“How will we transform ourselves, lose ourselves, or how are we kept back, limited, or marginalised: each due to and despite our bodies?” That is the central query posed in the newest issue of arts and culture magazine Orlando. Previously exploring themes of memory and history, and notions of discourse, for its latest issue, Orlando has turned its attention to the body. “Throughout art or literary history, using the body as a primal, raw material, has been central to questioning facets of identity in contemporary culture, particularly the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, dis/ability, and illness,” says editor Philomena. Inspired by the tense and turbulent political climate, Philomena desired to create something that “considers what it physically seems like to be a body on this current political moment, and something which could also offer a way of release and escape.”

Spread across 108 pages, the publication contains a collection of poetry from up and coming names similar to Nisha Ramayya and Belinda Zhawi; art by Rosa Johan Uddoh and Liz Barr and a very subversive photography series, entitled Wax Photographs by Alix Marie which runs throughout the magazine, acting as an alternative choice to promoting space. There are also insightful, critical essays on the work of renowned artists and writers, similar to Dodie Bellamy, Marlene Dumas, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Jo Spence, exploring how bodies intersect with subcultural histories, sexuality, and modes of protest, or how science, technology, and surgery allow us to turn into latest hybridised forms. There are also more intimate texts that deal with illness, lived experiences of trauma, emotion and autobiography.

“Environment collapse and global fascism looms,” says Philomena. “The #MeToo movement clearly identified the grave scale of rape culture and the extent of systemic abuse that runs throughout society. Bodies are silenced, incarcerated, abused, or murdered day by day on the idea of their race, religion, sexuality and gender, or how else they otherwise discover. There’s stigma and erasure of certain bodies, similar to the transphobia rife inside mainstream feminism, inside political groups. The fight for equality have to be inclusive and involve all voices.”

Despite recognising these pressing concerns, Orlando’s Beyond the Body purposely doesn’t offer anything didactic or any concrete solutions. As a substitute, Philomena has chosen to “propose a line of fluid and generous considered limits and possibilities, of restriction and release, enquiring through who or what means—or, indeed, by any means essential—we would give you the chance to maneuver beyond our bodies,” Philomena explains.

But in fact, it isn’t all bad. “In 2018, there may be joy and pleasure to be present in the licentious and transformative power surrounding expanded concepts of the body, and a greater understanding, recognition, and celebration of non-conforming bodies and identities,” says Philomena. “There are more avenues to specific or reinvent oneself.” Just as our bodies change physically, so do our relationships with them, each positive and negative. It is that this duality which Philomena hopes to capture and explore.

Beyond the Body launches at London’s Horse Hospital on 14 November with a night of readings, film screenings, and performance, buy tickets here. Alternatively, in case you can’t make the launch event, pre-order the problem here.