2004-05-16 - 1:56 a.m.
“Or to put it another way, the most radical art is not protest art, but works that take us to another place, envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.” -Robin D.G. Kelley in Freedom Dreams, page 11 (the first book I am reading post-school year!)
Last night was the closing party for “Evolution of Cut and Paste,” a show of books and zines currated by Emily Larned in the Parsons Library. The show featured myself and three other lovely, inspiring lady artists: Sara Jaffe, Molly Kalkstein and Amy Greenan. Our work was each arranged in our very own vitrine case and showed our progression as zinesters and bookmakers from making pretty basic photocopy zines to zines with greater attention paid to design, bookbinding elements, creative processes and then even some artists books too. While the party was going on, the Bookmobile pulled up outside, so that when people were done partying in the library, they could hang out in a vintage airstream trailer and read even more books and zines.
The evening was so intense and amazing for me. People who I have not seen in years came out of the woodwork to say “hello,” I dragged a boy I went to high school with who just graduated from Parsons up to see, my Lang friends showed up (and met my parents!), and I got to meet amazing people, including the folks who run Purgatory Pie Press and Tae, a graphic designer and artist who is dating another friend of mine from high school. The personal connections felt intense, it was like a reunion and a party to meet new friends all at once. It reminded me of the exciting possibility of zines. It showed me the power of community building through sharing art and independent media. It also made me so thankful to be part of Booklyn, the Brooklyn based artists alliance who I have been an intern for and a small part of since I moved to this big city.
I’ve been feeling so crabby about zines lately (even as I sweat to finish another one in the next two weeks, final papers, done! on to zines...). I am sick of reading the same old stuff, about midnight bike rides and dumpstered bagels for the revolution, over and over. Those things are nice and fine, I enjoy them too. However, I want to see us using what we have learned as individual people making our own media to share our views, experiences, ideas, dreams and actions, as well as what we have learned as a community, grappling with issues like sexual assault, racism, fat oppression, exclusivity, class snobbery, as well as the power we have gained from sharing our writing, passions and Do-It-Yourself creations with each other, I want to see us taking it to the “next level.” I don’t know, exactly, what this “next level” looks like, or what it would entail, but I want more critique, more action and more creativity. I want us to not just mirror the things we’ve seen that we “think” are revolutionary, but really assess where we are and who we are and the times we find ourselves in and move from there. So many zinesters I know do this already. It’s in fact, largely thanks to them that I’ve come as far as I have in terms of consciousness and creative expression. I’m not really creating anything new by demanding this. But I feel like I read a lot of crap.
I don’t feel sustained by reading zines anymore. What I feel sustained by is community. And the closing party for “Evolution of Cut and Paste” and the presence of the Bookmobile reminded me of this. I create for so many different reasons, but creating critical, sustainable community (or the dream of creating this community) is a big one. I hope that I can continue to find other people who share this.
