For our first annual issue, we delved deeply into the intersections between medicine and creativity with contributions from more than 60 artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, designers, curators, and medical professionals. The issue opened with nearly 100 prescription pads from the archive of William Carlos Williams, on which the late poet and doctor scrawled ideas for poems and essays. It featured two subscriber invitationals: One for which we asked our readers to send in their descriptions of “the perfect waiting room,” which designer Thomas Juncher Jensen then rendered in a series of exquiste drawings; and another for which medical illustration students created drawings depicting Esopus subscribers’ ailments, ranging from Lyme disease to aural hallucinations. We presented 100 frames from Frederick Wiseman’s classic 1970 documentary Hospital, and included material from the MoMA archives related to a 1943 exhibition that displayed artworks by disabled and convalescent war veterans who had participated in the museum’s “Arts in Therapy” program. The issue was anchored by six artists’ projects, including a remarkable die-cut foldout by William Villalongo and a 24" x 36" removable poster by Nina Katchadourian. 

Esopus 22: Medicine closed with a CD of 10 new songs—each inspired by a bodily organ—contributed by The Fiery Furnaces, Lovestreams (Okkervil River’s Will Sheff), Jean Rohe, Horse Lords, Vulfpeck, Cities Aviv, Boister, Flaws, Frank LoCrasto and Jon Natchez.