A confession. When I was initially approached to guest edit this issue of Runway Journal with its theme of Divine, my mind immediately conjured the Drag Queen of the Century and star of John Waters’ films. Such is the ongoing legacy and impact of this unlikely icon, sure, but this association is perhaps a more concerning testament to the degree in which my cognitive faculty has been bleached by an overeager consumption of popular culture. Excitedly and foolishly, I allowed myself to feel gratification that I had built a body of work that would inspire such a flattering association. To quote an oft repeated line from Matt Rogers in Las Culturistas - ‘I may not know my words but I know my feelings’.
The spirit of the performer Divine herself is appropriately one which was instrumental to the formulation of a prompt for this issue. Brashly direct, unashamedly queer, ultimately necessitating a studious googling of ‘divine’ so that I could redirect myself to the breadth of its definition and potential of its application. Definitionally ‘divine’ conjures joy, pleasure, and spirituality in a range of configurations, so my initial interpretation was perhaps not entirely misleading.
The divine pleasures of culturally specific textures and recollections are integral to the potency of Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson’s Delara دل آرا and Mariam Slewo’s Ritual. The former is narrated by score, the latter scored by narration; both works translate cultural regeneration through visual poetry that lends an urgency to their overlapping processes of recording.
Conceptually the divine encourages an introspection apropos of a broader existential dilemma that permutations of spirituality often provoke. you appearing by Jonno Revanche, and Ablution by Aisyah Aaqil Sumito navigate this frustration through a constellation of recollections and asides that expand and invigorate an essay form through deliberate, ecstatic acts of quotation. Lou Garcia-Dolnik composes poems that build on this process to tease the body as a site for divine sensation. Words crash like waves to evoke and abstract these experiences.
The pleasure inherent in divine experience and it’s proximity to flesh proves an exciting invitation to look through and beyond one’s self to recognise compelling or animating desires and impulses. This can be seen in Jake Treacy’s metallic-tasting poetry derived from surreal psychic visions they experience during orgasm, or Dorcas Tang’s Love Me Long Time, which sensitively investigates sex and pleasure from the perspective of a range of Asian-Australian women and nonbinary femmes. JD Reforma’s Imperial Leather proposes spiritual affirmations by referencing cosmetic rituals of self-care, channeling divinity through body and mind.
The physical experience of divine ecstasy is collated and disseminated through Kate O’Boyles On Looking Up, an action itself excerpted from La Rosas del Milagro Virgen de Guadalupe (1960) in Diego Ramirez’s The Perfect Ever. A divine act of coincidence. Both works withhold their subjects’ divine encounters as tantalising voids for the viewer to project their own expectations on to.
Joy and rapture finds expression in Blake Lawrence’s syncopation of birdsong and queer nightlife in YES GOD, the throb of disco animated through an extravagant scrolling collage of cyanotypes and gifs. Joy and rupture finds expression in Brent Harrison’s Kylie, a delirious hijacking of the Runway’s Wordpress coding dedicated to the latently queer spectacle of Kylie Minogue. The result is an evocation of devotional expressions of online fandom inspired by platforms like Tumblr.
Divination lends itself as a vessel to travel routes of becoming, as in wink at me, Mika Benesh’s interactive choose-your-own adventure essay which collapses faith, prophecy and chronology as a dizzying spell which ultimately unravels to reveal a protective amulet for the reader. Sofiyah Ruqayah’s Silkworm Oracle combines silkworm calligraphy with excerpts from her family history book to gift viewers a randomised prophecy of their own. Both works are crucially generous and generative.
These digitised oracles form a playful dialogue with Lucia Tuong Vy Nguyen’s Tell Me The Story, which examines the divination of Classics-focused Twitter bots through a playful formal construct that subtly glitches and unravels. The slipperiness of prophecy is also a recurring thread in Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung’s Godless Men, which unspools memory in a tenderly precise act of recollection, a dizzying command of language and memoir that left me delirious and hopeful.
There is a delight in witnessing art that leans heavily into the specificity of its creator, and the contributors to this issue have all wrestled with this in a variety of compelling ways. The breadth of the theme is centred through individual experiences and finds expressions that truly engage its potential. Thank you for allowing yourselves the vulnerability and the possibility of this process, it’s been simply divine to shepherd.
A confession. When I was initially approached to guest edit this issue of Runway Journal with its theme of Divine, my mind immediately conjured the Drag Queen of the Century and star of John Waters’ films. Such is the ongoing legacy and impact of this unlikely icon, sure, but this association is perhaps a more concerning testament to the degree in which my cognitive faculty has been bleached by an overeager consumption of popular culture. Excitedly and foolishly, I allowed myself to feel gratification that I had built a body of work that would inspire such a flattering association. To quote an oft repeated line from Matt Rogers in Las Culturistas - ‘I may not know my words but I know my feelings’.
The spirit of the performer Divine herself is appropriately one which was instrumental to the formulation of a prompt for this issue. Brashly direct, unashamedly queer, ultimately necessitating a studious googling of ‘divine’ so that I could redirect myself to the breadth of its definition and potential of its application. Definitionally ‘divine’ conjures joy, pleasure, and spirituality in a range of configurations, so my initial interpretation was perhaps not entirely misleading.
The divine pleasures of culturally specific textures and recollections are integral to the potency of Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson’s Delara دل آرا and Mariam Slewo’s Ritual. The former is narrated by score, the latter scored by narration; both works translate cultural regeneration through visual poetry that lends an urgency to their overlapping processes of recording.
Conceptually the divine encourages an introspection apropos of a broader existential dilemma that permutations of spirituality often provoke. you appearing by Jonno Revanche, and Ablution by Aisyah Aaqil Sumito navigate this frustration through a constellation of recollections and asides that expand and invigorate an essay form through deliberate, ecstatic acts of quotation. Lou Garcia-Dolnik composes poems that build on this process to tease the body as a site for divine sensation. Words crash like waves to evoke and abstract these experiences.
The pleasure inherent in divine experience and it’s proximity to flesh proves an exciting invitation to look through and beyond one’s self to recognise compelling or animating desires and impulses. This can be seen in Jake Treacy’s metallic-tasting poetry derived from surreal psychic visions they experience during orgasm, or Dorcas Tang’s Love Me Long Time, which sensitively investigates sex and pleasure from the perspective of a range of Asian-Australian women and nonbinary femmes. JD Reforma’s Imperial Leather proposes spiritual affirmations by referencing cosmetic rituals of self-care, channeling divinity through body and mind.
The physical experience of divine ecstasy is collated and disseminated through Kate O’Boyles On Looking Up, an action itself excerpted from La Rosas del Milagro Virgen de Guadalupe (1960) in Diego Ramirez’s The Perfect Ever. A divine act of coincidence. Both works withhold their subjects’ divine encounters as tantalising voids for the viewer to project their own expectations on to.
Joy and rapture finds expression in Blake Lawrence’s syncopation of birdsong and queer nightlife in YES GOD, the throb of disco animated through an extravagant scrolling collage of cyanotypes and gifs. Joy and rupture finds expression in Brent Harrison’s Kylie, a delirious hijacking of the Runway’s Wordpress coding dedicated to the latently queer spectacle of Kylie Minogue. The result is an evocation of devotional expressions of online fandom inspired by platforms like Tumblr.
Divination lends itself as a vessel to travel routes of becoming, as in wink at me, Mika Benesh’s interactive choose-your-own adventure essay which collapses faith, prophecy and chronology as a dizzying spell which ultimately unravels to reveal a protective amulet for the reader. Sofiyah Ruqayah’s Silkworm Oracle combines silkworm calligraphy with excerpts from her family history book to gift viewers a randomised prophecy of their own. Both works are crucially generous and generative.
These digitised oracles form a playful dialogue with Lucia Tuong Vy Nguyen’s Tell Me The Story, which examines the divination of Classics-focused Twitter bots through a playful formal construct that subtly glitches and unravels. The slipperiness of prophecy is also a recurring thread in Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung’s Godless Men, which unspools memory in a tenderly precise act of recollection, a dizzying command of language and memoir that left me delirious and hopeful.
There is a delight in witnessing art that leans heavily into the specificity of its creator, and the contributors to this issue have all wrestled with this in a variety of compelling ways. The breadth of the theme is centred through individual experiences and finds expressions that truly engage its potential. Thank you for allowing yourselves the vulnerability and the possibility of this process, it’s been simply divine to shepherd.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.