Undoing is just as much a democratic right as doing.
—Gordon Matta-Clark
The ubiquitous built environment is the residue of an exuberant, provisional act of cajoling space through the manipulation of matter. This futile praxis of resisting natural forces while pursuing need and desire is a locus of creative instinct, fueling a search for the fantastical or the functional or even the mundane and the abject.
The consequences of our constructed surroundings are often validated as progress, underpinning a reasoning
that the ends justify the means. Yet creative endeavors and artistic expressions are not beholden to constraints of productivity nor to normative measure of success. Unbuilding offers an oblique view of the formulaic and predicted, eschewing the rationale of problem-solving to fully occupy a space of problem-seeking.
This issue of Drain is an inquiry into the creative motivations and musings adjacent or in opposition to construction, with an aim to challenge conventional comprehension and interrupt hegemonic thought, while leveraging instability as a condition for change.
Editorial – construct-de-construct – Karl Burkheimer
Feature Essay and Artist – D.E. May and the Gift of Unknowable Intimacy – Abigail Susik
Essay
Te Waimapihi | Te Aro Park Memorial – Kate Te Ao
Review
Basorexia: A Rumination on Unrequited Love – Helen T. Abbot
Thought Experiment
Thamizh Futurism – Adhavan Sundaramurthy
Art Project
Cardboard Constructions – Richard Maloy
Art Project
Intentional Misregistration – Shara Chwaliszewski
Interview
An Interview with Travis Townsend – Anne Bujold
Interview
Ahora: La Isla – Gabriela Jauregui
Creative Writing
Creative Writing
Pangea: A Multimedia Epoch – Hannah Newman
Art Project
Clipping-out Inside Arcadia: Reflections on a quarantine gothic – Malcolm Doidge
Essay
Psychosomatic Texture Maps and Floorplan Stickers – Jeff Carter
Art Project
trans-form: a study for liminal meanderings – Gupi Ranganathan
Art Project
The Woman, Examined – Kara McMullen
Creative Writing
Art Project
Single Use – Heidi Schwegler
Art Project
100 Runs, A Pedestal and Transformation – Brian Libby
Review
On sketchbooks/creative ideation – Squeak Meisel
Interview
Reframing Monuments from an Indigenous Perspective – Steph Littlebird
Review
Unbuilding – Ryan Riss
Art Project
A Conversation – Vishwa Shroff with Avantika Bawa
Interview
Sharpen’er Eras’er – Gabriela Jauregui
Creative Writing
This issue was led by Avantika Bawa and Karl Burkheimer