Afterword

The lights are dimming, the crowds dispersing. From all corners the security guards shake out their legs and check their watches. Here’s a reminder to collect your personals—anything not retrieved will become part of the gallery, a story for another year.

You’ll notice one last exhibit on your way out. It’s less an artwork and more a question, as all the pieces you’ve seen today are. Look up—it’s tucked under the eaves, curtains trussed around the margins of the door, not quite visible unless you know what you’re looking for. There’s ink on the cloth, red bleeding into the spaces between fibres like pixels, asking in not so many words: what happens to art when it’s edited?

The doorway offers no answers, only more questions the closer you look. Where does the writer end and the editor begin? Can you see the transition from one to the other? What does it mean to edit with art, edit about art, edit against art? These tensions aren’t snarls in the fabric; they’re opportunities to thread the needle a little cleaner, pull the line a little tighter, cut the tail a little closer.

Lean in. Make sure the security guards are distracted. Rub your fingertips over the seams, ladder stitches in language. Press hard enough and the comments will leave indents on your skin—I like this part, but it could do with some elaboration; use en-dash for consistency; that reference needs a source; this sentence could be reworked; was the paragraph break here deliberate?

Pull back. Wait. With time the letterpress will fade and you’ll be left with your own hands.

It’s funny how if you do something right, no one will notice you’ve done anything at all.