To whom do you owe your perspective to, and from whom should you seek insight? Where is the breaking point, and what will the aftermath look like?
A vertex refers to an angular point in a shape –– a sharp turn in direction, a place where two lines collide. It presents in the abolishment of tyrannical structures, but also in the love of form, or the meeting point of past, present and future. In the largest issue thus far by Sine Theta Magazine, Issue #16 “VERTEX 角” is an exercise in framing and reframing; in noticing how our ways of seeing are coded, not pure.
In this issue:
- The winners of the second annual sinθ magazine Summer Writing Competition, Stella Li (“etymology of ‘moon’”, Poetry) and Ariel Chu (“The Girlfriend Place”, Fiction).
- Editor Yue Chen profiles K-Ming Chang and her debut novel Bestiary; they discuss the river-shaped narrative, the power of non-naming, bodily fluids as prayer and queering historical lineages.
- Editor-in-chief Jiaqi Kang speaks with filmmaker Weina Chao, discussing the intimacy in documenting your own family, pressures of portrayal, and the dynamics of producing films about Chinese people that don’t reach Chinese audiences.
- Web Editor Hayley Wu speaks to artist Stephanie H. Shih on ceramics as therapy, the imaginary homeland of Asian America, and organising as an artist. They also speak to poet Jay G Ying on the racialisation of rest, describing the ‘imagination of disaster’, and negotiating whiteness as an avant-garde writer of color in the UK.
- Editorial intern Stephanie Chang speaks to Isabella Wang for the student spotlight: on training to write like one trains to dance, avoiding self-exoticization, and COVID-19 projects.
- Visual artwork by Sean Dong, Kathi Ha, Brubey Hu KQ Huang, Brubey Hu, Bernice Liu, Juliette Wu and Qianze Zhang.
- Prose by Lily Susman, Kwan Ann Tan, May Teng, Sixing Xu, Maggie Yuan, Margaret Zhang and Sophie Zhu.
- Poems by Yongyu Huang, Joshua Ip, Anne Kwok, Jenny Li, Kendrick Loo, Yun Xzi Ho and Yuchen Zhang.