The past year often felt like a fever dream. For all the melodrama, life is beginning to feel almost what we remember normal to be. As we breathe a reprieve, forever fearing it may be our last, perhaps now we can afford ourselves some 2020 hindsight. I ask myself: If we didn’t learn something, what was the point?
Our initial aim was for UP to print Issue #4 – Politics prior to the national elections. Naturally, we faced a few obstacles. After a great deal of work and restructuring, we are ready to present it to the world. UP Magazine has no official politics or policy positions, instead giving our contributors and artists the space to create freely. Our goal is to foster nuanced debate amidst a myriad of creative and intellectual thought.
The articles and photos collected within Politics were gathered over the span of 2020 and serve to document the accomplishments of various creatives, against the backdrop of the year. From the spread of COVID-19, to a global lockdown, to the murder of George Floyd, to national protests, to an election season governed by hate and conspiracy, 2020 was a sequence of cascading failures and their consequences.
Through all the turmoil, or perhaps in spite of it, UP remains committed to our mission: to provide the art community with nuanced, provocative, and critical writing that navigates the questions of our generation, through the lens of art journalism, serving our readers a high-quality magazine that investigates, informs, and entertains. Issue 4 bears witness to the interwoven dynamics of Art and Politics.
-T.K. Mills, Editor in Chief