Introduction

▼ Shuchi Saraswat I can’t remember who first said the word proximity in one of our early meetings, but when she said it, I thought yes, that’s it, that’s the word to describe what we’re up to—and maybe even the word to describe what it’s all been about, at least for me: reading and writing as a way to navigate distance. Maybe every immigrant and/or child of an immigrant thinks of distance when they encounter the word proximity. Distance as the chasm between where they are and where they came from. Distance as a circumstance, one that yields its own specific challenges and pleasures.

The shape of the world changes when you think about it proximally: in relational terms, as opposed to more individualistic terms, those narratives of the striving individual overcoming the obstacles in her way. For the portfolio, we were always interested in putting together writers and artists who were thinking about systemic structures, which is to say, politically. Introducing a relational term allowed for a wider range of approaches.

It’s a kind of geometrical word too, isn’t it? The writer one vertex, her subject(s) the others, those lines the space between: proximity.

▲ Ru Freeman The word proximity has always made me think of danger. This could say something about my own psyche, but it conjures the sense of being too close. Which makes proximity something to assess, navigate, and circumvent. But danger also feels proximate to excitement/joy and power—of the self. As you say, Preti, what am I doing here, and how do I use my skills of language, of speech, of art itself, to transform the x that I am so close to? Proximity in that sense is very much, as you both put it, positional and geometric—contained in an equilateral triangle made up of those three things: power, danger, and excitement/joy. It is connective along those edges, all of the concepts communicating with one another. As women of color, I imagine we carry this shape within us no matter where we are, a sort of stela fragment, incised with hieroglyphs of our own making, that decodes surroundings, relationships, and all manner of structures: sociopolitical, emotional, cultural, linguistic, religious, and so on. Which makes what we create profoundly personal and resolutely contextual to the wider sisterhood of artists.

▼ The two years since we first came up with our portfolio theme have been a time of increasing, persistent political horror, and women of color—a term we fretted over (was it something we wanted to embrace? resist? (re)claim? was it outdated? too fixated on identity? did it center the Global North?)—went from a somewhat innocuous phrase, or at least, common enough, to a target, a category sought out by DOGE’s minions and a term scrubbed from universities’ vocabularies as they scrambled to meet the Trump administration’s anti-DEI criteria. In a roundabout way I’m responding to Ru’s mention of danger, and also to Preti’s noting of the transatlantic/transnational nature of our project. More than when we came up with the idea, it feels important, now, for us women of color to be publicly engaged, to speak of the danger that has always been there, though perhaps more submerged than now. And to find intersections beyond our own proximal spaces. Danger—fear—localizes me; it always has. When afraid, I stay closer to home, to family, to familiarity (a retreating that is a fleeing); I also shrink. And this project—our steady reading and the monthly meetings in which we debated, defended, advocated for—has demanded presence. I’m reminded of the last question in our call for portfolio submissions: “How do we support—and challenge—each other toward liberation?” One thing became clear as our meetings progressed: despite the shared ground this project grew from, we are three very different women, with very different tastes. “Supporting” and “challenging” meant finding a way for the portfolio to hold our differences.

▲ I appreciated the fact of our fierce steadfastness within our own thought processes, histories, realities, even manias, whose roots in the Greek mantis (seer) and menos (passion, spirit) alert us to the positive connotations of a word used by the patriarchy against the feminine ethic/psyche. For us it was a distinct affirmation of the feminine tradition, evident in what we advocated for, what inspired us, what left us cold. More even than that was the way we were able to remain in proximity to each other’s perspectives, even in deep disagreement. It made me wish we could have recorded those sessions, because they stand as testament to the fact that we can and must give fearless voice to what is difficult, knowing that the listener is sharing breath with us, and willingly so. This is something natural, I believe, to us three South Asian women, but it is a rare practice. Power accrues more power to itself, and in most spaces, as is evident in so much of the writing we chose for this portfolio, the only response is a clear challenge. To call out, to confront, to discomfort the powerful, corrupt, and corruptible in our midst. Without it, the status quo stands and we are all occupied by forces of terror and unparalleled greed. The art and writing in this portfolio captures the vital energy of our discussions and demonstrates how very individual people create a more dynamic whole when they are placed in proximity to one another. The way we have arranged this portfolio, spreading artists across two mediums, online and print—sometimes even splitting a contribution across both—is a choice very much in agreement with that feminine ethic. A way of inviting or (elegantly!) instigating conversations between the work of different artists, with a view to creating a more encompassing, sustainable, and indeed supple—and therefore resilient—canvas for all of us.

I think our own growth reflected this as well. As the portfolio grew, we did too. Yes, we are very different women, but the long work of deliberation and retracing steps changed how we read and what we read. It allowed me to return repeatedly to joy. The sheer enjoyment of reaching a new level of comprehension, engagement, solidarity, and action—all central to women’s internal navigational system. Indeed, I think of the process as well as the outcome as an act of grounding and of reach. It is no accident that four words or phrases can be found in several pieces: Earth, roots, petals, and fault lines. I like to think of this portfolio as a result of that last—what is created in the wake of a seismic event, and what we’ve discovered, as the regenerative radicle that heralds a new abundance.