'Garage Magazine' has a strong track record of promoting

In the realm where art meets the mirror of society, Dasha Zhukova spoke these luminous words: “‘Garage Magazine’ has a strong track record of promoting diversity and racial and gender equality in the worlds of art and fashion and will continue in our mission to stir positive debate on these and other issues.” Her statement, though anchored in the modern world of glossy pages and fashion runways, resounds like an ancient oath — a vow to uphold truth, justice, and equality in the most powerful language humanity has ever known: the language of art. For art is not mere decoration; it is the heartbeat of civilization, the echo of who we are and who we strive to become.

From the beginning of time, artists have been the seers of humanity. The cave paintings of Lascaux, the sculptures of Greece, the frescoes of Florence — each carried within them not only beauty, but belief, a reflection of what their people valued. Yet for centuries, the stage of art was guarded by gatekeepers — men of privilege who dictated whose vision was worthy, whose beauty was divine. Women, people of color, the marginalized — they stood at the gates, their genius unheard, their stories unseen. What Zhukova declared was more than a mission for a magazine; it was a restoration of balance, a calling to let every voice be heard in the choir of creation.

In her vision, diversity is not a trend, nor a shallow token of modernity. It is the lifeblood of culture itself. Without difference, art withers; without inclusion, fashion becomes an echo chamber of vanity. To promote racial and gender equality in art and fashion is to plant new seeds in the soil of imagination, where all can bloom according to their nature. It is to ensure that the face of the world — dark, light, freckled, scarred, radiant in all its forms — can find reflection in the mirror of beauty. For when art excludes, humanity loses a part of its soul; but when it includes, it heals.

We may remember the story of Frida Kahlo, who, though crippled by pain, painted her suffering and heritage with such truth that her face became a symbol of resilience across continents. Or of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the son of Haitian and Puerto Rican parents, whose graffiti-like canvases broke the boundaries between street and gallery, turning rage and race into color and meaning. They, too, stirred positive debate, as Zhukova calls for — not by shouting, but by creating. Through their work, they challenged the idea of who gets to define art and who gets to be remembered by it. Each brushstroke became an act of rebellion; each creation, a declaration that every voice matters.

Zhukova’s mission also speaks of fashion, that ever-shifting reflection of the world’s desire. In the hands of visionaries, fashion becomes a political act — the cloth that binds and reveals our values. When designers lift the unseen — the Black model, the trans figure, the scarred body — onto the runway, they are not displaying fabric, but proclaiming freedom. It is the same spirit that animated the revolutionaries of old, though the battlefield is now a catwalk and the weapon, a garment. To stir debate through beauty is to awaken hearts that reason alone cannot reach.

But such a mission demands courage. The world of art and fashion, like all realms of influence, is often seduced by comfort, by the applause of the familiar. To stand for equality in such a world is to challenge both tradition and profit. Yet the ancients taught that greatness is born not from ease, but from the willingness to disturb the still waters. As Prometheus stole fire for humankind, so must the artists and curators of today steal light from the shadows of prejudice and share it freely.

Let this be the teaching carried forward: art is not neutral, and beauty is not blind. Each image, each garment, each story has the power to divide or unite, to dull or to awaken. Therefore, those who create, curate, or consume must do so with awareness. Seek out the voices that have long been silenced. Celebrate the faces that history ignored. Let your conversations — in art, in life — be filled with the debate of compassion, not the argument of pride. For the measure of a civilization is not found in its wealth or technology, but in how widely it allows the light of creativity to shine. And as Zhukova reminds us, that light must fall on every soul, in every shade, in every form — until the gallery of humanity stands whole and radiant once more.