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Riot Grrls

Forgot to post the front page of the zine I made, it’s a collage of a few of the women that inspire me or women that I enjoy and respect the work of. Including:

-Pussy Riot: A direct action feminist group + band, who were arrested fighting the oppressive reign of Putin through their protests and music.

-The Dirty Girls: The group of teen girls in the 90’s who stopped looking and acting as they were expected to as women, making zines and spreading them round their school, not giving a fuck what anyone thought of them.

-Kathleen Hanna: One of the head figures of the riot grrrl movement, she was the lead singer of Bikini Kill, a punk-rock feminist band in the 90’s. Teaching girls to take up space, be heard and go to punk rock gigs.

-Marina Abramovic: A conceptual, contemporary performance artist from Yugoslavia. Her attitude to art and life is inspirational and she is definitely one of my most favourited artists. Known for her radical, fearless performances pushing the limits of body and mind.

-Ana Mandieta: A Cuban-American intermedia and performance artist who drew attention to may important topics such as domestic violence, gender roles & stereotypes and connection with body and Earth.

-Annie Sprinkle: The definition of a sex-positive feminist; she’s known for her performance art, sex education as a former sex worker, feminist stripper and feminist porn.

-PJ Harvey: A famous musician, I found out about her through Nick Cave. One of her songs is ‘Sheela Na Gig’ which is what put me on to looking up the ancient design and introducing it into my work. Very androgynous and has refused to follow the rules of how women ‘should’ look.

-Tank Girl: Tank Girl is a fictional female comic book character who fucks shit up after a comet hits earth and everyone is left to fend for themselves. She does pretty well.

-Kim Gordon:

From Sonic Youth. No more needs to be said.

#Riotgrrl #Feminism #KathleenHanna #Sonic youth #pussy riot #PJ Harvey #MyWork #Zine

Freedom?

After visualising some of the ideas coming to mind around modern day slavery in my book, I started thinking about the theme of ‘Freedom’. I wanted to think of a provocative question about freedom, because that’s what a lot of art is about- asking the right questions. Once I started to write some down however, I quickly realised that there wasn’t going to be just one question. A flood of them came to me and I started typing them up on my typewriter to stick to the wall and mind-map.

Here are some of them:

Is freedom a privilege?

Is privilege the same as freedom?

Is privilege the illusion of freedom?

How does the definition of ‘freedom’ change depending on who you ask in the world & where they are?

Is the freedom we imagine in fact chaos?

Is freedom compatible with order?

Does freedom exist?

Once I stuck them up on the wall, I began thinking about where I could go with these questions until deciding that I felt they’re strong enough by themselves as art piece, and so started considering different ways to present them. I tried framing one of them however I didn’t have enough of the same frame to go with all of them and couldn’t find any cheap enough from charity shops that were also matching and not too tacky. I also contemplated designing a 3D shape, similar to a dice, to be held and looked at with a question on each surface of the shape. Eventually I decided to do something similar to a zine, but a miniature version with nothing but the questions inside. I made it using the typewriter and the same small green slips of paper I used to put up around Edinburgh and stitched them together at the centre. I liked the outcome, but feel like theres a much better way to display the questions and possibly bring them to the public.

#Freedom #anarchy #chaos #MyWork

These are some of the pages from a (very) rough draft of my 1st go at a feminist zine. I used both images that I drew and images that I got from the internet to produce it. The first picture is of a sheela na gig, it’s history isn’t known for definite however it’s presumed to have been used as a birthing stone and as something similar to an evil eye to ward off evil spirits. There’s old imagery of women fending off demons by showing their cunts to them, as a woman you could either be offended by this idea or embrace the power of the cunt.

The second page showing everyones favourite politicians, David Cameron, Gove and Boris, reads:

“My mother was a boarding school that smelt of spunk, sweat and tears ! Most days consisted of enduring abuse without crying, Cryings 4 pussies! But sure, im a feminist”

By looking at the upbringing of the types of men in power and how they developed into the people they are, you realise more and more just how unreasonable it is to expect them to have the same basic moral views as you. To basically grow up in the environments they did of the private boarding schools they went to, surrounded by boys and male lecturers, they wouldn’t have grown to have a personal concept or value for women and mothers, so why would they personally fight and work for women’s rights and equality?

The last image is of two stills taken from porn. Most porn is based around the attraction of women saying “no”, being in pain etc, aka- RAPE PORN. The titles show an ugly insight into how many men think of women and the ways they want to see women in; “Teen brunette looks dead in the eyes”, “Young teen beaten and used”, and so on. While I am fully aware that the sexual fantasy of being dominated and even being taken by force in some way, is a common and actually very normal fantasy shared by both men and women, my concern is that this fantasy is being portrayed as the type of sex that men should in fact be expecting from women, which feeds into rape culture and situations where the ‘fantasy’ being played out isn’t shared by both parties.

I enjoyed making the zine, however didn’t complete it as I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to pursue further. I’m glad to have made friends with the photocopier now though and will definitely use it again in future to make similar work.

#Feminism #Capitalism #zine #90's #riotgrrrl

Really interesting video about the Dirty Girls in the 90’s. Great example of defying gender norms and expectations, a shame to see that nothing has really changed and most likely wont as long as capitalism exists.

Interested in making some zines of my own, would make the point that nothing has changed since these girls were making them and people before that.

#Riotgrrl #feminism #90's

The Rape of Mother Earth

”This Land is Our Land” wasn’t a theme that I instantly felt inspired with. Eventually I got into it and began thinking about mother nature and the constant pull that we as a species feel towards it. We watch endless documentaries about it with fascination, it’s also been proven that post-op hospital patients make a quicker recovery when they are able to see near by nature out the window.

There’s something magical and inexplicably engrossing about mother nature, something nurturing and healing. And yet- we put ourselves in concrete boxes stacked upon more concrete boxes.

I began thinking about the use of the word ”mother” and the comparisons between women and nature made frequently throughout history, particularly romantic poetry written by men. I was conscious of being mistaken when comparing women and nature by making sure I wasn’t just comparing nature and the pre-made gender role of the woman in our society, however you can’t deny that there are some biological reasons that many women have certain qualities. Such as being nurturing- particularly woman who have given birth and/or have children. A question I came to think of with the comparison in mind of how we disregard the role of the mother and how we ignore the power of nature was; does the word ”nurture” have a place and a value anymore?

I also came to realise that something I had been trying to articulate somehow was that the way we treat women in our society is the same way we treat mother nature. We abuse both, rape both, both the body of the woman and the body of nature is often seen as something to conquer, a power to destroy and take over as opposed to embrace.

I was interested to explore this further and take a feminist perspective on the title.

#MotherEarth #MyWork #Initial ideas

Modern Day Slavery

When coming up with ideas for the theme ”For Sale”, my first question was: What isn’t for sale?

You can buy almost anything. Even I am for sale, as are you. I’m not claiming this as an original thought, however. We sell our time, our lives, our bodies, our genitals and minds, to make a living and survive in the most unnatural consumerist world that we animals seem to have found ourselves in. Is this a choice to take part and spend our valuable time contributing to capitalism? Not really. And so technically speaking, we are all forced into work, and by definition- that makes us all slaves.

It’s a cliche, stoner thought- ”We’re all slaves to the state, maaan.” However cliche doesn’t mean untrue, nor does it mean fully explored artistically.

I’ve explored this further with my work, taken it away from the predictable consumerist angle a little.

#consumerism #Anarchy #MyWork

Thoughts of the present

Once receiving the 3 different titles (Here & Now, This Land is Our Land, For Sale) I began mind mapping ideas for all of them and creating little illustrations and visuals for the ideas I was coming up with. This has lead to me having two separate ideas books, one for writing thoughts and another for getting messy and creating designs to pair with said thoughts.

As always, a huge part of my work and the way I work is by writing down/drawing in such a way that is like a constant stream of consciousness and thought. Linking this to the theme ”Here & Now”, I created a series of thoughts of the present by typing out short poems and sentences on small green slips of paper using my typewriter. I played around with how I placed the words on the paper, making the letters all wonky and in different positions. Whilst doing this, I was also thinking about ways to overcome my harsh self-criticism, and one of the ways I came up with was learning to make work and let it be what I might consider ”bad” work, put it out into the world to be seen and just move on. From this thought I decided to use these green slips and put them around Edinburgh into the eyes of the public.

I placed the green slips onto A4 pieces of paper using blue tac and went to photocopy them. Once figuring out how to use a photocopier machine, I made around 10 copies of each A4 sheet. I cut out all the individual slips and looked up how to make cheap poster paste/glue. Graffiti artists use something called wheat paste, which is boiled water and flour mixed together to create a very sticky glue-like substance. I took the paste out into town with me, along with a paintbrush and the green slips of writing, and began posting them up all around the Royal Mile mainly. Some have made it out to a skate park in Saughton, and others have made it to Penicuik, and Musselburgh.

I enjoyed the process, and I liked using the public areas as an art space. However the content of what I was putting out felt too plain, it felt too safe. I decided that I would keep graffiti-like ways of working in mind for future, but only once I felt like what I was doing was worth being seen and worth the effort of the process it takes.

#PublicArt #graffiti #MyWork

Clay Mountain

Clay Mountain, held at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, was an ongoing collaborative community sculpture where 4 tons of clay was placed in the courtyard of ESW for visitors to contribute to the evolving clay mountain with their own sculptures.

I visited with my Aunt and two of her friends, we only intended on going for an hour or so but ended up spending the whole day sculpting. There was a variety of people who came and went; from students to much younger children with their parents, as well as older couples and groups.

I really loved the community aspect of Clay Mountain, and enjoyed the fact that art was bringing strangers together, those with various technical artistic abilities , in order to create something collaboratively. The workshop provoked me to think about Joseph Beuys’ idea that everyone is an artist, and made me think about how creativity, in my opinion, is one of the most important and powerful qualities we possess.

One of the participants, who was clearly a very confident sculptor, created a Medusa head into the side of the sculpture with snakes intertwining and coming out of the surface of the mound. It was interesting to see how many young children recognised the Greek goddess, it inspired me to re-read the mythology about Medusa as I was curious about the feminist aspects of her tale.

She was portrayed as one of the most terrifying ‘monsters’ in Greek mythology, most texts you will find on Medusa describes her as hideous and foul, a beast who’s image turned the onlooker into stone. The details of her story is different from each source, however it is always that she is one of the children of Gaia, Mother Earth, and is considered an Earth goddess herself. Her snakes for hair could be interpreted as being connected with the earth, as snakes move with their entire bodies on the ground. Her name means Queen or guardian. She was a symbol of femininity in many ways, and had control over the natural cycles of life and death. The birth of her children was described as being from a fountain on blood during her death, symbolising the menstrual cycle and the power of creating life. She was powerful and the male God’s saw this as something to conquer and destroy as it was viewed as a threat. She was decapitated and her head used on the front of a shield as her ability to turn people to stone stayed with her even after death, which links back to her connection between the cycle of life and death and control over it. Perseus was seen as a hero for killing Medusa by beheading her, he gains control of his manhood and ensures the silence of feminine wile once killing her with the support of many, including another goddess, showing the rivalry and hate towards strong women from other women as opposed to respect and support.

Clay isn’t a medium I’m confident with, what I created at the Clay Mountain workshop wasn’t so much important as the experience of creating something in such a large group outdoors as well as being inspired by another persons work to look into the Greek mythology about the goddess, Medusa.

#MyWork

The internet has changed the way we view our homes – and offers another virtual one online, writes Aleks Krotoski

Never thought about the internet/social media as something that it evolving into another home or as something that’s changing what our concept of home is, I do agree that the technology we have is become a part of and changing our evolution, beginning with a very interesting range of shifts in mass psychology.

#internet #computing #homes #life and style #technology #MyWork

Marina Abramovic art has moved the boundaries of performance and conceptual movements. Take a look at some of her famous works

Beyond amazing.

Dying Plants

Looking at the feeing of being overwhelmed, trying to cope with a bombardment of shit to deal with and information to process while remembering to breathe and grow and be human, which is difficult with no privacy or time to yourself.

Looped certain parts and cut up the clips to rearrange them in a different order, still need to try playing with the speed. I also echoed the audio to make it sound a bit stranger and a more noticeable part of the video.

Focusing on keeping my head above water while trying not to become everything I hate

#Vimeo #imovie #MyWork

Balkan Baroque 1997 - Marina Abramovic, performance piece.

‘’When people ask me where I’m from, I never say Serbia, I always say I’m from a country that no longer exists.’’

Abramovic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, which was violently destroyed in brutal wars, her piece ‘Balkan Baroque’ is a response to the horrors of the war and was created to make an artistic and political statement about it. The piece is based on the metaphor ‘’cleaning our conscience’’, she spent 4 days sat in a large mound of bloody cow bones in a white dress, scrubbing them clean with a metal brush, while singing traditional folk songs from her childhood.

The stench of the bones and flesh was vile, videos of people entering the room show them covering their mouths and noses from the smell, the effect is exactly what she was aiming for as it meant the audience was having to confront something very real and get a true understanding of the horrors in Yugoslavia.

Initially, Abramovic was supposed to represent the Serbian state, until they found out about her ideas behind the piece, and then the Montenegro state, until they found out her ideas too. In the end she performed it at the Italian International Pavilion, Venice, operating as a ‘’nomad’’. This, however, made the creation of the piece an immense financial struggle as no one from any official organisations or with any political influence wanted to support her.

I find her work so inspiring, she pushes herself to create pieces that even she’s scared of, even through times when she could have easily given up on it. Throughout parts of the performance she was in tears while scrubbing the bones clean, a display of such raw emotion and pain for her home and people would have been incredible to witness.

#MyWork #marina abramovic

Incredible woman, love her work and her attitude. Some very interesting advice to aspiring artists.

There’s elements of a home that have to come naturally, there’s elements that I think you can create.

#my work

#My Work

More scribblings. My plants are dying, we cant grow in this small space.

#My Work

Interviews 1-3

1. Me: Yeah so, talk about your home town man, described it in a few words if you can.

Interviewee: Penicuik is shit. It has the potential to be alright like, there’s Chippy and Aidan and Scott and that whole group and that makes it bearable.

Me: So, it’s more about?

Interviewee: It’s more about the people, they make you feel at home.

Interviewee: I think I’ll be able to give you some good answers.

Me: Yeah, I thought you guys would be quite good to talk to as you have an interesting relationship with your home town.

Interviewee: Yup! Fucking shit, yet lovely place.

Me: Could you describe it for me?

Interviewee: It’s a horrible, little, schemey town that we call home but we’ve had to learn to love it, otherwise we’d just fucking hate it. As you were saying before, about a home and a house, I think the difference between the two is the a house is accommodation to keep your head dry, whereas a home is where you live and find comfort in truly.

Me: Have you always lived in the same home? Do you have a childhood home?

Interviewee: Well uh, I have a childhood home in Roslin, which is just 5 minutes down the way from Penicuik. To be honest when I think about it I remember how small it was, you know, there was a family of 5 in there with 2 or 3 bedrooms and it was just too small for us all. But we moved to the house we’re in now and for me it was horrible, cause all my pals lived in Roslin and I felt out of place, and I wouldn’t go outside in Penicuik because I didn’t know anyone. But as I’ve grown older it’s all started to change, I’ve met new people and it’s become my stomping grounds rather than where my house is. Time is what makes a house a home.

Me: A town?

Interviewee: Time, time makes a house a home.

Me: So, could you tell me, what do you think a home is?

Interviewee: What?

Me: What is a home?

Interviewee: Nothing. Not even a single crumb… It’s toys and a bed and…food.

Interviewee’s mum: Well you’re just quoting lines from ‘Home Alone’ now.

Me: What do you like about your home?

Interviewee: Toys.

Me: How does it feel when you go to other people’s homes?

Interviewee: Feels scared.

Me: What are you scared of?

Interviewee: Poo.

Me: Okay.

#MyWork

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