STRATUM was established as the editorial and publishing arm of ELSEHERE. It emerged from the same recognition that shaped the larger platform: many artists are doing serious work without structures capable of holding its language, method, and stakes with enough depth. If ELSEHERE addresses the conditions in which work develops, STRATUM addresses the conditions in which work becomes legible beyond the event itself.
STRATUM is a journal and editorial framework for long-form artist conversations, research-driven writing, critical reflection, and durable documentation. Its function is not simply to publish content. It is to create the time, language, and editorial architecture required for practices that cannot be adequately represented by publicity copy, short-form description, or institutional shorthand.
The need for STRATUM is practical. Artists are repeatedly asked to summarize years of work into compressed forms for grants, residencies, institutions, visas, websites, and public programs. Much is lost in that compression. STRATUM was built to work against that loss. It gives artists a place where process, form, method, and context can be articulated more fully, and where a public-facing record can exist with greater seriousness and continuity.
Publication here is not an accessory to art-making. It is part of the same field of responsibility. Writing, interview, editorial framing, and citation all shape how work travels, how it is remembered, and how it can be encountered after the live moment has passed. STRATUM approaches publishing as a compositional and infrastructural act. It builds context. It extends duration. It allows a practice to be read, cited, and held with greater accuracy.
STRATUM includes artist interviews, essays, research-based texts, curatorial writing, and publication pathways that support both public visibility and long-term professional record. It is especially committed to practices working across disciplines, languages, and unstable institutional categories, where standard forms of documentation are often least adequate.
For Yao, STRATUM is part of the same practice as choreography, visual art, and research. It is another way of composing relation, holding complexity, and building forms equal to the work they are meant to carry.