Profane #19 - Autumn/Winter 2024/2025

Profane #19 - Autumn/Winter 2024/2025

AN ARCHIPELAGO
This issue is an island of its own. Naturally, the tales of lives spent on islands, from the Cyclades to the Balearic Islands, contribute to this. Serendipity has led us to different, seemingly ideal horizons, conducive to the elaboration of personal rituals and a form of sovereign detachment from the gray continent. Our breathing has become more relaxed. Three stories may seem like a drop in the ocean when trying to operate a lighthouse, but one question comes to mind: what is an island? Can the surface of a ring overlooked by a mezzanine turned into a painting studio in a local boxing gym come close? The wall-less enclosure of the first Freinet school in Vence, with its unconstrained and alternative pedagogy? A simple blank sheet of paper? The lockdown when it allowed the sculptural or cinematographic imagination to thrive? The platform that is a cat tree? And a house, rich in history, occupied by a new resident? Anything with visible boundaries that do not hinder a measure of freedom—here’s the condition—could be welcomed within an extended island family. Our own. It calls us, it’s what we hanker for…