New Alchemy

Introducing our 2020 New Alchemy winner...

 
 

 

 
Purple Forbidden Enclosure, by Monica Ong
 
 
Full view of Purple Forbidden Enclosure, a silver and gold printed letterpress on imperial blue cover stock using constellations as an experiment for the layout of a poem

 

Black and white version of Purple Forbidden Enclosure, a circular depiction of constellations with poetry transcribed over top

 

Purple Forbidden Enclosure, 2019. Gold and silver foil stamping, letterpress print on Colorplan imperial blue cover stock, 12 x 18 inches.
Produced in collaboration with Boxcar Press. Photo documentation by Tom Virgin.

 

 

Purple Forbidden Enclosure, a letterpress broadside printed in gold and silver foil using constellations as an experimental poetic form | Photo Documentation by Tom Virgin

Purple Forbidden Enclosure image, head on | Photo by Tom Virgin
Detailed shot of Purple Forbidden Enclosure | Photo by Tom Virgin

Detailed image of the gold and silver stamped letters on the dark blue paper of Purple Forbidden Enclosure | Photo by Tom Virgin

Detailed image of the gold and silver stamped letters on the dark blue paper of Purple Forbidden Enclosure | Photo by Tom Virgin
Detailed image of the gold and silver stamped letters on the dark blue paper of Purple Forbidden Enclosure | Photo by Tom Virgin

 

What is New Alchemy?

 

 

 

We at Permafrost put out a call for new and innovative approaches to the creative process. We asked for your experiments: with language, with plot, with format, with medium. We wanted to read/see/hear your most exciting and daring projects, your collaborations, your darlings that don’t fit anywhere else, your basement-dwelling monsters revealed in all their grotesquery onto the medium of your choice. Anything went. Thus, New Alchemy was born.

“In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting."Gabriel García Márquez , One Hundred Years of Solitude
Simple line drawing of an alchemy symbol with a circle in a square in a triangle in a circle

 

Browse Other Winners

 

2019 New Alchemy Winner: Swarm
2018 New Alchemy Winner: Sand Wildflowers
2017 New Alchemy Winner: User Reviews of Medication
2016 New Alchemy Winner: Go Nowhereing