Artist Statement: We sit and wait as a fire consumes the world we once knew. We resist the blaze by staying in the comfort of our own homes. We are caught in a struggle and doing nothing is our only way to fight against the flames.

It has been three years of sitting in a familiar yet confusing state of darkness. Waiting for things to go back to normal, waiting to move closer to the light at the end of the tunnel—closer to a new world that must reveal itself and that we are now a part of, and to which we now belong.

Much of the world has worked as one in this fight. Sometimes a premature victory has been announced; a victory that sometimes feels like it will never come. So, we will rebuild amidst the flames. Pointlessly perhaps, except for how we have learned to be new versions of ourselves.

We have waited. We have fought fires outside and within. We are older, and we are saddened. We wish to say we are wiser but only have proof to the contrary. So, we seem to have decided we are done with all the waiting, and it looks like it is time to take a step out and into the flames. —Emily Kemp