Dear Readers,

It’s that time of the year—at least in this hemisphere—where fireside chit chat, the odd pét-nat, and perhaps a pinch of soothing solemnity gets us through the frosty days. The shadowy play of the fireplace’s projection—in lieu of the light sucked from these shortest of days—creates shapes swallowed by clever capes, each one cast unequivocal to the last. A stationary act that could, if I may, lay claim to one of our earliest forms of meditation.

You see, there’s untold theory and query around notions of the shadow—across philosophy, psychotherapy, familial dynasties, governmental despotism, galactic exploration, and the most unruly of cultural plunge pools...pop culture. Consider this spate of famous actor ‘look-alike’ contests flooding both civic and social media plazas of late, whereby the increasingly fluid notion of male beauty is invited to confidently step from the shadows of, I dunno... the dark and dank rodent-like den from which it wallowed!

Shadows give rise to our egos at young ages, depth and texture to theatre and install and fashions we encounter, defining good photography from shit. Shadows define competitive boundaries between castes, colleagues, and collegiate coterie. Shadows are also secretive and naughty, be they expressed in shadow government, shadow boxing, shadow puppets, what we do in the shadows.

So we invite you fireside for the Shadowplay Issue, where despite all the theoretical variation on the shapes and elongated napes we cast, we’d like to nominate that which invokes lightheartedness—to encourage an unshackling separation of self and not brand that such a bad thing. After all, it’s a new year—a nice rounding, sounding one at that— upon us, and what better reason do we need than to cast a new us, a new me, a new we on the seasons ahead than the shadows of 2016 reacquainting themselves with the frisky firesides of our collective discourse...and if not that, Oasis bro.

Sincerely, Matthew 

Photographed by Pierpaolo Salvatore