“FRIEND 朋” is a tapestry documenting the seasons of friendship: the initial spark and the ending fizzle and the tender moments that fall in the middle.

—Communal cooking shot on film from “intimacies” adorns the cover, with more photos by huiyin zhou, Amy Yoon and Gi Chun inside the issue.
—Angelina Han threads together her social web as mixed media sculpture in “Friendship Cloak.”
—C. Grace Chang speaks to Swedish artist and filmmaker April Lin 林森 about collective care and queer diasporic community in Lin 林’s work.
—Jiaqi Kang converses with London-based Taiwanese American artist Sabrina Chou, discussing kinship and relationality, bodily memory and history through food, and humor in art-making.
—Yue Chen interviews Hong Kong-Chinese poet Mary Jean Chan, talking through Chan’s collection Flèche, linguistics and legibility, and love.
—For our Student Spotlight, Stella Li talks to visual artist Taylor Yingshi about her artistic practice and finding community through art.
—Short fiction by Tina S. Zhu and Ge Fang trouble the boundaries between friendship and romance, between self and other.
—Emily Chen explores what it means to exist in a body, ghostliness, and complex families and queer friendships.
—Collaborative work abounds: sensation and odor permeates fiction by Celia Zhang Tianyi, translated by Kelly Zhang; a letter from Julio Hu Chen and photography from Yun Ping explore queer diasporic friendship; UltraKatty, two Hong Kong-born creators, provide a glimpse into a transformative, 8-year-long friendship and love story.
—A pencil drawing from Yang Gao and comics from Ines Alto explore what it is to be alone with one’s thoughts; Magdalene Ma’s comic details companionship holding strong against new frontiers.
—Cindy Ziyun Huang and Thảo Tô navigate familial entanglements through their introspective, visually stunning writing.
—Para Vadhahong and Mackenzie Duan memorialize friendships in their gentle poems.