Issue Fall/Winter 2023

I always find my pulse quickens a little at the onset of autumn. Summer is over, and the air has a note of crispness to it. When I left the house this morning I took a jacket with me, over my arm. There is a feeling of anticipation (of the cold to come, of death, of reconnection, I’m not sure) and renewed focus on projects and plans set aside during the hot languid days now past.

At Pilot, we have been gathering stories and conversations to share with you for several months, but this year autumn felt like the right time to launch these pieces. We will be doing a slow drop over the next few weeks, letting stories land and then layering them. We begin with my interview with Bien co-founder Suzanne Khan. As the days gradually shorten and the challenges of winter loom, it feels appropriate to be talking of mental health. Khan speaks frankly about her own discovery of psilocybin and the shortcomings of the French healthcare system, which she wants to change with her newly-founded company.   

On other fronts, there are books to read as we begin to spend a little more time indoors, and we will be reviewing a few in this issue. We sit down with Malmö-based industrial designer Terese Alstin to talk about collaboration and championing female-led design. And we explore urban foraging and how public greenspaces can nourish us.   

I hope these pieces carry you into the colder months, fortified and curious, bracing for the snow.

Meghan Davidson Ladly

Issue Spring/Summer 2021

The weather outside this June has made me pause. Going for a walk, I have caught myself stopping to breath the heady green scents and enjoy the warmth of sunlight on my shoulder blades. I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in years, and over a large pot of espresso I felt myself exhale into this rich human contact. This whole spring has felt a bit like I have been holding my breath—testing my lung capacity—and mercifully now some verdant summer days are tempting me out into the parks and wild places again. I am reminded to release my tense shoulders, even just for an afternoon walk or a coffee date that doesn’t involve a screen.  

The stories in this issue are very much rooted in the lockdown that the world has been experiencing on and off for the last year, and which some of us are still enduring. And those experiences are hardly uniform, as Latifa Echakhch explains from Switzerland, sometimes there are positive qualities that arise from having to pause. Yet as Olivia Laing reminds us, we exist in networks and art depends on conversations and encounters, interactions that have shifted. Both Echakhch and Laing are formidable creatives and interviewing them was an injection of fizzy stimulant during the monotony of being shut in.

I am hoping then that with the pieces in this issue you can find respite, nourishment and even some provocation to dive deeper. So, whether you are reading this tucked into an airplane seat or sprawled under a tree, let this issue of Pilot spark your neurons and engage.

Meghan Davidson Ladly

Issue Spring/Summer 2020

This edition of Pilot has been in the works for some time, yet in the last two weeks there has been a (hopefully) profound shift towards societal change that cannot go unaddressed here.

 BIPOC lives have always — and will continue to — matter.

 Pilot is a community steeped in diverse voices and art. It is our belief that you cannot tell contemporary stories without reflecting a multiplicity of voices.

The concept of Pilot was born on an airplane. It seems ironic to be writing now, at a time when our global skies are much freer of planes than they have been in decades. But it also feels auspicious. The 14-hour flight on which the idea for Pilot took shape, is unlikely to resume soon and when it does, may look and feel like a very different experience. And that same sentiment applies to our features on truffle hunting and collective peeing (to say nothing of traveling on a crowded bus). It applies to our interviewee — Tanya Traboulsi — commuting between Austria and Lebanon.

The future feels particularly unknowable right now, and for many of us who are physically isolating, travel of the mind is the closest we will come to leaving our own personal and national borders for some time. But even in lockdown, art, protests, literature and eating persists, and can act as balm, inspiration and outlet. So let’s dive deep here with these stories, inhale, and take stock as we look ahead.      

Meghan Davidson Ladly