This year’s theme of Nature / Nurture explores the tension between what is formed and forged within us and the impact of exposing that self to the world. The work appearing between these pages approaches this tension from numerous perspectives, both written and visual. In one instance, we see the natural world oppressed and stifled on a rooftop garden in Guangzhou. In
another, we are given a candy bowl of memories that never goes empty. We are graced with the big bright colors of a Stuyvesant Park tree and the deliberate black lines of a kakemono. And in the middle of it all is a short essay that asks how to explain the end of life to a child who is just beginning it. What words and images mean, what they conceal and reveal.
