Shoebox #4

Shoebox is a magazine-publishing initiative started in 2024 by Dennis Farnsworth, dedicated to fostering open conversation, creativity and inclusivity in discussions centered around culture, art, political and social issues.

With the core belief that every one of us has an opinion, thought or idea that is of value, Shoebox aims to provide a platform in which discussions can take place, stories can be told, and ideas can be conveyed, using art and culture as a starting point.
How can art/culture connect people? How does art/culture relate to our daily lives? What issues drive us to create, discuss, take part, and explore?

Or more critically, what place does art/culture have in our 21st century world that is full of systemic injustices and mistreatment?
And how does one enable these discussions in a way that fosters growth, connection, mutual understanding and new perspectives, while not adhering to the stiffness of hoity-toity artspeak and elitist structures?

These questions and aims lie at the heart of Shoebox and as such demand constant revision and remaking in order to stay relevant and grow.
As an example of how one can confront through language—art—we look to Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath for help:
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates -died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
While the main language of Shoebox is English, we encourage anyone to write in the language they feel comfortable in. By translating the original to English and then publishing them side-by-side we hope to fascilitate an inclusive and accessible space, tackle language barriers and cross our arbitrary borders.