Issue #9

  1. Introducing SITRA ACHRA

  2. Talmudic War Machine & A Shadow’s Dream

  3. Bruise Garden

  4. Mascha Kaléko: The Poet, The Stream

  5. Deli on the Move

  6. Bad Butcher

  7. Over or Under

  8. Remove/Release

  9. Renew Our Days

  10. Our Boys: A Travelogue

  11. Vitraji Vulgarum

  12. “Seeing is Not Enough”

  13. Cross-Pollination

  14. Theremin and the Touchless Touch

Bruise Garden

Liev Sibilla

A lopsided structure reminiscent of the kabbalistic tree of life built from non-objective snippets of found images, with a dark, womb-like ambiance. Glimpses of the composition's influences - the faces of anti-semitic statues, the spines of burned books, internal organs, and tzitzit - are visible amongst the otherwise abstract forms which comprise the tree.
Liev Sibilla, Bruise Garden, Digital collage, March 2021

Every scrap contained herein was placed in heartache, in obsession. This foray into lusty color and detail stands as a feeble representation — part grossly-obvious symbolism, part fragmented memory — of historical traumas and their nature as formative and irreplaceable facets of culture. Scraps of burned books, antisemitic toys, and lost family heirlooms up for auction to the masses form the kelipot here. Smoking, toxic ghost-shells cradle and counterbalance the whole-holy sefirot. Some of these images are rotten and some just lonely, but the ache is the same.

This pain is our meat, our blood, our fish to fry… and fry it we must. It’s hard to remember, but it’s worse to forget.

Liev Sibilla (any pronouns, b.1999) is a mixed-media artist, gatherer, and detrital cataloguer. They are self taught, centering material reuse, heartache, neurodivergence, and the eternal inbetweens of diaspora, maximal bliss, and fury. They can be found at www.trinketkeeper.net.