“Does it work? Is it useful? Does it oppress, or empower? Ask the living.”
(Nicolas Kemper, writing in response to Vol. 1 Issue 01: “The Opening Sheet” in Vol. 5, Issue 12: “Paprika! x100”)

Slowness offers an opportunity for us to make a practice of reflection—to look back on the year that was (or wasn’t), to dig through our archives and repositories, to reconsider our position amidst all this. We’re hoping to take advantage of the slowness we’ve been experiencing within a long pandemic and a hybrid learning remote to be more intentional about the voices and conversations we collect, curate, and distribute as a publication.

Welcome to Dispatch 01, the first of a series to be released over the course of the semester. Dispatches are collections of image, text, etc. that are ambiguous in theme and format; each one responds to, analyzes, critiques or further develops past Paprika! content and/or current events. Our intent with these dispatches is to make space for us to “ask the living”—to give our readers a chance to respond, whether they might consider themselves amongst the “living,” the “dead,” or neither.