» riot grrrl

Feminists in Current Visual Resistance

Lauren — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:28:16 +0000

Kristine Virsis - Alice

Last week I went to an event at Bluestockings, a radical bookstore in lower Manhattan, for the book Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today, based on a traveling exhibition of amazing protest art. A group of artists included in the book gathered to share their thoughts on making art to promote social justice and global equity. Despite being a broad survey of issues and voices (the book is incredible), the topics of sexism, reproductive rights, sexual assault, patriarchy, and other similar issues were not very prominent among these images.

While certainly contemporary printmaking addressing these issues does exist, even a recent exhibition of feminist work from The Center for the Study of Political Graphics lacks a significant recent feminist voice, as most of the work is from prior to 1990. Their collection, Reclaiming the F-word, contains posters addressing so many feminist issues that are still pertinent today, yet most of them weren’t created in the past two decades.

While certain issues may not be as prominent in activist printmaking as they previously were, there are a host of female-identified artists who are using their work, in anywhere from traditional printmaking to flyers and other illustrations, to continue confronting feminist issues in an accessible way.

Just Seeds Collective members such as Kristine Virsis, Favianna Rodriguez, Meredith Stern and Melanie Cervantes, use their prints to address the role of women within resistance movements. Others like For the Birds friends and collaborators Cristy Road and Caroline Paquita are using their art and illustration to tackle gender, sex, and queerness, among other topics. These are just a few of the women I know of who are currently creating accessible feminist art. It would also seem that with a current strengthening of DIY feminist zine culture, there would be a surge in similar image making as well. I’m looking forward to exploring these topics and posting more often about current feminist visual resistance.

In other For the Birds friend-art news, Tamara Waite-SaintIbanez, who designed last year’s Big She Bang poster, has a solo printed sculpture show coming up in March! Check out the flyer for details.

NYU’s Riot Grrrl Archive & Alison Piepmeier’s book “Girl Zines”

cynthia ann — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:13:57 +0000

As women and feminists, zine writing has been a crucial part of documenting our personal and political history for almost two decades. So, how excited were we at For The Birds Collective to hear that Kathleen Hanna donated her papers and zines to NYU’s Riot Grrl Archive at Fales Library! Immediately following my reaction “how fucking cool” was “how do I sneak into NYU”?

This scholarly attention is a giant step forward for Riot Grrrl as a movement, and to read about this news on The New Yorker’s blog The Book Bench was a real brain bomb. Author of the blog entry, Macy Halford, posits that archiving these papers means Riot Grrrl has passed into history, bringing sad news with the good news. I beg to differ! Something’s been aflutter in the girl punk scene, especially in our very own Brooklyn, NY, for sometime now, as collective bird Kate writes in her article Girls Germs: A Brooklyn Scene Report, printed in the October Issue of Maximum Rocknroll.

As if NYU hadn’t already won our (speed) hearts with this important archival, NYU Press also recently published Alison Piepmeier’s book, Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism. The book is the first of its kind to fully explore the connection between zines and feminism for the past two decades as well as their joint role in our future. Piepmeier is the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.

IN BIRD NEWS: We will be tabling with our distro at the Anti-Valentines Riot Grrl Cover Band Show!

No, seriously, we’re not going anywhere.

Her book explores the use of zines and feminism for the past two decades, as well as their role in our future, and it’s the first book to explore this connection.

FOR THE BLOGS

kwadkins — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:44:12 +0000

Hello birdfriends,

Us here at For the Birds HQ have made a decision to be more present in the internet world. At the moment, the majority of us are in grad school, in touring bands, or just busy with other projects, and we decided this would be a good way to remain constantly active. So let’s get this thing going!

First, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Racialicious posted a great collection of his quotes earlier today.

Lots of our work in For the Birds has to do with queering social spaces, specifically, spaces that are assumed to be safe or “queer” in some way already. I am constantly wondering what is going on nationally and internationally with queer and/or girl-made music or movements: where is our riot grrrl? Why does riot grrrl seem to be so ghettoized in punk history? Lately, I’ve been turned on to some really rad blogs documenting riot grrrl and queercore music or movements that have happened in the past but are also happening currently. Here are my recommendations:

Stacy Konkiel a.k.a. “SISSY SOULPONY” from the Bay Area has a virtual How To for queercore & riot grrrl called SOUL PONIES. She covers current news about riot grrrl happenings as well as posting mp3s of both current bands and older bands that may or may not be extinct. Here’s an excerpt from the SOUL PONIES manifesta:

Because independent record labels are dying off and are being sold to megacorporations more and more often;

Because queer independent record labels, by their “niche” nature, are especially susceptible to closing;

Because we often lose the work of amazing LGBTQ artists to the dollar discount bin of the used record store when queer record labels go under;

Because we wish to preserve the legacies of important riot grrrl and queercore musicians for present and future generations to appreciate their work…

Young Creature is a self-proclaimed blog focused on exposing and supporting Queer musicians, artists, filmmakers, writers, troublemakers, and earth shakers.

If you can think of more, please comment here and let us know what’s up!