I NEVER want to hear the word “unprecedented” again. Indeed it is banned from these pages. When we started working on the summer issue of Glass, none of the team could have predicted events of the next few months – what followed was incomprehensible to us all.
Luckily, we had managed to wrap up one or two interviews and shoots for the issue before it was clear that the pandemic would stop the whole world in its tracks … for a while at least.
Olivia Cooke. Photograph: Nick Thompson
The subsequent stories and features that you find here, and hopefully enjoy, are the result of much careful planning, creativity and negotiation. What is this new technology called Zoom? And who knew it would be so central to our working lives since the end of March. Many of the stories in this issue have been conducted using it.
And why call this issue “Shine” and not “Lockdown” or “Challenge”?
My thinking was that, in these extraordinary times, we have to look to the future, we have to look to each other. We have to find a way to shine.
Duckie Thot. Photograph: Ricardo Abrahao
And just when we thought these times couldn’t be more testing, another recent series of horrifying killings of black people in the US have reminded us of how much work we have yet to do. The cruel, senseless death of George Floyd, and also those of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, have shocked the world into anger and sparked outrage against racism on a scale transcending the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement – giving another welcome impetus to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Jessica Barden. Photograph: Mark Squires
What we can hope for is that from this turmoil we emerge more unified, and stronger than ever. As former President Barack Obama said so movingly in an online speech in the wake of the news of the death of George Floyd, we can “feel hopeful, even as you may feel angry”. For Obama, real and effective change will come from the protests and outcry over these terrible deaths, and that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic will also instigate “epic changes … as profound as anything I have seen in my lifetime”.
Echoing this, in our humanitarian section, we speak to Alex Raikes MBE, Director of Stand Against Racism and Inequality (SARI), who tells us; “We need our black voices to be heard. We need every organisation and authority to lead by example. We need to achieve representation.”
Let’s look to the future. Together, let’s work to create a better and equal world. It is our collective responsibility.
by Caroline Simpson
The Shine issue of Glass is available from these stockists from June 26 and you can also subscribe here