We craft and tell stories because we’ve stood on the uncertain edge between the waking world and our imagination, between enchantment and fear. And we remember other stories that help us build our own stories, scraps of lumber and fragments of narrative we gather together to make stories for ourselves.
Aikaterini Gegisian, A Small Guide to the Invisible Seas (The Sea of Passions, 6) 2015, Collage on paper, 27.8 x 42.5 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki
An interview with Aikaterini Gegisian by Defne Cizakca Part 2 of 2 Our second meeting took place in the summer. We met in Istanbul, at a bustling café in the neighbourhood of Nişantaşı. Aikaterini had…Continue Reading
“My appropriation of the term ‘Ottoman woman’ is an attempt to address a collective female body that has hardly ever been visible.” (Aikaterini Gegisian, Self-Portrait as an Ottoman Woman, Variation 2, 2012-2016 75 archival postcards 150 cm x 140 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Kalfayan Galleries, Athens-Thessaloniki)
An interview with Aikaterini Gegisian by Defne Cizakca Part 1 of 2 I met Aikaterini at wintertime, in a small amphitheatre at University College London where we were attending a masterclass on Ottoman Cosmopolitanism. In…Continue Reading
The new issue of Unsettling Wonder ‘Why Would Anyone Enchant That?’ is now available. A little girl accidentally turns the sky to lemonade. A fragile witch tries to make a child out of wood. An armchair…Continue Reading
You can’t spend much time around Unsettling Wonder without meeting Laura Rae. Her strange, sensitive artwork graces a lot of what we do around here. That’s her rabbit and wolf (or is it wolf and rabbit?)…Continue Reading
The new issue of Unsettling Wonder is now available. I’m really proud of this issue–we’ve got some excellent stories, a first-rate poem, and haven’t stinted on illustrations either. There’s a wonderful range of tones and…Continue Reading
Lovers of folk and fairy tale will glad to learn about the launch of a literary fairy tale website. Subverting Laughter is an interstitial, interdisciplinary research initiative presenting that wonderful Victorian pantomime, The Light Princess…Continue Reading
Be it the spindles in Mother Holle and Briar Rose, or the wheels in The Twelve Huntsmen or Rumpelstiltskin, spinning is everywhere in the background of Grimm’s fairy tales. As Maria Tatar points out, there’s…Continue Reading
