We thought certain battles had already been won. That we had made progress. That the rights we fought for, the ideas that took decades to build, were secured. But if we’ve learnt anything, it’s that nothing ever truly is. And here we are again: watching the far right rise without shame, seeing freedoms dismantled, censorship normalised, and hatred institutionalised — always targeting the same groups: minorities, dissident bodies, the most vulnerable.
It’s difficult to navigate these turbulent times without a compass, or without feeling somewhat dissociated. “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” Adorno wrote in 1949, a statement he later nuanced but one that Ai Weiwei brings up again in these pages reminding us to consider how we engage with the world around us, with art, with fashion, with life, when horror and barbarity dominate the world beyond our comfortable routines, yet so close that we witness it all daily on our phone screens.
How can one feel moved by an image, a painting, a fashion collection today without feeling a bit wretched for it? Whilst bombs fall on Gaza, whilst basic rights are denied to trans people, whilst Europe fortifies its borders against those fleeing hunger and war. “Beauty is inspiring, beauty gives hope,” David Koma tells us. He’s right. But right now, we need more than hope. We need compassion, and we need rage. The righteous rage to stand up to Netanyahu, to Trump, and to all those like them. And we need voices who, at the very least, make us think. These pages feature Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, and another artist with much to say, Sophia Al-Maria. Also in this issue: Eliot Sumner, Ana Rujas, Jack Haven, Victoria de Angelis, Laura Ponte and the aforementioned David Koma.
In the face of the nightmare, memory, gesture, action, and presence. And an urgent commitment: do not look away.
METAL Nº 52 is now on sale.
