Inspirations
Wisconsin Wonders
Posted August 24, 2010 by pete in Inspirations
I recently spent some quality time in northern Wisconsin. The best way to spend a summer day in Wisconsin is at a cabin on a lake. Luckily my uncle has a little cabin on a lake just east of Phillips Wisconsin (about 6 hours north of Milwaukee). Aside from swimming, fishing, canoeing and various other outdoor activities this area is home to a very special place, that is Fred Smith's Concrete Park. Smith was a logger in the early 1900's, and later built a bar (which only served Rhinelander Beer!). In his 50's Fred decided to start creating some concrete sculptures which honored the people of his area. In all he constructed over 200 concrete sculptures which he inlaid with pieces of glass. His themes ran from Native Americans, Loggers, Farmers, Beer Drinkers and other people of the North Woods. Smith was truly a visionary artist, he had no intention of selling his work, and simply felt that this was something he needed to do and people needed to see. In the 70's the Kohler Foundation acquired the Concrete park and has been maintaining it since. If you find yourself anywhere near, do yourself a favor and pay a visit, it's amazing. Also at the gift shop you can pick up a 40pg book about the park with great quotes from Smith explaining his work and a T-Shirt screenprinted by the local high school art class honoring the park. I now own both!
Modern Day Slavery Museum
Posted August 23, 2010 by k_c_ in Campaigns
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers have created a touring exhibit called the Modern Day Slavery Museum. It toured the last few weeks around the Northeast of the USA, stopping in NYC.
"We Agree: A Crisis In Common" Opening!
Posted August 5, 2010 by roger_peet in Art exhibits/shows
Portland! Come out tomorrow evening, Thursday August 5th, to the SEA Change Gallery, downtown in the Everett Station Lofts, for the Opening of "We Agree: A Crisis in Common". Two giant blockprints about the impact of the natural gas industry on both sides of the Pacific: One made by the Portland-based members of Justseeds, and the other by renowned Indonesian printmaking cooperative Taring Padi! The prints are huge and dense and awesome, and the gallery is packed to the rafters with other work by Roger Peet, Alec "Icky" Dunn, Pete Yahnke, and members of Taring Padi. For more information on the project, navigate here
SEA Change Gallery
625 NW Everett Street
Gallery #110
Portland, OR
Opening at 5pm, refreshments will be available to those with quick feet and swift lifting elbows!
Beehive Collective Releases "True Cost of Coal" poster
Posted August 5, 2010 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
News from the Beehive Collective:
THE TRUE COST OF COAL is finished, printed, and ready for you to enjoy!
It’s true! After 2 ½ years of discussions, feedback, eraser marks, sketches and rough drafts, THE TRUE COST OF COAL is DONE! And we can’t wait to share it with you!It is hard to describe the mix of emotions we ‘lil bees are feeling after this final push. Somewhere between exuberance and exhaustion, all of it steeped in immeasurable gratitude to all the folks who have helped make this graphic possible. To all the powerful people and places in Appalachia who shared their stories and their struggles with us, to all the folks who have hosted shows and offered up their floors or couches, to everyone who has kicked down money to keep us going, to friends and family who have emotionally supported us through this rollercoaster of a project, and to everyone else who has touched or inspired this graphic in some way- thank you. No doubt, YOU all are what made this project possible!
Experience the full poster and read the narrative at the TRUE COST OF COAL page on our website, and find behind-the-scenes studio shots in our Sketchbook and on our Coal campaign blog!
You can order a poster from the Beehive here.
Rad Teen Print of the Week: MLK
Posted August 3, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
This week's Rad Teen Print was created by Deanna at RUST, in response to a quote chosen from a list at random. Students chose images and laid out text to create these first-time silkscreen prints. More to come!
The Political Graphics of Jules Perahim
Posted July 28, 2010 by icky in Inspirations
Jules Perahim was a Romanian artist who died in 2008. Most links to him on the web refer to his surrealist works (in the Dali vein of surrealism) produced while he was in exile, in Paris, in the 1960s and 70s. But Perahim's work before this leaves just enough milestones to trace an interesting path, from a young Romanian Jew involved with the socialist movement and avante garde art circles, to exile in the Soviet Union during the Axis-allied government during WWII and then returning with the Red Army and becoming part of the new communist government. Finally moving to France and being remembered for his work in surrealism. Between these broad strokes, I think, there's a story of an age....
Notes From the Front Desk
Posted July 28, 2010 by bec_young in Inspirations
As you may know, Justseeds operations moved in May of this year from a city with some bridges, Portland, OR, to a city with more bridges, Pittsburgh, PA. The transition has included moments that fit all sorts of descriptive terms; from the ridiculous to the sacred. But now it's the time we've all been waiting for: the Front Desk is set up and the Chair is in place, ready to take action.
This week, we held a meeting at Espresso a Mano, a locally-owned coffee-shop a few blocks away, where the three of us may, or may not, be addicted to the the cold-brewed coffee. At the moment, we are in the midst of preparing for the sublime prints of the Resourced portfolio to grace the walls of our space. After a brief meeting, we headed to our neighborhood hardware store, where we consensed on Scotland Isle, a mid-tone green in the Asparagus family, in a record amount of time. This color will be the backdrop of our next several shows, so it had to be just right. The paint-mixer on duty was kind enough to let us know about the dangers of improper ventilation, that green promotes tranquility, and that you know you're dehydrated if your pee is too dark. It may also be noted, by the note-maker, the green is also the color of the heart chakra.
Please check out our event this Friday if you're in the area, otherwise, don't forget: ventilation and hydration are the keys to success!
Rad Teen Print of the Week: Michael Jordan!
Posted July 27, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
This week's Rad Teen Print off the week is from Desmond, a student at RUST (Radical Urban Silkscreen Team) in Hazelwood.
Students each picked an inspiring quote at random, chosen by Closing the Gap, a health program of the YMCA. Students then picked an image and laid out text. This was a first silkscreen project for all of them. It should be noted that printing a large solid area like this is hard to do for even a seasoned printmaker, and Desmond nailed it! More to come!
Rad Teen Print of the Week: HAWK!
Posted July 20, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
After a long hiatus, Rad Teen Print of the Week is back!
This print is from Sabrina, one of our new students at this Summer's RUST (Radical Urban Silkscreen Team), a project of The Andy Warhol Museum in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Hazelwood. This project was for Bridging the Gap, a health initiative of the YMCA. Students picked randomly from a list of inspiring quotes and came up with an image to go with the text. This was a first silkscreen printing project for all of them.
At the conclusion of RUST in August, the silkscreen equipment will stay in Hazelwood at Center of Life, an awesome youth programming center run out of an old church and parish house. Most of their focus is on jazz and hip hop performance, and we are all excited to see how silkscreen printing can expand what they are already doing.
More to come!
RIP Harvey Pekar and Tuli Kupferberg
Posted July 14, 2010 by molly_fair in Inspirations
Pour one out for Harvey Pekar and Tuli Kupferberg. Pekar was known for his comic American Splendor, which he wrote and enlisted artists to illustrate including R. Crumb. He also wrote "Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History”, and “Studs Terkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaptation” ( which Justseeds artist Dylan Miner contributed to). Kupferberg was a New York artist and musician in the Fugs, a bohemian and activist who's antiwar songs became anthems of the Left.
Drawing All the Time: Week 30
Posted May 26, 2010 by colin_matthes in Art exhibits/shows
Here is a preview image of a piece I am working on in preparation for my upcoming exhibition with Nicolas Lampert at 58 Gallery in Jersey City. It is titled Plausible Inventions and opens June 11.
Justseeds/TaringPadi Anti-LNG print
Posted May 24, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Take a look at some of these photos of the printing session we had yesterday in rainy Portland. People came over to help jump up and down on the giant block, in the traditional Taring Padi manner... This print is part of a collaboration with the Indonesian print group Taring Padi, addressing issues of natural gas exploitation on both sides of the Pacific. Next up, the Northwest Natural shareholders meeting on the 27th!
Mihaly Biro
Posted May 24, 2010 by icky in Inspirations
(May Day 1919, Budapest)
I just found a book on Hungarian artist/designer Mihaly Biro. I don't read Magyar so I can only supply scant biographical details: he was born in 1886, went into exile in the US during WWII, and returned to Hungary after the war, where he died in 1948. He worked as a commercial illustrator and designer and was also tied to socialist movements in Hungary and Germany. He made beautiful work, done in a modern European style before the hegemony of constructivism/bauhaus and socialist realism on the left.
Drawing All the Time: Week 29
Posted May 19, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This is a detail of the drawing I made as a submission to great project Tom Civil at Breakdown Press is working on. Click on the entry to see the full sized image.
Citizen Orson Welles and the International Association for the Protection of the Individual Against Officialdom
Posted May 3, 2010 by molly_fair in Art & Politics
A few weeks ago I attended the Orphan Film Symposium and was blown away by a screening of an episode of a series called The Orson Welles Sketch Book. Made for BBC television in 1955, Orson Welles’ Sketch Book was a series of six weekly fifteen-minute episodes in the form of intimate monologues augmented by Welles’ own illustrations from his sketchbook. I don't want to give it all away, but here Welles addresses the issues of racism, government surveillance, police brutality, and politics of border crossing and identification. His delivery and performance are incredible. Here it is in two parts:
Earthday is Everyday Bike Ride & Justseeds Eco-Art Show
Posted April 21, 2010 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
Earth day bike ride starting 7pm from Union Square Park South. Dress in green with respect for the planet! Festive musical ride will end at a 8pm, BBQ and dance party at Time’s Up Brooklyn space and East River Bar at 97 South 6th Street, Williamsburg. Bring food to share.
Thursday, April 22, 2010 7pm BIKE RIDE Meet at Union Square Park South, Manhattan. 8pm AFTER-PARTY Just Seeds Eco Art Show & BBQ
The Justseeds Collective will also be exhibiting members prints of an ecological & environmental nature following the Times Up Earth Day bicycle ride. Included in the exhibit will be previews of the upcoming Justseeds portfolio Resourced.
Resourced is a portfolio of handmade posters designed by over 30 different artists, including Chris Stain, Gaia, Armsrock, Design Action Collective, and many Justseeds Members. Justseeds is an artists’ owned and operated cooperative that is dedicated to producing socially engaged artworks. Prints and projects can be viewed at Justseeds.org
Go to Times Up for more information on the ride.
E X P O
Posted April 13, 2010 by colin_matthes in Art exhibits/shows
Here are some photos of my recent exhibition at Igloo Gallery in Portland, OR. It was a blast installing the show. I received a warm welcome and so much help 'n' good times from folks in Portland.
The show is on view until April 24th (by appointment: 646-763-4905)
This piece is titled Shopping Cart Lounge Chair.
The idea for the show came about when I started thinking about an inventors convention (inventor with a small i) that would occur in the near future. I was also thinking about :
-addressing current environmental and economic concerns by imagining possible futures
-human ingenuity and resourcefulness and its relationship to commerce
-small victories
-progress as in finishing the leftovers
Printing with Taring Padi
Posted March 30, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Here's a little photo essay showing the printing process used by Indonesian print cooperative Taring Padi, including images from all stages of the process, from sketching to carving to printing. I had the chance to help print some copies of this massive block, which is the Taring Padi half of a project addressing issues related to natural gas exploitation on both sides of the Pacific: the three Portland Justseedsers (Pete, Icky and Roger) will be working on their half in the coming month. We'll be working with local nonprofit Bark to promote exhibits and displays of the two prints in towns along the route of the proposed Palomar gas pipeline this summer. Enjoy the photos!
Sketching the initial design on MDF hardboard.
Taring Padi artist Mohamed Yusuf
Posted March 25, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
I've recently returned from six weeks traveling in Indonesia, during which I spent a week with the artists of the Taring Padi cooperative in Yogyakarta, Central Java. I'll be posting entries for the next several weeks pertaining to aspects of my travels, some art-related, some not. I thought I'd start off with a bit of a bang- a partial photo-gallery of some of the pictures I was able to take of art made by one of my gracious hosts, Mohamed Yusuf (also known as Ucup).
Enjoy more images below!
Drawing All the Time: Week 23
Posted March 17, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspiration
Mary Kelly Here is a drawing in celebration of Mary Kelly, the Irish nurse and mother of 4 who decommissioned a US war plane with an axe while it was illegally refueling on its way to Iraq. I do not like the drawing a whole lot, but Mary Kelly is an inspiration. Read more below.
Mary Kelly's Statement
Drawing All the Time: Week 22
Posted March 10, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
a detail, full image if you click below
The City is Yours
Posted March 4, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds & Member Projects
and the street art is made with red clay.
A number of Justseed's members are in Philadelphia this week installing three different shows at three separate venues across the city as part of independent projects associated with Philagrafika 2010.
Here are install shots from the Medium Resistance show at the Ice Box (Crane Arts) of our red-clay mud stencil! The image is by Alec Icky Dunn (included in the Cut and Paint zine), the technique was inspired by Jesse Graves, and the mud stencil crew was Nicolas Lampert, Colin Matthes, Josh MacPhee, Erik Ruin, Emily Abendroth, and the fine folks at Crane Arts who provided incredible assistance every step of the way.
All three Justseed's / Cut and Paint shows open this Friday. Information posted below.
Undocumented youth immigrants walk 1500 miles for their DREAMS. They need your support!
Posted March 4, 2010 by Favianna_Rodriguez
All Gaby Pacheco ever wanted was to finish college and teach music to disabled children. Brought to the United States by her parents as a young girl, Gaby has excelled in school, done extensive community service, and become an accomplished musician. But in spite of her hard work, she’s excluded from the workplace solely because of her immigration status. And she’s not alone. Her story is like those of thousands of other immigrant children who every day are robbed of basic opportunities to live and thrive in this country.
So on January 1, 2010, Gaby decided to walk. She and three fellow students, Carlos, Juan, and Felipe are walking 1,500 miles from Miami to Washington, D.C. to call on policymakers to fix a failed system that has kept them and millions of other immigrants in the shadows, with no pathway to a better life.
They call this their TRAIL OF DREAMS and they need your support. It easy, click on the link: http://www.Trail2010.org/action
After walking 600 miles, they recently entered the hostile territory in the Deep South. Last week they encountered an anti-immigrant rally led by the Ku Klux Klan. Today they walked straight into Gwinnett County, Georgia -- home of Sheriff R.L. “Butch” Conway, who is notorious for his anti-immigrant policies. Conway is known for being one of the most aggressive law enforcement officials to employ the 287g program, which authorizes local police enforcement to act as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The Story of Cap & Trade
Posted February 18, 2010 by k_c_ in Campaigns
While doing some research on tar sands(see below for info) for the Justseeds 2010 portfolio-Resourced, I came across this video. From the folks that produced the "Story of Stuff", is the Story of Cap and Trade. It was produced for last Decembers UN climate talks that happened in Copenhagen. The website is incredibly user friendly, making materials easily available for download. A good example of how a website can disseminate media for campaigns.
The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.
The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about cap and trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.
Howard Zinn's speech on the necessary rebellion of the archivist
Posted February 1, 2010 by molly_fair in Inspirations
Right now I am in library school, training to be an archivist, so I'm posting this speech that Howard Zinn made about the archivist profession which has really inspired me. Lately the idea of taking a political position within the profession is something that I have been thinking about a lot. I have been doing a lot of research on archives that operate within the realm of the creative commons or partnerships between institutions and communities to preserve collective histories in the effort to encourage people to have ownership and document their ways of life. It is pretty obvious that those in power control access to information, and knowledge is increasingly commodified and privatized.
It is necessary to consider who has access to information in our society, and who controls it. Archivists are told that they must remain professionally neutral, but doing so is inherently taking a political stance. Archivists should not be complicit with institutional powers whose policy it is to restrict access to knowledge and information. Preservation of materials in archives or other institutions like libraries and museums is often privileged over access, and result in exclusionary policies.
It is necessary to examine the biases in our society that reveal why some collective histories are preserved and valued and others have not been collected. It is apparent in many circumstances that artifacts that are held sacred to communities have been taken unjustly, and are displayed and made public in ways that perpetuate imperialism and misrepresentation.
Professionals in information fields may choose to view them as purely scientific or technical, without acknowledging the prejudices and dominant power structures of our society that have shaped and are ingrained in the systems of knowledge organization. In the library field this is reflected in the organization of the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress and their coinciding terminologies and how they have changed over time to be more, ahem, politically correct. Check out activist-librarian Sandford Berman if you are interested in this.
Those in the archivist profession should fight for open access to information, and to protect and make accessible materials documenting the histories of people that have traditionally been silenced and marginalized. I think Zinn's speech is just as relevant today as it is when he presented it and it was published in the 1970s. We still live in an age of information secrecy and repression, and corporate ownership. Simultaneously the Internet has made it possible for people to spread information on a massive scale whether it is classified documents or a bootlegged movie. Ignoring intellectual property rights may be viewed as an act of rebellion, even though the average person may not consciously think about the act of file sharing as a form of resistance. The degree to which archivists participate in acts of resistance is something I wish to explore further.
And now on to Zinn's speech...
SECRECY, ARCHIVES, AND THE PUBLIC INTERESTHOWARD ZINN
Let me work my way in from the great circle of the world to us at the center by discussing, in turn, three things: the social role of the professional in modern times; the scholar in the United States today; and the archivist here and now.
I will start by quoting from a document-an insidious move to gain rapport with archivists, some might say, except that the document is a bit off the beaten track in archival work (a fact we might ponder later). It is the transcript of a trial that took place in Chicago in the fall of 1969, called affectionately "the Conspiracy Trial." I
refer to it because the transcript occasionally touches on the problem of the professional person-whether a lawyer, historian, or archivist-and the relation between professing one's craft and professing one's humanity. On October 15, 1969, the day of the national Moratorium to protest the war in Vietnam, defense attorney William Kunstler wore a black armband in court to signify his support of the Moratorium and his protest against the war. The government's lawyer, Thomas
Foran, called this to the attention of the judge, saying: "Your Honor, that's outrageous. This man is a mouthpiece. Look at him, wearing a band like his clients, your Honor."
Remembering Howard
Posted January 27, 2010 by nicolas_lampert in Inspirations
Howard Zinn changed my life. In 1999, I first read “A People’s History of the United States” and read it cover to cover, fascinated by his words, his sense of optimism, and belief that ordinary people can and have organized and challenged powerful institutions throughout history.
In 2003, I was so fortunate to meet him and strike up a correspondence and friendship. I remember sending him the full set of Josh MacPhee’s “Celebrate People’s History” posters as a gift to let him know that us young radical artists were attempting to visualize many of the histories that he wrote about. He responded by thanking me for the posters and said that they were too important to remain in his house, on his wall, in a drawer – that he would find a community space where they could hang, a place where people could see them.
That embodied his spirit. Such a genuine person who was always teaching, always inspiring, and always encouraging people to speak out and become active.
Howard Zinn reminds me of Grace Lee Boggs - two people who always remained radical - whose kindness drove their activism. Both have such a fierce determination to fight for social justice and both have so much confidence in the horizontal movements of today and the younger generations to create a better world. They remind us that being an activist is about never giving up and always about pulling more people into the movement.
I remember sending him some writing that I had done on radical art history and his response was, “Keep going! Write with conviction!, Write standing up!” That type of encouragement from someone that I admire so much continues to fuel me.
I sent him the manuscript for the book, “Peace Signs: The Anti War Movement Illustrated” a collection of anti-war posters and graphics that responded to the start of the Iraq War in 2003 and he wrote the forward. Included, he wrote,
“I have always been immensely impressed with how the artist can speak with a special force and passion, saying, with a few strokes of the pen, accompanied with a few words, what we call ourselves writers cannot possibly do with such economy, And when this talent is used on behalf of a profoundly important message, about war and peace, life and death, then it is especially welcome.We all know that the machinery for dispensing words and images (in newspapers, on radio, on television) has been seized by giant corporations, hugely wealthy, possessed of enormous power, and determined to use that machinery to protect and enhance that wealth, that power.
We are in great need on an opposing power, one that does not depend on money and position, but on talent, determination, and moral courage. Art gives us that – as through history it has always placed itself at the service of the poor, the oppressed, the victims of war, the targets of racial and national hatred.”
Howard, thank you for believing in the power of art to change the world and thank you for inspiring us.
Drawing All the Time : Week 17
Posted January 20, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This week there is an install shot of a drawing that is up at the New Art Center in Newton, MA. That lump on the ground is me. And yes it is in an old church.
Radical Teen Print of the Week: Swan Sneakers
Posted January 19, 2010 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
Welcome back to Radical Teen Print of the Week! This week's silkscreen print is by Valerie Dowling, created during RUST 2009. Valerie combined three images of things she likes, using an internet image search.
We are starting a new teen print program here at The Andy Warhol Museum today: Power Up is an after school design and print program focusing on themes of women's health and wellness. We are working with six young women from Young Men and Women's African Heritage Association for the next ten weeks. Keep an eye to this spot every Tuesday for some fresh radical teen prints!
This print goes out to Dylan Miner, Justseeds' resident sneaker affectionado!
Install Photos: Sailing the Barbarous Coast
Posted January 13, 2010 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
Here are a few photos from the install of Sailing the Barbarous Coast. opens Jan 15, Newton Art Center, Newton (near Boston), MA.
Cecilia Mendez and I installing.
Save the Gloo Factory!
Posted January 12, 2010 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
My good friend Dwight, owner-operator of the Tucson multi-functional art/community/print space the Gloo Factory and allied enterprise Peace Supplies has been struggling against eviction from his crazy downtown space for years now, in the face of idiotic plans for redevelopment. At this point it looks like he's going to lose the space, but he's energized to find a new spot! A vacant lot with a big steel shed! Dreams of a Quonset hut! Located in the city of South Tucson, away from the boondoggles of Tucson proper! To accomplish this, he needs our help. Take a moment to navigate to the Save the Gloo Factory website and make a donation. Tucson's radical print infrastructure will thank you.
Mix-A-Day
Posted January 11, 2010 by erik_ruin in Justseeds & Member Projects
I've been creating a mix of music & other auditory ephemera every day for the month of January 2010. They're all posted here in downloadable form. This project is a part of Art Clash's annual Fun-A-Day project, which is this amazing project where various folks do a project every day in various cities. Folks have done everything from interpreting someone's dream every day to my friend Sharon's current project to draw a portrait of a friend as a Simpson character every day.
So far, this project has been somewhat of a challenge, but as I've been pondering for a while now a possible return to radio, it feels like a good way to explore that possibility and further justify my obsessive tendencies.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 12: Benevolent Societies
Posted December 29, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
Final Rad Teen print of 2009!
This classic comes from RUST 2008, and is by Hannah Thompson and Dawn Davis, as part of a Celebrate Pittsburgh's People's History project. Mutual Aid!
Rad Teen Print of the Week 11: Foreclosures: Plague of the Century
Posted December 22, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
One more from Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge class. This kind of reminds me of The Road.
Star Non-violent Civil Disobediences
Posted December 21, 2009 by roger_peet in Film & Video
Here's a little gem that Icky forwarded to me, which is oh-so apropos in the aftermath of the Great Failure of the Copenhagen Forum. Keep on telling yourselves you can fix it! All the self-righteous self-aggrandizing and moral outrage is positively hilarious to watch for those of us who've kicked the hope habit. Especially when people start chanting "Reclaim Power!" Since when have any of you had any power? And what on Earth would you do with it? When I say "Humans", you say "Out"! "Humans!" "Out!" Take it away, Derrick!
Rad Teen Print of the Week 10: Civil Rights or Civil War
Posted December 15, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
More work inspired by Signs of Change, from Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge class. Gay marriage has been a huge concern for these students. So right-on.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 9: Equal Opportunities
Posted December 8, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
Schenley's Theory of Knowledge class again! This was created by the 'Fantastic Five,' a group of pretty right-on young men. This was one of my favorites from the class.
"...a reflection of the gross narcissism of those rich enough to own it."
Posted December 7, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
Mark Vallen has some really incredible posts up on his blog. While Art Basel, in Miami Beach, is being cleaned up and repackaged to go home, I read "200 One Dollar Bills", Vallen's critique of the recent auction of Warhol's screenprint of the same title.
The forces involved in the Sotheby’s auction represent an extremely influential layer in the elite art world, people who must surely believe they are shaping and controlling the future of art; but as any student of history will tell you, the most grandiose plans of the powerful are often times thwarted by material conditions, social pressures, and the acts of the independently minded.
Art Basel's website purports it to be the "most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas." I've always likened it to a gun show of art exhibitions, the NY Times acknowledging "the sense of art as merchandise is overpowering" where "most galleries offer variety-store-like mixes of works by different artists with the ambience of a sample sale" in "The Art Fair as Outlet Mall" I remember the Times one year called Art Basel the Cosco of art.
After reading that post I read a more current piece on Art for a Change, on Robert Hughes' documentary called The Mona Lisa Curse. Vallen posts links, (here), to the respective sections on youtube with his synopsis of each part. The videos are so well worth watching and provide a very shrewd look at art and the market influencing it today.
“Apart from drugs, art is the biggest unregulated market in the world, with contemporary art sales estimated at around $18 billion a year. (….) Boosted by regiments of nouveau riche collectors, and serviced by a growing army of advisors, dealers and auctioneers. As Andy Warhol once observed, ‘Good business is the best art.’”-from The Mona Lisa Curse
I could almost hear the toast in Miami Beach, "To the death of Art."
SEA Change Banner Project for Copenhagen
Posted December 3, 2009 by roger_peet in Art & Politics
Here's a couple of photographs from an epic day of screen-printing, Roger of Justseeds and Heather of Flight 64 cranking out hundreds of individual letters for Katherine Ball's (of SEA Change gallery in Portland) banner project. 
Rad Teen Print of the Week 8: Let People Love
Posted December 1, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
This print is again from Schenley high School's Theory of Knowledge class in Spring 2009, for a special project taught by myself, Shaun Slifer, and Ashley Brickman, inspired by Signs of Change.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 7: Ineffectiveness = Chaos
Posted November 24, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
This week's print is from Schenley High School's Theory of Knowledge class that Shaun Slifer and I did a project with in conjunction with the Signs of Change show, curated by Josh MacPhee and Dara Greenwald. See teens printing their rad stuff HERE. This poster is proof of what a rad and effective technique tracing can be...
Rad Teen Print of the Week 6: Self Defense is Not a Crime
Posted November 17, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
Maddie Barnes, part of RUST 08, created this print for a project with FedUp. After a thoroughly engaging presentation from FedUp's Etta Cetera, students focused on an aspect of prison advocacy to create a brochure that folds out into a poster. You can learn more about FedUp HERE.
Drawing All the Time : Week 10
Posted November 11, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
Here is another image of a wall drawing from Edinburg, TX. It is of a sign I kept passing and grew fond of in Edinburg.
Drawing All the Time : Week 9
Posted November 4, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This image of a sinking oil rig was drawn on the wall of a gallery at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, TX. I had a blast there this February visiting friends and drawing.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 4: Queer Prison Rights
Posted November 3, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Inspirations
Sorry to have missed you last week, these posts will be more regular from here on out!
This one from RUST 2008, by Abby Gordon. This print, on the theme of queers in prison and the particular difficulties they face, is for FedUp, a grassroots organizing effort for human rights for prisoners, working with those inside the system and their loved ones and supporters outside. The flip side of this print is a phamplet, and you can download it all as a PDF on FedUp's website here.
In Rad Teen Print-Related news, I'm happy to report that I will be starting a new design & printing program in January with an emphasis on health & wellness with young ladies from the Young Men and Women's African Heritage Association (YMWAHA). We will have fresh prints then!
Urban Mushroom Find!
Posted November 2, 2009 by shaun in Inspirations
I don't live in an idyllic state park like fellow Justseeder Meredith, but I keep my eyes peeled all the same. Last night I discovered that a stump at the end of the alley behind my house in Pittsburgh had flushed an amazing amount of edible oyster mushrooms! This happened last year in the summer, a few months after the tree was cut down. I'd been watching ever since for more fungus, but nothing until now...
Drawing All the Time : Week 8
Posted October 28, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This image is called Still Shopping and Soldiering. It references the Death by Trampling of a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday. It is about 38" x 28"
Post Tent Sale: a recent mural
Posted October 27, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
Here are a few images of the mural I completed on the roof/deck of Heaven Gallery in Chicago this past Friday. This image was taken from Damen Blue Line Platform.
Supply & Demand: The Hollow Magic of Shepard Fairey
Posted October 27, 2009 by shaun in Art & Politics
[Full disclosure - the author of this article has been employed multiple times in the Education Department of the Andy Warhol Museum as recently as June 2009, teaching screen-printing to high school students.]
Last week, Shepard Fairey opened a massive retrospective exhibition at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum. "Supply and Demand" drew a sold-out opening night crowd that watched Fairey DJ alongside Z-Trip while sporting a swank three-piece suit. In the months prior, Fairey and his team toured around Pittsburgh wheat-pasting his familiar designs on building facades both permitted and not, and across from the museum he installed a temporary mural over top of a pre-existing mural by a younger local artist. The silent, creeping presence of Fairey's designs around the city felt eerily similar to the lead-up for the G20 summit this past September, in which faceless PR firms delivered meaningless graphics touting business and lifestyle opportunities to cover dozens of vacant storefronts in downtown in an attempt to scrub the visual landscape. All of this new wallpaper gave an impending and queasy feeling to anyone paying attention: Pittsburgh, once again and without consent, would play host as a playground for the powerful.
Print & Print Studio in Progress
Posted October 23, 2009 by mary_tremonte in Posters & Prints
washout area with papercuts by swoon, painted corner by josh tonies & leslie stem
I am working on a new print I'm really excited about in a space that I am really excited about---The Braddock Community Silkscreen Studio, a project of Transformazium at the Braddock Public Library. I am helping with setup and staffing, printing my own stuff to test-run the shop. It is a beautiful space on the 3rd floor of the library, next to the basketball court. (This library, the first of Carnegie's public libraries, could be a blog entry in and of itself! It was built explicitly for the workers at his steel plant, and featured in its heyday three floors of recreational and educational services, including a swimming pool - now empty - gorgeous theater, boxing ring, gym, showers and more...nowadays it has a kickin' ceramics studio with community access and now this silkscreen studio)
The print is inspired and in support of a Queers Bash Back chant, shared with me by my friend Etta: WE SHIT GLITTER. I have four colors done in the print, which will eventually have six colors, all shimmery.
Check out some more information about Transformazium, the silkscreen studio, and the Braddock Public Library.
If you live in the East End of Pittsburgh, and especially in Wilkinsburg or Braddock, this could be the silkscreen access for you!
Mural - in progress - Day 5
Posted October 21, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
Some more in progress shots of a mural on the roof of Heaven Gallery in Chicago. All of these were taken today, the morning of day 5, while Jacob Kart is helping to paint some stripes.
Rad Teen Print of the Week 3: Bike Power!
Posted October 20, 2009 by mary_tremonte
This week's rad teen print is another from the archives, by Hannah Thompson. Hannah created this two-color marmoleum-block print during RUST 2008, with the guidance of visiting Justseeds Artist Pete Yahnke. After hearing a presentation from Bike Pittsburgh about current bike advocacy issues, students created two-color block prints that were turned into vinyl stickers that can be stuck on bikes. This sticker in particular is the perfect size for a milk crate!
This is a timely sticker, as Bike Pittsburgh has recently been able to get an ordinance passed by the City Planning Commission to create more and safer bike parking in the City of Pittsburgh. They are now putting pressure on City Council to have it passed into law. You can check out their site to lend support.
In Progress
Posted October 20, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
Here are a few shots of a mural I am working on. It is on the roof of Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Last weekend there were quite a few rain delays, so I gotta hustle to finish it up by Friday.
Day 1
Automatic Insurrection
Posted October 19, 2009 by erik_ruin in Art & Politics
This just in from our friend John Duda in Baltimore, an automated insurrectionist rant generator! Guaranteed to provide hours of entertainment!
John explains:
"The purpose of this little program is to expose the seductions of rhetoric, not to criticize actions taken. Despite my admiration for many of the actions taken in the name of insurrection, I'm suspicious of how easy it is to substitute style for substance in the communiques describing these actions. And this is not to say that all "insurrectionist" texts are meaningless, despite its difficulty, I found the Coming Insurrection to be, with all its excesses, a serious (if contentious) contribution to revolutionary thought. And, to point out just one other exemplar, the recent "Communique from an Absent Future: The Terminus of Student Life" is by and large an excellent piece of analysis. This program is intended only to demonstrate the pitfalls of language which sounds too good to be meaningful."
Drawing: Week 6
Posted October 14, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This drawing "The Fall of Omega Burger" is of a closed burger place I walk by each day. It is drawn from memory.
Viva Mercedes Sosa
Posted October 4, 2009 by molly_fair in Inspirations
Legendary Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa of the Nueva Canción (new song) movement died today. Her poetic and political lyrics were a true inspiration to the social movements against the dictatorships and military regimes in Latin America. I was introduced to her music only a few years ago, and wish I had seen her play when she was in NYC. Here is one of my favorite songs Cuando Tenga la Tierra performed live in Managua in 1983:
Drawing: Week 4
Posted September 30, 2009 by colin_matthes in Inspirations
This one is ink on paper, about 10" x 14"
ZINE SOUP
Posted September 28, 2009 by colin_matthes in Books & Zines
A new book about zines has been released by the folks who run TTC / Telefon Til Chefen, an art space in Copenhagen.
This 200 pages book consists of material from over 80 zine artist from around the world. Through images and text we present a wide range of artistic and graphic zines and the people behind them.
INTERVIEW: Josh MacPhee from 2003
Posted September 28, 2009 by meredith_stern in Interviews
In 2003, I took to the road and drove around the Northeast and Midwest United States and interviewed about 2 dozen radical artists about their work. I posted an edited section of the interview with Nicolas Lampert (one of our Justseeds members) about a year ago. So, here is the second installment...an interview with Josh MacPhee. Keep in mind that this is six years old, and as such, is dated. I will be posting others over time, so keep your eye out!
These interviews became a rough draft/sketch for the chapter I edited ("Subversive Multiples") in Realizing the Impossible, edited by Josh MacPhee and Erik Ruin and published by AK Press in 2007.
Scientists, Activists Protest Corporate Control Over Climate Policy
Posted September 23, 2009 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
From the Mobilization for Climate Justice:
Bryant Park – Climate SOS, New York Climate Action Group, and members of Rising Tide North America protested what they called “a greenwashed U.S. climate agenda” at the opening of NYC Climate Week. Activists distributed their version of the ACESA (American Clean Energy and Security Act) bill to event attendees and media in the form of fake $2 trillion bills which subtly depict a collusion of prominent Green NGOs (NRDC, the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund among others) with corporate backers of the bill (BP, Shell, Dow, and others). Climate SOS organizers Dr. Rachel Smolker and Dr. Maggie Zhou engaged ceremony patrons with a pointed critique of the bill’s corporate-friendly implications.Citing the overwhelming embrace of business CEOs at the upcoming climate summit, largely closed to the public, Smolker states:
“At the national and international level, special interest corporate lobbyists have held a stranglehold on climate policymaking. “Solutions” being offered are those most profitable and convenient to corporate polluters and their acquiescent faux ‘Green’ NGO allies. The panoply of cap-and-trade, emissions offsets, genetically engineered organisms, and carbon capture and sequestration technology (CCS) form a pipe-dream constellation of false solutions. That these proposals are not met with the critique or rejection offered by scientists and grassroots movements illustrates the privileged access of corporations to the halls of the US Congress and the UN.”
Testure: Animal Torture, Skinny Puppy video edit
Posted June 20, 2009 by roger_peet in Environment
All the talk of waterboarding, stress positions, walling, psychological assault etcetera, has put me in the mood for a little perspective. Bush endorsed "enhanced" techniques, Obama hasn't put a stop to them, oh! The wringing of hands. Folks, torture is normal. Waterboarding is for the weak. Let's have a look at some REAL torture, of the sort that culture demands. This is some of the worst shit ever.
Click here to have an unpleasant experience.
The wheels of state justice move slowly
Posted June 5, 2009 by k_c_ in In the News
Ex-Pinochet army conscript charged with folk singer Victor Jara's murder
José Adolfo Paredes Márquez tracked down to Chilean capital almost 36 years later
It was the atrocity which symbolised Chile's descent into dictatorship: soldiers used rifle butts to smash the hands of Victor Jara, a political activist and folk singer, so he could not play guitar. Then they shot him 44 times.Yesterday, almost 36 years later, justice caught up with one of killers. José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a former conscript in Augusto Pinochet's army, was charged with murder.
From another article online at IPSnews.net
"It is not our aim to chase down conscripts, I want to make that very clear. The conscripts formed part of the larger scheme of things, but they were the weakest and most vulnerable link, and cannot be held responsible. I am interested in the chiefs that gave the orders to execute Víctor Jara," said Nelson Caucoto, the lawyer for the Jara family.
Because of Victor Jara's influence, as an artist, was considered dangerous enough by the military junta, to be tortured and killed in the first few days of the golpe.
There is an incredible account of the last day Joan Jara saw her husband, the day of the military junta, in Chile:The Other September 11th, published by Ocean Books.
We are 5,000 — here in this little part of the city We are 5,000 — how many more will there be? In the whole city, and in the country 10,000 hands Which could seed the fields, make run the factories.How much humanity — now with hunger, pain, panic and terror?
There are six of us — lost in space among the stars,
One dead, one beaten like I never believed a human could be so beaten.
The other four wanting to leave all the terror,
One leaping into space, other beating their heads against the wall
All with gazes fixed on death.What horror the face of fascism causes!
The military carry out their plans with precision;
Blood is medals for them, Slaughter is the badge of heroism.
Oh my God — is this the world you created?
Was it for this, the seven days, of amazement and toil?
The first few verses of Jara's last poem
written in the Estadio de Chile, Sept 1973.
Our Lenin: kid's book from the USA, 1934
Posted May 19, 2009 by icky in Books & Zines
I can't remember where I found this book, but this is a children's biography of Lenin published in 1934 by the CPUSA press. The writing is a basic heroic summary of his life, translated and adapted from a Russian book by Ruth Shaw and Alan Potamkim. The illustrations are by William Siegel, who I can find no reliable information about off a quick search. But I like his drawings, they're nicely done and simple, good for kids books. His composition is really good too.
This book is heavy on the propaganda (no surprise there) and there's something slightly creepy, comforting and hopeful in this art. The book itself is handsome: big bold red lines at the top and bottom of each page, the drawings fit in nicely with the text. Here's a selection of images:
Portraiture
Posted May 11, 2009 by icky in Justseeds & Member Projects
Everyone in Justseeds has been cranking out illustrations for a collaboration with Microcosm to do a series of books about influential radical people/groups in the Americas. I had to make an image of Yuri Kochiyama (long time ally of liberation struggles and political prisoners).
It's interesting to think about how to approach illustrations like this, you want it to represent the person, you want it to look like the person and maybe capture some of what you consider interesting or inspiring (their spirit). I didn't want it to look like the weird 'portraits in history' that were in the Sunday comics when I was a kid.
Power to the People
Posted April 23, 2009 by nicolas_lampert in Inspirations
Brandon Bauer - a great Milwaukee based artist and longtime friend to Justseeds sent in this photo of his baby girl. He wrote, "Eden is already a budding radical, she sleeps with her fist in the air!"
Some Word Pictures
Posted January 18, 2009 by k_c_ in Events
Justseeds Pals Santiago Mostyn and Bill Daniels have an opening(at this moment) at Needles & Pens Gallery in San Francisco.
Expect photographic prints, writings, video, and ephemera of contemporary Americana - Early 90's SF street grafitti, river boats (MIss Rockaway), and imagery of wandering North America on freight trains.
Needles & Pens
3253 16th Street (btwn Guerrero & Dolores)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Santiago was just mentioned at this Woostercollective link.
They mention this collaboration and Santi's recent book All Most Heaven.
Im wicked proud of him and can't wait to see this piece when I'm out in California in the near future.
Modern Chinese Woodcuts
Posted December 29, 2008 by icky in Inspiration
Modern Chinese Woodcuts
A few years ago I picked up a book of Chinese woodcuts, written in the early 80s, put out by a state press and updated in the mid 90s. Most of the book covers the technically impressive (yet politically questionable) period around the Cultural Revolution. Lately there's been a few new books I've seen that broaden the scope a little, focussing on cosmopolitan and bohemian art movements centered around Shanghai in the 20s/30s/and 40s. I just want to do a brief survey of what I've gleaned.
Zeitgeist Gallery: Detroit loses a surreal treasure
Posted December 24, 2008 by bec_young in Inspirations
I'm sad to report that Zeitgeist Gallery in Detroit has shut it's doors for good.
For eleven years, the group that ran Zeitgeist provided a great venue for raw, uncensored art shows, poetry readings, music, and avant-garde theater in their building on Michigan Avenue. Before I moved to Detroit from Ann Arbor, Zeitgeist was one of the first places in Detroit I would frequent, for the shows of contemporary European surrealists organized by the legendary Jacques Karamanoukian. As the website promised, Zeitgeist always showed work which was "intuitive, dark, juicy, pure, untainted, and imaginative to the highest quality," and freely experimental.
In their usual extreme fashion, they pretty much only showed work by either local Detroit artists or by European artists. Because of this, they nurtured the work of incredible Detroit artists, such as Maurice Greenia Jr., aka. Maugre, who recently had a huge show of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. For twenty years, Maugre has been the weekly creator of "the Poetry Express," in which he fills a page with his surrealistic poetry and drawings, and he recently started a new blog. Other Detroit artists that were associated with Zeitgeist include James Puntigam, aka. DMC, Diane Alva, Vito Valdez and Mary Herbeck. Karl Schneider, one of the first artists involved with the space, still operates Izzy's Raw Art Gallery. Izzy's is located directly across Michigan, a street that is now, with Zeitgeist's closing, considerably less colorful and creative.
Graffiti Wars: Government-Punks Without Sneakers
Posted December 2, 2008 by molly_fair in Inspirations
A passage from Return to the Same City by my favorite detective novelist and radical historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II:
"I'm involved in ideological warfare."
"Against whom?"
"Against a gang of juveniles. A bunch of guys from my neighborhood who spraypaint."
"What do they paint?"
"Bullshit," Carlos said, lighting a new cigarette. "Sex Punks, Wild Border-" meaningless phrases like that, numbers, incomprehensible clues to mark their territory. It's like dog piss. Wherever I piss is my space and nobody can come in."
"And what do you do?"
"I paint on top of their paintings. I go out at night with my spray can and paint over theirs. It's a war."
"But what do you paint?"
"Punks are Strawberries, Long Live Enver Hoxha, or Che Guevara Lives, He's a Living Ghost, Be Careful Assholes, He Lives in the Neighborhood, or Sex Punks Were Born With a Silver Spoon in Their Mouths, or If a Dog Falls in the Water, Kick Him Until He Dies. Some come out too long, they're not effective, but I hadn't painted in a long time; my da Vinci profusion is in arrears. I've got them screwed. It's not just ideological warfare; it's generational warfare, too. Obviously it's a professional war and, in that, my painting technique dominates. Those sucklings are going to teach me how to paint walls...? My most successful one was Government-Punks Without Sneakers, and the second most successful, celebrated to the hilt by the dry cleaner guy downstairs, had to do with a discount chain of stores. It was: Paint Me a Blue Egg and Woolworth Will Buy It, but the Woolworth logo didn't come out that well."
Héctor raised an eyebrow.
"Don't worry, it's not insanity, it's just to keep me in shape until I find a new little place in the class war. Besides, sometimes I agree with the punks and we restore universal harmony. The other day I was painting one that said If the PRI wants to govern, why don't they start by winning the elections, and the gang came along and instead of destroying it, they wrote Yes, that's true below it, six feet tall."
"And where is that painting?"
"Two blocks away. Want to go look at it?"
Héctor agreed. The morning was improving.
The Biggest Middle Finger
Posted December 1, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Here's some photos of a poster a friend made about the CUNY budget cuts.
"There's only one thing left to do...STOP THE BUDGET CUTS!"
From what I hear
...the big things that are pissing people
off... the tuition increase and the rise in pay for the Chancellor,
the fact that the budget gets cut the same amount as prison budgets go
up...
There is a bunch of information at the Building the 21st Century CUNY site.
Tom Gabel's song in Support of Eric Mcdavid
Posted November 26, 2008 by k_c_ in Art & Politics
There weren't many opportunities to be politicized, radically, growing up in a small town. I found most political ideas and became aware of activist "campaigns" through music. The Dead Kennedys, Conflict, Crass, and dozens of other bands exposed me to everything like Anarchism, animal rights, ecological destruction, pacifism, direct action, current events, and Political Prisoners.
Tom Gabel, frontman from Against Me!, has written a song about Eric Mcdavid, a political prisoner sentenced to over 19 years in prison. It's not anthemic, like many Against Me! songs, but its content has the ability to raise the consciousness of a handful his fans. Check out the video.
Anna Is A Stool Pigeon
Check out SupportEric for more info on his case.
Printmaking by Artemio Rodriguez
Posted November 25, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Here's a great video on printmaking, made by the folks at La Mano Press.
Street With a View
Posted November 24, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
If you hadn't seen this earlier on the Justseeds blog, you should check out theStreet with a View intervention of the Google maps-Street View shooting.
Streets with a View is a totally brilliant and "community"-orchestrated event that folks in Pittsburgh were able to pull off. I just decided to watch some of the videos, and felt really inspired by the imagination of these folks. Check it out.
And A short documentary by Laura Klein offering an inside look at "Street with a View."
Interview with John Fekner
Posted November 3, 2008 by molly_fair in Interviews
This is an interview Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee did with artist John Fekner:
Chris Stain: About a year ago I got lucky for a few months and had a studio separate from my house. it was in LIC. I had heard from my friend Josh Macphee that it was an old stomping ground of the legendary stencil artist John Fekner. so I decided to look him up. just a year before that Josh and I were showing in Brooklyn at Ad Hoc and John stopped in posing as a vandal squad detective. i had never met John before so I didn't know the difference. After he revealed his true identity we all had a good laugh. Until then i thought the shit was gonna hit the fan. Below are parts of the conversation that josh and i had with john. you will be able to read the whole sha-bang later when johns book drops from powerhouse. i’d like to personally thank Mr. Fekner for the interview and his continuing inspiration. His work is a prime example of how much difference one person can make.
Chris Stain: What originally inspired you to cut stencils, get out there in the street and put it up?
John Fekner: It goes back to when I was a teenager. I grew up in Queens and like most street kids spent a lot of time in parks, hangin’ out, doing a lot of different things…it was the 60s. That’s ten years before I started doing stencils at the age of 26. The first outdoors stencils began during the winter of 76-77. In 1968, for some bizarre reason, I came up with the idea of calling our park ‘Itchycoo Park’ referring to the title of the song by the Small Faces that was a hit in 67 about a park in England. My hang out park was Gorman Park at 85th St. and 30th Ave. in Jackson Heights referred to by the local kids as just ‘85th’.
I said to my friends, “Let’s paint the words Itchycoo Park on the front of the park house. So undercover of the night with white paint and a few brushes in very large crude letters we did just that. The phrase just stayed with the park and it became known as Itchycoo and the local football team was called the Itchycoo Chiefs. It was really a strange thing. Little did I realize that this was going to be my format for quite a few years.
If you find yourself in Centralia, part 1
Posted October 11, 2008 by pete in Inspirations
Traversing the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle I usually find reason to make a stop in the small town of Centralia. The first time I ever made the visit was to see the Mike Alewitz mural (more on this soon). This time going through I decided to stop by Richart's house and get a tour of his ongoing art project.
Richart, in his mid 70's now, has been working on building structures and sculptures covering the entire expanse of his yard for over 25 years now. On this occasion a visit to Richart's turned into a couple hour tour and discussion with him about his daily work and ideas for upcoming pieces. Covering topics from Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, to his visions of Maasai warriors, and the rain's aesthetic effect on the styrofoam forms that are incorporated into much of his work I left enlightened and inspired.
Vanessa Renwick made a documentary on Richart a few years back that will give those of you unable to visit Centralia a great chance to see Richart's world.
here's some more pictures
Hardbred out of Pittsburgh
Posted September 8, 2008 by shaun in Inspirations
Pittsburgh-based artist Bill Yund has just launched an online collection of his drawings and stories about child labor, "Hardbred". I was first turned on to Bill's work through his full-page illustrations of regional Pennsylvania labor struggles like the Battle of Homestead (1892) and the little-known Allegheny Cotton Mill Strikes (1848). The "Kids@Work - then and now" series is based on actual accounts of young, exploited labor. Yund's illustrations are bold and poignant, and it's great to see them collected online. The website has PDF's available of the "Kids" series in a booklet form as a teaching aid, and powerpoint versions are available as well.
Today's Extinct Animal- The Lake Atitlan Grebe
Posted August 26, 2008 by roger_peet in Inspiration
I've decided that this blog thing might be useful for regular, depressing updates on the subject that I think about most, namely, extinction. To start off with, I think I'll try to post regular entries dealing with individual species that have gone extinct in quasi-recent times due, at least in part, to human activity. We'll start with the Lake Atitlan Grebe, also known as the Poc.
G.R.L artist and 5 American protesters arrested in China
Posted August 20, 2008 by molly_fair in In the News
Unless you've been living under a rock- you know about all the detentions, disappearances, and shootings of people in China who have been outspoken about the ongoing struggle for a free Tibet.
Needless to say, I was shocked to hear the news that a friend of ours from Brooklyn was just arrested with 4 others for holding up a banner near the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, on Aug. 19 around 11 p.m. spelling out the message Free Tibet in Chinese and English using blue L.E.D. lights. Fortunately this was followed by info that they are safely on their way home.
This banner was co-created with the help of Graffiti Research Lab member James Powderly who was also arrested and is currently being detained due to his plan to use his invention, "The Green Chinese Lantern,” a 400 milliwatt handheld green laser with micro-stencils to beam a Free Tibet message on a Beijing landmark, possibly Tiananmen Square.
Prior to this planned action, Powderly's invitation to participate in Synthetic Times, a new media art exhibition at Beijing’s National Media Art Museum of China, was revoked, after he expressed indignation that the work must be approved by the Chinese government.
According to G.R.L's press release:
James is proud to have been kicked out of the Synthetic Times new media art exhibition in Beijing because he wouldn’t censor his little art project. James wonders why organizations like the MoMA, Parsons, Eyebeam, Ars Electronica and many other arts and cultural institutions around the world who claim to support free speech and expression would participate in a show like this. But they did! It was after being kicked to the curb by the show’s curator that James connected with Students for a Free Tibet and decided he would go to China anyway and do what he though was right in support of Tibet, Taiwan, free speech and the people of China. James lives, if indeed he is alive, in the County of Kings, Brooklyn, and teaches at the Communication Design and Technology program at Parsons the New School for Design.
The NY Times reported that,
Two video bloggers, Brian Comley, 28, and Jeffrey Rae, 28, were with James when he was detained. On Tuesday night, he sent a text message to a friend saying he had been held since 3 a.m. on Monday. His current whereabouts are unknown.
I hope James is safe and released soon. I also hope that attention continues to be drawn to the violence and repression sanctioned by the Chinese government. The price of protest for Chinese citizens is atrocious. Most recently those who applied to the Chinese government's designated Olympic protest zones were rejected, disappeared and detained, and sentenced to "re-education through labor."
Just(planted)seeds-this season
Posted July 16, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds & Member Projects
To continue with our gardenblogging I figured I'd share too. I live on the third floor in an apartment building in Brooklyn with Josh, and this is the amount of garden we have up in here. And its not due to Macphee's green thumb.
It's ok tho, despite what many of you folks are thinking, about NYC, I also get to "garden"sit a decent size plot and a handful fruit trees just a few blocks away! mmm peaches.
For what the bounty of our fire escape lacks, I bring home plenty of "specialty" produce from my farmer Morse. Yeah I've got a farmer.
Get on the plane, get on the plane!
Posted June 23, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
As many folks probably already know George Carlin passed away this past weekend. I have always been a fan of him, even as he got even more bitter in his older age. Here's one of my favorite bits.
New Book: Diego Rivera: Great Illustrator
Posted June 18, 2008 by icky in Reviews
I was on tour in 2000, my band had played a sloppy show the night before and our host (Erik Ruin) took us to The Detroit Institute of Arts (Det. art museum) before we got back on the road. Just past the front desk you walk into a giant atrium filled with Diego Rivera's auto industry murals. I had poured over pictures of this mural numerous times, but it had not prepared me for the beauty and grandeur of seeing it in person. I don't know how big the room is, maybe three stories tall, the architecture done in the fake greek style that was the preferred choice for many public buildings (see washington dc or most state capitols). And the mural covered the whole thing... the giant walls, the nooks and crannies.... a giant factory scene in all it's terrible, awesome and fascinating complexity.... the workers in full communist-style action shots pulling levers and wrenches.... the gods of the earth elements up around the ceiling... little panels with industry scientists, women workers. Ore and metal itself. I just stood there and rotated in awe at this big powerful piece of art.
Towards Carfree Cities VIII
Posted June 11, 2008 by molly_fair in Events
June 16-20, 2008
Some of the amazing people involved in the NYC Street Memorials Project honoring pedestrians and cyclists, will be heading to Portland for the carfree conference to do a panel discussion-so check it out!
June 19, 2008 4-5:30 pm
Advocacy, Media, and Direct Action: Street Memorials and Successful Collaborative Strategies for Making Change on NYC Streets Moderator: Brooke DuBose, Planner, Fehr & Peers, San Francisco
* Nat Meysenburg, Web Coordinator & Volunteer, NYC Street Memorial Project
* Elizabeth Press, videographer, Streetfilms
* Caroline Samponaro, Bicycle Campaign Coordinator, Transportation Alternatives
* Leah Todd, Press Coordinator & Volunteer, NYC Street Memorial Project
* Peter Meitzler, transportation activist, New York
Graffiti Research Lab at BAM
Posted May 30, 2008 by molly_fair in Events
Saturday, May 31
9:30 pm L.A.S.E.R. TAG
midnight screening of GRL: The Complete 1st Season
BAM: Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Av., Brooklyn, NY
FREE!!!
If you love the mad geniuses of the Graffiti Research Lab, you don't want to miss this. L.A.S.E.R. TAG is a Weapon of Mass Defacement (WMD) that gives individuals the power to communicate their thoughts on buildings, using a 60-milliwatt laser and a big-ass projector. They will be using it to scribble on BAM's Peter Jay Sharp Building in Brooklyn.
Then stick around for a free midnight screening of GRL: The Complete 1st Season- the only movie to officially be put on the Dept. of Homeland Security no-fly-list.
From their origins in the trash room of a non-profit in Manhattan to their emergence as the instigators of an international art movement, Graffiti Research Lab: The Complete First Season documents the adventures of an architect and an engineer who quit their day jobs to develop high-tech tools for the art underground. The film follows the GRL and their network of graffiti artist collaborators (and commercial imitators) across four continents as they write on skyscrapers with lasers, mock advertisers with homemade tools, get in trouble with The Department of Homeland Security and make activism fun again. Primarily using video footage from point-and-shoot digital cameras (“The Pocket School”) and found-content on the web, the movie’s visual style draws as much from the art of the power point presentation and viral media as conventional documentary cinema. Narrated by GRL co-founders, Roth and Powderly, The Complete First Season makes a humorous and insightful argument for free speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit in graffiti and not asking for permission in general. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Available 24/7 on The Pirate Bay.
"Free" is Etymologically related to "Friend"
Posted May 15, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
I recently went to Southpaw in Brooklyn for an incredible Hip-Hop show. The line up was Sabreena da Witch, hip-hop artists and activists Rebel Diaz, and DAM. The venue was packed and totally enthused by the music and atmosphere. Each group was super charismatic and very dynamic, and all with a political conscious and common demand, the end of the Israeli Occupation.
DAM is:
"the first and leading Palestinian Hip-Hop group" whose music is " unique fusion of East & West, combining Arabic percussion rhythms Middle Eastern melodies and urban Hip-Hop." Their lyrics are influenced by "the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict...the struggle for Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality. They Also draw their influence from such controversial issues as terrorism, drugs, and women's rights"
This was, fortunately, my second time seeing them perform live. I am reminded of how much music creates community from both of the events. I once had a friend say something to the effect of "Think of the musical "scene" you're involved in", at the time I was very much a krusty-travel punk, "would you like that to be a reflection of the greater community/society that you hope to create?" I still consider myself a punk, and admit the shortcomings of that community, and have to say that the event at Southpaw is definately a reflection of community I hope to aspire to create. It brought together a number of old friends of mine that are some of the most motivated artists and activists I know, and we were congregating to celebrate independent & resistance culture, and to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. I left feeling really positive and motivated, despite needing to wake up at 6 am for work the next day!
photos by AnomalousIf you are in Toronto you have the opportunity of seeing them perform tonight
Hip Hop Against Apartheid: the Refugees will Return With INVINCIBLE
May 15
at El Mocambo
8pm
And if you're in NYC there will be a demo commemorating the Nakba
Friday, May 16, 1-4PM
Dag Hammarskj Plaza
47th St. btn 1st & 2nd Ave
To support DAM and get their music check out their "store"
I've also posted some DAM & Rebel Diaz videos below for those that are curious.
Thanks to everyone that attended the other night!
fierce pussy show at Printed Matter Inc.
Posted May 10, 2008 by molly_fair in Events
Printed Matter Inc.
195 Tenth Avenue, NYC
April 5–May 24, 2008
fierce pussy was a New York–based collective of queer women that emerged in 1991 from the ferment spawned by ACT UP. Promoting lesbian visibility and self-defined identity, fierce pussy helped politicize the urban landscape by wheat-pasting posters, distributing stickers and T-shirts, and "renaming" a number of New York streets after lesbian heroines.Their low-tech aesthetic is exemplified by photocopied posters, which have been reissued in a book published by Printed Matter and are exhibited there above vitrines of related ephemera. Members' childhood snapshots are emblazoned with words like MUFFDIVER and DYKE; the phrase LESBIAN CHIC MY ASS is illustrated with a bathroom-stall-worthy rendering of an ass followed by the words FUCK 15 MINUTES OF FAME. WE DEMAND OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. NOW. Contemporaneous groups such as Queer Nation, Dyke Action Machine, and the aforementioned ACT UP pioneered an activist appropriation of the slick language of advertising, taking a cue from Situationist détournement and the work of Barbara Kruger. fierce pussy's posters share aesthetic kinship with the more punkish 1979 publication Durhing Durhing by Joseph Wolman (founder, with Guy Debord, of the Letterist International), in which random faces are overprinted with Marxist-inflected words.
This kind of contextualization, however, distances the work from the queer bodies that made it, and queer bodies are still not visible enough. Riding that wave of lesbian chic, The L Word now epitomizes self-defined lesbian (with little mention of gender-queer or trans) identity. fierce pussy's book, the most vital part of the exhibition, opens with reprints of three nearly twenty-year-old posters comprising a more diverse spectrum of identities, among them dyke, butch, pervert, femme, feminist, and queer. The pages are detachable and reconfigurable. Just add wheat paste. —Amoreen Armetta
Some Thoughts on Election '08
Posted May 8, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Throw Seed Bombs!
Posted May 8, 2008 by molly_fair in Inspirations
The weather is feeling mighty nice these days, and it's the perfect time to start gardening if you haven't already. In honor of springtime, I want to share an abridged history of the seed bomb, or grenade, or ball- anyway it goes by many names and is basically a simple way of sowing indigenous plants by making small balls consisting of dried clay powder, compost, seeds, and water.
Many people credit the founders of the Green Guerrillas in NYC who threw seed bombs in vacant and abandoned lots in the 1970's. They additionally cleaned out the lots and started community gardens which inspired numerous guerrilla gardening projects today.
The origins of the seed bomb is actually an ancient technique in Japan called Tsuchi Dango translated as Earth Dumpling. Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese microbiologist and soil scientist specializing in agricultural science reintroduced the custom in 1938. He is a pioneer of sustainable agriculture and an advocate of biodiversity. He initiated the "natural farming" philosophy and "one straw revolution", a farming technique that does not require weeding, pesticide, fertilizer, or tilling- going beyond a scientific and organic approach.
There are many recipes out there, and here is one of them:
Combine 2 parts indigenous seeds with 3 parts compost.
Stir in 5 parts powdered red or brown clay.
Moisten with water until mixture is damp enough to mold into balls.
Pinch off a penny-sized piece of the clay mixture and roll it between the palms of your hands until it forms a tight ball (1 inch in diameter).
Set the balls on newspaper and allow to dry for 24 - 48 hours. Store in a cool, dry place until ready to sow.
and here is the original Green Guerrilla's recipe:
"If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork." - Masanobu Fukuoka
"Atenco Somos Todas" Action in Madrid
Posted May 4, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
A collective in Madrid, called Atenco Somos Todos, held an action in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reminding the Spanish government and the rest of the world of the police repression and torture that occurred 2 years ago today. Following is their communication:
Building something outta nuthin'
Posted April 28, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Like I said in the earlier post, we've been busy building over at Ad-Hoc Art the last few days. Things are coming together and all the scavenged materials are beginning to take form as structures as opposed to piles on the floor. I'm really excited with a bunch of the images taken so far, yet am only going to give you this taste for the next few hours while I whip up another batch. Check in a little later for more!
Photos taken by Kevin Caplicki
Collaboration at Mass MoCA
Posted April 27, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
I recently spent three weeks collaborating with 15 other people from the Miss Rockaway Armada on a "mezzanine" hallway at Mass MoCA. The project was really fun, and I'm proud of the product. The Armada was given a space that is used by student groups, visiting the museum, to eat meals. So instead of creating an installation that documented the journey down the Mississippi RIver, or designing a cafe,
On April 1, 2008 members of the Armada gathered in North Adams to build again for three weeks. The group worked together to sculpt this space, each member contributed individual projects to the overall design. It is a place where you, our visitors, can gather, play, eat, look, touch, and explore
Working with such a large group of people, formulating everything from the theme, to aesthetics, to functions, to well, everything, was, at times, a little bit frustrating. It was also the impossible ideas and dreaming that brought us in to the space to begin with. So the "off the top of the head" ideas were considered, and eventually incorporated into the installation, caves, tunnels, space ships... It was that kind of imagination with the skills of everyone involved that helped manifest our installation.
Walking thru the space you'll find two platforms that provide seating and eating space for around 25 people, our only "restrictions". We scrapped, scavenged and pilfered, 98% of the materials used for the installation from surrounding towns, yards, and MassMoCA's compound of buildings, where old installations are stored. Tables were made from Bavarian milled lumber floated over the Atlantic for other artists structures, and stools made from hacked up bike frames or desks. We were given such a small budget to work with and used our resourcefulness and heads to come up with something that we hope you get the opportunity to experience in real life. There are so many things to interact with, beyond brown bagging it, a marionette puppet, secret rooms, a "space ship" to listen to Rockaway Radio(clock radio's playing a radio stream transmitted in the space), a "story mill" to type out your wishes on an old Royal typewriter(strange thought, it will be the first time some children will see a typewriter), and walls full of "advent" calender-esque shrines, doors, windows, and diorama's to open, close, look thru, and be inspired by.
Following is a video walk-thru shot by SuckaPants Tod's camera and see the "thing" we made!
Photos taken by Tod Seelie Check out a whole Gallery of images of the installation at Everyday I Live
Check out-Antlered Girl or BlueCinema for more flicks
I was over at Flickr
Posted April 22, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
I was checking out our Flickr account today and decided to look at some of my favorite flog's. My pal Anomolous takes incredible portraits, and is a voracious critic of US foreign policy. While looking over his, I came across a thread he began with a photo of Obama, and a piece by Paul Street, written right after Obama's "Race" Speech in Philadelphia.
I hope it reminds people about what it takes to be a presidential nominee, and stimulates the critical faculties in that organ inside their head, so we can get back to discussing how "we" really change power and our relationship to it.
Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth)
Posted April 10, 2008 by k_c_ in Events
Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth)
Screening in Portland Oregon April 11th
7:00pm
at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd.
In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.
But it was the people's use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.
A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.
(link to a trailer for the film)
Points of Interest in Braddock, Pa
Posted April 3, 2008 by mary_tremonte in Events
Points of Interest is a public art project instigated by Just Seeds member Swoon & her cohorts in Braddock Active Arts in Braddock, Pa (a steel town just outside of Pittsburgh). Just Seeds artists Swoon & Mary Tremonte, as well as 10 others, are making site-specific out-stallations at sites selected by Braddock youth.
Public events over the next week include a Swoon lecture at Carnegie Mellon University and Shake Your Money Maker, an all-ages danceparty. Read on for event details.
Indykids
Posted April 3, 2008 by k_c_ in Events
Indykids is a project I got really excited about a few years ago, when I was teaching at an after-school program. It can be a really good tool to use in classrooms to discuss current events, general media literacy, and a platform for alternative media.
IndyKids is a free newspaper and teaching tool that aims to inform children on current news and world events from a progressive perspective and to inspire a passion for social justice and learning. It is geared toward kids in grades 4 to 8 and high school English Language Learners. IndyKids is produced five times during the school year.
All the issues are available for download and there are some upcoming events in NYC to note.
Saturday, April 5: Tabling at the “Creating Balance in an Unjust World” math conference in Brooklyn. We’ll talk with educators at the conference and hand out copies of IndyKids.
Monday, April 14: IndyKids brainstorming for the summer ’08 issue at the NYC Incymedia Office, 4 W 43rd St, rm 311
Wednesday, April 23: IndyKids editing meeting 7-9pm at the Indymedia office
Saturday, April 26: Tabling at the Brooklyn Peace Fair in downtown Brooklyn. We’ll talk with fair-goers and hand out copies of IndyKids.
If you're interested in getting involved with any of the above events write to indykids@indymedia.org
Zapatismo In NYC
Posted March 25, 2008 by k_c_ in Events
This week is full of events on Zapatismo.
The Forum on Urban Zapatismo where Movement for Justice in El Barrio will present the NYC film premiere of “NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification”
In October of 2007, people from 26 social justice groups from around the region gathered in the first-ever historic “NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification.” We invited groups from around the city who are fighting against gentrification from the ground up to come share who they are, what problems they face, who or what is their enemy and what are their dream. This film tells the story of what was said.
The event will be held
Wednesday, March 26th 7pm
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
And will also feature Gloria Muñoz Ramírez author of El Fuego y La Palabra, just recently published in English "The Fire and the Word". Gloria lived in Zapatista communities for 7 years, and will speak about the Zapatista resistance and history. Movement for Justice in El Barrio will share some of the ways in which they are inspired by this resistance and organize to achieve autonomy and self-determination by implementing urban Zapatismo here in NYC.
Free Tibet Demo in NYC & beyond
Posted March 24, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
There have been a lot of activity around the current events in Tibet. A lot of actions focusing on the Olympics in China. One I came across today on the BBC newswire is about the disruption of the lighting of the torch in Greece. 
Even a few months back at "Where Have You Been?"
one story focused on a trip and action at the base camp of Mt Everest.
Recently, in NYC, there were reports of some aggression outside of the Chinese Consulate on 42nd street, leaving injured people and broken glass. People are demanding a stop to the killing in Tibet and a boycott of the upcoming Olympics in China.
This past weekend in NYC, a march passed thru Union Square. Here's some flicks I was able to snatch of the posters and banners. The messaging was really clear in their images and chants, and was a very moving experience as the thousand or so demonstrators moved thru the Union Square Greenmarket.
Imminent Disaster in Potosi, Bolivia
Posted March 24, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Potosí´s story is tragic. That´s what it says in the guidebooks for Bolivia. Mostly, though, that assessment is correct. Potosí is located at the southern part of the Altiplano at about 15,000 ft above sea level, making it purportedly the highest city in the world. It´s frigidly cold at night, its steep hills knock the breath out of you as you walk up the streets, a layer of dust from car exhaust and dirt roads seems to seep into the cracks of everything turning the city a dry and hazy beige. Tucked deep into the Andes, peaks jut out of the landscape as if they had just broken out from the earth below, the largest of which stands stoic and broad-shouldered, casting its shadow over the houses of Potosí gently sloping upwards towards its base. Unlike other mountain towns, the center of Potosí is not the valley, but halfway up the slope to Cerro Rico, as if the mountain had a magnetic lure pulling its people up close enough to be within its reach.
Local legend believes that Potosí´s history began when an Inca named Diego Huallpa went searching for an escaped llama in the mountains and stopped to start a fire. It supposedly increased so much in heat that the earth beneath it began to melt and molten silver began to seep out of the ground. When the Spanish learned of the wealth potentially buried beneath the Cerro in the year 1545, they immediately took action by founding Potosí at its base and beginning the excavation of the mountain. Thus began the period of nearly 500 years of exploitation of the mountain and its surrounding populations. In 1572, the Ley de la Mita was established by the Spanish Viceroy to provide a steady stream of labor into the intense and dangerous working conditions of the mine. The law obliged all indigenous men over the age of 18 to spend several years as slaves to the silver production for the Spanish treasury. If they lived through their period of servitude, they could return to their village, but the intense physical labor and toxic working conditions--inhaling fine mineral dust, prolonged contact with mercury and other deadly chemicals, periodic tunnel cave-ins and carbon monoxide contamination made it more likely that the miteros would die in the mine before returning home.
Because of the decimation of local populations as a result of the mita, the Spanish still desperate to maintain their output of silver began to force African slaves into the mines. It´s estimated that over the course of 3 centuries, 8 million miteros were killed in the mines. By the early 19th century, the output of the mine began to significantly decline, and compiled with looting during the wars for independence, Potosí´s boom began its stark decline.
As the mines silver deposits depleted, other minerals such as tin, zinc, lead and cadmium became the main mineral output of the mine. In the 1930´s, in reaction to the few "tin barons" that maintained control of the mines and exploited the workers, a few cooperatives of workers fought for autonomy and formed their own cooperatives.
Today the mine is owned by COMIBOL, a nationalized mining company, working in partnership with Franklin Mining Inc. (a U.S. based company) with hopes of modernizing the technology used to extract minerals from inside the mine. Tunnels are rented to the cooperatives for a 6% piece of their total output.
As of today, however, the labor of the 30 cooperatives working the mines is still intensely manual and the miners are still using techniques that essentially haven't changed in the past 500 years. These techniques depend entirely on the use of special chiseling tools, dynamite, human-powered rail carts and pulley systems to get the raw material out of the mine.
Imminent Disaster on Mujeres Creando
Posted March 11, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Our friend Imminent Disaster is back with her second installment of her travels in South America. Thanks to her and continue to have great experiences.
Mujeres Creando is a feminist organization in La Paz, Bolivia. Unlike other social projects in Bolivia, it is not run by an NGO nor affiliated with a church. It's run by a core group of Bolivian women and set up to be autogestionable-- they have a free day-care that´s supported by a restaurant, Internet café and hostel. They run classes at night on a variety of subjects including women in society and feminist law. They run a radio station in La Paz (Deseo 103.3 FM). They have a legal consultation office for women who have experienced physical or sexual abuse. They have published a few books: one, called Ninguna mujer nace para puta (No woman is born to be a whore) is based on a conversation between an Argentinean prostitute and one of the members of the organization, and calls out for readers to question a society that subjects thousands of women to exploitation through prostitution, and what this kind of exploitation means for the treatment of all women within society. They have done a few exhibitions in Bolivia and Argentina displaying powerful photos of women killed by domestic violence and images of prostitutes from the turn of the century police register in La Paz (a time where every prostitute had to have their photo on file in the police station with a record of personal information, activity with clients and results of compulsory vaginal exams.) They have organized protests in Bolivia and Argentina and provided support to women who were imprisoned for over a year after a protest in Buenos Aires. And they take to the streets with their actions and their graffiti.
In Ninguna mujer nace para puta they explain their belief that the streets are the single most transformative political space because it is the only place where you can establish a relationship "flesh-to-flesh" with society. For women, who have historically only been given domestic and private spaces for their own, they believe that taking over the street is the ideal forum for women's acts of rebellion to be shown and seen. At the core, their key word is rebellion: to destroy the role of a woman as silent and dependent in a society deeply entrenched with machismo. And the women of Mujeres Creando are doing it with the gut-wrenching frankness that probably hasn't been seen in the United States since the 1970´s.
Below are a few shots of the Mujeres Creando graffiti in La Paz. Some have links to more information when they refer to specific political events or figures.
"if Evo had a uterus, abortion would be legalized and nationalized"
"I baptize my abortion as redemption, the nun" "We give birth, we decide"
"I´m not an originator, i am an original"
Blanca Liliana was sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a bar in La Paz while celebrating her birthday. Because it happened so suddenly, her friends almost didn't believe it happened and the bartender´s response was to tell the group to leave the bar. Blanca went to the police station to file a report, but it quickly became clear that because she had been drinking the courts would try to call the assault an act of consensual sex. After battling the Bolivian justice system for some time, Blanca finally had a "fair" trial, and the rapist was found and convicted.Full story in spanish
"Justice for Blanca, not for the rapist"
"i want to rebel" "i want to fall in love"
"i desire"
A few others that are worth reading:
"Un pene, cualquier pene, es siempre una miniatura."
A penis, any penis, is always a miniature.
"De Gennaro: Si la prostitucion es una trabajo, sindicalice tu pija y tu ano"
De Gennaro (founder of Central de Trabajadores Argentinos union in Buenos Aires): If prostitution was a job, I would have unionized your penis and your anus.
"Las putas aclaramos que ni Sanchez de Lozada, ni Sanchez Berzain, son hijos nuestros."
The whores (bitches) would like to clarify that neither Sanchez de Lozada (president of Bolivia ´93-´97 & ´02-´03, resigned, fled to U.S., wanted for genocide and other crimes) nor Sanchez Berzain (ex minister of government under Sanchez de Lozada), are sons of ours.
Imminent Disaster begins her journey in South America
Posted February 28, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
JSVR is happy to introduce to you a "guest" writer, Imminent Disaster. She is a NY-based artist traveling in South America and agreed that our blog would be a great place to write about her travels and projects throughout her trip abroad.
Imminent Disaster began her journey in February 2008, which will bring her through Bolivia, Peru and Chile, with the intention of using murals as means of dialogue for polemic issues affecting the cultures of these countries. Although the pieces themselves are one level of dialogue, the experiences leading up to them are perhaps even more revealing. This post documents a series of expereinces with poverty and violence in the Cusco area.
The following is an image of the first mural of her journey, the events leading up to it, and our first installment on Justseeds!
Where Have You Been?
Posted February 18, 2008 by k_c_ in Events
My favorite event in NYC is coming up this Wednesday!
Its not a art-theme party of ridiculous proportions, not a yearly shopping cart race, nor a dumpstered meal cooked by friendly folks and served for donations.
When I was a kid all I wanted to do was travel when I finished High School. I became very successful. I would circulate around the continent aevery few months in a seasonal cycle for years. Now even though I tell myself im settled, I've had 4 apartments in the first 2 years of living in Brooklyn. (I'm on number 5) I never found the best way to share my experiences with other people. No slick zine, slideshow, or lecture to share with my friends. Now there is Where Have you Been?
Where Have You Been is an event hosted by Jeff Stark, creator of the NonsenseNYC events list, he interviews three people about "travel, adventure, and activism in front of a curious audience." The travel stories have varied from freighthopping adventures across the USA to direct actions at the base camp of Mt Everest.
I started the show in 2006 because I wanted a place to share stories about what happens in the rest of the world. New York has a way of swallowing homecomings. We are a notoriously self-interested city; circle the globe and your friends just tell you what you missed. This show is a forum for intrepids to bring the world home and share it with the rest of us — travelers as well as those of us who don’t get out much.
Whenever I'm in town for this monthly event I'm always entertained. Most presentations are humorous and all that I've attended have exposed me to perspectives. How else am I going to know what the Hajj is like for a queer muslim from the States, or that there is a program in the UN to map natural disaster areas?
One of my favorites was learning about Ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between plants and people, from Nat Bletters. He recounted a trip to Peru where he researched local herbs and created an audio book to preserve the indigenous knowledge.
I have always found opportunities to engage more with the presenters in Q&A and potential future exchanges. Nat pointed me in the direction of some good books about the histories of vegetables, and Leonardo may post photographs of Venezuelan Murals here on the Justseeds blog!
The next Where Have You Been? is this Wednesday, February 20th 7-8:30pm
It will feature interviews with three intrepids: Jef Wolfy Scharf
investigates the toilets of Europe, Ida Benedetto and Tim Kantz team up with fair trade coffee farmers in Western Guatemala, and Anastasia Andino palled around Thailand with a monkey. Bonus: slides from a pauper’s cemetery in New Orleans.
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street, Manhattan
$5 sug donation
Some of the presentations have been audio-recorded, and available online. this is an aspect I wish would continue. I wish I could check out the ones I missed.
PICK UP THE MIC, BREAK DOWN THE WALLS!
Posted February 8, 2008 by k_c_ in Events
I'm full of events for y'all lately!
There is an incredible Hip-Hop show as the closing event for the Israeli Apartheid Week,
Sunday, February 10th
at Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St.
8:30 Poetry--Remi Kanazi, Climbing Poetree
9:30 Live Hip Hop-Sabreena Da Witch (Abeer),Invincible, Rebel Diaz
With DJ OJA spinning against apartheid all night!
Invincible is a really amazing artist/activist out of Detroit.
She is a politically conscious hip hop artist that organizes with Detroit Summer, doing youth organizing, and helps put together the Allied Media Conference. I was fortunate enough to see her perform at the 2007 AMC and encourage you to check her out, at the show or online.
The other folks I wanted to highlight are two people that I've wanted to write about for years. Alixa & Naima of Climbing Poetree have given some of the most intense performances and poetry I have experienced. They have made me cry and sent tingles down my spine with the words they use and the themes they write about. Their work ranges in topic from Neoliberal Policies to incarceration in the USA to love, all over an umbrella of struggle. These girls inspire me fully and I hope you too. They are embarking on a tour called Hurricane Season, that will kick off on the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, later this year. They are looking for help in organizing events and financial support. If you are interested and capable check out their website Climbing Poetree or watch their promo video to find out the details!
Friends at the Sundance Film Fest
Posted February 5, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
Just to point your attention to some friends that were at the recent Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary Slingshot Hip-Hop a film about Palestinian hip-hop, was screened to numerous sold-out crowds, according to our pal over at ZapaGringo
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The film has been in the works for years and those in the NYC area can support it by headin out to a fundraiser for the documentary on Friday, Feb 8th, at the Knitting Factory.
Also out in Utah, hangin out with the Slingshot Hip-Hop crew, was the Graffiti Research Lab.
Check out the piece they put together
G.R.L. Reporting Live From Sundance from fi5e on Vimeo.
Both projects illustrate how elements of hip-hop are still tactics in resistance movements, despite the music industries commodification of aspects of the culture.
Lowell Naeve's Phantasies of a Prisoner
Posted February 1, 2008 by molly_fair in Inspirations
A few years ago I found a copy of the book Phantasies of a Prisoner, by Lowell Naeve. I've had a hard time finding information on Naeve, but fortunately his autobiography, A Field of Stones exists as a testament to his personal politicization. Naeve was initially imprisoned for being a resister to the draft during World War II. His book is filled with original poetry and black pen dreamscape images of miniscule figures traveling through endless deserts, standing or falling off the edges of cliffs, and wandering trapped in prison mazes or being chased by officials riding on giant ostrich like creatures. This is his blunt statement about the monotony of serving time.
Fantasy is the only true escape, revealed through images of birds flying over gates and walls, prison cells are giant flowers with views to the outside, and ladders squeezing through windows to carry people to freedom. The drawings were later published in Phantasies of a Prisoner in 1958- 14 years after he was released.
Racoon Collective
Posted January 28, 2008 by meredith_stern in Inspirations
Hey folks! Check out this collective based out of the Northwest!
It's called the Racoon Collective!
http://www.raccooncollective.blogspot.com/
The Raccoon Collective thinks highly of doing the following things: * Uniting the ARTS across Olympia in order to secure artist resources. * Supporting the DIY arts and radical arts projects by fostering networking in North Cascadia (PDX,OLY,SEA). * Getting artist of all mediums together to meet one another, collaborate, and skill share. * Supporting groups that work on social or environmental justice. * Collaborating with other collectives around the country with similar values.
Remarking on the walls of Oaxaca City
Posted January 26, 2008 by k_c_ in In the News
Last week there was an encuentro in Oaxaca that was attended by many organizations of the APPO (Popular Assembly for the People of Oaxaca) and others struggling for justice in southern Mexico. What follows is a demonstration held, demanding justice for political prisoners, many of whom showed leadership during the social uprising in 2006.
In spanish here.
Many artists have been involved with the recent social movement in Oaxaca, creating posters, graphics, imagery, and as seen in the above video, painting messages in the streets during demonstrations. Their markings leave an ephemeral, yet longer lasting, memory of the demands made during the protests. The slogans and demands painted on the walls remind the tourist heavy city of Oaxaca about the injustice the population faces.
Not only are demands for the freedom of political prisoners David Venegas and Isabel Almarez expressed, rescinding the bus fare increase, the profit of banks and frivolous businesses, and labeling police as assassins were also painted on appropriate targets.
Nancy Davies explains on NarcoNews
The range of protests includes: removing price increases for basic foods such as tortillas, and for gasoline; freeing political prisoners; returning the disappeared alive; canceling changes to the national social security institute (the ISSSTE); protecting streets in the center of the city; rescinding the increase in bus fares; and handing the schools still held by the breakaway teachers union Section 59 (promoted by governor Ulises Ruiz, who the teachers and APPO tried to force out of office in their 2006 uprising) back to Section 22.
The causes of the discontent and poverty in Oaxaca remain and so tourists passing by can expect to be reminded despite the "cosmetic changes" tried in the past.
Folks I hope will rub off on me
Posted January 14, 2008 by k_c_ in Inspirations
I am blessed by a gigantic network of people that span the whole world, practically all continents included. There's even the Anti-Santa from Antarctica that once subletted my ro- (I dont live in a full room). Yet he totally trashed it left beer bottles under my bed, soiled my sheets, gave away all my records, never did the dishes, and moved onto the couch when I came back. Practically like most traveling oogles that end up crashing at your house. (I'm sorry to all whom I was that vagabond)
As for other folks I've been fortunate enough to meet, whose work I admire, have politics and compassion I have affinity for, there's Armsrock from Denmark,
and Basco in Santiago, Chile.
They are incredible people, both with their own perspectives on politics, and differing motivations for making street art. I only put them together in this post because of the impression they have made on me.
GIve em a look.
Photo taken by me, in Santiago, Chile
Alternatives to Spray Paint: Try Mud Stencils!
Posted December 29, 2007 by nicolas_lampert in Street Art & Graffiti
Milwaukee-based artist Jesse Graves created a number of mud stencils that he recently put up on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. Below is his “how-to-guide” and a link to his website with more images.
To avoid using toxic spray paint, I found a way to make mud stencils. Here is how you do it.
Materials: Mylar, X-Acto knife, tape, mud, sponge.
1. Design your stencil. Draw your stencil the size you want it, or design it on a computer and print it. Make sure you do not have islands (parts of an image that will fall out if you cut around them, like the middle of an O.) If you are using text, use a stencil font. If are using a computer print your design the size you want the stencil to be. If it is larger then 8X10 cut it apart in photo shop and print it in pieces, or enlarge it at a local copy store.
2. Cut it. Tape your design behind or in front of the transparent Mylar. Mylar is the same stuff used as transparencies for projectors, you can find a roll of it at art stores. Use the X-Acto knife to cut your deign out of the Mylar.
3. Get Mud. Find or make some mud. I mixed soil and water then beat it with a whisk. Make sure your mud is not watery. It should be about the same consistency as peanut butter.
4. Post it. Tape the stencil to whatever you want it on, it works on sidewalks or walls. If parts of the Mylar roll up put some tape under it. Then use the sponge to dab the mud on your stencil. Do not press too hard because if you squeeze muddy water out of the sponge it may sneak under the stencil.
5. Enjoy. Remove the tape on the outside of the stencil. Carefully remove the Mylar, and enjoy you non-toxic mud stencil.
This is still an experimental process. Post your comments, ideas, and pictures at http://mudstencils.wordpress.com/
People Cause Accidents
Posted May 29, 2007 by in Inspirations
About a week and a half ago I was sitting in my living room ogling over my bikes. I had just gotten home from my friend, Johnny's, house. He was generous enough to kick down some bike parts he had been collecting, and wasn't using. Sitting in front of an aluminum road frame I hope to build(if I ever make the time) I heard the screech of car tires.
There was a fwump! and a crash. I thought to myself "I hope that's just a car!" I ran to the window and leaned out over the fire escape to see a body laying in the street next to a BMX bike.
As many folks know, Visual Resistance started the NYC Ghost Bike project, so the first thing that flashed thru my head was, "holy shit, there's going to be a ghost bike in front of my house."
Impulsively I grabbed my camera, ran downstairs to document what happened. For me photographing an event like this comes from a sense that a "victim" may need visual documentation of injuries, location, license plates, police officer's identification, etc. It's less of the sick voyeur or objective documentor.
When I got outside there was already a crowd around the intersection and some people above the body on the ground. I still thought he was dead. Thankfully a bystander knew how to handle trauma situations and coordinated people until the ambulance came.
Coincidentally, waiting on the corner was a friend of the cyclist who had just been struck. The two were to meet up at this intersection and then go work on their bikes. Instead he took a car service to the emergency room where his friend, Shino, was treated for head injuries, broken bones, and gashes.
The driver, who thankfully stopped, was arrested for a suspended license. Its strange, for me, because I had empathy for him too. He was clearly remorsful and upset about what happened. When I was taking photographs, he was standing there too. He had seen the pool of blood below the cyclists head, the shoes that were ripped off his feet from impact, and the destroyed BMX bike. With all of my hatred and frustration with car culture, in this instance I couldn't blame this driver. I hold him accountable for being the cause of this accident. Although I wasn't as angry as I envision myself to react.
Drivers infuriate me. Cars parked in bike lanes, double parked on narrow streets, drivers distracted, talking on cellphones, aggressive maneuvers to go around other cars and cyclists, piss me off. Driving while intoxicated, and the deaths that have occured are unexcusable. What I'm conflicted with is how to hold people accountable. In accidents regarding bicyclists, the city government virtually ignores the rights of a cyclist. Rarely are motorists charged or convicted of wrongdoing. Sending people to jail, for accidents, doesn't appear to be a solution, to me, in most situtations. It may acknowledge the humanity of the particular cyclist, but not the greater attitude of motorists toward bikes.
One of the things I hope the Ghost Bike Project, with the memorial rides, is capable of doing, is create a greater consciousness of cyclists. Of the right to ride bikes on NYC streets, that they are entitled to space on the street. That motorists need to share that space, and the City needs to provide more infrastructure to ensure the safety of those that choose to ride a bicycle.
Off the soapbox now.
The day after getting out of the hospital, Shino called me. He heard that I had taken pictures and he'd like to get them. He wanted to write a story about the accident for his
Upon seeing him I couldn't help but think he was a ghost. His eye blood-red and a brace on his wrist. He was going for surgery the next day. I gave him the disc of fotos and told him I was grateful there was no need for a white bicycle at the intersection. He agreed.
You can check out his story "Life is Twisted" with the photos at Grindstate. The site layout may be a bit confusing for some, so fool around a bit. Its the first story up there.
Last, I want to ask everyone that drives a car, "look out for cyclists!"
Call for Art: Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio
Posted February 27, 2007 by in Art & Politics
This is an open call for artists to design logos for Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio, an immigrant-led social justice organization based in East Harlem. The group was founded in December of 2004 to organize resistance against the devastating effects of gentrification in their community. The immigrant base and leadership of their organization has led Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio to also address the pressing issue of immigrant rights. In 2005, their predominantly Mexican membership decided to become adherents to Zapatista’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and joined The Other Campaign, a national movement to change Mexico initiated by the Zapatistas. Since then, the group has facilitated a comprehensive Consulta Con El Barrio to invite popular community participation in developing strategy and focus for the struggle for community based justice.
Increasing attention and support from the public and the press has created a need for logos to represent their group. Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio is looking for two logos, one to represent the organizations local organizing efforts, including their fight against gentrification, and another to represent their transnational organizing as part of the Zapatista-initiated movement in Mexico, The Other Campaign.
If you are interested in making a submission for one or both of the logos, please email movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com or call (212) 561-0555 for a few simple guidelines.
Responding to limited responses to their call, Movimiento Por Justicia Del Barrio is EXTENDING THEIR DEADLINE FOR SUBMITIONS.
Here is a more detailed call written by members of Movimiento Por Justicia del Barrio.
Open call to artists for the creation of the logos for our immigrant-led social justice organization!!
“BEST POWER TO THE PEOPLE MOVEMENT IN NYC”-VILLAGE VOICE ‘06
“IT IS REAL GRASS-ROOTS DEMOCRACY, AND IT IS BEING PRACTICED BY THE IMMIGRANTS WHO LIVE IN EAST HARLEM”-DAILY NEWS ‘06
Who we are:
We are the color of the earth. We are women, men, youth and children of corn. We are immigrants. We have not lived in our home countries for a long time, but home is still the air we breathe, still the pulse of our heart, it is still the thought that fills our minds. We were born in our lands and our lands were born in us.
We are Movement for Justice in El Barrio, an organization of immigrants fighting for justice in East Harlem.
As immigrants, we were forced to leave our native countries because of a savage neoliberal economic system. Here in the U.S, we are affected by neoliberalism on a daily basis. Gentrification pushes us out of our homes in El Barrio. Exploitation at the workplace forces us to work twelve hours daily for poverty wages. Racist immigration policies attempt to criminalize and dehumanize us.
In New York, we fight against neoliberalism in all its forms. We fight against racism, xenophobia, sexism, classism, and homophobia.
We fight for humanity.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio is a rapidly expanding immigrant-led social justice organization led by immigrants in El Barrio (East Harlem, NYC). Founded in December 2004 to fight a voracious trend towards gentrification, Movement for Justice in El Barrio has received passionate support and attention from the public and the press and is in need of logos to represent the group!!!
As immigrants, our organizing is necessarily both local and transnational at the same time. In 2005, our predominantly Mexican membership made the decision to become adherents to Zapatista’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and joined The Other Campaign, a national movement to change Mexico initiated by the Zapatistas.
Therefore, we are looking for TWO LOGOS. One to represent our organizing around local issues here in El Barrio, including our fight against gentrification and greedy slumlords, and the city and financial institutions that facilitate the displacement of immigrant families from their homes and another to represent our transnational organizing as part of the Zapatista-initiated movement in Mexico, “The Other Campaign”.
If you are interested in making a submission for either one of the logos, or both, please email movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com or call (212) 561-0555 for a few simple guidelines.
Shadow Theater Tour- Going Nowhere
Posted January 6, 2007 by in Events
Radical Artists Eric Ruin and Morgan Andrews come to NYC to perform their latest shadow puppet creations on January 9th, at Bluestockings Bookstore 172 Allen St and 10th at ABC No Rio 156 Rivington St where they will perform with Alixa & Naima of Climbing Poetree and Beth Nixon of Ramshackle Enterprises.
GOING NOWHERE, the debut shadow puppet collaboration between Erik Ruin and Morgan F.P. Andrews, journeys through a dozen short scenes framed within a question: "If you had to give up all of your senses, except one, which would you keep?" Things are not as they seem to be, with dissolving architecture, elusive mushrooms and spray-paint landscapes that refuse to stay still. A song from Three Penny Opera and stories by John Cage offer glimpses at the lives of undercover pirates, daydreaming butterflies, flag-burning patriots, and the linguistically tortured wife of a former New England mayor. Lovely soundtrack by Minneapolis duo Dreamland Faces, plus live music by local improvisers.
Erik and Morgan have been politically and creatively active in the various communities they have lived in over the years. I met erik when I stayed at his house in New Orleans during Mardi Gras years ago. I was inspired by his work and was glad to submit my own stencils to his zine Trouble in Mind. He has been active in every city he has lived in, as a member of the TrumbellPlex in Detroit, an organizer and contributor to so many projects like the Street Art Workers (SAW) poster project, and the upcoming Prison Poster Project. He's been the director of shadow puppetry for Barebones Productions' annual Halloween Extravaganza in St. Paul for the past two years, and is infamous for his papercut projections in Liberty Cabbage Theater's “An Olive on the Seder Plate.” Erik has performed at the Puppetropolis, Black Sheep Puppet Festival, and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals, and last year he pulled his show “How Can You Own?” around Europe in a bicycle cart. He recently co-edited the forthcoming book Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority (AK Press, 2007).
Morgan F.P. Andrews is a Philadelphia-based, Massachusetts-raised printmaker, puppeteer and electronic folk musician. He recently collaborated on a shadow puppet project with world-class juggler Sara Felder, and has toured dozens of puppet shows around North America and Brazil with his own Shoddy Puppet Company. Morgan curates an ongoing series of events called “Puppet Uprisings” in Philadelphia, and in 2006 co-organized the RadiCakaLacky Puppetry Convergence in North Carolina, and the Black Sheep Puppet Festival in Pittsburgh. Much of Morgan’s current dream-like puppet work dissolves the boundaries between performer and spectator, and employs random elements in its execution. Every year he takes a few weeks off to work with the Bread & Puppet Theater.
If you aren't in NYC you can catch these two "travelling via chinatown bus & regional transit lines- to a city near you?"
JANUARY PUPPET TOUR DATES
6th & 7th- Philadelphia - Puppet Uprising with the Missoula Oblongata at the Rotunda,
4012 Walnut St. 8pm
11th- Troy, NY - Teddy Bear Picnic, 51 3rd St. 7pm
13th- Montpelier,VT - Langdon Street Café, 4 Langdon St. 7pm
14th- Amherst, MA - Food For Thought Books, 105 N. Pleasant St. 5pm
15th- Providence, RI - with B. Shur at Building 16, 39 Manton Ave, 8pm
18th- Boston, MA- Infrasound, 7 Sherman St. #2X (at Sullivan Sq.)
19th & 20th- Portland, ME- Casco Bay Cabaret at Space, 538 Congress St. 7:30pm on the
19th. 1pm-on the 20th
23- 28 BALTIMORE/DC/RICHMOND/CHAPEL HILL- T.B.A.
Street Signs and Solar Ovens
Posted December 3, 2006 by in Art & Politics
Street Signs and Solar Ovens: Socialcraft in Los Angeles at the Craft and Folk Art Museum
Curated by the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
October 22 - December 31, 2006
An inspiring exhibition featuring artwork created with social activism as its inspiration is currently on view at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibit explores inventive objects and strategies created by artists in response to the environmental, social, and political issues of our time. Featured works include protest art meant for public display as well as tools for socially conscious living.
Artists included in the exhibition:
Edith Abeyta, Steven Anderson, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Mike Blockstein, CARACEN, Chris Burnett, C.I.C.L.E., Code Pink, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Sandra de la Loza, Sam Durant, Eric Einem, Karl Erickson, Fallen Fruit, Finishing School, Gaian Mind, Fritz Haeg, Evan Holloway, L.A. Commons, Laura Howe, Karen Lofgren, Kelly Marie Martin, Matrushka, Jennifer Murphy, Nico of Teocintli, Christopher Nyerges, Path to Freedom, Sheila Pinkel, Oliver Ressler and David Thorne, Oscar Sanchez, The Arroyo Arts Collective, The Phantom Street Artist, The South Central Farm Support Committee, Christina Ulke, Votan, Allison Wiese.
The NAFTA Effect
Posted November 22, 2006 by in Inspirations
In October members of THINK AGAIN did some large-scale projections in Los Angeles for a project was called "The NAFTA Effect" organized by Outpost for Contemporary Art. THINK AGAIN's mobile projectors roamed the streets of Los Angeles after dark emblazoning giant projections on building facades. This project acknowledges the contribution and participation of immigrant laborers in the life of Los Angeles. On the level of policy, The NAFTA Effect highlights how international treaties like NAFTA, in concert with national anti-immigration efforts, reshape the ways that families live and work on both sides of the border as well as challenging the proposed 700-mile border fence, and the criminalization of undocumented workers.
To see a slide show, and for more information on the project visit: http://www.saltinthewound.org/
No Need For Sleep
Posted October 20, 2006 by in Art & Politics
No Need For Sleep is an exhibition of original art and zines by artists from around the country. This exhibition celebrates the artists, their independent productions, and the do-it-yourself culture of zine making. The exhibition will be up during the Madison Zine Fest in Madison, Wisconsin before moving on to Milwaukee in November. This exhibition is curated by Colin Matthes, for more information visit Ideas In Pictures.
The Exhibition includes work by:
Icky A.- Nosedive (Portland, OR)
Mike Ball- Clap Yr Hands (Philadelphia, PA)
Peter Burr- Bountiful Little Dudes, Hooliganship, Cartune Exprez (Portland, OR)
Mary Mack- The F-Word, Chick Pea, Not Quite Venice (Pittsburgh, PA)
Josh MacPhee- Stencil Pirates, Cut and Paint, Pound the Pavement (Troy, NY)
Polina Malikin- The Archaeology of the Recent Future Association (Milwaukee, WI)
Cristy C. Road- Indestructible (Brooklyn, NY)
Ally Reeves & Shaun Slifer- Ross Winn-Digging up a Tennessee Anarchist (Pittsburgh,PA)
Meredith Stern- Dragomen, Crude Noise, and Mine zines (Providence, RI)
Tea Krulos- Riverwurst Comics (Milwaukee, WI)
Other work will be included by:
Hot and Cold zine (Oakland, CA) & Street Art Workers.
Madison,WI Exhibit Information:
The 6th Floor Art Space is located at 455 Park St. in the Humanities Building of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The reception will run from 6-9pm the night of the Madison Zine Fest Saturday, October 21, 2006.
Milwauke, WI Exhibit Information:
Exhibition will be held at the Cream City Collectives Gallery located at the corner of Clarke and Fratney Sreet in Milwaukee 's Riverwest neighborhood. 732 E. Clarke St., Milwaukee, WI 53212
Opening reception: 6-11pm, Friday, November 17, 2006.
Gallery Hours are Mon-Sat 1 p.m. - 7 p.m. Sun 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
New York Banners Wave in Winds of Change, Demanding Justice for all Immigrants
Posted May 22, 2006 by in Calls for Art
New Yorkers throughout this City’s diverse communities this morning awoke to messages calling for justice and equality for immigrants throughout the United States.
The messages, including “No Deportations”, “Legalization for All Immigrants”, “Rights for All Workers” among others, were painted on banners unfurled over prominent public sites throughout four boroughs.
The banners – penned in languages from English, Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Chinese and others - were dropped throughout the city in the early morning hours. Manhattan locations include 155th & Riverside Drive, 120th Street & FDR Drive, and Chinatown. Queens locations include the Queensboro Bridge and Jackson Heights and Brooklyn locations include the Prospect Expressway and the BQE.
With Bush's national televised speech on immigration reform on Monday, this action is designed as the people’s response and follows recent national protests, including one in NYC on May 1 that drew out hundreds of thousands of people.
This also comes within New York City's “National Week of Action” called to coincide with the Senate resuming Immigration Debates the same day of Bush’s immigration speech. Here is the press release for the national day of action.
Immigrants Demand Real Legalization & Reject Inhumane CompromisesAs the Senate reconvenes on Monday, May 15th for the last stretch of its immigration reform debate, immigrants in New York City will join thousands across the country in a National Week of Actions from May 14- May 20 to say "No Deal!" to a three tier legalization bill, guest worker programs, increased enforcement, and border walls. Immigrants warn the Senate against compromising our futures with the bill on the table which has drawn mass opposition for its attempt to split up immigrant families and increase criminalization through expedited deportation and indefinite detention. Instead grassroots coalitions of diverse immigrant organizations stand firm in saying that immigrants deserve no less than:
(1) Legalization for all immigrants; No guest-worker programs of work & leave
(2) Improved and faster family reunification opportunities for all;
(3) Enforce the protection of human and civil rights by reducing detention & deportation, ending collaboration between the DHS and public agencies, and ending deaths & abuses of migrants at the borders;
(4) Non-compliance with the REAL ID Act and the guarantee of equal access to driver's licenses for immigrants;
(5) Equal protection of labor rights of undocumented workers.
Also, check out our small, but hopefully growing, archive of immigrant's rights artwork. All pieces are available for download and free dissemination.
Refuse and Resist!
Posted May 19, 2006 by in Art & Politics
I found this in my inbox from the Clamor blog recap under the heading "New Counter-Recruitment Tool Featuring The Coup" first posted on May 11th. There is a link to a website about an upcoming film titled "Sir No Sir" that should be of interest to anyone doing anti-war and counter recruitment work. On the website you can view the trailer for the film and also see the short piece "Punk Ass Crusade" by the Ruckus Society featuring The Coup. Check it out!
El Otro Lado: People of Color in the U.S, the Zapatista Movement and Collective Struggles
Posted April 13, 2006 by in Posters & Prints
In 1994, the dawn of the North American Free Trade Agreement, indigenous peasants in Chiapas, Mexico took the world by storm by rising up in revolution. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional) emerged from the mountains and jungles to say NO to corporate globalization, neo-liberal colonialism, and the exploitation of indigenous people, women, the poor, and the oppressed. In 12 years, the EZLN has become a major voice in the international struggle against capitalism and neo-liberalism, and an inspiration and hope to struggles throughout the world.
Estacion Libre, a US based collective of People of Color, has been building with the Zapatista movement for over eight years. Through delegations to Zapatista communities, and a continued presence of a peoples space in Chiapas, hundreds of U.S. based community activists andorganizers from communities of color have visited, shared with, and learned from the Zapatista movement. These lessons are brought home - back to community struggles against gentrification, police brutality, incarceration, racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic exploition. By sharing tactics and dialogues with the Zapatistas, we strive to create sustainability throughout communities of resistance here in the U.S., with hopes that we can defeat the monster of capitalism and corporate globalization here, in the brain of the beast.
General Program
- Discussion on the Liberation Struggles of People of Color and intersections with the Zapatista Movement (Ashanti Alston)
- Reflections on the Zapatista Movement, the Sixth Declaration, and What Solidarity Means for US Estacion Libre (Mixpe, Olmeca, etc.)
- Arts and Activism workshops (Spiritchild, Olmeca, Mixpe, etc.)
- Performance by Mental Notes and Olmeca
Tour Calendar
Tuesday, April 18th: Ashanti at Rethinking Solidarity, NYC, Brecht Forum, 7:30pm.
Thursday, April 20th: UMASS, Amherst.
Saturday, April 22nd: Philadelphia, LAVA (4134 Lancaster Ave.), 12 noon.
Saturday, April 22nd: Estacion Libre fundraiser in East Harlem, 9:30 pm.
Monday, April 24th: Smith College. Workshops at noon and 4pm. Performance at night.
Wednesday, April 26th: Rethinking Solidarity, NYC, Blue Stockings Bookstore, 7pm.
Thursday, April 27th: Brown University, Third World Center, Informal Lounge (68 Brown St.), 9pm -12am.
The first image above was created by Gina Szeto. The second image was created by Canek Pena-Vargas. Both are available to download and edit as needed to promote the tour.
Bios for Event Participants:
Ashanti
Ashanti Alston has devoted his life to struggling against racism and
oppression, and to building and participating in multigenerational,
multiracial, grassroots movements of resistance. Born in Plainfield, NJ in
1954, Ashanti saw and experienced what most black youth did then and still
see today: poor-quality housing, unemployment and lack of job
opportunities, and schools that squelched students desire to learn. He
became politicized at an early age and was one of the founding members of
the Plainfield, NJ chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was also a
member of the Black Liberation Army.
Through intensive studying with the Panthers, Ashanti began a career in
self-teaching, popular education, and grassroots organizing through direct
engagement with people about their experiences. He has continued this work
during the 12 years he spent as a political prisoner, and living in
Brooklyn in the years since his release. Through published writing, formal
teaching jobs, participation in conferences and lectures, and membership
in grassroots organizations, Ashanti has developed his scholarship and
shared his critical analysis with young and old organizers, activists, and
students around the country. He has spoken throughout North America on the
past, present, and future of liberation struggles and the role of
community.
Ashanti has served as the Northeast Regional Coordinator for Critical
Resistance, a national organization working for the abolition of the
prison-industrial complex. Currently, Ashanti is a member of Estacion
Libre, a National people of color collective inspired by and in dialogue
with the Zapatista movement of Chiapas Mexico. Ashanti is also a board
member for the Institute for Anarchist Studies. He authors the zine
Anarchist Panther.
Jo Anna Mixpe Ley
Poet, storyteller, popular educator, artist, dancer, spiritual advisor to
the stars, and revolutionary warrior Mixpe has been a lecturer in
Chican@ Studies at UCLA, and a teacher of culturally empowering,
politically inspiring words and movements to young people throughout Los
Angeles and the Western Hemisphere. She is currently one of the
co-coordinators for Estacion Libre in Chiapas Mexico - whose objective is
to open a space of dialogue between people of color struggles in the U.S.
and the Zapatista communities.
In her time in Chiapas, Mixpe has covered the political situation through
written and radio commentary, documenting activities of the military and
policing during the Red Alert. She has built relationships with the
autonomous Zapatista communities and shared art, music, movement, and
struggles. Recently, Mixpe has served as a support for the Otra Campana of
the Zapatista movement, and has coordinated the first delegation between
U.S. based Women of Color activists and the revolutionary women of the
Zapatista movement.
Through her work, she struggles for continued solidarity with autonomous
communities, collectives, and minds. Her poetry and prose engages
narratives and oral histories of borders, the colonization and liberation
of bodies, always connected to the experiences of her communities and her
families. She can breakdown the intersection of racism, classism, sexism
and homophobia inside and outside of movements, without breaking you in
the process.
Olmeca
Artist, teacher, organizer, vagabond, traveler, and revolutionary - Olmeca
has been the co-coordinator of Estacion Libre in Chiapas, Mexico since May
2005. During his time in Chiapas, Olmeca worked with Zapatista communities
reporting on military and police incursions during the summer 2005 Red
Alert, teaching arts and skill sharing workshops, sharing the struggles
of People of Color in the US with Zapatista communities, and supporting
and observing the discussions around the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon
Jungle and the Otra Campana of the EZLN.
In the occupied territory of the United States, Olmeca is a driving force
in the fusion of music and community organizing. He worked to establish
APC the Autonomous Peoples Collective a collective of community
organizers. Artists, and musicians in East LA, and has engaged with
countless grassroots struggles for community liberation through his voice
and his music, including the Coalition of Imokalee Workers.
Olmeca is a 7-year veteran in the Los Angeles music scene. Olmeca's unique
lyrical style, bilingual rapping skills and unique song writing, has
gained the respect of his peers. He has rocked the mic with the legends of
the LA underground Hip-Hop scene (Freestyle Fellowship, Abstract Rude and
Living Legends) as well as the greats from the Latin Alternative scene,
(Roco from Maldita Vecindad, Fidel Nadal and others).
His redefining and all encompassing song writing skills contain a focused
and undaunted political and cultural message. This calls for the decoding
of genres in music and, with that, the media and the system all together.
Unwilling to separate art with politics, Olmeca has contributed to many
grassroots movements as a participant, organizer and artist. Because of
this, his music has come to be known as, musica de los pobres or peoples
music. Olmeca calls for the niñ@s de la tierra to not only become
critical of
the system, but also to begin the process of deconstruction through
reflection and action.
His album, Semillas Rebeldes will be released in March 2006 by Nomadic
Sound System.
Spiritchild
Spiritchild, a member of Escation Libre and the Movement in Motion Artists
and Activists Collective was born in Harlem and raised in The Bronx. He is
a founder of Mental Notes - a Hip-Hop Jam Band. Mental Notes has gained a
reputation as a new innovative sound throughout the New York City Night
Club Scene and has performed at such legendary venues as CBGBs, Knitting
Factory and Nuyorican Poets Café. For Spiritchild, Mental Notes is not
just a Hip-Hop Jam band that creates music, it is an outlet for political
expression.
During the Anti-War Movement that was re-ignited after September 11, 2001,
Spiritchild collaborated with artists, activists, and students to
establish Movement In Motion Arts Collective - a creative drive in the
struggle for peace, justice and social awareness. In the name of
information, Movement in Motion offers energy and rhythm to the global
peace movement. Prompted by the present threat to civil liberties, they
formulate creative spaces in NYC to share alternative news and information
and by supporting other networks of informed activists. They fight for our
constitutional right to rally and protest. Most importantly, they come out
to help like-minded people dance. Members of Movement in Motion have
traveled to Venezuela, India, Palestine, Mexico, and South Africa to build
music and movement with struggles around the globe.
Spiritchild has also been active in exposing and educating the youth
through Hip-Hop. As a youth educator, Spirichild has worked with kids
throughout New York, teaching them the fundamentals of music, writing and
how to Rap.
Ghost Cycles in Seattle
Posted September 8, 2005 by in Inspirations
Upon returning home to Seattle, our friend came across two ghost bicycles on her ride home from the airport. It turns out there is an amazing group called GhostCycle.org which has been collecting data on car-related bicycle accidents in Seattle since May 26, 2005. Cyclists all across Seattle submitted info on 103 incidents where a moving vehicle had struck them. On August 1, 2005 they installed 40 ghost cycles with plaques reading "CYCLIST STRUCK HERE" where the most numerous and most severe accidents have taken place.
The most powerful aspect of the project is the testimonials from cyclists who survived their accidents. Perhaps sharing the details of these experiences will help identify areas that need to be improved so that the roads will be safer for everyone.
A map on the site shows the locations of the 40 ghost cycles as well as photos of each installation. The site features statistics based on information sent to the site such as percentages of bikers who reported their accidents to the authorities, were obeying traffic laws at the time of the accident, were wearing helmets and using lights when they were struck, and accidents that were hit and runs. The links are also extensive and include bicycle advocacy groups, lawyers, clubs, and memorials to other fallen cyclists. This group is truly an inspiration.
Related: VR's own Ghost Bike Project.
Beehive Collective visits NYC
Posted May 17, 2005 by in Events
A few weeks ago the Beehive Collective visited NYC. They were invited to Washington Square Park during the May Day weekend when the New World in Our Hearts Conference was happening. The Beehive members gave a narrative explanation of their Plan Colombia poster, after unfurling it out on the bricks of the park, in front the large crowd that assembled.
The Beehive Collective is a group of artists that create graphic posters about the intense web of effects from corporate globalization, the resistance in culture and the impacts of deregulation. The "bees" also create elaborate stone mosaic murals, one being created for MOFGA, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, about agriculture and biodiversity.
The Beehive's Biodevastation poster was the first image of theirs I came across, in 2000. And ever since I have been amazed by their capability of representing the different aspects of globalization, in sort of a "food-web" poster mural, creating posters on the Free Trade Area of the Americas(F.T.A.A), the Latin American Solidarity Network, and currently the Plan Puebla Panama.They have traveled all over the Western hemisphere (North and South) gathering first-hand accounts from people most directly affected by these political and economic initiatives to place them in their imagery. And they do not forget to include the social movements and resistance amidst all of these overwhelming issues. Being sensitive to forms of cultural appropriation they are committed to using animal and insect metaphors to represent the struggles going on around the world. Which works out very well when they are doing "field research." I can remember a few different stories told to me by a "bee" about traveling in Colombia and Mexico, where indigenous communities would tell them about the different symbolic meanings that the regional creatures have for them. These aspects have been worked into the imagery and allow for the representation of ethnicity and culture without being "racial."
This is a super busy group of folks, and its necessary to note that they have distributed tens of thousands of posters and given hundreds of "narrative picture-lectures" thru grassroots and independant organizing! They are always looking for a hand in disseminating the fruits of their labor and for help with their various projects, so contact them through their website or email: pollinators(at)beehivecollective.org
If you happen to be in Maine in August visit the Collective's "beehive" for their ceremony celebrating the completion of renovations on their, soon-to-be, 100 year old Grange hall!
Wobblies!
Posted April 9, 2005 by in Inspirations
The long-awaited Wobblies! is finally here, and it's even better than I could have expected. It's easily the best recent book on the connection between art and radical politics, not only because of the history it explores, but also by the sheer force of its example.
Co-edited by Nicole Schulman, the book is a collection of comics and very short essays on the history and spirit of the Industrial Workers of the World. Featuring new work by Nicole, Peter Kuper, Josh MacPhee, Fly, Mac McGill, Ryan Inzana, Sabrina Jones, Sue Coe, Seth Tobocman, and many, many more, as well as Wobbly classics from Carlos Cortez, Ralph Chaplin, and Joe Hill, the book is a remarkable testament to the living spirit of the IWW and its remarkable influence. From the introduction:
[Their] way of looking at freedom makes the IWW seem like a lot more than a labor organization, or bigger than all the other labor organizations combined. It looks, for instance, like the grassroots of the ecological/environmental movement. It looks like the Mexicans and Americans who welcomed the Zapatistas taking back the land that had been stolen from their people. It looks like every antiwar movement. It even looks a little like the world John Lennon summed up in the song "Imagine": no distant god, no country, just us humans, all of us, and our world.
Unlike most books on the subject, Wobblies! doesn't end on a tragic note --- on the contrary, it makes a uniquely convincing case that the IWW lives on, not as some shadow of past greatness, but as a subterranean source of inspiration, a model of joyous, liberatory radicalism. The pieces on 60s comix, surrealism, and Judi Bari, weave threads between seemingly disconnected miracles of history.
The highlight for me is the final essay, The Art and Music of the IWW:
The IWW... was no organization of trained artists.... Yet it inspired dozens of talented artists, before 1920 some of the nation's most experimental and talented, and the IWW generated its own fabulous "school" of cartoonists. Next to songs, cartoons probably brought more workers around that any other expression of Wob creativity.... These rank-and-file artists appear to have received little or no pay for their work, choosing to go "on the bum" with their fellow Wobs, organize where possible, and take odd jobs to stay alive. Some of them signed their art only with the "red card number" on their Wobbly ID, or didn't sign cartoons at all....We look back upon the Wobbly cartoonists, then, as we do upon the Ash Can art of the Masses magazine: a century ahead of their time in their discoveries, but just ripe for our time --- not to copy but to learn and grow from, amid the tasks of art and revolution ahead.
I'm posting this in the category "Inspirations," because it is. For bringing together some of my favorite artists to do unique and necessary work, and for bringing a new focus to the legacy of the IWW itself, I can't recommend this book highly enough. I would like to feature further looks at the book in the next few weeks. In the meantime, support the artists who made it happen, and do yourself a favor: get it.
Carlos Cortez Presente!
Posted February 25, 2005 by in Inspirations
Carlos Cortez --- artist, printmaker, poet, Wobbly --- passed away last month in Chicago at the age of 81. From the Center for the Study of Political Graphics:
Carlos Cortez was an extraordinary artist, poet, printmaker, photographer, songwriter and lifelong political activist. His mother was a German socialist pacifist, and his father was a Mexican Indian organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. Carlos was a Wobblie until he died. He spent two years in prison for refusing to “shoot at fellow draftees” during World War II.After his release, Carlos took a series of jobs: in construction, in a small imported foods shop, in a chemical factory. He also started drawing cartoons in 1948 for the Industrial Worker, the IWW newspaper, but soon learned to do linoleum block prints. “Many radical papers --- not having advertising, grants or angels who are rich radicals --- operate on the brink of bankruptcy. So Industrial Worker couldn’t afford to make electric plates out of line drawings. I saw that one of the old-timers was doing linoleum blocks and sending them in because the paper was being printed on a flatbed press. I started doing the same thing, and each issue would have one of my linocuts.”
When the price of linoleum became too steep, Carlos started using wood. Used furniture was easy enough to find in any alley. “There’s a work of art waiting to be liberated inside every chunk of wood. I’m paying homage to the tree that was chopped down by making this piece of wood communicate something.”
In my mind, Cortez is a legend, and it saddens me that I only learned of his death today, after John Emerson posted a tribute at Social Design Notes. Carlos Cortez should be a household name in the political art world --- while never "famous," his influence is certainly widespread. Of course, he never sought fame,
“When you do a painting that’s it, it’s one of a kind. But when you do a graphic the amount of prints you can make from it is infinite. I made a provision in my estate, for whoever will take care of my blocks, that if any of my graphic works are selling for high prices immediate copies should be made to keep the price down.”
Compare his celebrations to Ricardo Flores Magon and Joe Hill, pictured above, and Lucy Parsons (below) to some of the work in the Celebrate People's History posters, for just one example. Cortez's influence will most likely also be apparent in the forthcoming graphic history of the IWW co-edited by Nicole Schulman which will feature a whole slew of World War 3 Illustrated artists.
For more on Carlos Cortez, check out:
--- Center for the Study of Political Graphics;
--- Rebel Graphics;
--- Drawing Resistance; and, especially:
--- Favianna Rodriguez's remembrance.
White Collar: early radical graphic novel now available online
Posted February 22, 2005 by in Inspirations
Milwaukee artist Brandon Bauer sends in an email: I just wanted to pass on this piece of radical political art history --- it's a book by the artist Giacomo Patri done in the 1930's called "White Collar". I have been searching for a copy of it for a long time and had only seen excerpts from it until recently. I think the last full published edition of the book was done in the mid-70's.... Check it out! ---Brandon
The whole book has been put online by San Francisco State University library to accompany the book The Art of California Labor. From their description of White Collar:
White Collar is a novel in linocuts by Giacomo Patri portraying the injustices of workers during the Depression. There are 128 prints in this unique visualization of the daily life hardships of a middle class family through the 1930s.Unfolding in stark, monochromatic pictures with no text, his novel recounts the experiences of an artist in the years after the 1929 stock market crash.
Unable to find work with advertising agencies, the novel's protagonist loses his house just as his wife informs him that she is pregnant. He soon learns that he shares much with blue collar workers and, like them, can benefit from union organizing.
Largely undiscovered, because the images of class struggle, unionization, and abortion were controversial for their time; Patri was forced to print and publish White Collar privately in limited numbers. Even now, the copies that survive are few and far between.
The book in it's entirety can be viewed online here.
Mujeres Creando New Website
Posted February 17, 2005 by in Inspirations
A while back we posted some information about Mujeres Creando, an anarcha-feminist artists and activists collective based in La Paz, Bolivia. We mentioned how they had just come out with a new book, Mujeres Grafiteando. But, we didn't know how to get a copy. Well, I just got word that their book is available for purchase on their new website, www.mujerescreando.com
The new website features:
- a mission statement
- articles written about the group
- essays and manifestos
- an online magazine called Mama No Me lo dijo (Mother didn't tell me)
- an online store where you can order books and movies
- an open forum for dialgue
- an archive of their projects and actions
click here to check out our previous post on Mujeres Creando.
Mujeres Creando
Posted February 5, 2005 by in Inspirations
Mujeres Creando (Women Creating) is an Anarcha-Feminist Group based in La Paz, Bolivia. They are graffiti writers, film makers, radical activists and much much more.
Mujeres Creando just came out with a new book called Mujeres Grafiteando. I haven't been able to find this book any where. So, if anyone knows how to get ahold of a copy, let us know.
More pictures and a statement by one of the members of Mujeres Creando are featured on Indy Media Ecuador.
Bellow is an article about them that was featured in Quiet Rummors, An Anarcha-Feminist Reader.
Making Waves
Mujeres Creando interviewed by Katherine Ainger
OVERNIGHT, in beautiful handwriting, words appear on the walls of La Paz, the high-altitude capital of Bolivia. They speak truths Bolivian women won't say out loud. Deconstructing machismo, anti-gay prejudice and neoliberalism, Bolivian anarchofeminist group Mujeres Creando takes art back to the streets. Theirs is a politics of creativity, of interventions in everyday life. Tired of the traditional Left where, they say, 'everything was organized from top down, the women only served the tea or their role was a purely sexual one, or they were nothing more than secretaries,' three friends - Maria Galindo, Julieta Paredes and Monica Mendoza --- started Mujeres Creando (Women Creating) in 1992. Two are the only openly lesbian activists in Bolivia. At the time, they explain, there was little talk of feminism - a militant, radical feminism, a feminism of the streets, of everyday life.
'We decided on autonomy from political parties, NGOs, the state, hegemonic groups who wish to represent us. We don't want bosses, figureheads or exalted leaders. Nobody represents anybody else --- each woman represents herself.'
'We believe that how we relate to people in the street is the most important thing. We have a newspaper which we edit and sell ourselves, and creative street actions. We paint graffiti - las pintadas - this is one of the communicative forms that really gets through to people. It began as a criticism of what the Left is --- and the Right. It was our response to their painting in the streets saying "vote for so-and-so". They were affirmative or negative phrases, "no to the vote", "yes to this", "no to that". What we do instead is we appeal to poetry and creativity, to suggest ideas which aren't just "yes" or "no", "Left" or "Right".'
They have targeted all kinds of oppression from a feminist perspective --- racism, the dictatorship and debt.
'Our aims aren't always centred on women's themes like abortion, reproductive rights, motherhood. The Government says: "you can dedicate yourselves to those issues, full stop." And we may say "no". Or we may say "yes, that interests us". We have positions on abortion, birth control, but don't categorize us! We are involved' in everything: we are part of society. And for this reason we paint graffiti about different things. There is graffiti which provokes men, graffiti provoking the Government, graffiti which is only directed at women, graffiti about the political situation.
'For us, the street is a space like a common patio, where we can all be, including children. In Europe, everything is controlled: whether or not you can march, whether or not you can protest, whether or not you can sell things. In Bolivia, the streets belong to the people: people doing things, people selling things --- the streets are ours.
'It is very important that what we do in the street interacts with people, talks to them so that they can see the graffiti, that it should provoke something in them, provoke laughter, provoke annoyance, provoke anger, provoke many things.
'People want to dispossess us of something that is ours. To turn creativity into something elitist. But creativity is human --- it belongs to all women and men. It is fundamental to everything we do, in the books we make, in the street actions, in the graffiti. There are people who say to us: "you're artists." But we are not artists, we are street activists.'
This year a group called Deudora ('debtor'), made up largely of poor women from the barrios, came to La Paz to protest at the crippling rates of interest on their microcredit loans. 'We spoke to them about pacifism, we carried out some creative actions against interest, against the banks, against money... painting murals in the streets.' Mujeres Creando brought paint, and the Deudora group took off their shoes and dipped their feet into the pots, then lifted each other up to leave their footprints on the wall. This was a symbol of their long journey to the capital. On another street action the Mujeres threw themselves on the floor to shield the debtors' protest from attack by police.
'After three-and-a-half months, we managed to sit down with the large banking and financial associations and the Deudora group and achieved an agreement. Now people whose houses were being auctioned off have had their debts excused.
'Once an agreement was signed that benefited the debtors, we organized a kind of festival with flowers and bread. The children began to share out the bread with everyone, a symbol of the olla (collective cooking pot) of the poor- the poor who share what they have.'
Inspirations: Your House is Mine
Posted January 28, 2005 by in Inspirations
At the And So Forth conference last weekend, Molly talked a little bit about some of the past projects that have inspired us in our work on the No RNC Poster Project, and in our reincarnation as Visual Resistance. I'd like to expand on that discussion with some background information on some of the main projects that we take immediate inspiration from --- sort of our guiding lights.
First on the list has got to be Your House Is Mine. Put together in 1992 at Bullet Space, an anarchist squat in the Lower East Side, Your House is Mine had three components: a newsprint publication about housing rights and the squatters' movement, street posters, and a metal-bound book of writing and silkscreened posters by Eric Drooker, Anton Van Dalen, Andrew Castrucci, Stash Two, Sabrina Jones, Seth Tobocman, Lee Quinones, Lady Pink, David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger & Marguerite Van Cook, Missing Foundation and many, many more.
Through sheer luck, some of us got a chance to look at the book last spring, and as an artifact, it's a monster. It's 19 x 25 inches, with 40 screenprints on heavyweight paper, bound with lead, and weighs 16 pounds. But what was most exciting about seeing the book was imagining these same posters covering the walls of a neighborhood in struggle.
The collective production of the publication and posters, the direct connection of the artwork to a grassroots political movement, the audacity of the squatters (and the artists), and the diversity of techniques and forms used in a common project --- just about everything about Your House Is Mine amazed me.
There's much more I could say about this project, and I may add to this post in the coming weeks, but for now I don't want this post to get too long.
I will try to post on other inspirational projects as well, and hopefully this series could become a somewhat regular feature on the site. I also created a new category (see the right sidebar) called "Inspirations" to which other collective members can add their own posts.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from folks who know about Bullet Space or the Your House Is Mine projects, or the squatters movement more generally..... Check out the links above, and let us know what you think --- about this, or about your own inspirations --- in the comments.
Pictures taken from BulletSpace.org and Brooklyn Artists Alliance.
