In the debut issue of MARIN, I invite you into a visual and poetic conversation between past and present, art and resistance. Centered around Langston Hughes’ pivotal 1926 essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” this issue explores what it means to create freely, authentically, and unapologetically—as Hughes urged nearly a century ago.

Through bold, layered collage work—vibrant textures, graphic patterns, and echoes of the Harlem Renaissance —I respond to Hughes’ words not with answers, but with imagery that wrestles with the same questions: What does Black creativity look like when it breaks free from expectation? What does it sound like, feel like, build toward?

MARIN weaves excerpts from Hughes’ essay with new visual narratives, making space for both reflection and disruption. This is more than an art magazine—it’s a platform for reimagining the “mountain,” not as an obstacle, but as a place to stand, see, and speak.

If you’re drawn to art that thinks, that feels, that remembers and dreams forward—this is for you.