What alternate, irresistible realities are you dreaming of?

emerge is a highly visible annual publication released to a national and global online audience, supported by the Arts Administration department at SAIC.

The 2021 iteration of emerge is called the “dream” issue. It understands dreaming as work, as a generative act rather than a wasteful one, and affirms dreaming as a form of manifestation. It is inspired by the embodied experience of dreaming: We can experience our dreams so viscerally, and yet when we wake up, we’re met with great difficulty when trying to explain what we felt while we were asleep. The intention of this particular iteration of emerge, then, is to be a vision journal of sorts — a space for artists, writers, and cultural workers to work through this struggle to verbally and visually articulate what our dreams are for ourselves, our communities, and our sector.

Given that a global pandemic has unraveled our established ways of living and being, we have been presented with the opportunity to start anew. Because the current moment necessitates that we dream, we are calling on the creative community to radically reimagine and redefine what exactly comprises the future of the field of arts and culture. In this issue, we seek to answer and/or engage with ideas such as: What do the arts organizations of our dreams look like? What should become of art and artists in a post-pandemic world? What would we be doing in our work as cultural workers if we were living in the reality we’re currently striving for? What alternate, irresistible realities are you dreaming of?