METAMORPHOSIS

EDITOR’s LETTER

Embodied has always been a thing of multitudes. The beauty of on-campus publications like ours is the freedom to evolve with each successive staff. Each year, Embodied looks and feels a little different. As it should. 

This year, we deeply considered how Embodied could serve the Gallatin student body best during such a pivotal semester. As our first semester spent fully on campus since the Spring of 2020 (and with Embodied’s first issue since so much of campus life has changed), we felt that the publication should work first and foremost to cultivate a concrete community as much as possible in a post/mid-covid world. We wanted Embodied to create a space for Gallatin and NYU students at large to publish work about topics they deemed worthy, and to improve their writing while also allowing them to to explore topics they are actually passionate about, especially when school work often doesn’t offer the same creative outlook. 

While developing Issue 16, the editorial staff came together to elect “Metamorphosis” as our theme. The word is purposefully open-ended (just like our interdisciplinary mission at Embodied), but we feel that “Metamorphosis” particularly evokes the experience of navigating and being creative in a hyper digital world with a longing for something physical. 

As we witness the emergence of a new world, and as we venture into the “after,” we begin our metamorphosis. A mixture of both frightening uncertainty and blissful possibility, we hope with this issue to mourn for what was lost, to stay attentive to what remains, and to cling to the hope of what may come. 

We also would be remiss without extending a very gracious thank you to our club advisers, Allyson Paty and Kassandra Kahlil. And of course, thank you so much to our incredible team of creative minds who worked their hardest amid an overwhelming semester: Eva Bruckner, Marina Carlstroem, Kaela Aalto, Laura Lu, Meg Grey, Lauren Balser, Caroline Meredith, XY Zhou, Elliot Wright, Julianna Kulak, Jasmine Buckley, Gabriella Olavarria, Paloma Melin, Lauren Robinson, and Isha Mogul. 

With gratitude,

Katherine Leister and Jordana Bornstein 

Co-Editors in Chief

The Us We Were Then

Lau Guzmán

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.” – Patti Smith, Just Kids…

Gallery Review Breach: Logbook 21

Gwen Slaughter

"Can a culture sustain itself when it no longer has access to the environment on which survival depends?" This question should be in the minds of every viewer while they meander through the small oasis of cascading oyster shells, vibrant paintings, and the intricate ceramics of Courtney M. Leonard's exhibition BREACH: Logbook 21…

A Brief Chronicle of the Characters of Washington Square Park

Photos by Laura Lu, Text by Kaela Aalto

Washington Square Park has a consistent hum radiating from somewhere deep within its tree-covered walkways. No matter the hour of the day or the type of weather, it is always pulsating with life…

Metamorphosis

Bianca Sproul

2019

A ladybug meandered by a bush branch, overlooking the poolside as I learned to find my voice. She swayed there, watching as I struggled to speak, drowning in wordless speech. She pitter-ed along the ridges of my wet finger, a morse code through my skin: What do you want to say?

Learning to speak came by degrees. As I began to nibble on words, I filled the husk of my curves…

Collection: Investigation in Porcelain

XY Zhou

Porcelain is one of the great arts that emerged from Ancient China. The techniques, materials, and strategies used to create authentic porcelain have a long history that is intertwined with colonization, imperialism, and capital. As with many Chinese art forms, the expression of philosophy and nature through art/poetry is prevalent in many ceramic pieces. 

Questioning in Quarantine

Suba Senthil

There are numerous things we do and feel in private that we haven’t told another soul about, yet somehow others still experience the same or similar things. The way that gender unfolded in the midst of Covid is a story like that, when many felt it was the right time to explore their relationships with their gender. Throughout the pandemic, it seemed that more and more people started coming out as queer and gender-nonconforming. Perhaps this was no coincidence, but was rather a collective phenomenon of more time in the private sphere translating to performance in the public…