the world etch its will upon me so that I’ll accept
that the waters will redden, that the microbiota won’t stop curating
our lives from deep down. Can bodies be sacred? Let’s not be loud
about things we should not. Let silence become our sanctuary
as we resist to exhume the flat, worn-out flaws.
Let them become whispers upon the wind.
Even the mammoth bore a cloak against cold’s biting maw.
Here, a sign of defiant life: a single flower, a blush upon dawn
Redbreasted - 16x20; Acrylic & Charcoal
A group of women who display a variety of emotions. Some face the viewer, others are introverted. They intentionally ‘hold’ each other, lean on each other (literally and figuratively) in a voluntarily shared space.
Queen of the Night - Acrylic & Charcoal; 16x20
Part of the Inventory - 36x48, Acrylic & Charcoal.
Fashionistas -
"I enjoy placing figures in my compositions that interact with the strange spaces they are in. I’m inspired by a lot of impressionism and mid century painting."
.avif)
Unlikely Sisters- 30x40; Acrylic & Charcoal
Moving Toward Quietude - Acrylic and charcoal;12x24
Gerburg Garmann, a painter, poet, and recently retired professor of Global Languages and Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Indianapolis, USA, is now fully concentrating on the arts. Her scholarly publications appear in English, German, and French in international journals. Her artwork and poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies around the world. She specializes in creating art for women. For more: website; Instagram
more art = a greater tolerance
Vol. 1 / Issue 4
September 18, 2023
"It is not about becoming something, it is about being something."
The best of Garo Hakimian is an artist in full flight. Unconstrained. Free. There's talent - lots of it, but there's more, there's a drive in his work to say, I'm an artist, in every sense of the word, and always have been. A lot of that is because of his father, Razmik Hakimian, also an artist, but a driving force behind Canadian-Armenian cultural life here in Montreal, who
published a four-volume set of books on modern Armenian art. He was working on another four volumes before he died in 2002.
By Garo, eight-years-old. His father would often frame these early works.
"I paint my brain."
Skull
All I Know
“Technique is a trap, style is a prison.”
When Garo says, "I paint my brain," it's not thought he's painting, it's the pulse of blood running through the veins of thought. In other words, he paints not what he thinks - or what he can say, but rather, what he is unable to say, in any other way, other than by painting.
Beauty Behind the Madness
When we look at individual pieces, such as: Beauty Behind the Madness, the Angel From Hell series, Ignorant Art, we see just that, what he has captioned, but in such an expressive, energetic, and creative manner: Subjects that find themselves.
Self-Portraits
"Social media is the biggest
art gallery in the world."
here
more art = a greater tolerance
Vol. 1 / Issue 3
April 1, 2023
Émile Luminaries:
Cordelia Stagno
actress / performer / director / author
With the director Lucia Falco, I founded the TIR TeatroInRivolta Cultural Association (2001), and the Skaraventer Collective (2015). Together, we collaborated in the organization of three international festivals (Morocco, Algeria, and Italy) as well as a theater season, La Città dell'Uomo, in Rivoli. At the same time I participated in the production of numerous shows, mainly as an actor. Starting from 2015, our theatrical conception leads to more hybrid forms of entertainment, embracing site-specific projects, with productions being hosted at the Subscene and Faki Festival. In 2021 I am one of the two artistic directors of the Presente Festival, organized in Turin by the TIR Association in partnership with the La Scimmia in tasca Association: a performative event aimed at creating urban regeneration actions in the complex Barriera di Milano area.
"Cheap and Chic is a performance which evolves over time: days as an ordinary photo model, lived in everyday places, in temporary rooms, in shopping center garages, or at my house. A story that winds through hashtags without a future and images mostly stolen with mobile phones, in the name of that temporary celebrity that our era grants us, asking in exchange for a part of our lives. A project started in 2020 in collaboration with the director Lucia Falco and subsequently opened up to new looks of the photographers Giuseppe Caldarella, Pino Cappellano, Stefano Puzzuoli, Doriana De Vecchi, and Emanuele Pensavalle, the playwright Francesco Olivieri, the art director Carlo Musso, the social media writer Manuele Falco.
Photo Credit: Giuseppe Caldarella
Photo Credit: Doriana De Vecchi
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
Photo Credit: Cordelia Pond
"Today is Women's Day. But what does it mean to be a woman? Is it a natural, psychological, biological fact? A goal to achieve ? A land to defend? A question of social roles ?
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
"Starting from 2020, the year in which I chose to publicly live my female identity, I shifted my attention toward spectacular forms more open to the inner flow and direct involvement of the public. Of particular importance is my online diary, continuously updated on my Facebook profile (a performative form of writing, in constant evolution). At the same time, I am carrying out a process of narrative fragmentation of my image, both by photographing myself and by collaborating with other photographers.
In 2022 I started the show "Penelope" (taken from Joyce's Ulysses), a scenic de-construction project dedicated to literary characters that I feel resonate with the spirit of the time and with my daily experience. Penelope is the will to return that flow of memories to the body, extracting emotions, sweat, and movement from words."
Photo Credit: Lucia Falco
Photo Credit: Emanuele Pensavalle
TNR: You've been working as an artist for over 20 years, has that been rewarding?
CORDELIA: It's been very rewarding from a human point of view, because I've had some wonderful encounters and often found myself in surreal circumstances and unusual places, and I feel more alive when the apparent normality of life reveals its most secret, absurd, and poetic side. But it's also been very frustrating, because in the country where I live (Italy), the difficulties in making art are huge.
TNR: How do you define success?
CORDELIA: Economic success is something I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t say it, because it’s uncool and it’s wrong as a marketing communication model. But I don’t care, because my goal is to produce art, not marketing. Art wants truth. Of course, I can’t always be true, either. But I try. What I have is human success. When my shows end people are touched, their eyes sparkle, we often hug. So how do I define success? Success is being masters of heaven, even if you don’t have enough money to get to the end of the month.
TNR: Would you have altered course away from being an artist, if you could today?
CORDELIA: Sometimes, I've thought about opening a coffee shop, far from Italy, and also from Europe, and spending my days as a waitress.
TNR: Have you obtained what you'd like to, from being an artist?
CORDELIA: My first artistic goal was an alchemical goal. That means sharpening my sensitivity, spreading my consciousness, acquiring more and more awareness of me, developing courage, following my instincts, breaking my cages, transforming myself. And from this point of view, I can say that I am promoted with good grades.
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