Welcome From The Editor-In-Chief, Eden Elam
The District Vanguard is a love letter to the city and community that raised me.
I didn’t fully appreciate Washington, DC until I left the city in 2016 to go to college. Only until I left did I realize how unique, vibrant, and powerful my home was. By home, I’m not alluding to the spectacle of the National Mall or the authority of Capitol Hill – when I speak of my home I conjure the casual, everyday Black entrepreneurship, intellectualism, and creativity that keeps the pulse of Washington, DC alive.
At the start of this New Year I took a moment to reflect on all that has changed since I left home for college in 2016 to the present day. As I looked back on the last ten years, my sense of nostalgia began to ache with longing for simpler, effervescent times. In early 2025, chaotic Federal policies triggered widespread layoffs and furloughs, destabilizing households across the DC metropolitan area. Rising unaffordability has continued to push Black families into neighboring suburbs, accelerating displacement and sprawl. The National Guard has become a routine presence, policing mothers walking children to daycare, college students going to U Street clubs, and families on their way to church.
My instinct has always been to turn to art for relief. A new album on repeat. A wall repainted. A concert ticket. The quiet ritual of making something new. But over time, these acts of self-soothing began to feel insufficient and inward-looking. In an era shaped by remote work and constant scrolling, isolation crept in. Loneliness sharpened my sense of uncertainty.
Relief arrived when I reached outward. By attending DC Design Week, talks at ArtCor, and artist salons hosted by AIGA DC, I encountered artists, designers, and entrepreneurs whose clarity and conviction helped me rediscover my own sense of purpose.
In 2025, photographer Myles Loftin released a body of work titled Hypagognia. The photographs exist in the space between waking and dreaming, offering images that feel intimate, interior, and quietly self-possessed. Rather than chasing spectacle, Loftin invites the viewer to slow down and sit with presence, vulnerability, and care, considering what it means to be seen without urgency or defense.
In many ways, The District Vanguard is guided by the same artistic impulse. This publication is an attempt to move feeling through the city, to create moments of self-awareness and connection, to inspire and to critique, and to offer respect and praise. Like Loftin’s work, it holds that feeling is not incidental, but essential.
In building this anthology, I have made new friends and collaborators. I have honored my roots and caught glimpses of the woman I am becoming, one shaped by community, memory, and creative responsibility.
From a place of deep love and respect, I offer you The District Vanguard.
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-EDEN ELAM, Editor-in-Chief