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Dear riffRAG reader,
After much hard
work, we are excited to bring you the first issue of riffRAG,
a queer feminist
publication that aims to challenge prejudice,
white supremacy, and elitism in art. riffRAG highlights the fantastic
work that artists are creating that doesn’t register on the
radar of the "art world."
Selecting the artists and writers that
comprise this first issue was a difficult task. We started the
process by establishing
our mission and sending out a call
for submissions. We wanted to reach folks beyond the
traditional
artist
enclaves. To accomplish this goal, we posted it in a variety
of communities
on the Internet. Subsequently, we received submissions from Germany,
Belgium, Japan, our own hometown of New York City, and other
places around the world.
Noticing that our selections ran along
several main subjects, we divided content into the themes of “Making
Due, Making New," “Self/Other," and “Finding
Hope Through Critique." You may read this issue in selected
order by clicking through the right arrows below the main menu,
or you may access individual artists through the contents section
of this website.
Fitting riffRAG work in with school,
full-time jobs, and busy New York City life was a difficult endeavor.
Our magazine is,
so far,
unfunded. It relies on the passion, energy, time, labor, and
generosity of friends and supporters; in addition to our own
donated pocket
change. We are therefore releasing a limited-edition print
version and opted to use the Internet as an affordable and accessible means
of displaying work. We are
able
to showcase
more work through the website than if we had relied solely on
the production of a print version. We view the Internet as an
effective
way for emerging artists to gain world-wide exposure.
We are influenced by history as well
as by current events, and hope to use riffRAG as a tool to establish
connections with other
artists,
organizers, and collectives that aim to be part of a movement
for progressive social change. Government and private funding
for the
arts and public media, as well as for education, health care,
and affordable housing, is tenuous and contentious in the United
States.
Furthermore, the war on Iraq continues to drag on, needlessly
consuming resources and the lives of US and Iraqi citizens. As
queers, feminists,
and immigrants living in the United States, we need to use our
simultaneously marginal and privileged locations to critique
and oppose the way
the US is being represented at “home" and "abroad." This
is our world and we possess the power to shape it.
As our first issue rests, we now wish
to focus on creating a greater sense of community around the issues
that riffRAG addresses.
In the Fall of 2005, in conjunction with Long Island City-based
art
collective
Flux Factory, riffRAG will presents the Feminist
Art Forum. This monthly gathering of feminist artists will
serve as an opportunity for discussion, analysis, and networking.
Each meeting will feature an artist speaking about their work
or presenting a chosen topic and moderating a discussion.
Because you can never get enough of
a good thing, we are already thinking about our next issue. If
you have any skills that you
would like to contribute (marketing, organizing, web design,
proofreading, event planning, to name a few), please send us
an email. If you
are
a progressive-minded artist interested in pushing boundaries
and engaging in creative dialogue, we would like you to submit
your
work to the next issue of riffRAG. We will release our second
call-for-submissions in the Fall. Do not send anything now. Instead,
please join
our mailing
list to be notified ...or check back on this website.
Enjoy riffRAG. Thanks for visiting!
Yours Truly,
Em, Felix, and L.N.R.
July 1, 2005
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About the Editors
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.
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. 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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