Red Door 32

RED DOOR 32
ORGANISMS & STRUCTURES
SPRING 2023
REDDOORMAGAZINE.COM
01

RED
SISTERS HOPE
A SENSUOUS SOCIETY
10-16
CARELLA KEIL
A PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES
42-45
IN THE EYES OF THE
BEHOLDER
MARTIN ANDERSEN
BASED ON THE POEM
Mending Fences, or Lines on Watching
the Evacuation of Kabul Airport,
2021
BY Scott LaMascus
24-25
02

MADELINE VON FOERSTER
FEATURED ARTIST OF ISSUE #32
30-37
WITNESSING
OF DAYS
COMPILATION OF LATIN AMERICAN
VOICES BY RED PRESS
17-18
TRANÅS AT THE FRINGE
OUR FAVORITE FRINGE FESTIVAL
IS TURNING 10 YEARS OLD!
38-41
03

Founder & Director:
Elizabeth Torres
(Madam Neverstop)
Poetry Editor:
Pablo Saborío
Correspondents:
Melaine Knight
The Neon Rebel
Australia
Brandon Davis,
Germany / DK
Mario Z.Puglisi
Tanya Cosio
Mexico
Miller Almario
Red Visions
Colombia
Kultivera
Sweden
Martin Andersen
Denmark
Cover & featured art by
Madeline Von Foerster
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
EDITORIAL 06
Red Door Gallery exhibits 08-09
SISTERS HOPE: Sensuous Society 10-16
RED PRESS: The Witnessing of Days 17-18
PERFECT BINDING BOOKFAIR 19-20
ARTIVAL NORDIC FESTIVAL 21-23
IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER 24-25
POETRY IN THIS ISSUE BY:
Aleisa Ribalta
Carolina Olguin
Juana M. Ramos
Negma Coy
Liliana Isabel Velasquez 17-18
Scott LaMascus 24
Alison Lubar 26
Emelia Reuterfors 27
Glen Armstrong 28
Susan Harvey 29
FEATURED ART BY:
Madeline Von Foerster 30-37
Tranås at the Fringe
is turning 10! 38-41
Photography art by
Carella Keil 42-45
JIM STRAIGHT was here 46-47
RED DOOR MAGAZINE #32
Spring, 2023
Red Press, Copenhagen
ISBN: 978-87-94003-17-9
www.reddoormagazine.com
All rights reserved to the
corresponding authors.
04
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RED DOOR MAGAZINE:
Red Door Magazine releases digital & printed issues
quarterly with an emphasis on visual art and poetry.
This includes multimedia art, artistic research, essays
on projects, reports on festivals and activism, as well as
relevant media articles and documentation of the activities
by you and your network. The magazine always features
a poetry selection, prose, and occasional interviews by
established and emerging artists, plus relevant upcoming
events. We’re here to give you a handful of essential
pieces you can digest in one sitting.
We’re currently seeking visual art, music, film reviews,
travel and media articles, poetry, fiction, and creative
nonfiction. Simultaneous submissions are always ok,
but if you have a piece accepted elsewhere, please let
us know by adding a note to your submission; we’re not
aiming for exclusivity - but relevant, quality content.
Please send your questions to reddoorny@gmail.com
________________________________________
File specifications: Your article may be a maximum of
two pages, and we accept a maximum of 3 poems per
submission. All languages are welcome but please
include English translation. Also include a small
biography of up to 5 lines about you. All this must be
included as .doc files . All images must be attached
as .jpeg images in a resolution of 1080 x 1080 px or
its equivalent in format so it can be used for print
and hi-res for web. Please note we currently accept
poetry submissions only via our submittable platform:
https://redpress.submittable.com/submit
ISSUE #33: THE UNFORSEEABLE
(SUMMER 2023)
SUBMISSION DUE DATE:
05/26/2023
LEARN MORE AT:
WWW.REDDOORMAGAZINE.COM
05

EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Attempting to look at this page as the diaphragm
that will focus the light into the messages meant
to be highlighted in this issue, has turned more
into an exercise of getting lost by the dances of
light projected from a lake onto the surface of
everything on a peaceful spring day. It might be
because life in Denmark, or more honestly life
back and forth through the Nordic countries,
often means life from one eternal November to
the next one, one endless winter touching toes
with the one of the year that follows, and so on
until the light returns, and bloom! Everything, so
full of color, so full of life, so suddenly, that one
easily forgets the steps it took to get here.
The ripples of light on this that is Red Door are
getting wider and stronger, as each year passes,
thanks to the support, love, encouragement
and constant upgrading done through the
collaborations and partnerships with likeminded
individuals in both Nordic region and
overseas. All over the place, honestly, like my
head right now, still rotating the disks of my lens
to vary the intensity and shape of this reflection.
I’m happy to report that it’s been busy. In
Finland, for example, Kirjan Talo / Bokens Hus
officially became a partner / headquarters for
the Poetic Phonotheque, ensuring that we will
be able to expand this international archive
of multimedia poetry with the voices in their
community and their actual support. There
were also worldthreading events in Helsinki,
through our new partner IMMART, with whom
we’ve been co-organizing a series of multimedia
events under that name, worldthreading, in
Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki,
along with a vast selection of other events
under the festival name ARTIVAL.
Then there is Red Thread, which this year
turned one year old, an occassion which was
celebrated through our second reunion of
publishers, translators and cultural organizers,
before heading out to PERFECT BINDING
BOOKFAIR, a project done in collaboration
with Husets Biograf and Huset for independent
publishers, authors, and book fiends in our
region, along with film screenings and poetry.
Red Press too, has been sparkling, with 2
artist books released this year, one theater
conversations / performing arts workshop book
and a poetry compilation of Latin American
voices, done with the support of Creative Europe
in the occasion of Versopolis’ Poetry Expo.
It would be selfish of me not to mention that
on a professional, personal level, the poetry
has also been leading the way, with the
recent award of the Ambroggio Prize from the
Academy of American Poets to my book Loteria:
Nocturnal Sweepstakes, which meant a US
book tour in March, and the upcoming release
of my poetry book Expediciones a la Region
Furtiva coming out this spring with Valparaiso
Ediciones in Spain... two great milestones as a
poet, which hopefully will allow me to increase
my audience, and by default the people that
come to contact with Red Door and all of the
activities and projects currently in action.
“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it
were voices instead of colors, there would be
an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the
night.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke.
There is poetry, dear friends, dear colleagues,
dear collaborators, dear worldthreaders
everywhere this magazine is reaching you...
There is poetry and the spark of possibility,
a chance to maybe connect our ideas and
projects, an invitation to possibly collaborate
together, an opportunity, no, a need, to do a
poetic takeover of this world we inhabit and
allow it to be as sensual, as honest, as brutal and
as direct as the poetry in our hearts needs it to
be. Of this I am now certain, although I am not
sure of the direct steps to follow.
Organisms and structures is the theme of this
issue. Like the connections of all the systems in
our body, I do not need to tell you of them... you
already know they’re here.
Love and poetry,
Madam Neverstop.
06

07

COMING UP TO RED DOOR GALLERY:
DAI/EMONS:
Red Door is honored to welcome Monica Hee Eun’s exhibition of new work to Red Door Gallery, thanks to
the support of Nørrebros Lokaludvalg. In this show, the artist presents her personal interpretation of dai/
emons as ambiguous entities, merging the vicious seductive possessor with the guiding divine spirit.
Opening May 13.
LOST & FOUND SECTION:
We’re happy to welcome you to
Vilma Leino’s photography series,
a collection of self portraits that
are colorful, deep, nostalgic and
trippy all at once, just the way
we like it, filling up our walls with
dreamy imagery.
Come out, come out, wherever
you are, and have a welcome
drink while you admire this beautiful
display of artistic expressions.
Opening days:
June 23, 2023 from kl.16
June 24, 2023 from kl.15
The artist will be present. The
show will remain until July 1st.
08

PUUT MAKES A VISIT
An artist library of handmade
book objects comes to Red Door
this August from Gothenburg.
“To cope with the ever-changing
(reality) I make everydayexpeditions
of myself, of my
surroundings. Expeditions
that brings both joy and woe,
always with me is my recordingdevice.
The findings made, are
woven together, as art is my way
to navigate the unanswered
questions. Via different mediums I
create collages that correspond to
the personal and beyond.”
-Karl Larsson.
Opening August 9
at the gallery until
August 12.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION AND
ARTIST TALKS BY: Zara Asgher &
Laura Hasanen
The act of naming or assigning
language to a body has the
ability to mold it into particular
shapes. Once a body is named,
categorized, or identified, it
carries the weight of performing
particular roles and adhering
to certain norms. These works
will look at what happens when
a body tries to (dis)identify, or
distance itself from the language
and categorization
that has been assigned to it.
Opening August 17.
09

010

Nesting by Sisters Hope
photo: I diana lindhardt
011

PERFORMING ARTS
SISTERS HOPE:
012
Sensuous Governing Sensuous City
by Sisters Hope
photo: I diana lindhardt

SENSUOUS SOCIETY
By: Madam Neverstop
Sisters Hope is a highly acclaimed and awardwinning
Copenhagen-based performance
group and movement spearheading a
whole new way of performance artwork
inspiring generations to come. Sisters Hope
was co-founded by ‘The Sisters’ Gry Worre
Hallberg and Anna Lawaetz in 2007. Today
the group unfolds as an international troupe
of performers and creatives from various
backgrounds led by artistic director Gry
Worre Hallberg and executive director Nikolaj
Friis Rasmussen.
We recently had the opportunity of speaking
to Gry Worre Hallberg at Red Door in
Copenhagen to learn more about her artistic
research, the learnings of immersing oneself
so deeply in such an intrinsic project, and
what she understands as a sensuous society.
One can get an idea of the mysterious,
sensuous, definitely artistic vibes and
intentions of their project on social media, or
visit their site to learn more of the why’s, the
how’s and the threading that Sisters Hope has
been poetically and beautifully evolving into
through the years, not just as a Danish icon
in Performing Arts, Activism and Education,
but also as an international platform for
collaboration, inspiration, research and
documentation.
Their work unfolds at the intersection of
immersion, intervention, activism, research
and pedagogy. In their large-scale durational
performances they explore different aspects
of what they call a Sensuous society –
A potential new world arising from the
post-economical and ecological crisis.
In their on-going groundbreaking 5-year
performance, Sisters Hope Home, they are
introducing a whole new artistic paradigm
that they term ‘Inhabitation’ stimulating
ecologic connectedness and sustainable
futures.
Sisters Hope has also developed their own
performance method – Sisters Performance
Method – Sensuous Learning, which is
the outset of the training of Sisters Hopes
performers and which is taught widely at art
schools and beyond.
During her conversation at Red Door Gallery,
Gry explained:
“We (Anna Lawaetz and Gry Worre Hallberg)
were exploring, and had been performing
immersive performances for over 20 years,
and wanted to see how to translate this into
an educational, pedagogical method of
democraticing the aesthetic, opening the
sensuous and poetic aspects of life in areas
of society also outside of the art institution...
so we began that exploration together,
primarily just intervining different contexts,
like the national bank or the top of the Royal
Theater, with small tea ceremonies... and then
we did workshops for students in immerisve
performance methods, and this led to the
Sisters Academy because we were asked if
we could expand what we were doing to an
entire school, so we came up with ideas of
how to explore what the school of a Sensuous
Society would be like, and wrote the
Sensuous Society Manifesto as a response to
the financial crisis and the ongoing ecological
crisis.
Since we created Sisters Hope and started
doing the last scale manifestations, we
knew that we wanted to be research-based,
and we had this idea of establishing an
archive and collect empyric material, so from
the beginning, participants in the worlds
(because it is worlds we are creating now) of
Sisters Hope, they donate notebooks, objects,
totems, letters and traces to our archive, so it
is an archive that doesn’t just have our input,
but the input of thousands of participants,
which you can enjoy while being immersed
in the aesthetic experience... so from the
beginning it was clear that the intersection of
art and research was important to us.”
Now, Sisters Hope is a physical space at
Hedehusene in the outskirts of Copenhagen.
Sisters Hope Home is 5-year-durational
artwork and platform for artistic research.
which invites for cohabitation, inhabitation
and dishinibition of the senses through
aesthetic activation and sensuous learning
in communion with poetic atmosphere and
international participants curious to learn
how these sustainable futures come to life.
013

014
Nesting by Sisters Hope
photo: I diana lindhardt

Nesting by Sisters Hope
photo: I diana lindhardt
015

016
Sensuous Governing Sensuous City
by Sisters Hope
photo: I diana lindhardt

RED PRESS PRESENTS
THE WITNESSING
OF DAYS
Created in Scandinavia during 2018,
Red Press is an independent publishing
project of Red Door, distributed as
limited editions in Denmark and
Sweden, as well as online to other parts
of the planet.
Red Press is a collection of publications
of poetry in its varied spectrum of styles,
subjects, voices and languages, by
emerging or renown writers, with quality
and uniqueness as the base criteria. We
also publish visual art, and other poetic
forms of expression.
This spring, we celebrate the arrival of
“The Witnessing of Days / El atestiguar
de los dias”, a poetry collection of Latin
American voices by:
Carolina Olguín from México, Aleisa
Ribalta from Cuba, Juana M. Ramos
from El Salvador, Negma Coy from
Guatemala and Liliana Isabel Velásquez
from Colombia.
Translated and illustrated by Elizabeth
Torres for Red Press, Copenhagen,
2023. Published with the support of
Creative Europe as part of Versopolis’
POETRY EXPO. The book was launched
in NY, Washington DC, El Salvador, and
in the Nordic countries.
Poetry Expo is the world’s first digital fair
completely dedicated to poetry, human
creativity and literature, designed to
showcase the achievements of different
nations, cultures and languages,
connecting artists from all around the
globe, working towards a change both
in art and society at large, while offering
a space to present and share ideas with
the global community.
With this initiative, Versopolis aims to support
co-operation and increase the visibility of poetry
in public spaces by promoting innovative ways
of achieving and disseminating progress,
seeing human creativity as an important part of
solutions, making a difference for society, the
environment, or both.
Get your copy at:
www.reddoormagazine.com/shop
017

The Colors of my Flag
My huipil is my flag
my Mayan language Kaqchikel is my flag
my spirituality is my flag
my weaving with threads is my flag
my art is my flag
the cholq’ij, the haab’ are my flag
the milpa and the bean are my flag
my books are my flag
science and Mayan technology are my flag
my nation and my people are my shield
my strength is my heritage
the word is the essence
and my children are my freedom.
Fruits
No more fruits fall,
says the emperor.
I have cut down all the trees.
I feed on the fallen fruits,
says the poet.
I name the trees.
Liliana Isabel Velasquez (Colombia)
Negma Coy (Guatemala)
Petricor
Yangtze Goddess
An almost happy dolphin,
lording among the willowy porpoises
the fresh water of the Yangtze,
the soft and lonely mud of her howl
how tame the coetaneous pigs,
the music flowing beneath their bellies,
the grass that abundant yielded
to all alike
the sunsets in the river
Their golden blue of panacea,
the kingdom wide and long
free from enemies
Noting but their dreams poured there
the young and languid matchmakers
In search of their truest legend
Tell us what happened to the goddess
Who was never seen or imagined again
Where does her frozen dream
of heart beating in the veins
of a gigantic country
sleep tonight?
Aleisa Ribalta (Cuba / Sweden)
It already smells like wet earth, but it is not raining.
It must have been a little cloud or perhaps a
downpour.
A pregnant woman suddenly feels like having a
garden
in the backyard
and devouring the earth with her fists.
Insomnia
Carolina Olguin (Mexico)
Woman who opened doors
very confidently you walk
across my chest,
knowingly flirting
with my distracted mouth
and made night, you serpentine,
you twine yourself in my insomnia
you spin it around,
you warn it from afar.
Woman of every night
in every excess
you rise, palpitating
dawns.
Juana M. Ramos (El Salvador / US)
018

RED DOOR ACTIVITIES
Red Door gallery, Huset and Husets Biograf,
recently hosted the first outsider bookfair in
Copenhagen, taking place during the first week
of April, 2023.
The Perfect Binding Bookfair was created to
cultivate a sense of community and dialog
within the independent literary and book craft
communities in Nordic countries and overseas,
to establish a new synergy in the wake of recent
setbacks like the Covid-19 and Brexit situations
that created barriers leaving individuals and
groups in this milieu more isolated. The project
aims to connect and grow this community and
inspire new collaborations and creations, to
explore the possibilities for further projects and
provide mutual support. It was a combination
of live poetry readings, talks on the subjects of
independent publishing, translating, writing
and cultural organizing, and an ample collection
of books presented by their bookshops or
publishers themselves.
Additionally as part of the program there
were of course book signings and book
releases accompanying the book fair, and the
program was complimented with a series of
film screenings and talks at Husets Biograf
after each evening, which included short films
by Martha Colburn, screenings and talks by
Kenneth Anger and Lars Movin, and publishing
talks by Jonas Ellerström, Ana Stanicevic and Pil
Cappelen Smith, among others.
The bookfair was an open invitation to book
collectors, book publishers, literary fiends,
authors, book makers and others in the outsiders
book community to gather for a weekend of,
first and foremost, sharing books, selling and
collecting, talking about, listening to, and being
part of, the universe of books that is outside of
the commercial and generic.
This event was organized thanks to the support
of Nordisk Kulturfond.
If you are a bookshop owner, independent book
publisher, cultural organizer or author and could
be interested in being part of a bookfair organizing
committee for upcoming years, please contact
reddoorcph@gmail.com
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS:
RED DOOR: Red Door is an Arts & Culture quarterly
magazine, a physical gallery, bookshop, and
platform for cultural events in the Nordic region.
HUSETS BIOGRAF:
Copenhagen’s oldest (and sexiest) underground
cinema.
HUSET:
Huset is a co-creative cultural venue presenting
live music, theatre and performance art.
PARTICIPANTS:
-Red Press (DK)
-Storrs Antikvariat (DK)
-Kultivera (SE)
-Litteraturcentrum KVU (SE)
-Ellerströms Tekst och Musik (SE)
-Husets Biograf (DK)
-Rönnells Editions (SE)
-Rosetta versos (FI)
-Cappelens Forslag (NO)
-Kirjan Talo / Bokens Hus (FI)
-Poesiens Hus (DK)
-Book Lab (DK)
-Lars Movin (DK)
-Claus Høxbroe (DK)
And speakers: Ana Stanicevic, Pli Cappelen
Smith (Cappelens Forslag), Juha Kulmala (Kirjan
Talo) and Lars Movin. Thanks to each of you for
this unique experience.
019

020

021

ARTIVAL:
A FESTIVAL IN THE NORDIC REGION CELEBRATING DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY
IMMART, the Danish non-profit organization
behind community art dinners, network
speed dating evenings, advocacy talks
and other events in Copenhagen, recently
approached Red Door with an exciting
invitation. To become part of the curating
organizers of Artival.
But first, what is IMMART? Simply put,
a network striving to reduce inequality
in the art world. The y do so by seeking
collaborations, to co-create opportunities
for networking, for knowledge exchange,
and for paid work in the arts and culture
scene at home and abroad, no matter where
you are from or what your cultural heritage
is!
Thanks to the funding received, the
organizer of IMMART, Nicol Savinetti, and
the organizing team behind ARTIVAL,
have been partnering with organizations in
the Nordic region to bring forth a series of
happenings that together make ARTIVAL.
ARTIVAL brings artists, cultural workers
and organisations together in a sustainable
manner to co-create and reflect on issues of
inclusion and belonging through exhibitions,
performances, talks, workshops and recitals.
What this means for Red Door, of course,
is an opportunity to do precisely what the
festival’s slogan does - RE:CONNECT- by
doing what we do best... worldthreading.
And oh, how we have all enjoyed ourselves,
doing what we love best, sharing with our
audiences and strengthening cultural ties
in our communities.
In collaboration with Globe Art Point in
Helsinki, Cappelens Forslag in Oslo and
The Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm, through
the spring Red Door has curated a series
of multilingual, multicultural, multimedia
poetry evenings called WORLDTHREADING,
where we’ve been sharing with local and
international audiences in each city the
role of our organizations and our roles as
cultural organizers, the services we provide
and initiatives we push forward, but most
importantly, what moves us.
Through the worldthreading series,
we’ve been doing evenings which are a
combination of talks, screenings of films
from the permanent collection of the
Poetic Phonotheque, and live readings
/ performances which combines local,
national and international voices.
We still have one more event of the
worldthreading series this May 24th, and
invite you to check out https://immart.dk/
artival2023/ for the entire programming of
this exciting festival.
022
Next page, from left to right:
1. The Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, with
Elizabeth Torres, Daniel Malpika and Makda Embaie.
2. Nathalie Sallegren, Emma Leppo, Pablo Saborio
and Daniel Malpica as part of Globe Art’s GAP ART
SUMMIT NORDIC, representing the Union for Poetic
Disobedience (Allience of Performing Arts), Turku’s
Poetry Week, and Red Thread. Helsinki.
3. The Hallwyl Museum’s very own program curator
Azmara Nigusse reads translations of Daniel & Makda’s
work as part of our Worldthreading evening in
Stockholm.
5 & 6: Agate Øksendal Kaupang, Bård Torgersen &
Dario Fariello performing at the Worldthreading event
in Oslo, at the wonderful Cappelens Forslag.
Many thanks to all participants, collaborators and
fellow organizers for these worldthreading times!

RED DOOR ACTIVITIES
023

IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Mending Fences, or Lines on Watching the
Evacuation of Kabul Airport, 2021
“…wires, wires, wires….”
Robert Frost
The thing wants mending here lies along a bank
with wires fallen slack amid the brambles
between winding creek and dense wood,
too tangled now to see the fencer’s scheme.
The brush advances on the meadow year by year
and sprouts up among old steel posts —
every invention of poverty’s iron demand,
a wrecked rod there, a small pipe here.
Such fences do not speak to me today
of failed discipline nor of narrowness,
but of ingenuity, tenacity — of split-cedar
posts and my pioneers before the Dust Bowl.
Yet if that first fencer should step again
from this wood of blackjack and post oaks
where Grandpa died asleep against a tree,
he would doff again his hat, lean his axe
atop a boot’s toe, and take a swig or two
from his glass jar of water. Then I
might ask him how to say my peace
about fences grown into angry tangles
024
Illustration by Martin Andersen.

through the briars and brush. Ends of
wire stick out the ringed bark of massive oaks
where he once wrapped the strand on a sapling
to keep cows from bulls or boars from sows.
As I work, I think, too, of cruel fences far and near,
with walls topped by coils of razor wire, and
see them still as if from drones. I can mend
this old fence of ours no more than those —
silly, I wish the nightmare away and build
tidy fences to hold space for clean purposes
or wall out dangers or clear some apartness
for playground and garden, holy place and home.
Desire obeys no such law of fences or their power
and my friendly apparition does not linger here
to help put things right, to cut old barbed wire,
coil it, pile the brush or light the mute fire.
Scott LaMascus is a writer, educator, and public-humanities advocate
in Oklahoma City. His recent work may be found at Red Ogre, Bracken,
Teleios, and Half + One.
025

POETRY
cosmic [colpos]copy
She plucks a cluster of cells,
from some [sacred room uncharted
as Aristophanes’ other
heavenly] bodies. A whole universe
[of halves, and one of them
gave me the need] for biopsy. Then
scraping, pinch. Each sample sinks
in plastic sealable cups for the lab,
evidence will reveal [sickness or health,
sinks to the bottom, like a tiny comet,
a red tail smokes behind. This is] a loss.
In seven to ten days, [I’ll hear
if my body is eating itself.
I hope I implode
like] a star.
Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night.
Their work has been nominated for both the Pushcart & Best of the Net,
and they’re the author four chapbooks.
026

Stowaways
the world shudders itself
of us
the fat louse tubing
big blood to its head
the ear’s firm helix
scuttling
a little floret
in the greater scheme
of things
like crisis or cycloid
tiny lives
underfoot
just puttering around
(unnoticeable)
the dandelions
windborne sex
appeals with fields
meeting older fields
with the tiniest of glances
these dirt-shuttling flies
nice and colonized
singalong
there are false dandelions, you know,
hairy yellow
and branched
similarly spaced apart stowaways
very quietly
fitting in
clumps.
Emelia Reuterfors grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. Her work can be found in the Boston Review,
Feminist Wire, The Gravity of the Thing and elsewhere. She currently lives and works in Kansas
City as a therapist.
027

POETRY
The Bedside Book of Lemons
Visualize a garden with lemon trees.
Imagine the bees
and their lemon-stained abdomens,
coming and going
like cargo ships.
Imagine the little crew on one of those ships
and their tall tales.
One of them swears
that the two trunkless
legs of stone
that Shelley wrote
about are still there,
and that between them
lesser poets take turns
telling readers
what to imagine.
Imagine that little scamp between two
gigantic dusty trees.
Show him no pity.
Throw a lemon
at him.
Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters.
His latest book is Night School: Selected Early Poems.
028

Thick spring
From dreams voluptuous with vines
coiling, climbing, twisted stems,
bursting nodes, clusters of flowers,
myself of them, shoots issuing
from eyes and mouth, fingers
lengthening into green tendrils,
I awaken into a tangle of birdsongs.
Everything a turmoil of fertility
on this first warm day. An angle
of the sinking sun discloses air thick
with silky spinners and tufted sails,
among them the nearly unseeable
fairy-wasps, freed from their pupae today,
who will live a few more minutes,
their filament wings backlit,
circulating in dense commotion,
but to my eye unhurried,
each speck distinct
on its glinting path, riding
an invisible spinning eddy of air.
I reach my hand into the fecund tumult—
me too, I am suspended
for the blink of an eye upon
some unnamable vortex.
Susan Harvey lives and works on a ranch in Northern California. Her poetry
has appeared or is forthcoming in the Comstock Review, Naugatuk River
Review, Plainsongs, and the Atlanta Review. She has been a Pushcart
nominee, and her chapbook Colloquies was published by Red Bird Press
in spring of 2022.
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FEATURED ARTIST
MADELINE VON FOERSTER
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MADELINE VON FOERSTER
LEFT: DIE BOTSCHAFT
RIGHT: CARNIVAL INSECTIVORA

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I make art for a future which perhaps will not exist.
The destructive relationship of humanity to the natural
world — the leitmotif of my art — is also the defining
paradigm of our era, a fact which will become evermore
apparent with time. I make art in conversation
with potential future generations, to whom the
omnicidal excesses of the present day will be all too
relevant. In doing so, I plant seeds for a more sacralized,
cooperative, and protective attitude towards nature in
the present.
The artworks could be described as “Past Modern,”
favoring traditional techniques and media. Paintings
are executed in the oil and egg tempera mische
technique developed by the Flemish Masters. An
aura of mystery and otherworldliness — inspired by
various schools of Renaissance and post-Renaissance
art — pervades the work. The images often use the
framework of Wunderkammern – Enlightenment
era “cabinets of curiosities,” where the wonders of
nature were collected and displayed — to present
the fragmentation and commodification of nature.
Surrealistic elements also often occur, though in the
service of meaning and metaphor, rather than for
oddity’s sake.
Meaning and beauty are the twin impulses expressed
in the work, with neither sacrificed to the other.
Concepts are developed and drafted in detail, often
involving weeks of research and drawing for a single
artwork. Flora and fauna, which appear in nearly every
image, are rendered with reverence and exactitude.
Photographic references are always interpolated
through the filter of the artistic process, being drawn
via eye alone -- never projected or traced -- which
adds to a visual impression of timelessness.
The artworks could be described as “living” stilllifes,
which intentionally use the motifs of that genre
to explore our assumptions about ownership and
objectification of nature. But on a deeper level, they
are visual altars for our imperiled natural world.
-MADELINE VON FOERSTER.
www.madelinevonfoerster.com
@madelinevonfoerster
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MADELINE VON FOERSTER - COLLECTION CABINET (FRAGMENT)
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MADELINE VON FOERSTER - NOCTURNE
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To create her unique paintings, Madeline von Foerster uses a five century-old mixed technique of
oil and egg tempera, developed by the Flemish Renaissance Masters. Although linked stylistically to
the past, her paintings are urgently relevant to the Anthropocene, exploring the human relationship
to nature with such themes as deforestation, wildlife trafficking, and human-caused extinction.
Von Foerster’s artworks are in public and private collections worldwide, including the Nevada
Museum of Art, the Whatcom Museum, and the City Museum of Cologne. Her work has been featured
in numerous publications, including “100 Painters of Tomorrow” (Thames and Hudson, 2014), and
an eight-page feature in Germany’s “Art” Magazine. She was also the subject of a television portrait
on ARTE’s “Metropolis,” broadcast in Germany and France. Born in San Francisco, von Foerster
studied art in California, Germany and Austria. After fifteen years in New York City, she now resides
in Germany.
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MADELINE VON FOERSTER
LEFT: CABINET FOR MAGRITTE
RIGHT: RELIQUARY FOR RABB’S FROG
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Tranås at the Fringe is a multidisciplinary
arts festival in the small town of Tranås
(Sweden), a charming place on the edge of
lake Sommen, surrounded by the woodlands
of Småland.
For eight days, artists from Sweden and
other countries from different disciplines in
literature, film, and performing arts meet and
put on about 100 events.
As part of the Nordic Fringe Network, the
festival combines an exquisite selection of
film screenings, workshops, performances,
live readings, exhibitions and other types of
collaborations from artists who gather from
all over Sweden, all over Scandinavia, and
now that the borders have reopened, from all
over the world.
Due to the season being summer, it’s quite a
beautiful experience to walk up and down the
peaceful, blooming town of Tranås, enjoying
the local shops and amenities, making a stop
at the library and enjoying the sculptures and
historic locations, while making your way
from one happening to the next to take full
advantage of what the festival has to offer.
Red Door has been collaborating with Tranås
at the Fringe through documentation on-site
via the Red Transmissions podcast, where
you can each year listen to several interviews
of the guests and coordinators of the festival
speaking about their favorite activities, the
authors that moved them and what they’re
most looking for each year.
Due to our shared love for film, a selection
of the poetry films screened as part of the
festival also come to Copenhagen as part of
our yearly poetry film festival. Additionally,
Red Door helps with the curation of certain
aspects of the program each year, and also
provides this magazine as a platform for
sharing the results of so many creative being
coming together in one location to celebrate
art, culture and community.
This year, in celebration of the 10 years
anniversary of Tranås at the Fringe, we are
joining the party and hope you too can
accompany us.
Time to get your fringe on!
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www.atthefringe.org/
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CARELLA KEIL
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Carella Keil is a writer and digital artit who splits her time between the
ethereal world of dreams, and Toronto, Canada, depending on the
weather. Her photography has appeared in Columbia Journal, Skyie
Magazine, on the cover of Glassworks issue 26 and Colors Magazine:
The blue issue, in Wrongdoing magazine Existere, Chestnut review,
Door is a Jar and The Field Guide Poetry Magazine.
@catalogue.of.dreams
twitter.com/catalogofdream
This collection of nature photographs for Red Door, ventures into a
surreal world of vibrant colors and structures, a world that originates
in the known and blooms in the imagination.
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RED DOOR
Operations & Network:
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Red Door Magazine is a quarterly Arts &
Culture publication meant to document
the work of creators everywhere, as
well as facilitate new conversations on
important matters for our communities
in a local and international way, through
the linking of themes, collaborations,
interviews and hybrid events that can
expand the reach of independent voices
and remarkable projects. Red Door
counts with the help of correspondents
in Australia, Mexico, the US and Denmark.
Red Door also functions as a gallery
and independent space in order to serve
as a platform for the same purposes.
In expanding its reach, Red Door also
counts with:
-A podcast called the Red
Transmissions, where creatives,
activists and cultural organizers share
their process, projects and initiatives.
-A Poetic Phonotheque, which serves
as an online collection of poetry in many
languages in the voice of its authors,
created to break the barriers of distance
and facilitate free access to poetry in
households around the world.
-An independent print project called Red
Press, which focuses on the publication
of poetry (and illustration) in translation.
Bilingual books, handmade, limited
edition books.
-The Red Door Gallery located in
the cultural hub of Copenhagen on
Møllegade, Nørrebro, where talks,
workshops, exhibitions, performances
and other events are often on the
calendar, as well as limited edition
books and prints, original art,
miniature books and other art related
products, often with a focus on poetry.
See them also on the online shop:
www.reddoormagazine.com/shop
The Partners:
LITTERATURCENTRUM KVU is an international
literary initiative we often promote as a league
of publishers in Scandinavia. Red Door is
published through this collaboration.
KULTIVERA operates international
cultural programs that are physical,
social and creative; that stimulates and
inspires both the artists and the local
community. It is the organization in
charge of the Tranås Fringe Festival and
their curriculum of activities can be seen
on the issues of the Red Door Magazine.
WRITE4WORD Is a West Wales
community organization with a focus
on language arts. Its director, Dominic
Williams, is a frequent correspondent of
Red Door.
LA LIBELULA VAGA is a multilingual
literary magazine published in
Sweden documenting the work of
poets all over the planet, as well as
encouraging translations, talks and
other collaborations.
KEITH FM is a Berlin-based community
radio.
TRAFIKA EUROPE Research seeks
to help renew the role of literature
in nudging along the European
conversation in culture, This is done
through a bookshop, a journal, and a
radio.
IMMART works for the activation and
inclusion of linguistically and culturally
differentiated artists.
KIRJAN TALO, the Finnish headquearters of
the Poetic Phonotheque, are based in Turku
and serve as a cultural space and association
that promotes literary expressions.

There are beautiful things happening
due to the collaborations, partnerships,
ideas and new projects that arise from the
conversations started in these pages and
through the other Red Door initiatives,
such as the podcast, which has already
celebrated over 70 interviews, or the
phonotheque, which counts with the
voices of over 500 poets around the world...
all of this, including the digital version of
the magazine, are free to ensure access to
information wherever you are in the planet.
However, these projects are indeed time
consuming and not free, especially since
it is necessary to pay to remove the ads
so that you are not distracted and can
have a fully immersive artistic experience
when enjoying this magazine and the
RED DOOR website. There’s costs for
hosting and printing and domains and
publishing... and for now, ONE certain way
to show your support directly: PATREON.
WIth a membership starting at 3 EU a
month, yo too can ensure these projects
keep existing. What’s more, now Patreon
allows for one yearly payment, if you’re
not into monthly fees. So, what do ya say?
Wanna help keep making this happen?
www.patreon.com/madamneverstop
Eternal gratitude to the current patrons
of this magazine: Nanda Arias, Maria
Jose Nielsen, Andreas Frostholm, Malene
Boeck Thorborg, Dharma Agustina Padron,
Dominic Williams, Juan Pablo Salas,
Michael Favala Goldman, Ulla Hansen,
Sergio Guzman, Jaider Torres, Melissa
Albers, Melanie Perry, Juana M. Ramos,
David S.Miller, Crox Pow, Doktor Hansen,
Valeria Schapira, and you,who are reading
this.
Love and poetry always,
Madam Neverstop.
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RED DOOR MAGAZINE
ORGANISMS & STRUCTURES
SPRING 2023
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