BlackFlash Magazine - 42.3 - Patterns

In this issue

BlackFlash Winter 2026
“This issue marks a transition for BlackFlash. We’re sunsetting thematic framing (for now) and moving toward a less categorical way of assembling each issue. Accordingly, our final theme, “Patterns,” is an apt pivot point: a flexible prompt that gestures toward a way of seeing that tracks subtle links.
This wide-ranging issue offers a snapshot of the contributors’ inclinations and preoccupations. In his novel of the same name, science fiction author William Gibson once described pattern recognition as a “gift and a trap,” which is a generous way of saying we search for meaning even when it may or may not exist. Think of this final (for now) theme as an invitation to indulge that impulse, to look a little too closely and take pleasure in finding a signal in the noise.” – Madeline Bogoch, Editorial Note: Pattern Recognition
EDITORIAL NOTE: Pattern Recognition Madeline Bogoch, Editor
ARTIST PROFILE: Your Voice, My Throat: Kyle Alden Martens and B. Brookbank Jon Davies
ARTIST PROJECT: Index for Holding Nic Wilson
FEATURE: Crip Scripts: Disordered Patterns and the Politics of Recognition Kat Benedict
CONVERSATION: Ghosts of the Bone Trail Letch Kinloch in conversation with coyote, Jon Fiddler and Car Martin
ARTIST PROFILE: Speculative silhouettes and expanded histories: The layered practice of Anna Binta Diallo Gabrielle Willms
FEATURE: Pattern Disruptions: Working With and Through Weather Katie Lawson
FEATURE: Agency and Aesthetics In Lu Yang’s DOKU The Self Amelia Wong-Mersereau
ARTIST PROJECT: A Collection, Notes on Attention, A Pause Shaheer Zazai
DIGITAL PROJECT: .The. .Soft. .Archive. .A. .Collection. Shaheer Zazai
Cover: Anna Binta Diallo, Peaks of Sunlight and Frost from Topographies/Perforations, 2024. Digital collage printed on Japanese paper. 92 x 100 cm. Photo by Jean-Michael Seminaro. Image courtesy of the artist.