Download our Press Release here.
riffRAG is
a forum for inspiration and creativity. We aim to highlight the
extraordinary work that people are creating which often slips under
the radar of the art world. We are a queer feminist magazine committed
to challenging racism, promoting
accessibility to art, and building alliances across boundaries. We foster an
awareness of systemic power and a dedication to critical reflection and analysis.
Riff-raff is defined
as "disreputable persons, rabble or refuse and rubbish."
In this spirit, we dedicate riffRAG to political and artistic troublemakers and
outsiders—people who are not afraid of addressing "issues"
in their work—and
to a creative spirit that embraces work made from physical and metaphorical
junk, trash and castoffs.
We are a New York-based collective driven
by a desire for social justice and artistic freedom. We are fed up
with a
lack of
access to resources for emerging
artists and the reluctance of many art “authorities” to highlight
work that pushes normative boundaries. As individual artists, we work
in a variety of mediums and styles and come from a range of backgrounds
and
experiences.
We hope that riffRAG will be a project that brings faith in the possibility
of using art as a catalyst for social change.
Em Sixteen
Em Sixteen is dedicated to addressing
classism, racism, and gender issues through her writing and art.
She works in a variety of mediums; including digital art, drawing,
video, writing, sewing and printmaking. She has been a youth educator,
counselor, and currently works as a freelance graphic designer.
She loves dialoging and sharing work with her friends and community.
Her current lust
is finding more time to make art. She is based in LIC, NYC, and
on the web at www.em16.com.
Felix Gatopardo
Felix Gatopardo’s films and videos have screened at many festivals
including the New Festival and MIX, in New York City; Chicago’s Women
in the Director’s Chair; San Francisco's International Asian American
Film Festival; the Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Australia; and
the Mill Valley International Film Festival. In addition to writing
and producing horror films and teenage romantic comedies, he would
like to spend the next several years incorporating seasonal
vegetables into his diet.
KP
KP is a California transplant who is totally obsessed with indie
fashion, zines, and redefining what it means to be a “feminist”. She
has lectured on zines and identity at the University of Maryland,
Middlebury College, and Sarah Lawrence, and parts of her thesis, “We
Don’t Need You: Zines and Feminism Outside the Mainstream” have been
reprinted in Bitch Magazine, Off Our Backs and Mahogany Magazine.
KP lives in Brooklyn.
L.N.R.
L.N.R. is an educator, writer, cultural worker, zine
publisher and printmaker. She hopes to incite youth
to revolution through making independent media and
thinking ciritcally about art and culture. An
uprooted Mainer, she has been an organizer of the
Portland Zine Symposium and various feminist
collectives on both coasts and is working to stay
critical, aware and hopeful as she grows older. She
lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Laimah
Laimah is a multi-media artivist (artist + activist) living in Brooklyn,
NY. Using any medium that feels right for a particular message, she
collaborates with individuals and groups working for social justice
to build visual tools for resistance and hopes to empower people through
art-making, media-making and personal expression. Currently, she is
working with Sisterfire NYC (a local branch of INCITE! Women of Color
Against Violence), painting a mural with a middle school in the Bronx,
and living off of Azad (liberation) Design. View her work at www.azadesign.net.
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