Justseeds/Member Projects

My Semi-Secret Sideline in Psychedelic Light Shows

Posted November 19, 2008 by erik_ruin in Justseeds/Member Projects

Over the past year, I've been sporadically doing projections for my friends in the Lesser Known Neutrinos, West Philly's premier psychedelic synth-punk band. I just recently chanced upon some nice photographs of one of our shows at the Rotunda in West Philly and thought I'd share them here. To do the projections, I usually use two overhead projectors and a variety of colored gels, found images on transparencies, old papercuts and assorted detritus from my printmaking and puppetry practices.
The Neutrinos are on a tour of Italy right now and have a new self-released LP out (which I printed the covers for). I highly recommend 'em.
Thanks to HannahLa (whoever you are) for the photos.

Paper Politics in Syracuse!

Posted November 19, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

The Paper Politics show is still tearing up upstate New York! It open at the Redhouse Gallery in Syracuse tomorrow night. If you're in the area, check it out! Almost 200 political prints from around the world, with work from all the Justseeds artists, as well as tons of other great printmakers like BSAS Stencil, Christopher Cardinale, Tom Civil, Sue Coe, Amos Kennedy Jr., Jesse Purcell, Favianna Rodriguez and Nicole Schulman.

Paper Politics
Redhouse Arts Center
November 20th, 2008
Opening Reception: November 20th 5-8pm

Redhouse
201 South West St.
Syracuse, NY 13202

Justseeds Tour West Coast Shows

Posted November 19, 2008 by kristine_virsis in Justseeds/Member Projects

The Justseeds/Gadabout/Halo Fauna tour has reached the west coast, and we are currently heading south in California. Come check us out if we're heading through your town!
19th - Berkelyy, CA - the Long Haul Infoshop
20th - Santa Cruz, CA - TBA
21st - Santa Barbara, CA - The Biko Garage
22nd - San Diego, CA - Cassandra's House, then a party
23rd - Phoenix, AZ - The Trunk Space
24th - Flagstaff, AZ - The Cottage
25th - Albuquerque, NM - Basement Films
26th - Norman, OK - Universe City
27th - Little Rock, AR - The Radradrad House
28th - Nashville, TN - Little Hamilton
29th - Bloomington, IN - The Cinemat
30th - Columbus, OH - Chop Chop
Dec.
1st - Pittsburgh, PA - ModernFormations
2nd - NYC - TBA

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Fire in the Hole

Posted November 18, 2008 by colin_matthes in Justseeds/Member Projects

Come one come all to a special game night from 6-8pm on Thursday, November 20th, 2008! The first fifty participants at War Fair will receive a free coupon to play the carnival game, Fire in the Hole. Try your luck and kill the insurgents.

Fire in the Hole is a part of Colin Matthes's installation War Fair: Occupation Games for Citizens and Non-Combatants. This project is influenced by personal reflections from working at a small town county fair and noticing the increasing military presence (recruitment) there.

This event is at Inova/Kenilworth, 2155 N Prospect Ave, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

Click for photos of the War Fair project installation

Ill and Ira Report Back

Posted November 18, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

Japanese comrades Ill Commonz and Kei will be giving a report back from their trip to NYC on November 23rd in Tokyo, and they'll be hanging a show of my silkscreen prints at the university they're speaking at. They sent me this great flyer for the event!

Justseeds Family Portrait

Posted November 13, 2008 by dylan_miner in Justseeds/Member Projects

Here is the recent Justseeds Family Portrait taken in Milwaukee, WI. A couple new and old folks were missing, though. I don't think it was shocking to see Red and Black so heavily represented!!

Justseeds Will Resume Blogging When We Return From Retreat

Posted November 9, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Josh & Roger enjoying Milwaukee's fine cuisine

Zine Yearbook #9

Posted November 5, 2008 by jmacphee in Books & Zines

Just got a package in the mail from Microcosm Publishing with a copy of the hot-off-press brand new Zine Yearbook 9. Over 100 excerpts from zines put out in the last couple years, it looks to have some great stuff in there, including zine world favorites like Doris, Peops, Ghost Pine, You, Duplex Planet, The Match, Kerbloom, Spread, and tons and tons more. It also includes some photos excerpted from my zine Pound the Pavement #10.

Tokyo Book Fair Report

Posted November 4, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

I just got an email from Kei (Irregular Rhythm Asylum) with some links to photos and video of the recent Tokyo Bookfair. Here is a cool video that shows the fair, including a bunch of our posters and even people silkscreening with Reproduce & Revolt images!

Sustainable Art Show Opens At AS220

Posted November 3, 2008 by meredith_stern in Justseeds/Member Projects

Hey folks!
If you are in the Providence Rhode Island area come check out the SUSTAINABLE art show! Over 30 artists; including 10 Just Seeds/Visual Resistance folks and over two dozen local Rhode Island artists! Prices range from $2- $300. AS220 is a non profit community arts space and performance space (it's where I book shows! full time!) and is at 115 Empire Street. (http://www.as220.org)

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Alien Boy Zine

Posted November 2, 2008 by icky in Justseeds/Member Projects

My friend Erin Yanke (Life During Wartime/Circle A Radio) and I just finished a zine about the life of James Chasse Jr. Chasse was a schizophrenic man living in downtown Portland. He was killed by the cops while taking a walk in the heavily gentrified Pearl District for looking homeless, acting unusual and running from the cops.Chasse had been a participant in Portland's first wave punk scene, making a zine called the Oregon Organizm and singing in bands. He was the inspiration behind the Wipers song Alien Boy.

The zine is a benefit for a film being made about his life and death, and it includes information about his murder, excerpts from his zine, his artwork, and friends' remembrances of him and the early Portland punk scene. Chasse's case has been kept in the spotlight mostly because of the hard work of the Mental Health Association of Portland, an advocacy group.

The zine is available from Reading Frenzy. The zine includes an audio cd/radio show about Chasse made by Erin. Erin did most of the content and I did most of lay-out.
For more information about the film Alien Boy click here.

Let Freedom Ring

Posted November 2, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

Just a quick post to share a recent project. My friend Matt Meyer has compiled a giant collection of writings about the struggle to free political prisoners in the US, co-published by PM Press and Kersplebedeb. He asked me to design the cover of Let Freedom Ring, so I took a graphic from an old 80's political prisoner support flyer, tweaked it a bunch, added color, and the cover was born. One of the most excited parts about this project was working on the spine, because unlike most books I've designed, this one is thick, a good inch and half wide spine, so I was able to make it nice and bold.

Festival of the New Winds pt. 6

Posted November 1, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

The next day we took off to Bugambilias, a housing project on the south side of Ecatepec. This was the spot closest to Mexico City, and the one that in many ways seemed the most like D.F. Bugambilias is a large complex of high rise apartment buildings set up sort of like a horseshoe. On either side are a half dozen 20 story cement buildings, filled with a lot of people. In between them is a giant parking lot, and at the end of the lot is a short one story cinder block building, the community cultural center. I wasn't able to understand the whole story, but basically the developer of the housing project had tried to screw the residents, and they had resisted, and somehow had forced him to build this center, even though it was not in the original plans.

Although the biggest of the cultural centers we visited, in many ways this one was the saddest, the inside having almost no electricity, and simply bare cinder block, with small bits and pieces painted. In the middle was a large hole in floor, filled with water. I couldn't figure out if this was a well, or just one of the community water tanks since most of the communities we visited only had very limited running water. Since so much of the space was bare, we wanted to cover as much as possible with art, and we took on a huge chunk of wall, about 30 feet long and 20 feet high, which took up a quarter of the largest room in the center. We decided to create an avalanche of posters, starting from the top left corner, with posters literally pouring down the walls, covering each other as they cascaded down and onto the floor. We had hoped to cover even more space, but just this section took hours to prepare and paste (as anyone that has wheatpasted knows, raw cement and cinderblock just gobbles up the paste, absorbing it and drying quickly, making it hard to get the posters to stick).

We took turns pasting and cutting stencils, Jesus cut a nice Flores Magon stencil, Melanie and I cut text stencils about access to water, Alex cut a bandana-ed militant, and John cut a beautiful large scale "PAZ" stencil that we used to finish off the wheatpaste wall. Like everywhere we went, the kids at Bugambilias were excited about the art, Alex teamed up with a neighborhood 12 year old to help him cut stencils, and some local graffiti kids came by, wanting to trade stickers and talk shop. The back of the cultural center was covered with pretty pro graf, including some awesome yellow and black creatures that were some of the best characters I saw during the whole trip.

Our handler of the day was Ricardo, who was really interesting, and deeply engaged in the Other Campaign. His primary work is with micro-power and pirate radio stations, working with crews of people to set up stations in poor communities to give a voice to the community process and political mobilization. Of all the people we met that were connected to the Festival and Ecatepec, he was the most skeptical of the potentials of the PRD. He explained that nothing was ever going to come from the political parties down, but the other way around.
Although I had known some about the struggle and repression of the flower sellers in San Salvador Atenco, Ricardo explained that the repression there had been a joint effort by all three major political parties, right-wing PAN at the national level, supposedly centrist PRI at the State level, and the supposedly leftist PRD at the local level. Many people were tolerating the PRD for now, but had dreams of large-scale popular movements like those in Chiapas and Oaxaca.

We sped off from Bugambilias to the Ecatepec city center, late as always. There was a 200 foot long (or so) wall that the muralist team had been working on but needed help finishing up. We dropped in and filled a bunch of the empty space with stencils and posters. I covered a chunk of wall with my Aqua Para Todos stencil I had cut that morning, and Melanie filled a ton of space with stencils too. Josue and Cece used the stencils as backdrop for their pieces, and really pulled the wall together.

The city center has way more traffic than anywhere else we've been, and the alley we are working in was swamped with people. Tons and tons of teenagers hung around, watching and talking it. Almost all the kids had cellphones, and wanted to get their photos taken with the artists. The strange part was that even though 3/4 of the crew I went with where Latina/o or Filapina/o, almost all the kids wanted their pictures taken with me and the other white artists. We were more "exotic."

Around 5pm we had a panel discussion inside, with Jesus, Melanie, Favianna and myself. Everyone talked about their art, its connection to politics, and some of their goals and aspirations for cultural work. I gave an abbreviated run down of the history of reproducible political graphics, giving background for the Reproduce & Revolt book, and connecting it to Mexican graphic history.

After painting and pasting for awhile, we had a big art jam in the city square, where we set up live screen printing and Reed and Geraldine had a video feed where they were doing live video mixing. It was basically an outdoor version of what we had done at the museum the night before. A bunch of people came out, and were really into the screenprinting, and super excited to be able to bring prints home.

All in all the trip was amazing. I feel like I learned and took away more than I gave, but that seems unavoidable for an initial trip. I'd like to maintain some of the relationships started, build a better understanding of the Other Campaign, and see what, if any, ideas and lessons can be used to further activities here in the States. One thing that we did down there that points to further collaboration is a joint poster project with Komal. As part of the call Art is a Human Right, Komal Collective organized the printing and distribution of 8 posters withthis as their subject to be pasted up all over Mexico City and Ecatepec. 4 of the posters were created by Komal, and 4 by members of our crew. The Yo! crew made one, Favianna, Melanie & Jesus, and me. We only had about 24 hours to come up with and build a design, so I used pieces of other posters to build mine, Arte Para Todos.

Festival of the New Winds pt. 5

Posted October 31, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

On Wednesday we headed way up the mountain that rests on the side of Ecatepec, winding around crazy narrow roads and huge speedbumps. The speedbumps up here are almost like hills, a good foot high so you have to drive at them on a 45 degree angle in order to not bottom out, and even then, there's a loot of scraping of car on pavement. We arrive at a community center in Ostor, which is pretty high up, above the smog line, with the sun beating down on us hard. The weather hadn't been so great up to this point, so it didn't even cross my mind to put sunblock on. That was a huge mistake, by the end of the day it felt like a chunk of my nose had melted off.

As we're pulling our gear and posters out of the cabs, a large crew of kids, all between 6-10, great us. Kids here are different then kids back in the States. They don't seem to be afraid of much of anything, and they carry themselves different, they seem much more self assured, but not in some macho aggressive way. They rolled up on us and wanted to shake all our hands, they introduced themselves and then asked what our names were and where we were from, and then once the formalities were out the way, they wanted to play. Here we were in their playground, so they expected we were going to deliver! We handed out posters, which immediately got rolled up into play swords and the fighting began, a dozen kids chasing me with newsprint sabers, until my asthma kicked in and I just couldn't run anymore.

This was one of the most fun spots we worked in, covering a large 12 foot wide by 25 foot high wall with posters, and then spreading around the sides and edges of the community center. The kids climbed around with us and played until most of them got bored and moved on, except one 8 year old named Jesus, who attached himself to me and intently watched as a started pasting Celebrate People's History posters around the edges of the center. He would pull out posters and hand them to me, and we'd talk in broken Spanish about the colors of the posters, what he enjoyed doing, etc.
Pretty soon he got bored of just choosing the posters, and took over the whole operation, carefully pulling a poster out, rolling paste on the wall, lining the poster up evenly with the previous one, and pasting over it, sealing it down.He must of pasted a couple dozen posters, it was pretty amazing, it's hard for me to imagine a kid in US having that kind of attention span.

3/4 of the way through pasting the walls in Ostor a red pick-up truck sporting the logo of the PAN (the right-wing party in Mexico) pulled up and 3 guys jumped out. A heated argument sparked up between our handlers (at least nominally representatives of the ruling PRD party, put really community activists and organizers inspired by La Otra Compaña) and these PAN goons, who were pissed that we were putting up posters with left political content. They were threatening the community center, saying that it would lose all its funding. They weren't violent, but definitely aggressive, even going so far as to threaten the elderly community women that were watching over the center and giving us instructions as to where we should paste and paint, and where not to.

Ostor was also the first spot we went to that had a fair amount of existent graffiti, but almost all of it seemed like gang markings (the "South Central Boys" seem to have strayed pretty far from Los Angeles) or random tags. My favorite was FLOYD written in giant pink letters, begging the question of whether some confused parents had named their poor kid Floyd, or somehow lost-in-translation that name had taken on a rough edge and became "hard," or maybe it was simply an ode to oddball British rock music in visual pun form.Either way, it seemed to be the one marking we covered over that anyone noticed, with a gang of older kids congregating as we were leaving, asking each other "What happened to Floyd?"

Off we went back to Xalostog, for an opening of the Yo! show, a stencil workshop, and another olfactory dose of the animal rendering plant. We rolled up and the walls we had pasted in the entryway had dried, and looked great. The center was really pleased with them, and planned on leaving it up for as long as it lasted. Unfortunately it wasn't just the community that showed up for the show and workshop, three cops were there too, one with an M16!! John Carr put it best, "What the hell is a cop with a machine gun doing in an art show called Yo! What Happened to Peace????"

Aside from the cops, who beyond the guns spent a chunk of the time harassing Melanie and Geraldine, the event went great. The workshop was really fun, almost entirely populated by 8-12 year olds and their parents, none of whom had ever cut a stencil before. There was also a crew of teenagers, young graffiti writers, who wanted to hang out and see what they could learn. Language made it hard to communicate, but they seemed cool and interested, and I gave them copies of Stencil Pirates. I ended up giving away a lot of books over the week, because people often didn't have much money on them (or much money period), but wanted to know where to get the books. In the States I'm used to just giving people a web address to go buy them, but in Ecatepec that just led to glazed over stares. I don't think a single one of these kids had a computer, never mind an email address or regular access to the internet.

Most of the younger kids struggled with cutting the stencils, but a good chunk were successfully able to carve their names out of the cardstock, and immediately got to painting them all over the place. We didn't suspect such a young group, but they ended up being able to handle sharp blades. The only one to cut themsleves was one of the older kids! It was awesome watching brothers and sisters helping each other, and kids struggle but succeed at their first spray paintings.

As if we hadn't already crammed enough into a day, we rushed out from Xalostog back to D.F., to the Museo de la Ciudad. Favianna had been invited at the last minute to be on a panel with Jorge from Komal Collective and Joaquin from the Ecatepec Ministry of Culture. I'm still a little fuzzy on the exact details, but sometime in the past month, Komal and other adherents to La Otra Compaña had worked with some of the more radical people in the Ministry of Culture to get the government (I believe the government of the State of Mexico, which includes Ecatepec and part of Mexico City) to pass a bill stating that Art is a Human Right that Must be Accessible to All. Part of this event was to celebrate and announce that, but also to strategize how to enforce it, how to make the government actually fund the arts for the poorest sectors of society.

For being last minute, there was a great turnout of 60 or so people. In addition to Favi speaking, Jesus, Bobby and Sombre set up live screenprinting, Alex and I wheatpasted on 4 or 5 4x8 sheets of plywood lined up, and Reed did live video-mixing of footage he had shot of the trip, art from Reproduce & Revolt, and live camera of the screenprinting. Jesus printed a poster design of mine, my "Free the Land" print I flattened to 1 color and changed to say "Tierra y Libertad."

Festival of the New Winds pt. 4

Posted October 30, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

The next stop on the trip is the city center of Ecatepec, where we meet four members of the local graffiti crew the Komal Collective. Komal Collective formed in 2006 as a response to the Zapatistas' La Otra Compaña, and the call for self-organization in many areas of society. The members of Komal are individual artists, focusing on stenciling and political graffiti, but they are also organizers, trying to bring together and politicize different elements of the street art scene in Mexico. Their stencils dot the walls of Ecatepec, and many surprisingly engage me, unlike so much of the street art that just seems to add to the heep of messaging already saturating NYC streets. Komal also recently organized a large scale museum exhibit of street art from artists all over Mexico called Las Calles Están Diciendo Cosas (The Streets are Saying Things).

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Festival of the New Winds pt. 3

Posted October 29, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

I barely got a chance to make any sense of D.F. before we had to rush off to Ecatepec, which is no easy task. Although just above Mexico City, for some reason it was so difficult to get to, which each day bringing new routes, some taking 20 minutes, others 2 hours. We would pile into 3 or 4 taxis, or take 3 or 4 different subway trains, only to emerge in a location that ultimately didn't seems that far away. The trip was always beautiful, with Mexico City unfolding before us, covered in graffiti and amazing hand-painted signs. Almost every square inch is decorated, and not by Photoshop or Illustrator, but by human hands. The landscape seems crafted by hands of all different sizes, giant hands to mold the cinderblock sprawl, tiny hands to paint the smallest details on signs for food, she repair and photocopies. Although massive, the scale of life seems so much more manageable than in the US, I can see how each piece was constructed by a set of hands not all that different than mine.

Although they are advertisements, and operate just like corporate billboards in New York, I can help but fall in love with the giant sales pitch texts painted along the sides of the road. Each letter two feet wide and four feet tall, the names of Rock en Español bands stand tall like straight letter grafitti pieces, competing with throw-ups and tags, and time itself, as the walls crumble under the paint. We speed through Ecatepec and every inch is filled, with ramshackle buildings and texts of all sizes. The only space that escapes total saturation are the tops of the hills and mountains in the distance.

Our first stop is a community at the upper edge of Ecatepec, down a dirt road to a community center called the Centro Cultural Ricardo Flores Magon. The community just celebrated their 14 year anniversary, having started as a group of about 500 people with no place to live, squatting their land, building rudimentary structures, fighting with the government, constructing solid cinderblock dwellings, and now fighting to get utilities and city services. Although still living in a deep level of poverty, the people we met seemed really committed to their community, and embedded in a larger context of struggle for the improvement of everyone's lives. Although not all anarchists, they chose to identify with Ricardo Flores Magon because of his role in the Mexican Revolution and his organizing of the working class in urban areas (as opposed to Zapata and Villa's primary rural terrain of struggle).

We hung an impromptu show on the walls of the center, and gave a brief talk about what we all do in the US. It was strange talking about Justseeds and trying to building a self-sustaining artist network in the states in the context of a community that had literally built itself out of ground. The privileges we have here made me feel like our struggles seem somewhat trivial in comparison. But the community seemed appreciative of our words and art, and we got a tour of the area, looking for walls we could paint and paste on, and brainstorming ideas for public art. Unfortunately because of the size and sprawl of Ecatepec, and a fair amount of disorganization, I never made it back to this community before the trip ended. Some folks did make it back tho, and did a silkscreening workshop, printing Zapatista t-shirts and leaving the screens with the cultural center so they can keep using them.

Festival of the New Winds pt. 2

Posted October 28, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

I show up in Mexico City on Friday, October 3rd. This is one day after the 40 year anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre, a national day of mourning and anger. The day before tens of thousands had filled the Tlatelolco Plaza (and other parts of the city) in memory of 1968, and by night the city had erupted in violence, with sporadic rioting, street fighting and window smashing (there is a great slideshow of photos here). I arrived to photos of punks attacking cops on the covers of all the newspapers. This is my kind of town! On further exploration it is pretty unclear what really happened, as there are stories of the cops paying street kids to run crazy, and the mainstream news coverage was filled with stories of how restrained and well behaved the police were, as if the entire incident was a well managed photo-op.

But street fighting isn't the only action in Mexico. For over two months the teachers in Morelos have been on strike, and increasingly teachers, and workers in other trades, have been holding solidarity strikes in states across Mexico. This includes the mobilization of teachers in Oaxaca, and a march of members of the APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), which formed out of 2006's popular uprising in Oaxaca, to Morelos to support the teachers.
The day I arrived right-wing tabloids pulled a trick from Paul Revere, and screamed from their mastheads "The APPO is Coming! The APPO is Coming!," as if that was a bad thing. Few seemed that concerned, the vast majority of Mexico's population is either struggling working class, poor or even poorer, and most seem to identify with the recent popular revolts in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Atenco.

The last time I was in Mexico City was back in 2002, and it definitely has changed. The city center has been seriously gentrified and deeply changed. Five years ago the area around the Zocolo (the massive public square in the middle of the city) was filled with people trying to sell anything and everything you could imagine, from bootleg cd's to the rubber feet on kitchen appliances. People, never mind cars, could barely manouver through the rows of stands and blankets filling almost every street. Now the streets are mostly clear, with cabs and cop cars (always with their lights flashing for no apparent reason) zipping around, each looking for action in their own way. The Zocolo had been filled with hundreds of tents, with people selling books, camping out in protest, doing educational activities. Punk kids hanging out by the giant flag pole had pointed me in the direction of UTA, the anarchist bar and social center. Now that's all gone. The Zocolo itself is clean and nearly empty, venders are pushed to the edges, their goods homogenized to lowest common denominator tourist shlock and weird religious knicknacks.

Carlos Slim and his cronies seem to have pretty successful killed off autonomous life in the center of Mexico City. It is still beautiful, but seems empty and hollow, like an ancient building with all the original stone and woodwork, but abandoned by its residents. The entire area used to be covered by posters and graffiti, Declarations from the walls called to stop the privatization of the electric utility, or the overthrow of President Fox, or support for the Zapatistas. Now the blank walls simply cry "No Anunciar" -Post No Bills.

There are still some pretty great cultural venues in the center. The National Palace houses some of Diego Rivera's most impressive murals, and Bellas Artes does the same for David Alfaro Siqueiros. We also stumbled upon a small art center off the Zocolo which had two great photography exhibits up, one of images of opposition to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the other of Mexico 1968. The images were powerful, and the politics very direct and upfront. Mexico is so different that the US in this respect, while our country does everything possible to bury our history of radical political activity, Mexico revels in their history, centering it in the national identity.

Festival of the New Winds pt. 1

Posted October 26, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

Two months ago or so, Favianna Rodriguez (co-editor of Reproduce & Revolt) asked me if I wanted to take a trip to Mexico City with a crew of artists. My answer, of course, was Hell Yeah! So starting on Oct. 3rd, a dozen of us headed to Mexico to take part in the Festival Internacional de los Nuevos Vientos (Festival of the New Winds) in Ecatepec, a sprawling, metastasizing municipality on the northern edge of Mexico City.

I'm not sure I fully understand how this trip came about, but here's the basic gist. Favianna (and other artists she works with, like the Taller Tupac Amaru) have been visiting Mexico City on and off for years, and one of the things they've been involved in is El Faro, a series of community centers spread across Mexico City that have a huge amount of art programs organized for and often by local youth. This includes silkscreen studios, block printing, murals, graffiti, etc. The founder of El Faro, Benjamin, is a 68er. In Mexico this means you participated in the student protests in 1968, and survived the Tlatelolco Massacre, where the government attacked and slaughtered hundreds of students and their supporters.

Recently the PRD (Mexico's left-liberal political party) came to office in Ecatepec. Once elected, a portion of the left-wing of the PRD left Mexico City and headed north to Ecatepec, seeing the possibility of more change there than in the old city. Ecatepec is almost defined by change. With over 2 million people, it is the most populous municipality in Mexico, and it is growing every day. Although at the center it seems to be a fairly typical, if poor, sprawling urban landscape, the closer you get to the edges the less stable the development. The city appears to spill out and up the mountain, with tens of thousands of single story, one room cinderblock homes, rebar poking out the top, waiting to be used to stabilize a second floor to be built on the roof. And beyond the cinderblocks are even more homes, constructed out of cardboard, corrugated steel, and other found materials.

Favianna's friend Benjamin headed up to Ecatepec too, and ended up the Secretary of the Minister of Culture. Benjamin's main platform has been Art is Human Right that Must be Accessible to All, and to that end he has been encouraging the development of local cultural centers in dozens of Ecatepec barrios, as well as organizing large scale free festivals that bring in thousands of international artists to share their skills with the city. This program has uneasily dove-tailed with groups of Ecatepec activists and artists organized since 2006 as part of the Zapatista's La Otra Campaña, or Other Campaign. We met dozens of people that came out of La Otra Campaña in Ecatepec, who are trying to use the left government programs as a launching pad for more radical activities.

Our motley crew walked into this context. We are all artists currently living in the US, the majority Latina/os, with a couple Filipina/os and gringos thrown in for good measure. Here's the roll call:
Favianna Rodriguez, Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes from Taller Tupac Amaru in Oakland; Maria Beddia and Bobby Nicholson from the Bay Area; Josué Rojas, muralist and journalist from the Bay Area; Geraldine Lozano, Reed Rickert and Sal, all videomakers, photographers or documenters from the Bay. John Carr, Contra One and Werc from LA and the Yo! What Happened to Peace? crew; Cece Carpio from NYC and Trust Your Struggle, and Me.

Prints Gone Wild Nov 1st & 2nd

Posted October 24, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Im super stoked to announce that Justseeds will be participating in the 4th annual Prints Gone Wild event organized by the folks from Cannonball Press. Here's the skinny:

Cannonball Press and Supreme Trading proudly present the 2008 version:
PRINTS GONE WILD 4!!

The fourth ever annual vernacular printacular mega-hairy Brooklyn affordable print fair. (OK, we did one in St. Louis too)
The ORIGINAL AND ONLY 50 bucks and under American print fair.

Sat Nov. 1st 6pm-12am Opening reception/party

Sun Nov. 2nd 12-6pm Fair is open all day

Supreme Trading
213 n 8th St.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211

FEATURING:
The Amazing Hancock Brothers McGregor, TX
Yeehaw Industries Knoxville, TN
Howling Print Studios Brooklyn, NY
Tugboat Press Pittsburgh, PA
Bikini Press Minneapolis, MN
Justseeds Brooklyn, NY
Sean Star Wars Laurel, MS
Kayrock Screenprinting Brooklyn, NY
Space 1026 Philadelphia, PA
Purgatory Pie Press New York, NY
Drive By Press Madison, WI
Isle of Printing Nashville, TN
Cannonball Press Brooklyn, NY

After last year’s incredibly successful fair, Brooklyn’s own Cannonball Press has again assembled an extraordinary menagerie of graphic artists under one roof, who will be present, displaying their prints, and selling them for $50 or less for two days only.

Long-time champions of the affordable art cause, Cannonball Press has brought together these great artists as part of New York Fine Art Print Week so that New York can have a chance to see first-hand the incredible resurgence in affordable fine art printing that is happening across the country.

An entertaining sideshow will take place during the fair, featuring traditional Mexican music from Grupo Diamante Norteno, “deathgrass” titans the Black Death All-stars, a print-o-centric fashion show, emcee David Rees (of Get Your War On fame), a performance by the Amazing Hancock Brothers, and on-the-spot printing with Drive-By Press, which operates a mobile press out of the back of their van.

The best affordable art in town, guaranteed.

Review of Realizing the Impossible

Posted October 24, 2008 by jmacphee in Review

The AK Press blog, Revolution by the Book, just posted a review of Realizing the Impossible written by Alan W. Moore, a long time NYC radical artist, theorist and teacher, who was also one of the founders of ABC No Rio! Here's the first couple paragraphs of the review, and the rest is here:

The artist in capitalist society is necessarily a revolutionary. S/he is as well necessarily an entrepreneur. Between these two positions lies a wide gulf in understandings. The artist must strive to change society according to a vision, because s/he does not fit. Creativity is not an absolute good and value in this society, and the artist is absolutely committed to creativity. Still, the artist must survive, and so must do what that requires.

What is that? What is longed-for utopia and what is impinging reality? The divide between our dreams of a perfect world and the realities of our lives, between what is necessary and what is desired has shifted. The Wall is gone; new walls are a’building. The organizers of the Documenta 12 exhibition recently proffered the assertion, “Modernity is our antiquity.” In finding new coordinates for radical position-takings today, we are continuously picking through those ruins for stuff we can use.
Realizing the Impossible bespeaks an exciting upsurge of attention to a world of dynamic committed artistic practices, past and present. It is largely a book on contemporary art, concerned first with explicating artistic practice now and in the postmodern past.

Poster show at the Tokyo Bookfair

Posted October 23, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

Dara and I were excited to have Kei and Illcommonz from Tokyo visit us in late September for the opening of the Signs of Change exhibition here in NYC. They have both been involved in actions and movements included in the show, most recently the organization against the G8 summit in Japan. Kei is also connected to the Japanese anarchist archive CIRA Japan, who lent us a handful of Japanese anarchist posters from the 60s-80s for the the exhibition.

While they were here we weighed them down with posters and propaganda from the US, much of it for Tokyo's infoshop Irregular Rhythm Asylum, which is largely run by Kei. I'm excited that Kei has created a small exhibition of my posters, which is being held at the 3rd annual Tokyo Bookfair, which is put together by a handful of DIY, punk and anarchist shops, zines and distros. They are also showing Dara's video Tactical Tourist, a 15-minute look at the Barcelona squatting scene in 2006.

New Josh MacPhee shirts at AK Press

Posted October 22, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

Making and selling t-shirts is a giant pain in the ass. On and off for the past 10 years I've been designing and making shirts, usually finding friends to do the actual printing (because I hate silkscreening shirts: it's difficult, toxic, and to me completely unrewarding). I've finally given up. No more shirt making for me. Instead, I've farmed some of my designs out to AK Press, who are manufacturing, distributing and directly selling many of my designs. Now you can get my Autonomy, Chemicals Make Our Lives Better, and Zapatista designs from them. In addition, they've created a new shirt out of my Anarchy Hands print. Check it out here!!!

Images from Paper Politics in Cortland

Posted October 21, 2008 by jmacphee in Political Art

The Paper Politics show is currently hanging at the Dowd Gallery at SUNY-Cortland in Upstate New York. Andrew Mount, the director at the Dowd sent me these great photos of the show installed. Seems like it's made some ripples up there, upsetting some students who actually asked the administration to remove some of the prints! I'm heading up to Cortland to do a curator's talk on October 28th. Info and directions will be on their website.

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Signs of Change Dutch Provo Event!

Posted October 21, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

Signs of Change Dutch Provo Event!
Friday, October 24, 2008, 6-8pm
at Exit Art, 475 10th Ave, NY, NY

PREMIERE SCREENING of Dutch Provo Footage

Premiere screening of newly subtitled short films and footage of the 1960s Dutch Provo movement, and book release of Richard Kempton’s Provo: Amsterdam’s Anarchist Revolt (in collaboration with Autonomedia Press).

Speakers include: Jordan Zinovich, Lindsay Caplan, and Janna Schoenberger

About the Book:

Provo staged political and cultural interventions into the symbolic
and everyday spaces of Holland from 1962-1967. In this first
book-length English-language study of their history, Richard Kempton
narrates the rise and fall of Provo from early Dutch "happenings"
staged in 1962 to the "Death of Provo" in 1967. This is the fourth
book Autonomedia has done on Dutch social movements.

About the Video:

This compilation of Provo footage, newly translated and subtitled by
Janna Schoenberger and Dennis de Lange, includes scenes from the early
happenings, Dutch political life, and interviews by key members of
Provo - including an interview held with Robert Jasper Grootveld on
his houseboat in Amsterdam.

Speakers:

Jordan Zinovich has been associated with Autonomedia since 1986, and
is currently a senior editor. He has been working on Provo for years,
and since 1997 has been going repeatedly to Amsterdam to meet with
members of Provo. He will discuss the renaissance of Provo going on
today.

Lindsay Caplan is a member of the Autonomedia editorial collective,
and a doctoral student at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research
focuses on the intersection between art, aesthetics, and social action
- an arena in which Provo is an essential and exciting example.

Janna Schoenberger is a doctoral student at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
She received her master's degree in Art History from Utrecht
University in the Netherlands where she lived for three years. She is
currently working as a translator for the upcoming exhibition "In and
Out of Amsterdam 1960-1975" at the Museum of Modern Art.

About Autonomedia:

Autonomedia is a small non-profit publisher of books and digital
material that investigate the liberatory impulse by way of radical
politics, philosophy, arts, history, and other categories of thought
and action. We have operated as an all-volunteer editorial collective
since 1983, and are based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. With more than
100 titles in active distribution, and 6-8 new books each year,
Autonomedia provides an autonomous media zone for radical art and politics, and seeks to transcend party lines, bottom lines and straight lines. We also
maintain the Interactivist Info Exchange (info.interactivist.net), an
online forum for discourse and debate on themes relevant to the books
we publish. www.autonomedia.org

Chris Stain at Dirty Pilot

Posted October 20, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

Chris Stain has a bunch of new work up on Dirty Pilot! Some great stuff, including new large-scale cut wood pieces! Check it all out here.

War Fair: Occupation Games for Citizens and Non-Combatants

Posted October 8, 2008 by colin_matthes in Justseeds/Member Projects

I am installing a show in Milwaukee called "War Fair: Occupation Games for Citizens and Non-Combatants" at the INOVA/Kenilworth gallery. The opening is from 6-9 pm this Friday (October 10th).

Posted below are a few images from the install, a statement about the project, and details about the opening. Also, you can check out more images from the install on my new flickr account.

Statement
"War Fair: Occupation Games for Citizens and Non-Combatants"

Over the past 16 years, I have worked with my father as an electrician at the county fair in my hometown of Jefferson, Wisconsin. My relationship to the fair and its motley assortment of demolition derbies, farm animals, carnival barkers, the God Mobile trailer, and cricket spitting contests is complicated, ranging from fondness to repulsion.

I am drawn to the chaos and the scrappy order of the fair-especially the signs and carnival games hand-crafted from common materials. But I am disturbed by the increasing military presence, with Army recruitment tents and displays of child-sized Hummer vehicles presented as lighthearted county fair entertainment.

My experiences at the fair have influenced me to create a carnival game and series of drawings that comment on war as spectacle and war as participatory game. War Fair transforms the viewer into a game player and asks, “How real does something have to become before you will not play (pay) anymore?”

Press Release
The Institute of Visual Arts (Inova) at the UWM Peck School of the Arts opens an exhibition of work by the seven artists who received Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists in 2007.

When: Friday, October 10, 2008; reception 6-9 pm; gallery talk at 6:30 pm
Where: Inova/Kenilworth, 2155 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53202
Who: Gary John Gresl, Mark Klassen and Dan Ollman (Established Artists)
Annie Killelea, Faythe Levine, Colin Matthes and Kevin J. Miyazaki (Emerging Artists)

Inova will host an opening and reception to honor the Nohl Fellows on Friday, October 10, from 6-9 pm. Inova curator Nicholas Frank will give a gallery talk at 6:30 pm.

Ten additional events have been scheduled in conjunction with the Nohl exhibition, including artist talks and presentations, screenings, a game night and other events orchestrated by each of the seven participating artists. All of these events are free; while most are in the Inova/Kenilworth gallery, some events occur offsite.

An exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase in the gallery during the opening and throughout the exhibition.

Inova/Kenilworth will be open on Gallery Night and Day, October 17 and 18. Gallery hours are Wednesday & Friday-Sunday, noon to 5 pm and Thursday, noon-8 pm.

Click for complete information on the artists and their events.

Justseeds prison portfolio project

Posted October 8, 2008 by nicolas_lampert in Justseeds/Member Projects

Recently, Justseeds has completed a portfolio project for the Critical Resistance ten-year anniversary conference in Oakland, California that took place on September 26-28.

The project involved twenty artists from the US, Canada and Mexico who each created an original print that either critiqued or addressed alternatives to the prison-industrial complex. Each artist pulled 100 prints and the amazing JS crew at the Portland distro assembled the portfolios and created the covers that are displayed in the photos.

The point of the portfolio project was to donate work and to share graphics with groups working against the prison-industrial complex. In the end, each portfolio included the 20 prints plus a cdr with copy-right free TIFF files of the images (plus other anti-prison images from the recent book Reproduce and Revolt (edited by Favianna Rodriguez and Josh MacPhee.)

Justseeds donated the bulk of the portfolios to Critical Resistance and 30 other groups who are organizing against prisons.

In late November (once the groups have already had the opportunity to possibly use them as a fundraising device) Justseeds will have a limited number of portfolios for sale on our site.

Much thanks to all the artists and the organizers who donated their time and energy to the project. A number of plans are set for the prints to be exhibited in the late Fall/early Winter and we will keep you posted when dates for the shows are announced.

And Then it Was Done

Posted October 1, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Here's some filcks of the mural Chris, our carpenter savior Nick, and I constructed and painted for Creative Time's Democracy in America.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña (and me)

Posted September 29, 2008 by bec_young in Events

This weekend, writer and performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña and his troupe were in Detroit. I joined perhaps fifty other people for a fairly intimate interactive performance of Gómez-Peña's Mapa Corpo at the Detroit Institute of Arts. This is the the first time I've been to one of his performances, but I'm told that it's par for the course that the event was visual overwhelming and emotionally challenging. I was forewarned by one of the maintenance guys at the museum that the Mapa Corpo was a naked woman's body stuck with acupuncture needles with many, many tiny flags of the U.S. and Britain (and one or two of Israel), which the audience was invited to help pull out at the end. He wasn't too impressed, but most of the audience seemed entranced by the visual and mental connections. The performance also involved video, music, poetry, and other simulations, rituals, and installations on the subjects of identity, power, and immigration. The event had the feeling of a dangerous but necessary ritual that we all somehow survived, together. This fall, Gómez-Peña's troup will be in San Francisco, Albequerque, Toronto, Alaska, and Arizona. Check his website for more specific information.

On a totally different note, I've just returned from a voyage to Buenos Aires to seek information for a project that I hope to do next year about art collectives in Argentina. Especially considering I was only there for two weeks, I learned about an amazing amount of artistic, radical, and collective projects, and had the opportunity to meet with people from a few of those projects. I'll be writing about some of the projects that I learned about in the coming weeks. Here I am in the Museo Municipal de Arte Hispanoamericano before the guard yelled at someone else for taking pictures inside the museum.

Making an impression on 55,000sq ft in 24hours

Posted September 19, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Chris Stain was asked to provide a backdrop for Creative Time's upcoming convergence of "Democracy in America" at the Park Ave Armory in NYC. Chris asked me to help him build a 40'x16' wall in the the largest unobstructed indoor space in NYC. With the help of another friend, Nick, we belted out the wall and mural that hopefully makes an impression on everyone that comes. Check it out at the opening

Sunday, Sept 21, 2-10pm
643 Park Ave, btn 66th/67th St

Also dont forget to head over to Exit Art Saturday, Sept 20th, for Josh and Dara's Sign's of Change exhibit.

Justseeds Print Show Opens Friday the 19th, Warwick, NY

Posted September 15, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

I grew up in a small town in the lower Hudson Valley. Aside from the small crew of skaters and punks that I hung out with, there was very little "alternative" culture and even less radical politics. I'm super stoked to be bringing the Justseeds Cooperative's artwork to a cafe, run by some friends from high school, in Warwick, NY. It feels good to bring something back to where I used to feel the most sense of "place".
The show will open 7pm, September 19th
at the
Tuscan Café
5 South St .
Warwick, NY 10990
We are hoping to have some live music from Laura Stevenson during the opening. Come check us out if you're in Orange County, NY.

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Swoon released on Paper Monster

Posted September 12, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Swoon has released a print over at Paper Monster

To celebrate the launch of Swoon's fleet of ships on the Hudson river...All proceeds from this print will go to help those involved in the traveling exhibition "Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea"

New illustration collective kicks off in Detroit

Posted September 6, 2008 by bec_young in Justseeds/Member Projects

Because a girl can never be in too many art collectives, I recently started an illustration collective called Spiderspun with two fellow artists in Detroit. The adorable and amazing drawings of Stacey Malasky and Megan Diviney, which have populated many a show flyer around these parts, have earned the admiration of out-of-town bands and music fans for years; now they will be put to a different use. Stacey's passion to become a free-lance illustrator started the whole thing, which included a whole lot of joyful meetings over breakfast and field trips to bookstores to discover new and interesting illustrators. Stacey's blog has daily uploads of daily-life Detroit drawings and hilarious rants, and she currently is in a show organized by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The show, called Edibles, which runs Sept. 6th until Oct. 3, 2008, at 306 South State street in Ann Arbor, is about the storytelling power of food.

Swoon's Swimming CIties of the Switchback Sea Opens Sunday

Posted September 5, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Swoon's second solo exhibit with the Deitch Projects will open this Sunday, September 7, 6-10pm. At 4-40 44th Drive, Long Island City

In the early evening on Sunday, September 7th, seven hand made boats, or more precisely, seven floating sculptures by Swoon, will dock in front of Deitch Studios on the East River in Long Island City. Their arrival at Deitch Studios will be the final stop on a three-week journey down the Hudson River and around the tip of Manhattan. The seven boats, built by Swoon and her friends from scrap wood and other discarded materials, began their sail down the Hudson River on August 15th in Troy, New York, stopping along the way for musical and theatrical performances. Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is a two-part exhibition merging Swoon’s recent portraits, found objects of urban decay and a floating sculptural city. One part of the exhibition is on the water. The other is in the gallery.

The Swimming Cities is designed and organized by printmaker and installation artist Swoon. Collaborators include playwright Lisa D’Amour, the band Dark Dark Dark and circus composer Sxip Shirey. Propulsion systems brought by John Rinaldi and Kinetic Steam Works. Boat design and carpentry created in close collaboration with Jeff Stark, Iris Lasson, and with guidance from The Floating Neutrinos.

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Paper Politics Cortland opens 9/09

Posted September 4, 2008 by jmacphee in Events

The Paper Politics show I've organized and have been touring around is heading for a couple dates in Upstate New York. The show is an international collection of over 175 handmade political prints by as many artists. Almost the entire Justseeds crew is represented, as well as tons of other awesome printmakers! If you are in or around central upstate NY, check it out!!!!

Paper Politics
Dowd Fine Art Gallery
September 9th-November 6th, 2008
Opening Reception: September 9th 4:30-7:30pm

Artists’ talk:
Paper Politics - Josh MacPhee: October 28th, time TBA
All exhibitions and events are free and open to the Public.

Solidarity with Mpls Anti-Capitalists

Posted September 1, 2008 by jmacphee in In the News

Here's a poster I designed for the RNC Anti-Capitalist bloc. Find out more about their activities here.

Regarding Design

Posted September 1, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

There's a nice entry about Chris Stain and Justseeds over at the Regarding Design blog.

Kristine Virsis at Reading Frenzy, Portland, OR

Posted September 1, 2008 by k_c_ in Events

Justseeds member Kristine VIrsis is having an art show:
Thursday, Sept 4th at
Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St
Portland, OR

She'll be in attendance with new work and old work, and prints are cheap as always. From Reading Frenzy's site:

We're pleased to present a talented artist and printmaker all the way from New York City at Reading Frenzy this month! Kristine Virsis is a member of the Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists' Cooperative, a group of artists and activists involved in socially engaged political printmaking.

Kristine's silkscreen prints, which begin their lives as intricate paper cuts and stencils, deal with the personal end of the political spectrum -- creativity, self-sufficiency, strength, play, nostalgia and the freedom that a wheel or two can afford you, as well as depression, isolation and resiliency.

Virsis' handpulled prints are produced in large or unlimited editions, in order to keep them affordable.

Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea

Posted August 18, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Last Friday in Troy, NY the Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea was launched. It is a project of ridiculous proportions, over seven crafts being maneuvered down the Hudson River making occasional stops to do performances, and will be turned into a solo exhibition and installation for Swoon. The efforts of many dozens of people have gone into manifesting the crafts and coordinating the trip. Our pal Todd Chandler is working with a film crew that is shooting scenes on the crafts for a film in the works "Flood". The crafts will also turn into Swoon's solo installation in Long Island City at a Deitch space, which is an ambitious endeavor on its own, being thousands of square feet.
The NY Times has an article and images in their Arts Section called "A Floating City with Junkyard Roots" And you can see a slide show there at Floating Sculptures

"We're gonna need a bigger boat..."

Posted August 4, 2008 by shaun in Justseeds/Member Projects

“Among the earliest forms of human self-awareness was the awareness of being meat.”
- David Quammen, Monster of God

I've finally finished up a new video, (jokingly) entitled "Testing the Waters" - the first spur video from my tending-towards-sprawling "Wilderness" project. "Testing" is my attempt to get a grip on what, exactly, I'm trying to do with "Wilderness" - and indeed whether I can actually do what I think I can with this idea. My videos have typically been simple and performative, evidence of an action. This project represents something new for me, and as it is with any new creative thrust I'm not entirely comfortable with it. Maybe a big reason for this is also the most obvious: all of my source material for this project is other people's work. Add to that the general violence of the footage (animals attacking people and/or people attacking animals) and things start to get complicated. I'm enjoying the process, though, and I'm operating with the outlook that if these projects don't quite live up to the thesis they will at least make interesting YouTube fodder.

I post the first version of this video (in low-res, compressed form) in the hopes of getting some feedback as I continue with the project as a whole. Please share your thoughts! Comment on this blog, or email me personally.

Coincidentally enough, I finished the video on the same week as Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. The video montage of sharks leaping out of the water to the tune of "Flight of the Valkyries" on their homepage may already have my video beat...

"While some informed people may have decided that sharks are really not so bad, they yet may find reasons for not swimming in the ocean. Traditional island peoples widely regard the shark as a spiritual being whose analogous aspect in the human self is an embryo. That sharks rip open the body of their victims has a double horror of an unborn monster ravaging the self. Sharks are neither intrinsically terrible nor sacred, but they are utterly fascinating and therefore a perfect candidate for encoding extreme feelings and concepts."
- Paul Shepard, The Others

Alarm article on Justseeds

Posted August 2, 2008 by jmacphee in Justseeds/Member Projects

Daniel Tucker has written a nice piece about Justseeds that is going to be published in the upcoming issue of Alarm Magazine. It is also on their website here. And for those who don't want to click away from us, here it is:

Justseeds: Reminders of Emancipation and Justice
by Daniel Tucker

If in the last ten years you’ve traveled under the auspices of attending a lefty rally, protest, or conference, or you’ve spent time in a community center, a crusty punk group house, a union hall or a progressive bookstore, then you’ve probably seen some of the graphic arts distributed by justseeds.org. One particularly popular set of posters is the Celebrate People’s History series, organized by Justseeds founder Josh MacPhee. These posters, highlighting hidden and obscured histories of social movements, from the abolition of slavery to ACT-UP, show up in the most surprising and diverse contexts. In public school classrooms, they serve as the graphic curriculum equivalent to Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, whereas in the social centers and bookstores of today’s leftist and sub-cultural movements, they serve as a constant reminder of the roots of struggle and of significant battles for emancipation and justice.

Justseeds was started in Chicago in 1997 and was initially conceived as a distribution platform for MacPhee’s artwork (which included an assortment of stenciled and block prints, zines, and the people’s history posters).

Carlos Fernandez of Chicago Jobs with Justice was one of many activists that encountered this work in the streets, on tables at political conferences, and on the walls of social-movement centers. He reflected, “In my encounters with the work spread by Justseeds, I realized that art’s role in political struggle could be bigger. It has offered valuable commentary, but by politicizing its production—the costs, the collaboration—it could also show how to put the ideals we voice into creative practice. I saw this in lots of small but important ways: how it was made, where it appeared, how it got into people’s hands.”

Over the years, Justseeds gained street cred and notoriety amongst a diverse set of young teachers, community organizers, contemporary artists, and graffiti writers. As this happened, MacPhee took steps to build stronger networks in his new milieu of left-leaning artists (specifically the low-budget producers like print makers and graffi ti writers). His organizational aspirations found inspiration in the late ’80s Boston-area punk scene and various anarchist, prison solidarity, and anti-racist networks in the ’90s.

According to MacPhee, “Networks and organization are not simply tools to be more effi cient or successful, but the building blocks of creating a new world. Our current society is structured to make us feel like atomized individuals, alienated from others and ourselves. This makes us more vulnerable to the massive amount of corporate and state propaganda we are bombarded with daily. By building organizations and communities where we try to really connect, understand, and support each other, we can build the collective tools necessary to both live our lives for personal self-fulfillment as well as change the larger society so that all will be free to do the same.”

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RUST Update: Closing Friday August 1

Posted July 28, 2008 by mary_tremonte in Events

R.U.S.T. (Radical Urban Silkscreen Team), A Summer Project of The Andy Warhol Museum, Artists Image Resource, and Justseeds, is entering its final week of working with Pittsburgh youth to create prints on themes of sustainability and social justice. Students have completed projects on Pittsburgh People's History, Local Food, Bike Advocacy, and are currently completing a project on Prisons.

Images from RUST Local Food activities: visiting Mildred's Daughters Farm and the Market Square Thursday Farmer's Market, Onion Gang, and our inspiration: the KALE SMOOTHIE!

This week, Just Seeds member Erik Ruin is our visiting artist, demonstrating rubylith techniques and working alongside the teens.

RUST is hosting two special events this week: a final installment of Youth Open Studio with a special Movie Night, and a Closing Exhibition & Party on Friday, August 1. Come visit!

Check out the rest of this entry for details and more images

Read the rest of the entry »

Last Chance to See Out of the Shell Of The Old!- Music @ 1026

Posted July 21, 2008 by erik_ruin in Justseeds/Member Projects

OUT OF THE SHELL OF THE OLD MUSIC NIGHT & CLOSING PARTY!
Friday, July 25th 7pm
SPACE 1026
1026 Arch St, Philadelphia

Donations will benefit our friends at the Shoe Shop to help them deal with the lingering repercussions of their harassment by the police dept. and L&I. For more info on their case look at PhillyIMC.
This will be the last chance to see the Justseeds exhibit and purchase cheap art as the show comes down the next day. SO please come on down, support some good people and listen to some fine music by-

DAN BLACKSBERG is a trombonist who is working to expand the range of the trombone in jazz and improvised music. A native and resident of Philadelphia, he has been seen all around town with such local musicians as Jack Wright, Toshi Makihara, Sonic Liberation Front and with Bobby Zankel's Warriors of the Wonderful Sound. He has appeared in concerts produced by Bowerbird and the Ars Nova Workshop. In addition, Dan has performed with Anthony Braxton (the premiere of Composition 19 for 100 tubas), Taylor Ho Bynum, Joe Morris, Mike Pride, Nate Wooley, Katt Hernandez, Daniel Levin and Joe Maneri in many venues in New York and Boston.

ASHLEY DEEKUS is a percussionist and composer who holds a dynamic approach to her marimba playing. A career beginning with Canadian rock artists, to a place in the NY/PA improvising community, to the local “anything goes” scene. Beautician by day, musician by night, she currently pursues her studies in various traditional folk musics without excluding jazz, classical, or contemporary dance. Some artists she has worked with are; Pauline Oliveros, Neil Feather, Matthew Welch, Katt Hernendez, Jack Wright, Evan Lipson, Dustin Hurt, Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, Feist, Gina Fererra, Nicole Bindler, and Susie Ibarra. Performs with: Alokli (West African ewe drumming ensemble) West Philadelphia Orchestra (traditional Balkan explosions) The Old Goats (traditional Brazilian).

JOSHUA MARCUS is a singer/songwriter/banjo-player who lives in Philadelphia, PA and has produced nine recordings under different bands and monikers in the last nine years, including Fan of Friends. This spring Marcus released his newest recording, Reverse the Charges, on Chicago's Contraphonic and Philadelphia's High Two record labels. Joshua is currently working on a collaborative project to produce a folk recording dealing with current U.S. social and environmental justice struggles.

Hope to see you there! Thanks to all the wonderful folks who've helped out & participated in the exhibition and events!

Justseeds Space 1026 Collaboration

Posted July 21, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

I've uploaded a handful of flicks, on the Justseeds flickr account, of the collaborative installation at Space 1026, called Out of the Shell of the Old. If you get the chance this is the last week that it will be on view in Philadelphia, so get over there!
There's also some previous photo posts here on the blog by Colin , of the install and myself, twice

If you have visited it, I'm interested in any feedback you have, there's a whole comment field below. I really enjoy working collaboratively and on installations. I'd like to make them successful, in many ways. I hope they can contextualize the work, as well as communicate something larger. Im not sure how well we've accomplished that in Space 1026, mostly because I haven't reflected on it much, and all of my collaborators are on the other side of the ether.
Well its our first, and definately not my last!
Enjoy!

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.

This Sunday at Space 1026- Radical Art Discussion Night

Posted July 14, 2008 by erik_ruin

Please join us in Philly this sunday for our 3rd event in conjunction with the Out of the Shell of the Old exhibit at Space 1026!

SUNDAY JULY 20
7 PM
DISCUSSION NIGHT
SPACE 1026
1026 ARCH ST.
FREE!
We'll be using short presentations by 3 local artists as a jumping-off point for a room-wide discussion around the whats, whys and hows of radical art.

THEODORE A. HARRIS is a poet, muralist and collagist born in New York City and currently residing in Philadelphia, PA. As a muralist he has been painting with the Mural Arts program of Philadelphia since 1983. In addition to being exhibited in one-man and group shows from coast to coast, Harris's work has appeared in numerous publications, including Long Shot, The Hammer, Unity & Struggle, AAR, and the important anthologies Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature and Art and In Defense of Mumia.

NAIMA LOWE writes, performs, directs, studies, makes movies, teaches, lives and loves in Philadelphia, PA. She’s currently working on creative and curatorial projects that focus on her favorite things: Queers, people of color, the art they make, and the worlds they devise. For more detailed information visit her website

BETH NIXON builds puppets, masks, piñatas, parades, pageants, magical lands and other spectaculah, on her own, and in collaboration with other humans of all ages. She comes from Rhode Island, lives in West Philly, and travels frequently to places where building, performing or
facilitating opportunities arise. Mostly she uses cardboard, "science", and the imagination. She specializes in beasts and is investigating The Utopian Performative… Beth believes in the power of bike helmets, cornstarch, tide pools, emacipatory pedagogy, and snacks. She is the creator of 'So Many Dynamos' a calendar of illustrated palindromes for 2008.

Forthcoming- a Music Night and Closing Party on Friday uly 25- a music show benefitting the folks at the Shoe Shop, whose home was taken away by L&I , with Dan Blacksberg and Joshua Marcus, and Ashley Deekus.

Up the Luddites!

Posted July 13, 2008 by shaun in Justseeds/Member Projects

Friday was the debut of "Meet the Made" here in Pittsburgh, the latest in the Mattress Factory's "Gestures" series and a project of the Robot 250 program. Curated by Ian Ingram and Carl DiSalvo, "Meet the Made" addresses "the relationship between robotics and all aspects of human culture." Stuart Anderson and I were invited to work with this idea for the exhibit, and combined forces to create a work about the Luddite uprisings in England during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It seemed appropriate to address a popular uprising against the mechanized workplace in the context of a show which celebrates the mechanized. Not that we wanted to cause a stink, you know, but the setting was ripe. You can read more about the piece here.

I also installed a vinyl graphic on the outside of the gallery space - an illustration of an old sledgehammer with the caption "down with all kings but King Ludd" (a line from a Lord Byron poem depicting the Luddite mindset, written to a friend in 1816). King Ludd, or Ned Ludd, was the mythical head of the Luddite rebellions, and many of the threats and public notices issued by various Luddite groups were either signed "Ludd" or referred to Ludd specifically as an arbiter of justice.

Recommended reading on the Luddites: Rebels Against the Future by Kirkpatrick Sale.
Another project collaboration with Stuart Anderson and myself: Welcome Home, Pioneer

Show Photos - Out of the Shell of the Old

Posted July 9, 2008 by colin_matthes in Justseeds/Member Projects

I am sitting in the airport in Pittsburgh after a workshop with RUST - the Radical Urban Silkscreen Team. RUST is a rad goup of teens making prints in Pittsburgh and they were a blast to work with.

My plane is delayed and I have a few minutes to sort through some photos of the completed Justseeds exhibition at Space 1026 in Philadelphia. Here they are.

Read the rest of the entry »

Thanks and Come Again! Event this Friday at Space 1026

Posted July 8, 2008 by erik_ruin in Justseeds/Member Projects

Well, Out of the Shell of The Old opened last friday at Space 1026 here in Philadelphia. After an exhausting week of building, it all paid off- as an enthusiastic crowd filled the space on a rainy 4th of July evening. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a wonderful event and to DJs Merry Def and Mary Mack for the bumpin' tunes...
If you couldn't make it out to the opening, never fear- you have at least three more chances! In conjunction with the exhibit, Justseeds Philadelphia (ok, that's just me) has organized a series of radical art-themed events. The first is a night of performances this Friday-
Puppet Uprising & Justseeds Present
3 MUSICAL NARRATIVES
Friday, July 11, 7pm, Space 1026
1026 Arch Street, Chinatown, Philadelphia
Suggested donation: $5 or less
More info: 267-909-2633 or www.puppetuprising.org.

Featuring FLIGHT by Erik Ruin & Katt Hernandez, Shadows & Violin
THE SOLDIER & THE PHOENIX: a Toy Theater by Shoddy Puppet Company
THE EXCREMENTAL CONTEXT: A Parody of Satire by Reid Books
PLus CHEAP ART from All the Justseeds Artists!

Puppet Uprising teams up with the Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists' Cooperative to bring 3 MUSICAL NARRATIVES to Space 1026 Gallery in Philadelphia. REID BOOKS (author/composer of "The Nothing Factory") debuts a new one-man-band performance “The Excremental Context,” in which Reid plays prepared guitar, bugle and truck horns while unraveling a satirical yarn. SHODDY PUPPET COMPANY (Leslie Rogers, Lucy Schneider, Michelle Posadas and Morgan F.P. Andrews) premieres “The Soldier & The Phoenix,” a toy theater fable with accordion accompaniment about a soldier’s memories of boyhood, a boy’s quest for chicken hearts, and a chicken’s desire for flight. ERIK RUIN gives an encore performance of “Flight: The Mythic Journey of a Person Displaced,” a wordless and cinematic shadow puppet play featuring a haunting violin and vocal score by KATT HERNANDEZ.
Future events will be a DISCUSSION NIGHT (5/20) with presentations by local artists Naima Lowe, Theodore Harris & Beth Nixon; and a MUSIC NIGHT (5/25) with trombonist Dan Blacksberg, percussionist Ashley Deekus and banjo-player Joshua Marcus, benefitting our friends at the Shoe Shop.
All events at Space 1026, all will have cheap art from Justseedsters available.

something will get pulled together

Posted July 3, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

More snippets from our "Out of the Shell of the Old" collaboration at Space 1026, that opens Friday, July 4th in Philadelphia.

There's two sides to every coin

Posted July 2, 2008 by k_c_ in Justseeds/Member Projects

Here are some more flicks from the Justseeds collaboration at Space 1026. Lots of ideas starting to materialize and momentum being built. The space doesn't have any running water, so everything from rinsing brushes to the usual number one is quite difficult. Thanks to all the local businesses and bus stations for the use of your services. And sorry to the guy who was nearly hit by the fan that fell from the second story window.

Space 1026 Install in Progress!

Posted July 1, 2008 by colin_matthes in Justseeds/Member Projects

Here are some photos of of the first couple days installing at Space 1026 for Out of the Shell of the Old, which opens Friday, July 4th (7-10pm).

A quick preview before I get back to drinking beer and painting over bad decisions.

Out of the Shell of the Old-Justseeds at Space 1026

Posted June 30, 2008 by erik_ruin in Justseeds/Member Projects

Throughout the month of July, Justseeds will be exhibiting a brand-new collaborative exhibition at Space 1026 in Philadelphia. As a part of the exhibit, a variety of exciting radical art-themed events will also be taking place.
Out of the Shell of the Old is a unique collaborative installation/exhibition from members of the radical artists’ cooperative Justseeds. Based on the theme of “a new world rising out of the shell of the old”, this show will incorporate built environments, video installation, and printed work to explore both the dark and troubling times we now live in, as well as our hopes for a better, brighter world. Over 10 members of Justseeds will be traveling to Philadelphia from as far as Portland OR and Providence RI to collaboratively create a unique and exciting body of work
WHEN: Throughout July 2008. The opening reception will be on Friday July 4, with DJs and coop members Mary Mack (Pittsburgh) and Merry Def (Providence) from 7-10 pm.
Other events throughout the month will include-
july 11- performance night with "Flight", a shadow puppet performance by Justseeds member Erik Ruin (w/ Katt Hernandez on violin), Shoddy Puppet Company's toy theater performance "the Soldier and the Phoenix" and "the Excremental Context: a parody of satire" performed by Reid Books.
july 20- a discussion night with presentations by local radical artists -