Editor’s letter

Dear Reader,

After months of preparations, we decided to present ARK|Parrhesia publication as a happening at the Hockney Gallery on the last Tuesday in May. In the face of digital and AI overload, we wanted it to be deliberately “analog”. The Annotated Reader by Ryan Gander, who has agreed to collaborate with us on our journal (much like Lucio Fontana in 1958), served as the inspiration.

Conscious of ARK’s significance as a cultural artefact, we are including a text by the young and esteemed writer Boris Bergmann on his obsession with collecting the journal. Our aim, however, is not to venerate but to devolve ownership of ARK’s legacy. We invite current RCA students to contribute, curate, and then assemble their own versions of the cult magazine in a live performance–exhibition– as–publication format. The goal is to capture a moment in time at the Royal College of Art in 2025.

Parrhesia is a pompous word - but a necessary concept. It is dissent par excellence, associated with speaking truth to power and a willingness to accept criticism. As the world descends into chaos and retreats from globalisation, there is less space for diverse voices - but as Audre Lorde said, “silence will not protect us.”

This limited-edition, print - only publication of Emilija’s award-winning design contains submissions on marginalised issues such as gender, power, conflict, migration, colonialism, addiction, disability, generational trauma, AI and others. Current international students and staff at the RCA explore these topics in various languages and diverse forms. For some, these ideas are unspeakable-if not punishable-at home.

We also include philosopher Mark Hanin’s impressions of David Hockney’s exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Fondation in Paris, along with poignant responses by current painting students Ise and Andres. Hockney - a radical student and editor of this publication in the 1960s - is now official art. A sixty - year trajectory that seems unlikely in this day and age.

This issue was created by two painters and a printmaker. It is rough and ready, immediate and unbound. We do not provide translations for texts in foreign languages, nor explanation of works.

The rawness is part of the offer. It is our way of responding to the dangerous volatility of now.

Yours,
Laura Dzelzytė

ARK|Parrhesia would not have happened without the advice, support, and enthusiasm of three

people: Chantal Faust, Kamini Vellodi, and Johnny Golding.

Ise, Emilija and Laura