Letter from the Editor
Emma Ng

Nau mai, hoki mai! Here we are with our third edition of the Satellites magazine.

In this issue, we find ourselves on the circuitous paths that link our ancestral breadcrumb-trails to the places we now find ourselves and the places that are still a hazy blur on the horizon. We are always in motion and it follows that our development, as artists and as people, is seldom straightforward.

Born in Singapore, raised in Aotearoa, and living in the United States, Tan Tuck Ming knows this condition intimately. We’re stoked to be able to share his piece ‘On Compression’ — which loops together Pokémon and lockdowns, file management and The Fly — with our Aotearoa readers.

Sometimes these paths lead us back to our former homes as new people. Nathan Joe talks to dancer and choreographer Xin Ji about his life in dance, a life characterised by continual context shifts. Their conversation ranges from Xin’s childhood training in Beijing and musical theatre in Japan, to the culture shock of Aotearoa and what it’s like for Xin to return to Beijing to make work today.

At other times we’re brought to our knees by the realisation that we can’t really return to the places we thought we knew. Balamohan Shingade looks at the lure of artistic and cultural ‘tradition’ for contemporary artists, a desire he knows well through his own study as a Hindustani musician. Balamohan urges caution, unravelling the ways that this desire for cultural connection can be co-opted — paying particular attention to Hindutva, the ideology of Hindu nationalism, and its influence in Aotearoa. Balamohan’s extended essay is a signficant contribution to all artists thinking about their social and political entanglements — and we’re grateful to him for sharing this framework, developed with great care through his own experiences.

At every turn, we have to decide how we bring our baggage to meet the present. Included in this issue is a short excerpt from The Dharma Punks by Ant Sang, which Dylan Horrocks calls “easily one of the most important comics ever made in New Zealand.” Its story — about a punk named Chopstick in mid-1990s Auckland — is riddled with dilemmas, and the sifting of the past into the future. Enjoy the excerpt and seek out the collected edition when you get the chance.

And sometimes we end up cutting new paths. Steven Yin looks after the largest nursery of bonsai trees in Aotearoa, and here he shares the story of how his practice of the entwined artforms of bonsai and penjing has grown and evolved as Aotearoa has become his home. It’s a great companion piece to Balamohan’s essay — one that places sensitive observation of our surrounding environment at the heart of artistic practice.

I think all the contributors to this issue would agree that plain old nostalgia is a big trap — and they all offer alternative ways of approaching and investing in the past so that art remains live and fresh and vital.

Enjoy, and see you next time!

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About this issue's cover art

The cover art for this issue is by Marc Conaco, a designer, illustrator and zine maker based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Marc was born in the Philippines and his recent work has been driven by his interest in pre-colonial Bisaya culture. Marc is also a contributor to the Satellites archive, writing about Aotearoa-based Filipino artists with a wide range of art practices.