“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

 

We have no control. Our days are filled with motion for which we often take credit, actions we believe to have defined and executed of our own free will. And yet there is, at the very base of things, nothing but chaos that we have learned to deftly navigate. The neat lines of each day spin out of control more often than we may care to admit. However frustrating or frightening this may feel, the ability to allow each moment to wash over us, free of expectations and open to the unexpected, is the stuff of a rich, fulfilling life.

 

Varvara Keiden Shavrova spoke to us from Berlin in late August. She reported improvement from the time she arrived in early April of this year during the height of the lockdown. Whereas the city was closed off and deserted and people seemed scared, now, she says, the city has opened up with admission to museums and galleries once more allowed and cafes and restaurants brimming with guests once more. In terms of her artistic practice, the lockdown slowed her pace considerably. Despite having ample time to work, there was a void that she – like many artists – did not find conducive to creating art. In the month before we spoke, things had just begun to pick up with some shows coming up and she has begun working again in some small ways, examining surveillance as it relates to flight. To hear more about her work, including a knitted parachute she’s collaborating on, listen to the complete interview.

 

Nathan Hoks is a poet whose most recent book, Nests in Air, was published in 2021 by Black Ocean Press. Living in Chicago, he reports a mixed landscape when it came to the lockdown period. While some didn’t enjoy this time, Hoks found the ability to stay home to be a refreshing change from his usual commute. The pandemic exacerbated some of the themes of his recent book – namely the compressions of homelife. The parent of small children, his experience of lockdown was strongly infused with the daily labor of parenting. This coupled with learning how to teach online proved a steep curve in the beginning of lockdown. To hear more about this, his published works and live readings of poems from Nests in Air, listen to the complete interview.