The night the ferry came | Editor’s letter See All This #28

‘The sea was mirror smooth. The sky a cloudless dome. The fire in us grew.’ Read the editor’s letter by Nicole Ex from the upcoming Winter issue of See All This Art Magazine.

The storm raged on, and the ferry was stuck at port for days on end. At last an announcement came: from 4.00 a.m. the wind would drop for a while, and we could finally reach the Isle of Coll in Scotland. The sea was mirror smooth. The sky a cloudless dome. The fire in us grew. It was stoked by this strange meeting place at the back of beyond, in this ancient castle beside the bay, where we would work with guest curator Catherine de Zegher on the foundations of the issue which you are now reading.We hope it will offer you an adventure as great as ours when, huddled together at the mercy of the elements, we determined the DNA of this second volume.

Nicole Ex, Sarah Knigge, Catherine de Zegher, Rika Blondeel, Scoot the dog and the Queen Stone at Isle of Coll, Scotland, March 2022, photo: Anke Riesenkamp

It was the physical experience of what Alice Albinia describes in her essay: a uniquely female realm on a remote island situated between the Atlantic and the North Sea. Do women need their own island? The answer to that is a wholehearted ‘yes’. To find their own voice. To focus on their potential. To be at ease. And, above all, to rediscover those urgently needed soft values that our human race has dismissed as inferior: the values of compassion, care and community.

– Nicole Ex,
founding editor

This is the editor’s letter from See All This #28 – Pretty Brilliant women in the arts Vol. II.
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Header image: Anke Riesenkamp