Symbiosis (2012–2016)
Founded in 2012 at the Kelly Writers House and edited and directed through 2016 by Gina DeCagna at the University of Pennsylvania, Symbiosis was an experimental arts community and curatorial platform mobilized around the deconstruction of the little magazine. Featuring experimental and exploratory collaborations between visual artists and writers, the project was dedicated to exploring processes that manifest the interrelationship of the visual and literary arts.
Across its four years of creative practice from its university base, Symbiosis had engaged hundreds of students across academic disciplines as well as practicing contemporary artists and writers, both locally in the city of Philadelphia and nationally across the United States. Through curated collaborations, hands-on workshops, gallery exhibitions, and reading programs—as an expression of public engagement—both creators and viewer-readers had mobilized around the Symbiosis magazine and beyond it.
Learn more about the little magazines via the Symbiosis Archive below, maintained by Gina DeCagna.
This 2016 annual issue displays practicing professional artists and writers from across the United States who have singularly explored visual-literary media along with select collaborations of students at the University of Pennsylvania and a feature on ekphrasis. A coordinated digital edition showcases digital, ephemeral visual-literary media of Internet culture. Additionally, an interactive gallery exhibition asks viewers and readers to engage in experimental collage techniques using institutional texts on contemporary artists.
This 2015 annual issue features six art and writing collaborations—selected from paired students of the University of Pennsylvania—within its pages which sync with gallery space that is trisected across three curatorial themes of exploration. National award-winning critical essays include varied writers' thoughts on contemporary collaborative art-making, the role of empathy in working with others, and the aesthetics of uncertainty, among other topics.
Showcasing eleven select collaborations between student artists and writers at the University of Pennsylvania, this 2014 annual issue vibrantly embraces the dynamics of creative exchange through its pages, curating unique image-to-text pairings, from recto to verso. A coordinated gallery exhibition offers varied viewing experiences of the inventive collaborations, along with a gallery guide of visual-literary criticism.
As the inaugural issue of the newly formed student group of Symbiosis at the University of Pennsylvania, this 2013 annual issue explores the humanistic vision of the otherwise scientific term, “symbiosis.” The magazine contains a diverse selection of poetry and prose with visual artworks, designed from the writer's text to the artist's image, and as created through the coordinated efforts of participants in the act of c0-creation and co-authorship.