Our seasonal editorial: Worlds in the making

How can we reclaim a space of possibilities, in the face of the crises that follow one after another and cloud our outlook? How can we pierce through this weight that bears down on our desires, our movements and our joys? This fatalism that certain supposedly clear-sighted individuals urge us to embrace, so that we might observe reality supposedly as it is, forgetting to see it, to envisage it, to dream of it as it might become.  

  Faced with the industry of despair, which eclipses our potential and muzzles our stories, we want to set about imagining these worlds in the making. To break free from the fictions imposed upon us and invent new ones. Open forms and stories, filled with our expectations, our impatience, our boldness and our contradictions.   

To those voices that hammer home all day long that ‘we can no longer say anything’, we will oppose the clamour of our diverse and ever-quivering humanity. We will reply that, indeed, we can say things. Say everything. We can speak of our passions and our vulnerabilities. Our tenderness and our doubts. We can shout our anger and our indignation. Together, we can invent new fables, seek a new breath of life, and forge new words. Cultivate our landscapes, celebrate magic, and venture into the hidden meanderings of our imaginations. 

We can, and above all we want to, say what has not always been heard. Mending the rifts that divide us, repairing our memories and weaving new bridges between our bodies. Repopulate our heritage, so that within its cracks may resound the voices our world has silenced, the forgotten faces, the ghosts that brush past us, and the multitude of the absent who whisper in our ears.  

We will never finish telling stories. We will never finish exploring the unknown corners of our lives. So yes, as the new season of Varia bears witness, we can, we want to, we must speak out. And as long as we stand together, looking out for one another and listening to our dreams, we will continue to say that, somewhere deep in our gaze, other worlds are taking shape. It is up to the artists to be their interpreters. It is up to you, dear audiences, to make them possible.  

  We look forward to seeing you again,  

  Coline Struyf, Artistic and General Director, and the whole team at Varia