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ISSUE W E R EF U S E R ES IS T RE V O LT
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RISING IS A NOTTINGHAM BASED ORGANISATION CHANGING THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER BY GROWING A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AND AWARE SOCIET Y THRIVING ON EQUALIT Y. Cover credit: Georgina McGrath
WE WANT: SLOW FASHION LGBTQI+ RIGHTS SUSTAINABILIT Y NET NEUTRALIT Y FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT GENDER EQUALIT Y RACIAL EQUALIT Y
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IS THAT YOU? HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH OF ALL THIS MESS, UNCERTAINT Y AND INHUMANIT Y? 3
CONTENTS 5 6 8
ED I T OR S NO TE C ONT R I B U TO R S S U S TA I NAB I LI T Y : YOUTH4CLIMATE I NO LONGER BUY FIRST HAND FASHION
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P OL I T I CS: WE ARE THE REVOLUTION EVERYTHING IS OK MARCH FOR PEOPLE’S VOTE the brightest mAIgrants
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H UM AN R I G H TS: WHY PERIOD POVERT Y IS STILL A BLOODY ISSUE INSIDE THE BL ACK BOX
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DIGITAL CONNECT IVIT Y: ARE WE ALL ADDICTS?
EDITORS NOTE
Welcome to the very first print of the Rising Issue. My name is Dominika Rekas, the editor in chief of a socially aware publication exploring major issues affecting the youth today. In a time of uncertainty and disruption, the Rising brings the youth together to create positive social change through publishing their stories and actions. We aim to help the youth to actively change the world for the better- whether that’s through collecting rubbish off the streets or just learning about the societal issues trending today, we are the place for your daily dose of activism. The bi-annual print edition is an opportunity to share the community’s efforts at changing the world and we’d love to hear from you! If you’re passionate about sustainability, have something to say about gender inequality or you generally just want your opinion heard, we’re constantly looking for contributors for our web and print issue. In this edition we have a variety of contributors sharing
photography, journalism and graphic design work discussing topics around sustainability, Brexit, digital connectivity and the general rise of youth activism questioning the status quo.
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CONTRIBUTORS
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Dominika Rekas Rising Issue Founder Age: 22
Erin Webb Inside the Black Box Age: 21
Zuzanna Gierszewska Are We All Addicts? Age: 27
Julianna Brown March for People’s Vote Age: 22
Georgina McGrath No Blan B Age: 21
Eve Smallman Why period poverty is still a bloody issue Age: 20
Paulius Brazauskas Everything is OK Age: 20
Elina Hadjinikola the brightest mAIgrants Age: 22
Jessica Pearson I no longer buy first hand fashion Age: 20
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SU S TAINABILIT Y
YOUTH4CLIMATE Now more than ever - as leaders of governments, as decision makers in business, and as citizens - we must ask ourselves a fundamental question:
WHAT WHAT KIND KIND OF OF AA WORLD WORLD DO DO WE WE WANT WANT TO TO LIVE LIVE IN? IN? elligence
lter Thompson Int
Quote credit: J Wa
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ika Rekas
Image credit: Domin
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I NO LONGER BUY FIRST HAND FASHION I no longer buy first hand fashion. Second hand fashion opened up a whole new world for me. It’s about the thrill of the thrift. You enter a shop unaware of the gems you’ll leave with. Fast Fashion is so mundane. It’s about retailers forcing us into a constant need for more. We buy slogan t-shirts about empowering women, but if you research how your clothes are made, is that really empowering women? I choose not to support this. Second hand fashion allows me to buy pieces no one else has. I can be an individual, a creative. I can find vintage pieces with more memories than me and create more memories with them. Restyled is a project about people who love second hand fashion and how they style their pieces. I hope after reading this you join our movement. The project is shot on 35mm film. I’ve always had a love for film photography since I did my A-level 5 years ago. Film made me fall in love with photography so this is a project about what I love. I hope you love it too. Jessica Pearson
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Project credit: Jessica Pearson
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Recently exposed to the damaging effects the garment industry has on our world, I instantly took interest in how we can make a change. Fashion brands aren't concerned about the issues raised when making clothes, their only care is the cost. It’s true one person can’t mend the world alone; it takes us as individuals to stop and rethink our actions. We can begin with cautious and considered changes in our fashion choices. This body of work advertises and supports sustainable fashion, demonstrating there are other ways we can find trendy, one of a kind clothing. Undergoing collaborations with fashion students who are investigating eco-friendly ways in making garments, small sustainable business’s as well as working alongside students who incorporate sustainable items of clothing into their wardrobe. Fashion can be recycled, old trends always return, fashion ‘should’ be sustainable.
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Project credit: Georgina McGrath
NO PLAN PLAN BB NO
DEPOP NEW LOOK DRESS
THE S
USTA
INAB
LE ST
UDEN
T
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THE SUSTAINABLE STUDENT Fiona upcycles her clothes and makes her own bags
COW COLLABORATION
A Nottingham based vintage and second- hand clothing shop
We bring a thought provoking and collectible selection of magazines, journals, and books to Nottingham; independent titles on fashion, art, culture, design, business, economics, food, wine and travel, are complemented by a range of stationery, enabling you to get your ideas on paper.
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P O L IT IC S
WEE ARE ARE THE TH E W EV OLUTI LUTIOONN RREVO
Teenagers all over the world are coming together to protest against climate change, bringing the issue and urgency of it to mainstream media. Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg is right in the heat of it raising awareness around environmental issues coining the saying ‘the house is on fire’, meaning the time to act is now. As a 22-year-old woman, it really makes me think that no matter what age you are, you can act on global issues and make a change in the world. Over the past few months I’ve met so many incredible people actively taking a part in their communities questioning the status quo. This year I went to March4Women in London, organised by Care, and it was such a
Photo credit: Twitter user @Willum_Esq
Photo credit: New York Times
great experience. The positive energy that men and women brought together was incredible, it just filled you with this raging anger, making me want to go and change the world. Hearing from amazing speakers such as Helena Bonham Carter, Annie Lennox and my all-time fave, Gina Martin, who passed the up-skirting law recently making it a criminal offence to take pictures
up girls skirts. I’d highly recommend going to events like these even if it’s just to learn more about a specific cause.
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As a Polish woman living in the UK, I definitely feel like I have this duty to understand what is happening politically because who knows, I might not even be allowed to live here once it's all over (*starts hyperventilating*). This is coming from the woman that 3 years ago would have said "I'm not really into politics" and I guess I'm still no expert, but I definitely feel like I'm more likely to read an article here and there. As part of my university project I am observing this rise of young activists wanting to do something to make the world a better place. After speaking to my friends and basically telling my dissertation idea to every soul I come across, I found that people my age are actually keen to learn and understand more about politics, but the platforms that currently exist for us show it in the driest format possible. There's nothing easy about it (not that politics is easy), but where we currently stand it's not engaging.
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M AR CH F O R P EO P L E’ S VOTE
Photo credit: Julianna Brown
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SHOW
1,318 CREATIVES 26 COURSES 09 DAYS 01 SHOW
#NTUDEGREESHOW
Kate (Jihye) Yun, BA (Hons) Decorative Arts 2019
01 – 09 JUNE 2019 NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY CITY CAMPUS WWW.NTU.AC.UK/DEGREESHOW 22
Photo credit: Nina Farasin
Photo credit: Nina Farasin
Photo credit: ITV News
'Everything is ok' is a satirical take/ social commentary on current global issues we face as a society. The media and corporate bodies tend to have this 'everything is ok' approach to the problems we all face and should be held responsible for, things like the refugee crisis, the homeless crisis and climate change are just the tip of the iceberg. Through this project, I wanted to raise awareness to these issues and inform people, just how important these issues really are, and maybe even inspire someone else to make a difference.
auskas Project credit: Paulius Braz
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‘The brightest mAIgrants’, a short video, brings together the parallels of bees and Brexit. The surreal documentary-like work is exploring this topoic through animal function, the nature and morality of commercial and political modernity, using the hive as a microcosm to outline social issues. While immigration and automation strategies leave an irreversible imprint on our day-today experience, the artwork investigates the possibilities of an altered but current reality, through the use of language and materiality. Surreal visual and verbal metaphors and allegories, high-tech sculptures, a real beekeeper character narrating in Greek, are the elements that consist that constructed reality. Do bees migrate, swarm away and rise
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SCAN ME TO WATCH THE VIDEO
th e br brii gh te s t mAIgr mAI gr an ts
revolutions? Do they build borders, overwork or mass produce? If yes, how does our human society identify with these terms? Are the bees’ labour and extinction as important in nature and the beekeeping production, as our human labour in the global economy? Do the ‘brightest migrants’ have a special place in the UK after Brexit or are all the ‘worker-bees’ confronted and accepted equally?
Project credit: Elina Hadjinikola
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HU MAN RIG HTS
WHY PERIOD POVERTY IS STILL A BLOODY ISSUE The embarrassment of wadding up tissue in your pants. The fear of leaking, the fear of classmates laughing. The dread of talking about it. Eve Smallman explores the issue of period poverty in Nottingham… Last November it was announced Image credit: Stylist Magazine that Nottingham City Council would provide free sanitary products in schools. The city is well-known for tackling women’s issues, with it being the first city in the UK to make misogyny a hate crime. But Nottingham is also well-known for being underprivileged. Earlier on this year it was announced that Nottingham has the lowest incomes in the country. Elizabeth is 40. She’s a mother-of-two and lives in Sherwood. 27 years ago, Elizabeth experienced period poverty throughout her teenagerhood.
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My father wasn’t around and my mother was a drug addict – she wasn’t using illegal drugs, she was on a programme to cure her methadone addiction - but she was still a methadone addict. As an unemployed single parent family on income, there wasn’t much money around,
When she was thirteen she started her period, however sanitary products weren’t something she had access to. “My mum used tissue paper as well, or a wadded-up sock - you’d have a wadded up sock wrapped up with tissue paper in your pants. “There wasn’t enough money for food, so sanitary products weren’t even a consideration.”
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Article credit: Eve Smallman
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ERIOD. PERIOD. PERIOD.PERIO
Image credit: Twitter user @verve_up
“I remember getting tampons from the PE teacher, and thinking: ‘These precious things, I’ve got to be careful with them.’”
The lack of access to sanitary products often means that girls skip school in order to avoid embarrassment. This can have a long-term effect on their “In the nurse’s office, they were placed in education. “If I didn’t have access to an area where everyone could see, so kids the products, I wouldn’t go - I had no queueing up for lunch could see you go guarantee the tissue wouldn’t leak, and getting them. It was really humiliating, and if we couldn’t afford food, being and it was better to go for the tissue able to afford cleaning products was option.” a problem as well. “I “It’s taboo, it’s seen left without any formal – I had to Women and girls who don’t have as this terrible thing qualifications go back and do those access to products can be left at risk to health problems - and if they - it’s not a luxury, it’s later - but I wanted to get a job so I could afford to leave products in too long when a bodily function, they do have access to them, they and it baffles me.” live normally.” can be at risk of deadly diseases The stigma and such as Toxic Shock Syndrome. embarrassment around Elizabeth said: “Not being able to keep yourself clean and not smelly… That was a problem. “PE classes had a communal changing area, so if I was able to get my hands on some tampons it was fine, but if you’ve got pants full of wadded up tissue, you don’t want anyone to see that. They weren’t particularly absorbent so they’d leak onto your clothes, and I was being bullied at school anyway, because people knew I was a junkie’s daughter.”
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periods in society in general is one of the key factors in period poverty. Helen Voce, CEO of Nottingham’s Women Centre said: “Women have been bleeding since humanity began, so why is it such an issue?”. Claire Henson, founder of The Free Period Nottingham, said: “Women have this embarrassment about asking for [sanitary products], and not knowing if they can, and not wanting people to know that they’re in this position.
ERIOD. PERIOD. PERIOD.PERIO
Along with Nottingham City Council, organisations like Nottingham Women’s Centre and The Free Period Nottingham are also helping reduce the problem. Helen said: “We did a campaign talking to shops about the VAT on sanitary products, and I think we could still do lobbying of local shops on that.” The Free Period Nottingham collect sanitary product donations on a monthly basis at Broadway Cinema and Homemade Café, and have donation points across the city. “It’s sad we have to have these donations, but it’s also immensely pleasing how happy people are to donate,” said Claire. And what options are there for people in the area to help fight the problem? “If you are able to afford sanitary products, take them to food banks or us at the Women’s Centre,” said Helen. Claire said: “If we’re talking about embarrassment as a reason not to help people, then I don’t buy that at all.
Image credit: Heena Bhatia
The impact period poverty can have on women lasts their whole lives. 27 years later, it still affects Elizabeth even today. She now has two daughters aged four and nine, and she has made sure that they have a good understanding of how periods work. “My four-year-old once got out all my towels and stuck them all over the bathroom!” Elizabeth laughed. “Period poverty is huge, even though it’s a really tiny factor, and we really need to change that.”
“I want people to talk about it, I want people to donate products, and I want people to feel good about themselves.”
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Illustration credit: Rebecca Brooks
Image credit: Nottingham Post
HOMELESSNESS IN NOTTINGHAM The reason I created the illustration is because living in the city centre, it is almost inevitable that you will see at least one homeless person daily. As a society we have almost accepted this as the norm. The illustration’s purpose is a reminder that homelessness cannot be a long-term crisis, and something needs to be done about it, especially as figures are rising. Of course, giving 'spare change' and buying the homeless hot drinks is beneficial in the short run. However, other than donating to relative charities, I believe that most of the general public including myself are unsure of what we can do that will actually help towards the bigger picture. And are charities able to combat the crisis entirely on their own? I believe the responsibility lies with our Image credit: The Guardian
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INSIDE THE BLACK BOX Project credit: Erin Webb
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“Inside the Black Box” explores the need for identity. For me, the ‘Black Box’ refers to the never-ending abundance of contradicting conformities demanded by social ideology. When reflecting upon our modern-day western culture the plethora of idealised standards targeted at the female form negate each other to the point of limbo. She is both object and person; separately and simultaneously. Expectations of behaviour, beliefs and desires are not hers alone as the onlooker creates their ideal. Digging deeper into the human psyche, the work explores the idea of ownership and objectification posing question to the power roles between viewer and subject and highlighting the ongoing role the woman is ‘forced’ to play.
Or is this simply just what being human means?
After speaking to Erin and asking if she wouldn’t mind if the nipples would be covered up with an X due to a potential younger audience Erin replied,
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I think perhaps it just highlights even further the way in which women are labelled socially and the X is evidence to the expectation of objectification and sexualisation.
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With the same mentality leading to objectification seen recycled continuously throughout numerous centuries (taking reference to the shift from male form to female in the renaissance. The use of prostitute, and the suggested purpose of such imagery, such as Titan's "Venus of Urbino") and even now expanding onto the male form: I ask, do we need to change, can we change…?
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DIG ITAL CONNEC T I VI T Y
ARE WE ALL ADDICTS? As vulnerable human beings we are able Casey Neistat admitting to long hours spent to develop almost all kinds of addictions. online every day mindlessly scrolling social Addictions to substances, habits or even media and slowly becoming disconnected other humans. The topic of old from the real world, and new addictions exists in are making us “It’s there in our pocket social awareness for decades question the fact if it and is being widely researched and it vibrates up to 500 is even possible for at universities across the world, times a day to let us know us to go 24h without although in times of constant that a new dose is here taking a glimpse of and rapid digital development what’s happening ready to consume. “ we are facing a new era. An era on Instagram. where we don’t need to spend We live in any money on drugs, we don’t need to do society that forgot how it is anything illegal or even need to leave the to be bored. We don’t spend time house to get it. It’s there in our pocket and it waiting for something or someone without vibrates up to 500 times a day to let us know immediately reaching for our phone. We that a new dose is here ready to consume. are looking for stimulation and attention; attention that we give and attention that At first social media was a nice and convenient we are ready to give up in order to have addition to our lives, only to develop mind our FOMO (fear of missing out) pipe down occupying tools that are compromising more and the effort of creativity taken away. and more of our social and interpersonal skills, as well as productivity at work and at Our generation is bombarded by information, home. Connectivity is changing ways we seeing roughly 5000 advertisements per spend our free time, changing our perception day (Statista, 2019) with our attention span and ways we communicate with one another. progressively decreasing. Not only our At first glance we can agree that possibility virtual friends make sure to entertain us but of connecting with a person who is 10000 there’s ongoing battle for our time within miles away and has similar interests is great, businesses and brands who wants to sell, or being able to receive rewarding sell, sell. Social media became a tool in the likes on published pictures feels great hands of corporations who want to sell us although we slowly start to forget addiction, giving them more power with about our lives here and there. minimal amount of work.The society needs to realise this problem, which isn’t showing any Social media addiction is a new rising problem sign of improving, before it too late. We will that is starting to be visible more and more in eventually get to the stage of not being able TV, magazines and online communities. Posts to function without checking our notifications and videos made by famous and watched and lack the need to converse in the real life. influencers like Kanye West or very recently
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Small improvements are visible in terms of ongoing discussions about wellbeing and mindfulness. But can we really expect much improvement in our quality of life, interpersonal skills and relationships within communities if we meditate for 10 minutes (using our phone of course). People need to start becoming more mindful about the fact of slowly becoming an addict and prisoner to almost always present devices, and ask:
is that what we really want our future to look like?
@RISINGISSUE