Week 135 – February 14 to February 21

Kasia Ozga

WSMR is the largest military installation in the United States. It was the detonation site of Trinity, the first atomic bomb on 16 July 1945. The road to the Headquarters includes road signs prohibiting the use drones and forbidding the use marijuana, and warning drivers not to take photos, not to leave their cars due to potential traces of radioactive contamination, and not to remove trinitite, a mildly radioactive light green glass formed from melted desert sand in the seconds after the first nuclear weapon was detonated (I was tempted). This image was taken from Aguirre Springs Road, just west of the Range visible on the upper right hand of the photograph.

Manuela Morgaine

Life line

As I write, 
the 7.5
 magnitude 
earthquake 
has claimed
33 000 lives 
on the border 
of Turkey 
and Syria. 
In these days 
of 
unspeakable
 tragedy, 
they operate 
on me 
out of 
a vein. 
As I
 am being
 drawn 
in marker 
with 
the 14 
incision points 
and the starting 
point
 of this vein
 before surgery, 
and as I 
gradually 
fall asleep,
 I see this
 gigantic fault
 in the earth 
with its
 red 
shaking dots 
 drawn 
by seismologists.

Liza Dimbleby

Letter from Glasgow: Shadow and Ice

A fortnight ago, Dettie and I each chose photographs we had taken of imaginary mountain ranges for our contribution to the week’s Crown Letter. It was a surprise to us both to find this echo — our miniature details, imagined enormous. Her mountains were made of ice and mine were shadows. Both were subject to the passage of the sun for their fleeting life. Impermanent mountains pointing at the return of the sun after a long winter.

The following day I met Dettie in my dream. I said to her, I can’t understand why I am so tired. Then I remembered. I had given birth to a child in the night. And it had taken ages. A long slow labour, like an endless drive in the dark.

Click here to read more

Katja Stuke

Cornelia Eichhorn

« La couronne »/The crown », 42 x 30 cm, graphite, 2020 adgp.

Valeria Troubina

«Сломанное время» Fractured Time, 24cm x 18 cm, dry etching, Ukraine, January 2023

Anne Brunswic

From my window, Paris, february 2023.

L’amphithéâtre de plein air où va se tenir notre simulacre de débat est aménagé dans un jardin public qui descend en gradins vers la mer. Derrière la petite tribune, deux tables, quatre chaises, rien moins que la Côte d’Azur dans sa splendeur printanière. Au centre, Antoine et son assesseur, un critique littéraire auquel je n’ai pas été présentée, aux extrémités, les auteurs invités. Cette mise en scène inhabituelle évite toute proximité physique et même tout contact visuel entre les challengers. Je m’avise que je suis la seule femme en face de trois mâles chenus et, en fin de compte, la seule autrice à l’affiche de ces rencontres. Un, deux, trois… les micros marchent. Antoine commence par Maurice ; ce n’est pas élégant mais j’aurais dû m’y attendre.

Click here to read more