DISTANT MEMORY ZINE
issue #1
EDITOR
’S L ET TER
When the pandemic began, there was no
way one could have predicted the tremendous impact that COVID-19 would have on
the way millions of people across the world approach daily life. Whether it is having to put on the armor of a mask and gloves when you leave the house or connecting with loved ones and colleagues over Zoom, our typical
I curated the Distant Memory Zine to connect
routines have been disrupted by the threat of
a multiplicity of unique experiences, prac-
an invisible enemy. However, there has been
tices, and discourse of creatives in the art
a pandemic going on since before the first
field during the pandemic by exploring art
reports of COVID-19. Systemic racism and
as a means of organizing, healing, and
discrimination are public health concerns that
coping during a crisis. The zine challenges
have plagued the United States of America
what cultural production looks like under the
since its founding.
sociocultural influence of a dual pandemic,
In 2020, we have all faced the adversity
artists explore these contemporary issues in
COVID-19, and social injustice. In this issue of navigating life during a pandemic and
their submissions by confronting themes such
historical political moment. The past year
as time, movement, and memory.
has taken a toll on many industries including the visual arts. Museums are closing their
Producing this zine has not only kept me busy
doors, artists across the country are facing
these past few months but has motivated me
financial difficulty, and the creation of art has
to keep creating everyday in the midst of an
been challenged in numerous ways. None-
ever changing social and cultural landscape.
theless many creatives have been inspired
I hope that this zine not only inspires its read-
to express their experiences during these
ers but also provides support for them during
uncertain times through art.
these isolated times.
Zindzi Harley
3
DISTANT MEMORY ZINE
CURATED by ZINDZI HARLEY
issue #1
DESIGNED by CHAYA ARABIA
FUNDED by UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS FUND FOR EXCELLENCE IN COLLABORATION with PAST PRESENT PROJECTS
TABLE
OF C ON TE NTS
EMILY CARRIS-DUNCAN
6
JENNI MILTON
10
ZEINAB DIOMANDE
16
BREJENN ALLEN
20
ABBEY LAKEY
24
MONROE ISENBERG
28
COLIN PEZZANO
32
MEAGAN ROLDAN BARI PALLARINO
36
40
E MILY C A R
6
RIS-
DU
NC
AN
Emily Carris-Duncan created Wisdom while quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the format of an improvised geometric quilt, Carris-Duncan engages the history of Black women’s roles in craft production. Interested in plant-based dyeing processes, the silks in Wisdom are dyed using cutch, walnut, chestnut, and eucalyptus, their muted tones the result of an experimental mordant or chemical binder used to fix the dyes to the fabric: iron liquor derived from slave shackles.
@carrisbears
7
Wisdom 32� x 34� Hand-dyed silk, cutch, walnut, chestnut, and eucalyptus, iron liquor derived from slave shackles
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A Stitch In Time Saves Lives
There has yet to be justice for Breonna Taylor, Rammie Fells, and
I find that cutting up and quilting
countless others.
hand-dyed fabric soothing. Working with earth colors and botanicals is
Over two hundred fifty-thousand
the most engaging. The therapy of
deaths and counting as COVID-19
dyeing from the earth and getting
surges again.
to know the plants helps ease stress and anxiety by allowing
Twelve million may lose their
me to be fully in relationship
unemployment by the end of
with the plants our early genetic
the year.
ancestors, if only for a little while. Stitching feels like
The current president won’t
surgery. Suturing my wounds.
concede the race meaning still no
Suturing historical wounds. A
coordinated effort to fight the
mechanism for prayerful repetition.
pandemic, racial injustice, and social unrest.
This work was made at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. At that time like so many, I was trying to find a place for my fear, stress, and anxiety. I found it in cutting up and quilting silk dyed in cutch, chestnut, tannin, goldenrod. Allnatural plants from the earth. The therapy of dyeing from the earth and stitching helps if only for a little while. It feels like surgery. Suturing society’s wounds. But the wounds haven’t healed.
@carrisbears
9
JENNI
10
M I LTO
N
Jenni Milton studied at Connecticut College, Oxford University, and the Columbia Publishing Course and then spent a few years working in book and
Ever since, she’s been back in her
magazine publishing — at One Story,
beloved Brooklyn, working in — of all
Oxford University Press, and Grove
things — pharmaceutical advertising
Atlantic. She then went on to earn her
as a copywriter to pay the bills and
MFA at the Programs in Writing at UC
carving out as much time as she can to
Irvine and was the Fiction Editor of the
work on her fiction. In her spare time,
Pushcart Prize-winning journal Faultline
she mentors a young writer at Girls
in her final year of the program.
Write Now and (when we’re not in a global pandemic) plays with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra. She has published a couple of stories in Juked and is seeking representation for her first novel while hard at work on her second.
@jennimilton
11
WI L
L
O
UR GRIEF
GI
V
E
WAY TO CHANGE?
June was a season of weeping, though
either one of the pandemics we’re talk-
I know my tears were powerless, not
ing so much about these days. He died
needed, stupid, easily scorned—even
of addiction, a heart that beat so loud
and especially by myself—slick, salty,
and so hard it just couldn’t anymore.
composed of the exact same material as George Floyd’s, or Breonna Taylor’s, or Ahmaud Arbery’s, or the countless others whose lives have been brutally taken because of the color of their skin. Skin is supposed to protect us—a permeable layer, thin but elastic, strong. My skin has protected me, often not in the way it’s meant to.
12
At a stoop-side vigil with the family, the pain in Iris’s heart radiated out from her like a fire-red sun. “It’s so painful, very painful,” she said. Sometimes it was all she could say. She gestured toward the prayer candles clustered by the entrance to our building and begged my girlfriend Gabi and me to make sure the candles stayed lit in her absence over
One night, my tears came as a sudden
the coming week. When the flowers
flood, as I sat on the toilet, peeing,
begin to wilt, we should bring them
drunk, a little high, and swiped through
inside. When the candles eventually die
images in my mind’s eye of my neighbor
out, we should take those in, too. She
Iris’s dead son. Christopher didn’t die of
didn’t want to leave Christopher; she
would feel better going with her family
Iris must have been trying to hold on to
to North Carolina if she knew we would
every last bit of him, perhaps, even his
keep watch and make sure the super
last moments. I sat with her and sobbed
didn’t throw away the candles and the
silently, tears spurting, snot drizzling.
flowers and the lights until it was time.
She didn’t seem to mind or notice. Still,
“Please, please, please,” she said. “I
I was angry with myself for crying. Shit!
can’t let him be alone.”
Get it together. I sat with her for a long
“We will, we promise,” we told her. “We won’t let him be alone.” “God bless you,” she said. And then, a few minutes later, she repeated her wish, how we were to watch over her son: “The candles—put a tarp over them when it rains. When the wax is down, throw them out. When you see the flowers wilting? Throw them away. He wouldn’t like dying flowers. Nobody
time, and eventually we moved on to other photos: her wedding day, her granddaughter’s sweet sixteen party. Meanwhile, Gabi was racing Iris’s youngest grandsons up and down the sidewalk. It was past curfew, and I eyed the police cars as they cruised by. They left us alone. Maybe they saw the prayer candles and decided to let us mourn. It wasn’t until much later, when Gabi and I were back in our apartment,
likes dying flowers.”
scarfing down burritos, that I realized
No matter how many times we reas-
She’d had to keep explaining to some of
sured her, still she said, over and over,
Iris’s sons that she knew Spanish. She’d
“Please, please, please.”
say something and they’d guffaw, as
I ached with her and for her, though I couldn’t possibly feel her pain. Anyone who hasn’t lost a child goes slack-
the toll the night had taken on her.
though it was the most amazing thing in the world — a Black woman speaking Spanish!
jawed when faced with someone who
“It’s so stupid,” she said. She was crying
has. I sat close to her, leaned in toward
now. One of the sons had given her a
the fire-red sun of her heart as she
lethal concoction, something like a Jä-
told me stories about him and showed
gerbomb, and a few sips of that plus a
me photos of him on her phone. Pho-
bunch of Coronas on an empty stomach
tos of him as a baby, curly-haired and
were all it took to push her over the
wide-eyed. And photos of him dead
edge. She’d been wrestling silently with
in a hospital bed, of her clutching his
her own grief. Juneteenth was fast ap-
body to her. I’d never seen photos
proaching, but for Gabi that date was
like this—a mother, too in shock to be
not cause for celebration. It was
stricken by the grief that’s yet to come.
@jennimilton
13
significant to her because it was her
you. How many photos did Iris take in
mother’s birthday. This year, her mother
the hospital?”
would have turned 50. “I don’t understand why I had to keep telling them I grew up speaking Spanish. It was like…it did not compute. To them, I’m just some Black girl. Do I need to recite my fam-
Gabi shook her head. “No one should be remembered that way.”
ily tree? Hey, fun fact, I’m Dominican,
At the vigil, I extracted myself from Iris
Black, Native American, Italian. Why
only when the pulsing of my bladder
does it even fucking matter? Why can’t I
became unbearable. I stumbled inside
just be…be…be?”
my apartment, sat down on the toilet
I reached for her, but she wasn’t in the mood to be comforted. She shrugged off my embrace, went to the bathroom, ran a bath and closed the door. In the morning, she was confused when I asked her if she wanted to talk about what had happened. She’d browned out, we realized. She didn’t remember crying. She barely remembered eating her burrito. Perhaps it was for the best that she didn’t remember being in so much pain.
and bawled all over again. I cried for her, and for her son, and for the sons and daughters who were murdered, the sons and daughters of people who were not free—who still are not free. None of us are free. We might never be. Though there have been meaningful conversations over these last few months, and though I try to remind myself how change tends to happen incrementally, state-by-state in this country, and though I try to remind myself that change is never linear, still I feel warier than ever about the future.
“I’m sorry—” she started to say, holding
Because while white people are busy
me tighter under the blankets.
wringing their hands over the “riots,”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. You know what’s the most terrible thing? I didn’t even know that any of that was happening. That whole time, we were with the same people, at the same vigil, and we were having completely different experiences. I wonder how many times that happens?” “Well,” she said with a wry grin, “can’t say I would’ve switched places with
14
“It’s her way of grieving, I guess.”
or how there are good cops too; while we see the virtue signaling of June 19th as an official corporate holiday, or BLACK LIVES MATTER emblazoned on the streets, a revolution is beginning. The question is how far it will go, and how many more lives will be taken in the process. I’m tired of the hand-wringing and the virtue signaling, equally. Giving people a day off won’t solve the systemic racism on which everything in
this country, including and especially
generational violence won’t ever have
corporate America, is built. We can
that trauma erased. But we can move
paint BLACK LIVES MATTER on the same
forward, embracing change in whatever
streets on which they absolutely do
forms it takes. We can cry today—and
not matter, but we still need to actually
in fact we should never stop. Finally,
do something to radically change the
we are allowing ourselves to feel the
way this country operates in order for
great failure that is America. That’s the
those murals to mean something. For all
first step toward true change, isn’t it?
those insistences I keep hearing of how
Acceptance. Funny how that’s also the
peaceful the protests are—and it’s true,
final stage of grief.
anyone paying attention can plainly see that it’s white supremacists, some of them undercover cops, inciting violence—I hope we also remember that no significant change has ever been brought about through peace. Indeed, the only language white supremacy responds to is violence. It’s probably the only language it knows.
The night following the vigil, I walked hand-in-hand with Gabi, whose skin does not protect her in the ways that mine protects me. It was just past the hour of our absurd curfew. We were drawn toward the fierce purples and blues and pinks of the setting sun. We wanted to go into the park to take pictures, but there were cops patrolling.
Most of us were already in some stage
Tonight, with no visible signs of grief to
of grief when we heard the inevitable
protect us, we didn’t want to risk it. We
but still harrowing news of Ruth Bader
turned back, and I walked around to the
Ginsberg’s passing. Why are there not
other side of her so that my body was
more people like her in our government?
closest to the street.
Why does it feel as though we’re tottering on the edge of a precipice, and all it would take is one more foul breath to blow us all back into a time when Gabi and I could not be seen together in public? We’re a lot like Iris when she held her son in her arms in that hospital room and had her husband snap a photo. We’ve only just begun. Perhaps 2020 will be the year that finally brings momentous change to this country, and we’re going to be proud to have
She said, “What are you doing—protecting me?” I said, “Yes,” and we laughed a little at this. But then we stopped laughing. “Yeah, I am,” I said. “As much as I can.” “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I know,” I said. “If it came down to it, I might not be able to, anyway. But I can at least try.”
lived through it. Iris won’t ever have her son back. Black people who face
@jennimilton
15
ZEIN
16
AB D
DIOMAN
DE
Zeinab Diomande otherwise known as ‘Z’ is a 21 year old artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but originally from the Ivory Coast, West Africa. Zeinab’s work revolves around herself primarily but generally speaking is about everyone. She documents and explores ideas such as mental health, particularly Bipolar disorder and this idea of two poles, being an immigrant and a black woman in America.
@ztheratt
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And It All Went Downhill From There 18” x 14” Oil and acrylic on canvas
18
This piece was made in a moment where I needed to be reassured. This year has been a lot for everyone and sometimes it feels like I’m headed somewhere without a clear exit plan. This summer made me realize how much community was important to me. I value this a lot, this idea of protecting one another and standing up for one another: those who are here, those who are gone and those who did it before us. This piece is about the idea of a safe space and keeping it as secure as possible.
@ztheratt
19
BREJ
20
ENN
ALLEN Brejenn Allen is a painting, fibers, and design artist. Her work’s theme centers on the interactions between race, politics, and social media/internet culture. Brejenn’s award-winning work
In between projects, you will find
has been featured in publications like
Brejenn hosting Paint & Sips, completing
Syzygy Magazine, Kemper Messenger,
commission work, doing freelance
and the Meridian Star. Her notable
projects, or volunteering with area non-
exhibitions include the Siragusa Gallery,
profits. Brejenn has an Associates of Arts
San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles,
Degree and a Bachelors of Fine Arts with
and the DeKalb Regional Railroad
a Studio concentration from the School
Museum. She currently operates Happy
of the Art Institute of Chicago.
P’ Jappies Designer Hospital Gowns, a charity that manufactures and donates uplifting gowns to hospital patients across the world.
@brejenn
21
You’ve Heard of Elf on a Shelf, Here’s a... 24” x 48” Oil and acrylic on canvas
22
With the pandemic and threats to our democracy in the pending election, humor is much-needed. Our quarantine go-to for quick doses of laughter is social media. The artist takes a found image from social media and uses the title to ask an open-ended riddle. She immerses this meme into a European classical background blasted in contrasting colors; it asks us if this is “fine art� enough.
@brejenn
23
ABBEY
24
LAKEY Abbey Lakey is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. A recent graduate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Abbey works in sculpture, installation, video and printmaking. Her work focuses on the ephemerality of material, the body and time.
@abbeylakey
25
Dream Sequence�, stop motion animation, 2:46, 2020 y Lakey
://vimeo.com/469580712
Day Dream Sequence Stop motion animation (2:46)
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@abbeylakey
27
M O N RO E
28
ISEN
BE
RG
Monroe Isenberg’s work engages minimalism, light, space, sound, and reacts to phenomena natural to our world. He holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Maryland in
His artwork has been exhibited
College Park. Isenberg is the recipient of
internationally and is held in public and
multiple awards, grants, and residencies
private collections across the United
including the 2019 Trawick Emerging
States. Most recently, Isenberg was
Artist prize, and the 2017 International
invited to participate in the fellowship
Outstanding Student Achievement
program at the Lunga School in Iceland
Award. He was also included in the 2020
in fall 2019 and is currently an adjunct
Aesthetica Art Future Now anthology
professor at Minneapolis College of Art
in the UK.
and Design.
@monroe_isenberg
29
Sefer (detail) 72” x 72” x 4” Cast mulberry paper, ink The sculptural drawing is slightly concave and warps perception.
30
Sefer is the Hebrew word for book
The change we feel is real and
with roots in the word sifriyah
slow, but the system is guided by
or library.
momentum and what has come before— 400 years of white supremacy.
Through repetition and cyclic movement, I work and spiral
But the current movement for
outwards. A small accidental shake
humanity is building momentum of
of my hand compounds and creates
its own. This new reality reveals
waves that undulate throughout the
itself through collective and
paper. By embracing my mistakes
individual suffering, pain, and
the work unfolds and grows in
resistance as well as moments of
unimagined ways. The ripples expand
communal joy and healing. Fueled
exponentially, slowly fade, or die
by a pandemic, it’s rooted in
quickly. They create a fluid-like
practices and questions that
landscape made of valleys, peaks,
inspire care, solidarity,
and plains. The mark takes on its
and protection.
own will which I must balance with my own. Working with the medium of potential, I may passively
Togetherness in this way expands outwards and inscribes in our futures new peaks, valleys, and
let the mark guide itself or actively interfere with the cycle’s becoming. This act dissolves my sense of self.
plains. These respectively resemble hopeful changes and progress, loss and setbacks, and a whole lot of nothing. Although it appears
I glimpse traces of wisdom in the
invisible and at times hopeless, we
space that was once my self.
are in the process of collectively
Our
reality creates itself and forever
writing a new chapter in a human
expands outwards through time and
book that resembles Sefer. Through
space. Yet, we have a role in its
active co-creation of this world,
formation. It becomes more clear
we maintain hope and power to make
how solidarity inspired through
ripples of our own. It just begins
the current social movement and the
with one small shake.
pandemic are rattling oppressive and self-perpetuating systems.
@monroe_isenberg
31
CO L I N
32
PEZZAN
O
Colin Pezzano graduated from the University of the Arts in 2014 with a BFA in Crafts. Pezzano maintains and relies heavily on craft practices mixed with humor and pathos to define his
During his career, Pezzano has
work. Upon graduation, Colin received
participated in group shows, juried
the Windgate Fellowship Award. In the
exhibitions, and attended residencies in
spring of 2015, Pezzano had his first
the USA and Sweden. Pezzano maintains
solo show Contain You at Bridgette
his practice in South Philadelphia out of
Mayer Gallery. In 2018 Colin had his
his basement studio.
second solo show Still Life With Dead
game at the Allen’s Lane Art Center. In 2020, Colin worked with the group Past Present Projects on a store-front window installation titled We’ve Never Met.
@colinpezzano
33
Covers 8” x 5” Woodblock print on recycled paper
34
@colinpezzano
35
M E AG A N
36
ROL
DA
N
Meagan Roldan was born in Manhattan, New York on October 22, 1993. At the age of eight, she moved to Philadelphia and started her journey towards following her passion. It started with
She then became a part of a show in art
anything that had to do with the art
Basel Miami with a company called The
realm from doing hair and make-up,
Body of arts that was based out of New
making jewelry; you name it. In high
York City. Then later, began retailing her
school, she took an art class and fell in
work at a gallery in Old City located in
love with the subject. She learned about
Philadelphia named Philly Art collective
abstract art and gravitated towards
Gallery. Meagan is currently residing
it. Staying in the creative interest, she
in the Spring Arts area of Philadelphia
went to beauty school to become a
where there is no shortage of inspiration.
cosmetologist and then college. After doing hair and make-up in salons for a few years, she decided to go back into the world she was so fond of and began to paint again.
@hotgirlspainttoo
37
Light IT UP Fluorescent tempera paint and metallic acrylic paint
38
During the pandemic, I thought it was important to put some light when the world was in a very dark place.
@hotgirlspainttoo
39
BA R I P
40
PA L LAR
IN O
Bari Pallarino is a photographer and multidisciplinary artist from the suburbs of New York City. Currently, she resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and will be completing her BFA in the spring of 2021 from University of the Arts. She is trained and works in both digital and analog photography while also utilizing other Fine Art techniques. Her work revolves heavily around color and using the still image to create a narrative. She is interested in the splendor of everyday life and how the beauty of memories (real or fabricated) touches us.
@b.pallarino
41
Untitled
42
This image is currently untitled, but it is the first in a series I’m working on. This work is about celebrating the little victories in life. I think especially in a time like now, a lot of us have been getting down on ourselves for not accomplishing nearly as much as we would like to, but we need to remember that we accomplish so much without even realizing - and that needs to be celebrated.
@b.pallarino
43
jan 2021