In Opposition

For our seventh issue, we are putting our own ethos on trial. The Seventh Wave was founded on a hypothesis that predicted what would happen if opposing perspectives sat alongside each other in tight spaces: If we could connect with the experiences that led to divergent beliefs, then we would be able to better understand those who are fundamentally different than us. Our hope was to cultivate opposition and synthesize it into understanding and harmony.

Over the past two years, changing global dynamics have given rise to a more polarized approach to social and political issues, and we have found it at times challenging to publish work inherently opposed to our beliefs as individuals, and ultimately, as an organization. We struggled to navigate opposition even as we sought it in conversation with other artists and organizations. Reflecting upon our original experiment, we realized that the contradiction we had invited somehow still lived within the confines of our own reach — we had ended up cultivating voices that, put together, created an oppositional force against what we perceived to be injustices: imposed labels, denied belonging, and a false sense of reality.

While conflict can be necessary, we’re wondering what to do when opposition becomes extreme and how we should operate within that complexity. How do we listen to and learn from opposition? How do we tackle conflicts of belief, and make the best use of them as a tool for understanding? Tell us about your experiences with opposition — times when you refused to face it and times when you invited it in. Tell us about times when opposition threatened your identity or allowed space for you to negotiate your own perspective. Tell us how you see the world through opposition and how you find ways to survive it.  

The featured image is “Knots” by Tiara Mejos.