Exploring the multiple intersections between medicine and creativity, Esopus 22: Medicine—the first annual issue of Esopus—will feature contributions from more than 60 artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, designers, curators, and medical professionals.
Our largest issue to date will include long-form artist s’ projects by Nina Katchadourian, Teresa Matas, Melissa Meyer, Fred Tomaselli, William Villalongo and Nicole Sealey, and Martin Wilner.
The issue will also feature a selection of materials from the archives of the poet/doctor William Carlos Williams, including a series of notes for poems and essays written on his prescription pads; 100 frames from Frederick Wiseman’s classic 1970 documentary Hospital, introduced by emergency-room physican and author Paul Austin (Something for the Pain); a new installment of the regular series “Modern Artifacts,” featuring material from the MoMA archives related to a 1943 exhibition that displayed artworks by disabled and convalescent war veterans who had participated in the museum’s “Arts in Therapy” program; a 360° oral history of a single interaction between a patient and a medical institution—including interviews with the patient, family members, doctors, nurses, and hospital staff—conducted and compiled by Danielle Spencer, a faculty member at Columbia University’s Program of Narrative Medicine, and Stephanie Adler Yuan; new writing by Heather McPherson; comics from nurse MK Czerwiec (Comic Nurse) and doctor Ian Williams (The Bad Doctor); and photographs from the Magnum Photos Archive by Stuart Franklin related to condom production in the UK at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1987. The issue will include two separate subscriber invitationals: One will feature a series of images commissioned from medical-illustration graduate students from the University of Illinois, Chicago, depicting Esopus readers’ subjective descriptions of recent ailments; and the other will present renderings by interior designer Thomas Juncher Jensen of the “ideal waiting room” based on suggestions submitted by subscribers. The issue closes with a CD of 10 new songs—each inspired by a bodily organ—contributed by The Fiery Furnaces, Lovestreams (Okkervil River's Will Sheff), Jean Rohe, Horse Lords, Vulfpeck, Cities Aviv, Boister, Flaws, Frank LoCrasto and Jon Natchez.
LISTEN TO ESOPUS 22 PREVIEW PODCAST
The issue will be released in early May 2015, will cost $40 on newsstands. It will also be available at a substantially reduced cost to subscribers; more subscription information can be found here.
For more information, contact editor Tod Lippy at tod@esopus.org.