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 web designer for several NYC nonprofits and has
shown her art widely. Her current lust is finding more time to
make art. She is based in LIC, NYC.
Felix Gatopardo
Ecuadorian-born Felix Gatopardo is a filmmaker and independent
curator based in New York City. He has produced short autobiographical
films
and videos that engage notions of home, exile, and hybrid identities.
His more recent project entails training to be a boxer. Needless
to say, he loves a good fight.
L.N.R.
L.N.R. is an educator, zine publisher, printmaker, and writer
who hopes to incite youth to revolution through making independent
media. She has been an organizer of the Portland Zine Symposium
and various
feminist collectives, and recently wrote her undergraduate
thesis on "Making Media Making Meaning: Zines and the Process of Political
Empowerment in Young Women." riffRAG is her first online zine.
She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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